Stardock: Would you consider just removing the invasion "mini-game" from Crusade?

It would take work for them to remove it... so why bother? Just auto resolve everything.

because the auto resolver is currently buggy and frequently loses battles where you have overwhelming 10:1 firepower.

Exactly.

Yeah... guess i've just been lucky.

But still... probably easier to fix that than rip out a feature. But I get it... the current battle system isn't adding anything to the game.

I like the battle system, however I don't think the mechanics of it are explained to the player. No one really knows how it works other than the designers, I assume. Therefore, it's hard for me to tell what is and isn't a bug/glitch with the system, or me the player, not understanding fully how it works.

Under the current system. I think planets without legions  should have defense, so I think population should count just not as much.

I think  this thread is kinda funny. For YEARS folks have been asking for a mini invasion game and here is a thread calling for its removal. 

I vote for keeping the invasion mini game.

BUT:

- Auto resolve should be fixed (never used it myself, but if it's as buggy as others describe that's no good).

- Mechanics need an overhaul. Right now if you want to conquer the planet (as opposed to wreak havoc by destroying improvements) there is only one tactic: place all your legions on a single field next to the capital and press "Start". That's no game at all ...

I'm trying to set up a demo of a turn based invasion mini game that demands more tactical decisions, but with about 0,5 h of free time a day (and having to restrain myself constantly from implementing things that are not important for that demo ;)) I didn't come very far yet.

Agreed.

The reason I proposed removing the mini-game is because there are other core parts of the game that need attention that are not just "nice to have" features like this.

Having to click click click once for each legion in the late game, always next to their colony capital, is annoying. I also don't like the idea of those auto-resolve bugs potentially gimping the AI in the background.

Just revert back to Galciv2 and move on to more important things.   Outsourcing the mini-game (such as in a mod) would be great, but I don't see how you could make that a reality.

Planetary defenses, Train Legion, and Station Legion are still way out of balance, though.   The defender gets almost nothing.   You don't think having ground superiority is a bigger advantage than having air superiority?

Air Dominance should be the key to victory. In real life anyway. One of the original 4 X games pre millennium, "Eminent Domain" offered a feature called "orbital bombardment" and it was pretty good. In GCIII, one might be able to target specific structures for annihilation if it were ginned up. Certain spots would have a better defense than others naturally - orbital defense platform, military academy etc

Luceo Non Uro

It's not "air" dominance, though--you're invading a planet.   Regardless, though, if that's the case, then I say remove the mini-game.  Just let the invader win.  You're better off investing the resources into invading back than in a defense where you're at a disadvantage.

Actually, it is air dominance since all defending ships have been destroyed to begin the invasion, leaving the invader free to rain down destruction anywhere they desire. I get where you're going though.  

Luceo Non Uro

We are neglecting that that spaceship is facing an entire hemisphere of a planet that can shoot back.  And that doesn't count missiles, that don't even need line-of-sight.   We can already hit the moon from the ground, now, with lasers, mass drivers, and missiles, and we haven't even built a space elevator yet. 

"Shoot the moon"... it's not just for playing Hearts anymore.

Might be time to switch to decafe Tetley.

The massive G-forces from riding spaceships does cause problems with high blood pressure.

...and it's not thread hijacking when the OP starts it.  :-p

I don`t think it`s right that you attempt to have a part of the game removed because you happen not to like it. What about those of us that don`t mind it? This isn`t your personal fiefdom, m8.

And, no, I don`t want it removed, I like it; Nothing I hate more than a soulless number-crunching spreadsheet that adds no humanity at all. I asked for this kind of thing ages ago. I would only ask for it to be improved and extended tactically.

I think I speak on behalf of multiple people when I say, either remove it or fix it.  A mini-game is cool--especially if there was a switch to always quick battle-- but if Stardock has limited resources to invest, just nixing it is better than what we have now.

One should grow according to one's challenges - so Stardock should fix it even with limited resources

I don't dispute that.   I know the lead developer for a popular game 10 years ago, got high 8's in the reviews.  They had 3 developers.  Galciv3 has more than twice that, plus the exec producer is a dev.  

The guy I know hosted a Halo party at his house, and I can tell you, his house is not small.  He also couldn't play Halo very well (I couldn't, either--I was bottom half--but I could frag him). 

