I wasn't trying to argue against situations where all people join in the glory of combat or whatever it is. If your read the simpe statement I posted, I was suggesting it was stupid that everyone on the planet should die. I also made reference that it is inconcievable to kill billions of beings in such a short period of time without destroying the planet. As far as alternatives, I think simply units used for planetary invasion and defence would be great. It eliminates the wiping out the entire planet thing, and possible adds to the game by forcing the invader to be an "occupier". See CivIII. It isn't hard, and it prevents a power house from just capturing planet after plantet without any need to consider the after effects. See the US occupation of Iraq.

If you push a hard attack or fight gourilla (or how to write it) or on more fronts than are the numbers correct, and if they have bad tactics it can happen to, and anyway, just think of Todays Russia attacking USA, they have lower tech but far more people and if they could get them on continental USA in more than one place, they would definetly win.
And there were my ancestors, the huns. They were not many in numbers but had unique fightstyle and for the enemy not known tactics (this would be same if two diff. races would rage war)

I would like to see the Russians transport a a million solderis into Los Angeles and see how well they do.

Russia has fewer people than the US, your example is poorly chosen. Perhaps you meant to say China.

umm, well i dunno how many americans there r but i think less then people in Russia, and i wanted to change post, but the'edit' didn't work

US population is 295 million, Russia is 143 million and declining. The US is, in fact, the 3rd most populous country in the world, after China and India. See Link

Numbers are not that important. Because population will always be greater than the army trying to occupy them. Occupations are very difficult.

The populations represent the # of tax paying citizens in the game. You are not really wiping out everyone on a planet. It's just abstracted.

Better to live on the street as if I don't pay tax I'm spared being slaughtered

Sorry for being arkward

.... i swear if everyone debated like this all time... we'd have a country of apt scholars able to make you think the sky is green.

I don't hold with killing tax payers. They bolster my economy. If I can subdue a populous planet with superior military forces, why why why would I decimate the very people who are going to repair collateral damage and directly contribute to the ability of my empire to create replacement / new war materials and thus help to extend my borders further.

The name of the game here is Economy.

I feel there should be more options associated with invasions. If it can't be done on account of time / budget issues then cool. But otherwise the current system is too simplistic (albeit tolerable).

Unfortunately for you, Ashbury76, you are completely wrong. You want examples of people fighting to the last man, all you need to do is go investigate US government documents from the "civilizing of the American West". There are many fights between the US forces and the Native Americans where the US forces would attack an enemy NA village, and the every male over the age of 6 and ever female over the age of 8 fought to the death. Of course, the US forces were exterminating everyone in the tribe, so it isn't surprising that everyone fought, but its documented modern history.

History is truly litered with witness accounts of such things. It was very unusual for any members of the Japanese service to actually surrender. They often fought to the last man, and it was very common for the only people in the Japanse forces that surrendered were not actually ethnically Japanese, but rather Philipino or from the outlying islands claimed by Japan and conscripted into service. There were plenty of documented Gernam units that fought to the last man, and the only captives were captured due to being unconscious and no longer able to fight further.

We can go further. Look at most civil wars, and you'll find plenty of "fighting to the last man". Look at Romans, and find all the cities and villages they attacked that fought to the last useful human in the village. Very common.

It isn't unreasonable to expect to face odds of "To the last man", when its matter of extreme convictions, extreme emotiosn, or a matter purely for survival (ie, resisting genocide). When you think your survival is on the line, cowardice turns into a drive to survive. If you cannot run, you will fight. This is a very well known aspect to humans. It's why you always leave a percieved retreat path when you attack, if you don't want to inspire your enemies to fight more furiously then normal.

I note you didn't touch the "non-human" aspects. So you find it reasonable for all races other then humans to fight to the last individual? Or only the non-mammalian species? Either way, that just means you think the humans should get minuses to defending their worlds, doesn't it? So its alright for the Yor to fight to the last droid? What's the list of superior resisting species then? Just curious.

Religously, Ethnicity, Culturally, Emotionally...

All play a factor in the fight to the death scenerio. If the last planet before yours and the ones before that were brutally enslaved and slaughtered, with every male child being extinguished (or so everyone in the Underverse thought) wouldn't you fight unconditionally to the bitter sweet end? If not, don't come a crawling into my foxhole, don't bother with requesting to come aboard. You can stay here and keep cranking out grief and spouting rhetoric. Me and the others will gladly defend your rights to do so to the last breath.

Least wise tmho.

