What's the point of armies today? Why don't we just nuke everyone else into submission? It's basically the same thing.
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I'd imagine you first have to defeat whatever ships are in orbit, then you have the option to either nuke/destroy the planet or you can land ground forces to capture or enslave. I could also imagine nukes, chemical weapons, or other planet destroying technology having to be unlocked first with research. In the early game you would then be forced to use ground forces. You might even to be able to influence the populace with religion, culture, or propaganda and getting them to flip to your empire without having to lay a finger.
Most of this I'm thinking of from other space games, such as GalCiv and SoSE.
Most of this I'm thinking of from other space games, such as GalCiv and SoSE.
Non-nuclear countries today do not surrender just because a nuclear-armed nation is looking at them, or nuclear submarines surface off their coast. Because they know there is a limit to how much damage you can do. Just like IRL, in Stellaris the intergalactic community will react to what you do. Nuking a planet into oblivion would attract coalitions and sanctions just as in the real world.
In addition, most planets will belong to larger Empires, and they will not surrender a planet just because a fleet has gained orbital superiority. Their military will resist, and likely use ground based weapons to shoot at the orbiting fleet until such time as reinforcements arrive to engage the enemy fleet. The longer it takes the secure the planet, the longer the enemies resources are tied up.
Furthermore, nuking a planet or using asteroids on a planet destroys the usefullness of a planet. Considering the cost of war, most government will try their best to limit damage to a planet so they can make use of it later. Also, just like in real life, the more damage you cause to civilians, the more likely they are to take up arms as guerrilla warfighters. And again, completely destroying a planet is not going to make everyone tremble in fear at you, it is simply going to make them see you as a major threat committing crimes against [insert species] that needs to be stopped.
As others have said, it won't happen for the same reason it doesn't happen now. Political, practical and strategic concerns would prevent doing so. The only situations in which it might happen is in an existential war that someone is losing, and they try to rush and destroy the homeworld of the enemy or a major industrial powerhouse to try and weaken the enemy or break their will. Even then, they risk incurring the wrath of other powers and possibly strengthening the resolve of their enemy to destroy you, rather than weakening it.
In the end, there will always be need for armies and special forces. And not just for invading planets, but for capturing or destroying strategic targets. For instance, say you are in fact space hitler, but the planet is covered in anti-ship turrets. You'd need to deploy your army to destroy their anti-ship and anti-asteroid/missile defenses.
It depends also on what is on the planet. If the planet has sufficient missiles, ion, lasers, some kind of electronic defense or planet-to-space fighter force then there could be a siege and grueling ground battle.
This, though if this game is as complex as they say it will be I would guess it would also depend on the attacking and defending government's policies and the generals leading the assault and defense. A pacifist planet would probably surrender to an empire that is well known for brutally suppressing opposition, where as a planet under an extremely zealous and radical government might refuse to surrender even if you have the equivalent of the Death Star in orbit just to test you to see if you have the guts to do it and face the backlash that would come afterwards.
Non nuclear states defy nuclear ones because they know that the nukes would eventually harm everyone on Earth, and because the non nuclear state usually has the backing of a nuclear one who would retaliate. Planets are isolated, and so the analogy fails.
Imagine a fleet wins a battle and then takes up orbit around a hostile world. "Submit or die." Nothing happens. Fleet destroys one city from orbit. "Submit or die." They submit. It's that simple.
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Well if we want to talk about "realism", the idea of invading a large planet from space seems absurd, logistically. World War II was waged at a time when the population was much lower, and feature tens of millions of soldiers across all sides. The cost to get four men into space is currently gargantuan. How many soldiers would you need to pacify Earth? You would probably need a few tens of millions to garrison the planet. If orbital access was as expensive as an interstate flight today, you would still need an armada of thousands upon thousands of transport ships, plus a steady supply of interstellar logistics to supply these armies and their escort of combat ships.
Comparably, slagging a planet with an asteroid seems trivial. Once you have orbital supremacy you can fuck up any planet right quick. And honestly, deploying WMDs from orbit seems like the only "practical" way to reduce the population to a point where you could theoretically conquer them if they were intent on resistance.
Orbital supremacy is complicated. The high ground of orbit is indeed high, but existence on a planetary body confers massive advantages in concealment (ain't no stealth in space), and waste heat management. You can hide a gigawatt class laser array under a mountain that you literally never see until it's already fired and vaporised your capital ship in orbit, and it can use a body of water that is "infinite" for practical sources to cool it down. You don't have that luxury on your space ships. You don't even have air cooling. You can make life for the person in orbit extremely difficult by owning the ground. The ability for the orbital conquerers to "slag" you is basically the only major advantage they have compared to the defenders. Every ship attacking the planet needs to come from the same stretched supply line that got them there in the first place, but the defenders can produce defensive weapons locally.