I don't like the invasion minigame. I dump all my legions onto the same tile. Always. That is the most effective way to use them. Strength in numbers. Splitting them up and leaving them all over the place makes it easy for them to be picked off.

In my experience, auto resolve invasions gets terrible results. It causes me to lose battles that I should have won.

Legions themselves are OK I guess. It makes planet invasions harder because legions are much less abundant than the populations they replace. On the other hand, a single transport can now conquer many undefended worlds without being used up.

How could they make.the.minigame better.

Only because people aren't very creative with their solutions to current problems. Mini game is bad? Must remove it completely! Change it to be better? Nah.

It seriously needs to be explained better to the player. Like I had no idea you could even stack multiple units on the same tile. So I was losing 40:1 battles I should've effortlessly stomped. So after that is fixed I'd make actually placing the units less taxing on my mouse. Unless there's some secret shortcut I don't know about... I have to actually spamclick till all my units are placed. Why can't I just place them all with Ctrl+click? Or only 5-10 with shift+click?

As for defending planets... civilian population need to be more useful. Having 1 legion effortlessly invade a planet with like 20 billion people doesn't seem right. Defenders should always have the advantage. It's why you need planetary bombardments and other tactics to even it out afterall. Legion and Defense squads shouldn't require such insane social manufacturing costs either. If anything they should generate through a different means that is heavily tied to your population. And once they're trained, if 1 legion is fully depleted you don't permanently lose it. It just goes on CD until it restocks.

For the actual battle itself defenders should get to make temporary bonuses to certain tiles. Like set one up as a trap tile, make a fort and garrison some legions inside it to defend it like a 2nd city, etc. Each one costing money just like how invaders use money to invade. And the attackers should be able to give basic waypoints before the invading AI takes over.

I more-or-less agree with your entire comment. When I made the original post, there were a lot of active threads about major defects in core features of the game and it didn't seem like the invasion mini-game was on Stardock's radar. If it worked and was a fun part of the game, that would be great. It just seemed less important than other aspects, like usefulness of population versus asteroids, and the many open defects that are being discussed in other threads. I was wondering if other people also felt that the invasion mini-game was a less important feature. Most important to me is that the auto-resolve works 100% of the time, both for me and for the AI players. The mini-game is just a nice-to-have (in my opinion or course).

You have some excellent suggestions. In particular:

• "It seriously needs to be explained better to the player. Like I had no idea you could even stack multiple units on the same tile. So I was losing 40:1 battles I should've effortlessly stomped." (Needs in-context help/tooltips/something, for new players who aren't going to read these forums for help)
• "..make actually placing the units less taxing on my mouse. Unless there's some secret shortcut I don't know about... I have to actually spamclick till all my units are placed. Why can't I just place them all with Ctrl+click? Or only 5-10 with shift+click?" (Late-game invasion clickfest is quite annoying. Is there a secret keyboard shortcut?)
• "As for defending planets... civilian population need to be more useful. Having 1 legion effortlessly invade a planet with like 20 billion people doesn't seem right." (Seriously, right? It doesn't sit right with me when my transport of 1 or 2 Legions just massacres a planet of 20 billion, and the invasion wrap-up even says so. I thought that was what "Resistance" was supposed to be used for - factoring in the resistance of the population. Again, no tips or help to explain.)
• "Legion and Defense squads shouldn't require such insane social manufacturing costs either. If anything they should generate through a different means that is heavily tied to your population." (That's an interesting idea. Make that insane production cost be to permanently raise your Legion cap by 1, but the dead Legions regeneration just happens automatically over time? I like it.)

I hope I didn't come off like a jerk for proposing that Stardock remove a game feature. I'd like to see this feature developed to its full potential, but after they have the core game stabilized. I suppose I should have titled my post "would you consider removing/disabling the invasion mini-game until it is fully developed". Again, my opinion is that the invasion auto-resolve needs to work flawlessly before they add another layer of complexity on top of it.

Yes, a better way to say it.

Currently, there is only one right way to invade a planet. That isn't an "interesting choice".  Therefore, it becomes another layer of useless busywork. 

It either needs to be removed or improved.

(I vote for removed - I'm a very busy galactic dictator and don't have time for this kind of low-level nonsense.)