W/R (with respect)
Suralle the Straykat

PS: Now if I could just get my Lions to play football the same way I feel on race obliteration!

You are taking about small army units or barbarian tribes,not whole civs/races.There are still 60+ million Germans,100+ mill Japs,Native Americans,etc.I repeat, no race fought to anywhere near the last man.

The Romans(and others) just slaughtered for political reasons on rare occasions.The people never fought to the last man either(Carthage).

There is an argument that the Yor could maybe fight to the last,don't think any bio races could.

Barbarian tribes are not actual civs/races? Really?

Go check how many actual Native American civs are still around, compared to the Europeans coming to the New World. The answer is very, very few. Heck, for the matter, check out how many Arabian tribes are still around. Or African tribes. Or South American. Check out how many were wiped out in acts or wars of genocide. It's a good proportion of the now extinct tribes. The history that has survived to us from such events and wars often mention how they fought to the last man, or how the women themselves tried to fight to protect their children. Again, we do have many realiably witnessed accounts from the 19th and 20th century of such things. Whether its a village or a race of millions, once people understand that there is no running and no quarter shall be given, even the most craven of cowards will fight like a beserker of legend and children will try to defend their dying parents. It's a primitive response, and modern military tactics teaches warns against creating the appearance of "no retreat and no quarter given" because it is such a common response in humans.

The truth is that total genocide has been a very good tool for the complete taking of resources from others. It is how the earliest conflicts between homo sapiens were fought over territory, if the victor could secure it. It is only later in the history of human warfare that we see quarter being given, where territory with workers is desired. Now, in inter-species warfare, where the species cannot economically share the same facilities (the standard if we are talking about intelligent life forms other then humans), the truth is that there would be no reason to give quarter. You don't spare the pests infesting some useful structure to you. Well, okay, some people might, but the corporate answer is to get rid of them all, to keep costs down by not having to do it again in the future.

So, you think the Yor fight to the last capable unit. Good, that's progress. Now we only have all the other races to go through. For instance, the Torians have swore to never, ever, ever be another race's slaves. Period. A very hard conviction. I bet they fight to the last warrior. And have "suicide" devices to grant a painless death to those that cannot fight. To prevent any Torian from ever being a slave. This might not grant them 100% resitance, but its probably very high, yes?

As for other major bio races, again, we can easily posit situations where the resitance would be extremely high, if not 100%. Hive mind, insectiods, etc etc etc. So again, for the alien (non-human/altarian) races, we have no reason to believe that in an invasion of these species, their citizenry would fight as poorly as the untrained modern Western man.

You can actually take it back to the start of Homo Sapiens.

They met other species of human during expansion... other species disappeared... bet they didn't go away without a fight though.

W/R
Suralle

No matter how you look at it, race extermination doesn't happen overnight. The stupidest thing about how platet invasion works is that in one turn, billions are killed. So the Yor don't surrender, big F'n deal. Then they will fight over the course of years. How do we propose to kill the population overnight? I suppose we vaporise the atmosphear so they can't breath. But, I'm sure some would be prepared for that. Or we could introduce some horrible disease. Some would definately survive. In fact, the Yor would probably be the most difficult race to kill!!! It doens't matter if we can pull some instance in history where a weak and totaly vulnerable race was absolutely destroyed, because it doesn't translate to the numbers being represented in the game. And the technology available and the gift of hind sight says that they wont be all killed in a week/month/year whatever. I understand the importants for historical reference, I have done it also. But the real point here is that the planet invasion system is very poor. No matter how you slice it, or what your beliefs are about genocide, this aspect of the game needs improvement.

Actually, it would be trivial to wipe out your bio enemies on a planet, all within a week (1 turn), if you had a few "basic" techs. It would just cost you a small cycle of research to create a nano-plague that targetted those beings, spray it on the planet, and then move it. Of course, for an advanced civ, we can presume that the dieing rebels send a sample to the rest of their brethren (or its info break-down via secure comm), so that particular genocide agent could no longer be used. But you just research a variation, and have that waiting for the next genecidal invasion. That's for the big worlds, which have billions of people. For small pops (less then 1 billion), well, they are weak and easily round up and dealt with, aren't they? At least, compared to having a billion or so trained troops to hound them out and capture/eliminate them right? That's the numbers we are talking about, after all. Especially when orbital assistance and high tech sensors and such are available.

Of course, this misses what should be the point of this thread. Whis is: What would be more fun then the current planetary invasion system?