As an operational planner, it seems like invading Russia x 1000, unless you're willing to just nuke people. I'm not expecting a fully realistic game certainly, but I do hope pdox has put some thought into these issues and has worked some of these difficulties into the setting.
Comparably, slagging a planet with an asteroid seems trivial. Once you have orbital supremacy you can fuck up any planet right quick. And honestly, deploying WMDs from orbit seems like the only "practical" way to reduce the population to a point where you could theoretically conquer them if they were intent on resistance.
Orbital supremacy is complicated. The high ground of orbit is indeed high, but existence on a planetary body confers massive advantages in concealment (ain't no stealth in space), and waste heat management. You can hide a gigawatt class laser array under a mountain that you literally never see until it's already fired and vaporised your capital ship in orbit, and it can use a body of water that is "infinite" for practical sources to cool it down. You don't have that luxury on your space ships. You don't even have air cooling. You can make life for the person in orbit extremely difficult by owning the ground. The ability for the orbital conquerers to "slag" you is basically the only major advantage they have compared to the defenders. Every ship attacking the planet needs to come from the same stretched supply line that got them there in the first place, but the defenders can produce defensive weapons locally.
As an operational planner, it seems like invading Russia x 1000, unless you're willing to just nuke people. I'm not expecting a fully realistic game certainly, but I do hope pdox has put some thought into these issues and has worked some of these difficulties into the setting.
When WW1 came along people predicted that Zeppelins and Bi-planes bombing from a-far would be enough to force someone to surrender. They were wrong.
When WW2 came along people predicted that flying fortresses or bombing from a-far would be enough to force someone to surrender. They were wrong.
When the Cold war came along people predicted that B52s and nukes from a-far would be enough to force someone to surrender. They were wrong.
Some argue that it was the nukes that broke Japan, but they were not used in isolation at all.
Their surrender was a combination of losing all ability to conduct war by having their fleet destroyed, their air-force destroyed, all their armies sent out to the islands to form a perimeter destroyed and all their imports and oil supplies cut off. Yes bombing did ruin their industry, but that industry was of no use without the ability to import raw materials or without any oil or fuel to run the ships, tanks and planes with.
A fleet can cut of some imports and it can threaten with nukes, so in some sense it can "siege" a planet. But you always have and always will need soldiers on the ground if you are serious about taking control of the area and forcing a surrender against any semi-determined enemy ( and if they were not determined before the first nuke hitting civilians is sure to make them determined to fight you ).
So exactly how do you find and nuke rebels that are experts at hiding either among the population or in mountain caves without a single solder down on the ground? It doesn't sound possible to do unless your goal extermination and not surrender.
Why didn't it work when UK bombed Dresden in WW2?
Why didn't it work when USA bombed Tokyo in WW2?
Both these cities were destroyed by conventional bombs to an equal amount that nukes would, with hundreds of thousands of dead and millions of homes destroyed. And surrendering a nation when it's capital has been destroyed is more major then surrendering an entire planet just because one city was destroyed.
There is one other advantage however when attacking from space that is fairly important. You don't need to march any distance with soldiers but can drop them anywhere you want, including right over the political and military key locations. Imagine aliens with superior technology landing at the white house lawn and pentagon and quickly capturing them to force a surrender of USA.
When WW2 came along people predicted that flying fortresses or bombing from a-far would be enough to force someone to surrender. They were wrong.
When the Cold war came along people predicted that B52s and nukes from a-far would be enough to force someone to surrender. They were wrong.
Some argue that it was the nukes that broke Japan, but they were not used in isolation at all.
Their surrender was a combination of losing all ability to conduct war by having their fleet destroyed, their air-force destroyed, all their armies sent out to the islands to form a perimeter destroyed and all their imports and oil supplies cut off. Yes bombing did ruin their industry, but that industry was of no use without the ability to import raw materials or without any oil or fuel to run the ships, tanks and planes with.
A fleet can cut of some imports and it can threaten with nukes, so in some sense it can "siege" a planet. But you always have and always will need soldiers on the ground if you are serious about taking control of the area and forcing a surrender against any semi-determined enemy ( and if they were not determined before the first nuke hitting civilians is sure to make them determined to fight you ).
So exactly how do you find and nuke rebels that are experts at hiding either among the population or in mountain caves without a single solder down on the ground? It doesn't sound possible to do unless your goal extermination and not surrender.
