If GC 3 is being thought of>

I think that they should make the ground combat a minigame.

Like Space Rangers 2?

I think that they should make the ground combat a minigame.

Yea the current system is a bit boring now, how many people just press skip now like me?

I envisage a whole new tech path based on planetary invasion, giving u loads of lovely 'toys' to battle it out with over the planets surface. Obviously there would be a lot of defensive 'toys' to enjoy and it goes without saying that u could design all those ground units to your hearts content. Now that would spice planetary assault up...

The creators of this game have repeatedly mentioned GalCiv3 in the future in many posts, so I think it would be a safe bet there will be one in a few years:)

yeah but right now they have to get thourgh galciv2 and its expansion

I'd just like to know the rationale behind "conquering" a planet by killing every last one of its inhabitants and having your surviving troops take up residence in the now-empty homes. I mean, really--you might as well just toast the planet's inhabitants from orbit, and then send in your own people.

the rationale is a lame one--but one that is practiced by many "civilizations" and "cultures" on various continents.

...

I mean, really--you might as well just toast the planet's inhabitants from orbit, and then send in your own people.

Thats what some of the invasion options like mass drivers and tidal disruption do, but because of the game mechanics, rather than fewer people defending the planet, your soldiers just kill more of the enemy soldiers.

Good call on the whole wiping everybody off the face of the planet and then your surviving soldiers moving in. There should be an option to take prisoners, or enslave enemy soldiers to boost post war production.

I, too, disagree with the idea of wiping out the entire planet's population. Not everyone is in the military, and there is a large number of civilians who do not take place in the battle. They might take part of a revolt, like in Civilization IV. Ultimately, you should only have to fight through the military (the number of which could be set, but might lead to too much micromanagement), and once you fight through, you get to decide what to do with the civilians. Slaves, anybody? Now, since the denfensive military is smaller, they should gain some bonus, or have the ability to chose between diferent defense tactics. While we're at it, why not also make the planetary defense improvement more effective?

While it is true that not everyone would be in the defensive military, when your planet is being invaded I doubt that would matter. Everybody would grab what ever they could and try to kill some of the invaders. If you don’t believe me, have a look throughout history. The Germans armed children and pensioners when the Allies were already past their front door. The British had the Home Guard and the Japanese prepared every possible person for combat in case of an invasion. They even went so far as to prepare sharpened bamboo sticks for those who could not fire a weapon (old and young) so they could impale Allied soldiers. If you don’t like that, you can always use propaganda, get some of the residents to defect to your army. Even if you lose, if you take 20% of their population before the battles even begin its going to hurt them more than its going to hurt you. But I do agree with lightworker, the ground combat needs to be improved.

That is all.

I recall this subject was spoken about a lot before the game was released. I recall one of the arguements was that the population only accounts for the taxpayers; it's not the whole planetary population. There were a few other arguements that I can't remember, either.
I just look at as
1. I send in troops.
2. Battle. I lose troops, they lose troops.
3. I win (I hope)
4. The remaining number is just civilians from the original population.
No big deal. Whatever.

I still think you should be able to wipe out a planet from orbit. At least evil aligned races should get that option, no matter the strenght of the ground forces. Just dump a few hundred tons of plutonium into the atmosphere, and soon the planet will be sterile. Or just use death rays.
This might be counteracted by some defensive technology or building, whatever... there are plenty of possibilities here.

i agree that there could be something done to make the ground combat more fun to watch. just as long as it does not end up being tactical combat. i like my turn based strategy games to remain turn based strategy games. this goes for space combat as well.

Agreed. Any ground combat augmentation--and I would enjoy some--still needs to be turn based to be consistent with the rest of the game.

Your not really destroying the population. Your just supressing taxpayers. Eventually they come back to understanding how wonderful your way of life is.

Why not make the invasion also be turned based, the grid is all ready set up. You could land on one block per invasion module, and then choose how to attack each area( eg mass drive their ship yards so they can't build ships, or destroy their farms so they all starve). Does anybody find it a little unrealilistic to be able to kill 10 billion aliens and completely assimilate the planet in one week?

