Planetary Invasions - A Stellaris Meme

In this (short) video essay I explore both my hopes for land combat in Stellaris and the present state of planetary invasions. I hope you enjoy this Stellaris meme video.

I do love Stellaris, contrary to what you may think from watching this video. Check out my other videos for confirmation.

Special thanks to @Ep3o and @Strategiser for their excellent feedback and advice, which helped me to make this meme! Check out their content!

If you enjoyed this video please leave a like & SUBSCRIBE!

And please comment with any feedback, any ideas or if you disagree!

[zentonil]

The most exciting part of ground combat is watching the drop pods get released from transports lol

[planetbob]

Slave army, cyborg army, collosal beast etc. are all just differently named circles that take different times to turn red...

[cjrbread]

Rn all you need is orbital bombardment, time, and a tiny army to take an entire world. There should at least be some buildings on worlds that can be used to fire back on the fleets bombarding it. Like planetary défense cannons or something.

[XKCDism]

they could at at least add some pictures to show how the battle is progressing like the siege pictures for forts in EU4

[exudeku]

Starsector Combat: Literally astonishing

Starsector Ground/Platform Invasion: Itchy and Scratchy

[terminalfx]

Not gonna lie, watching 'nerfed' itchy and scratchy violence within the Stellaris game engine, would be better than just watching circles dying.

[XS]

I found a great solution: just annihilate everything with a colossus. No need for invasions.

[helicopter]

Stellaris logic: you can put on a planet infinite ammount of armies

[Suhayll]

Now imagine every ground combat launches a hearts of iron game where you have to worry about logistics, division templates, and available technology. Game mechanics such as if you have no supply line to said planet, you're invading force may start to suffer attrition unless you can seize planetary resources to keep the war going.
Capture key structures during combat to deny it to your enemies. Are you going to go for those forge districts, or are you willing to risk a part of your army for that paradise dome for the hell of it ?
Set up invasion plans where the lack of Intel has you invading a primitive world that out numbers your army.
Have mechanics such as a % of slaves in a planet joining your cause if you are a egalitarian here to emancipate them, or at least they THINK you're here to free 'em.
Have to deal with resistance and uprising as the war is still going.
Go into diplomacy with primitives in the atomic age to see if you can subjugate them without having them blow the planet up while your army is still on it.
Your tactics and plans can decide the extent of devastation and pop lose during an invasion. Even AI attitude can be affected by how you invade planets.
Fortress worlds are absolute hell. As you have to capture each and every single fort on that planet that by the time you win or lose you forget that you where playing stellaris and 10 years have passed.
Have completely different armies builds for invading ocean worlds and tropical worlds. Avoid invading arctic worlds during the winter. Hiveworlds are nope. Pretend every mechanical world is a deathstar.
Screw up and lose control of that xenomorph army cause their control bunker got sniped by an artillery, and now both sides have to worry about a new environmental hazard running about.
Have your army land hard on a planet breaking their equipment, and taking damage cause somebody failed to gather enough intel to mention the planet has high gravity.

I know such a thing is unlikely to happen, but I like to dream. Heck, might even tank performance but still~

[williamsjm]

This video really speaks to me! Ship combat in Stellaris is stunning, beautiful and very cinematic. Ground combat is a bunch of icons being vaguely mean to each other... not asking for much, just a bit of automated mech warrior, which you can either leave on full auto, or have some limited control. I mean you have 'Xenomorph armies' and you can't see the damn things in action!!

[ninjartist]

Space battles: High detailed ship battles with every weapon attachment you added to your ships
Planet invasions: Circles take it or leave it

[Allofmynamestaken]

Okay hear me out. How about this? Take a similar system from Archaeology and Espionage and turn it into a planetary invasion mini game? You create an invasion force by picking a general (one general per army) and in a seperate tab you can choose to add different types of basic units to the army. You can also choose specialized training and doctrine for the army and for land war in general. Then when the army invades, you get a timer that advances to different stages of the invasion that provide pivotal decisions to make (Or you can just let the AI do what has the highest chance of success). There could also be a status of planet conquered (Major cities taken, local government capitulates) and planet pacified (All resistance ended).

Fortress worlds would have multiple stages and could be able to deal some damage to an orbiting fleet. Species that have contrary ethics or are hated may still continue an insurgency despite conquest. Liberation campaigns becomes easier as even strongly defended planets would be undermined.

So for example, as a Democratic Crusader you could have a mobile infantry drop army good at mitigating ground defenses and conquering in a short time... but then you need to bring in the Occupation army which is much better at pacifying rebels, limiting civilian casualties and trying to win hearts and minds. Meanwhile, Determined Experimentators don't need to care about that so much... but essentially have to fight and win a war of annihilation no matter what.

I'd also do away with long lines of transport ships, just have one unit representing a swarm of transport ships that once landed on a planet could also "jump" to any nearby planets in the system.

[CommanderBohn]

Ground combat in Stellaris needs an extremely radical makeover.

[BadSkeelz]

When Stellaris ditched the old grid-model of planets, I was really disappointed: not because I disliked the then-new planet set-up, but because my dream of fighting it out over the planetary grid with ground units would never come to pass.

[ender]

I love to imagine the epic battles that happen in my games, they look so good in my mind

[MouldMadeMind]

I think ground combat needs some kind of ground control that measures the level of controlled territory.

[sebu]

Popular opinion: Invasion in The Endless Space 2 looks much better.

[Hitchclif]

Endless Space 2 has a more engaging invasion system. Also, friendly carriers should give a bonus to attack (CAS)

[lorenadelcordonez]

*making unique planetary combat for stellaris to make invading planets fun*
paradox: nah
*copying mecanics from HOI4 and making just enough changes for them to fit the game*
paradox: don't think so
*turquoise circles that turn red*
paradox: PERFECT

[oscarchan]

This might make things a bit more difficult but I don't mind playing a mini HOI4 everytime there is a land invasion. Soft attack, hard attack, air support, long range navy support, reconnaissance, partisan forces, and we can auto resolve it or take command manually. Maybe a lot of players think it is a big hassle but to us Total War players this is just an everyday occurrence. :)