Planetary invasions are, by an explicict design decision, extremely simple. We are told this is so that we, the players, could enjoy the strategy on the galactic map and not bog down in multi-turn invasions or having to design troopers like you design ships or anything else that raises the micro-management of the game without adding to the fun of GC.

I don't think you can find three GalCiv players that would protest a change to the planetary invasion system, as long as those changes were to make the game more fun. The problem is: what is fun varies from person to person.

Now, how would you change it to make it more fun?

That would require more control I feel of the type of troops I am sending down... mainly armor, high end infantry, mobile vs airborne levels etc... equipments. Do they have the start of the art tanks or the hand me downs. What about missle tech etc etc.

Last, cinematics, like the ship battles. Nothing like seeing some explosions with body part flying all over...

jmho
W/R
Suralle

To argue that an advanced civilization would invest so much time, money and technology into such a demonic idea such as genocide it downright absurd. Even the Dregin didn't exterminate the Torians accoding to the story. FYI: WWII which is often considered the largest man made calamity in world history managed to kill approxamately 50 million people including military and civilian deaths. That is a mear 5% of one billion over the course of about six years. Much of the tactics in WWII were designed for nothing more than mass murder. Now you tell me that it is so easy to root out and kill one billion. I think you grosely underestimate the instinct to survive. Incedentially, charging into battle to defend yourself against a superior invader is not the best strategy for survival. Most would prefer to hide and employ unconventional warfare. Also, if technology could devise something such as a disease to kill the masses (every single solitary one), then why have we been compleatly unsuccessful in eliminating much inferior forms of life such as misquitos and flies? There are no examples of 100% successful genocide made simple (except for the Death Star).

Back to the real topic:

There are numerous possibilities for planetary envasion. I don't think anyone who plays this game would object to more micromanagement. I mean, if you couldn't find three people who would object to a change, then that would suggest that all but three would prefere a more in deapth approach. Besides, a large part of 4X games is micromanagment. I personaly would like it to be far more complex. There are plenty of example in this thread and others for alternate methods of planetary combat. Any of which would be better than what it is now.

Actually, we aren't talking genocide for a major race, are we? We are talking about the taking of one world. It's just an island colony, after all. For most instances in the game, there will be other colonies of the same species elsewhere, so that isn't a true genocide. It's "genocidal". However, when you cannot economically use something, then it is worth being "genocidal" and doing a small bit of research into eliminating a problem on your planned new conquest. What would be more economical for the Yor, for instance? Wiping out every single primate (Human) or merely breaking their 5 most significant nests and having the remainder being a pest on your new territory and costing you resources (resources destroyed or being deployed to exterminate the local troublesome primates)?

It's a matter of economics. If spending a month of research and a month manufacturing of your empire's output would secure a world against lasting issues (ie, survivors fighting a high-cost guerilla world), every non-saintly race is going to do it. Now, if the survivors of your planetary invasion are going to run off to the most unusable bits of the planet, dig holes, and live in them forever without ever causing you any trouble, then the economics would not favor researching a way to quickly eliminate the pest, right? To me, except in the most extreme cases, the economics will guide what is done.

On a side note, if the "survivors" of the invasion run away, find a hole, and never leave that spot, then they are just as effectively killed in terms of the game.

As for more detail and more micro-management:
You will find a very significant portion of GalCiv players against more micro-management. We fans of this game are used to micro-management in TBS games, but that doesn't make the MM fun. Oh sure, in the beginning, it can be. But the 1000th time you've done the same activity, it stops being fun. Just go look at the threads on the new tile system. It adds to the MM of the game. There has been considerable work to bring down that MM, but it still gets boring zoning every planet you take, and rezoning all the alien worlds you take over. In GC1, you only set the governor once, and for invaded worlds, you didn't even do that if you wanted it to use the default build queue (in smaller games, I'd review what was already built, but in the largest games, I wouldn't worry about what was "unnecessary" unless it was early into those larger games).

Again, most TBS players will accept more MM if it results in a more fun game. But if it only adds work but no enjoyment, well, that's not fun. That's where all the invasion discussions start getting into trouble. How to create a more engaging invasion system that isn't going to rob us of the fun of the game. When you play a small galaxy and only need to invade 20 worlds, that isn't to much. But the larger maps can have hundreds of worlds that need to be invaded. GC2 has already increased the MM by a large factor as it stands. Adding more MM to it may push the game into serious grognards only territory. A worry of mine, but a realistic one as the game currently stands.