Well, if you kill them all, there's no one left to assimilate. Your remaining soldiers which are left behind (and become the planets new population) don't need to assimiliate. They're part of your culture already.

i say boom and all declare war on unless they are an ally then they might decide to break it off

BOOM by by planet

The pop is the # of taxpayers!

I recall this subject was spoken about a lot before the game was released. I recall one of the arguements was that the population only accounts for the taxpayers; it's not the whole planetary population. There were a few other arguements that I can't remember, either. I just look at as 1. I send in troops. 2. Battle. I lose troops, they lose troops. 3. I win (I hope)

The Snathi have no use for other "species". We find non-rodent intelligent life obscene.
Every Snathi warrior joins our cause under the exact promise of conquered trees.

No, really..

I'd favor a deeper invasion mini-game but not one that steals too much from the space battles overhead. Anything I can't do in more than about a half-dozen clicks per turn per planet would just be a distraction... and likely more tedious than the slot machine we have now.

I'd definitely like to see planetary conquest be able to take more than one week. Imagine the tension of a six of sixty week siege of an enemy homeworld, complete with special tech options, devastation of the planet (anyone remember what Germany looked like afterward?), and opportunity for reinforcement on both sides. Perhaps even allied operations.

My biggest gripe? Why do I have to keep making transports? What if I build a massive assualt ship with 6000 marines, extensive defenses, and enough nano-rippers to shred defenders and light attackers? Why would I scrap it and drop all 6000 on a PQ 5 world? Seems to me you should have a slider to pick how many troops land, but otherwise (regardless of outcome) the transport doesn't actually move onto the planet, and is just how it was, less the troops. Need a refill? Head over to your nearest PQ 17. Any small craft used for the insertion could be assumed to be loaded with the fresh troops (like their weapons, tanks, transports etc).

Lastly, hand over all your acorns..... no seriously.... I got psychic missles.

I still think you should be able to wipe out a planet from orbit. At least evil aligned races should get that option, no matter the strenght of the ground forces. Just dump a few hundred tons of plutonium into the atmosphere, and soon the planet will be sterile. Or just use death rays.

Yeah, cause that wouldn't reduce PQ to say, hmm..., 0! I think ground combat is good the way it is. GC2 is not a ground combat game, it's a galactic level strategy game. Adding a ground combat mini game would just slow down gameplay too much. As it is now I just skip the combat scene since it's the result I'm interested in. Also, a ground combat mini game would probably have low quality (compared to other ground combat strategy games) since the focus isn't on ground combat in this game. If I want ground combat I don't play GC2 (Galactic Civilizations 2), I play GC2 (Ground Control 2).

As for the planetary bombardment, you have that. They're called "mass drivers". No planetary bombardment will ever whipe the WHOLE population, and if you find one that will, it will certainly destroy the planet (read PQ) along with the pop.

I would like to see another Race or two added - Maybe something like the Tyranids from Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000. I love this species of Alien.... Then you could have techs for planetary bombardment such as "Plague Spores" etc, that'll give you somewhere between 60 - 80% advantage (although the tech will be right at the end of the tech tree)

The only problem I can see with this is that the Game would probably require pernsonalised tech trees for each race, with the custom race being able to pick one of these pre designed tech trees (but still be able to mod each one!)

This, I think, would be give the player a much better feel for the race he (or she) chooses to play.

Like SpPace Rangers 2?

I hope not. That weakens the whole game. I wish SR2 left out those missions as well as the other mini-games (text adventure and hyperspace combat) and used the effort that went into them to make the main game even better. (Note I like SR2 a lot, but the mini-games are mediocre),

im not sure if i like the idea of minigames in gc2 or not but i think ground combat should be just as fun to watch as space combat is.
as for space rangers 2. i love that theres minigames. its kind of a lightweight trading game. if i did not want the minigames i would just play port royal 2

All Ideas Lovely, Stardock you reading this?