Why didn't it work when UK bombed Dresden in WW2?
Why didn't it work when USA bombed Tokyo in WW2?
Both these cities were destroyed by conventional bombs to an equal amount that nukes would, with hundreds of thousands of dead and millions of homes destroyed. And surrendering a nation when it's capital has been destroyed is more major then surrendering an entire planet just because one city was destroyed.
There is one other advantage however when attacking from space that is fairly important. You don't need to march any distance with soldiers but can drop them anywhere you want, including right over the political and military key locations. Imagine aliens with superior technology landing at the white house lawn and pentagon and quickly capturing them to force a surrender of USA.
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Yes to all of the above, and I am seriously looking forward to making these and more terrible decisions in Stellaris. If I can't play a megalomaniacal dictator who blasts apart his own worlds at the slightest hint of non-cronyism, I'm going to be severely disappointed. Dictatorships should be brief and full of chaos, not longstanding beacons of stability.
I think there should be severe diplomatic repercussions for gassing, glassing, or outright destroying a planet. Distant Worlds got it right with the World Destroyers, when you use one your diplomatic relationship with everyone else plummets as they condemn you and if you abuse it you can expect the entire galaxy to declare war on you.
For ground combat maybe you could have spies or commandos that would sneak in and disable the planetary defense weapons or shielding which would allow you to either get a surrender out of them or allow you to take them by surprise. Long term planetary combat and guerrilla warfare should be a possibility though if you don't plan the invasion right.
For ground combat maybe you could have spies or commandos that would sneak in and disable the planetary defense weapons or shielding which would allow you to either get a surrender out of them or allow you to take them by surprise. Long term planetary combat and guerrilla warfare should be a possibility though if you don't plan the invasion right.
You quoted me twice, initially with someone else's post btw.
RE: Dropping anywhere, this is technically true but if you're talking about a defended planet that is familiar with these capabilities, it seems the obvious defensive play would be to hide short range, high speed interceptor missiles near likely drop zones (e.g. heads of government, important power plants and what not). If your drop pods are flying down and then just get blasted out of the sky that's a problem for ferrying troops to the ground. It's also a single use thing, because once on the ground you then have to worry about transporting them up into the sky again to do another drop. In a lot of SciFi they just pretend like the STO transfer ain't no thang (like star wars or star trek when shuttles can take off and land and they basically act like it's costing them nothing). In real life, there is a saying that "once you're in orbit, you're halfway to anywhere", because getting there takes the largest portion of the fuel for most intrasolar journeys.
Sorry, fixed it now.
Yes, I was just pointing out that forcing a successful surrender with land forces doesn't necessary require millions of soldiers, but can if you have the element of surprise, superior techs and intel be accomplished by much lower number of commandos or special forces capturing all centers of power swiftly.
That saying is pretty meaningless for most Sci-Fi settings since the power needed to create warp or worm-holes for FTL travel in all Sci-Fi worlds I know of is measured in thousands of the power needed to defy gravity or for journeys inside the same solar system.
The reason Sci Fi "pretend" STO transfer "aint no thang" is because it isn't. Judging by even our most optimistic estimates comparing it to FTL travel in complexity and energy needs is like comparing a 100 meter walk with going around the globe.
In a Sci-Fi future where all cars hover with ease going back to orbit is no harder then troops hopping back into their humvee today and driving off again.
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What if the attacker want to save infrastructure and/or population of the planet? In MoO2 there were a choice between purifying orbital bombardment and troop assault. Starship troopers are on the way!
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Glassing the planet is a great way to NOT get its resources anytime soon and NOT add its factories and expertise to your empire and generally speaking have to do all the hard work of getting a working planet back up yourself...once it is even habitable again.
Sure, a land campaign is going to harm the planet too and require a lot of time and effort, but it doesn't have to end in a useless lump of rock.
Sure, a land campaign is going to harm the planet too and require a lot of time and effort, but it doesn't have to end in a useless lump of rock.
We don't know if all planets will be self-sustaining.
At least later on if the game follow most Sci-Fi then homeworlds or capital worlds would have developed to be dependent on food and goods imports from other planets via space trade-routes.
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That's true, but ground troops would still have significant value when trying to take over a self-sustaining or terraformed planet.
Yeah. I really hope they will implement it in a nice way so you can choose to develop alot of trade to boost the economy, but at the backside this would make your planets more vulnerable to sieges!
I think if they did it would be similar to the fort system as it is now in EU4: certain planets can't just be taken.
But I do think we got our answer: