Conquest of Solar Systems

[Deantwo]

We were talking about this a couple weeks ago, and people were talking about it last night too. So lets start a new thread for this.
See also: (Idea thread) Formal War Declaration

I was playing with the idea of instead of declaring war on an empire, since empires are a weird and easily exploitable entity. And cities can be deleted or rebuilt in an instant, such as bulldozing capitol and building a new one. Maybe it would make more sense if you had to declare war on a solar system rather than an empire or city.
A solar system is a place that contains stuff and and it can't be changed (aside from its name). The owner of stuff in the solar system can change at the drop of a hat via surrender mechanics or be bulldozed. But most of the value is the solar system itself.

Also at the same time to slow down the amount of damage a single attacker can do in just a few hours, it would also be beneficial if the attacker had to leave warships in a solar system for an extended period of time to not make all attacks end within the same hour of the attacker entering the solar system.
This would also slow down wars a lot, making for a more relaxed and strategic movement of ships and frontlines.

Example for thought:

An attacker goes to the solar system they want to capture or destroy. They can freely attack all military targets in the solar system, such as; spacecraft, space stations, and military buildings. But they would not be able to harm civilian buildings right away.

In order to target or capture civilian targets, the attacker would have to contest/siege the solar system by removing defender's military presence. Then the spacecraft would have to remain in the solar system for an extended period of time, broadcasting propaganda and such on the hail channel so the inhabitants knows about it. Could even be a whole week for the capital solar system of an empire.

The defender can then try to stop the siege, or even broker peace with the attacker. Even if the defender is totally unable to do anything to defend themselves and no peace can be found, they will have time to request help from others. When the siege completes the attacker can destroy or capture any city, building, or world in the solar system.

In the end, this would mean that civilian targets can't simply be destroyed over night. The attacker would have to leave at least one spacecraft in the solar system, preventing them from destroying a whole empire with just one spacecraft over night.

Ok, let whatever else brainstorming begin!

[Deantwo]

My main thought behind this is that you shouldn't have to worry about sieging individual worlds in a solar system.
So you don't have to siege one tiny moon colony at a time in a solar system with 20 moon colonies. Instead you siege the whole solar system and then capture/destroy everything once the siege is complete.

[Norm49]

We use to have a system like this with moral an citizen loyalty but Haxus remove it. The system was working fine.

[Deantwo]

We use to have a system like this with moral an citizen loyalty but Haxus remove it. The system was working fine.

Yeah it has not been implemented for the new-style cities. But I don't know if the old form of loyalty would be good enough. Since you can still just blow up everything in the solar system. Which is why I suggest some way of making non-military buildings protected unless the solar system has been contested first.

But if we are gonna have non-military building be protected. Maybe construction of military spacecraft and weaponry should be moved to be military buildings?
Since I can understand not wanting to or being prohibited from firing on civilian targets, but I wouldn't consider munition factories or spacecraft factories civilian targets. At least since we don't really have a distinction between military and civilian spacecraft.

[Deantwo]

You want to conquer a solar system, you park a big warship in the solar system and give it the order to siege. The ship will defend its area and broadcast propaganda on the Hail channel. Cities in the solar system (regardless of owner) will then start requesting help on the Friend channel. Once the solar system has been under siege this way for a week or so, the solar system enters a "contested" state that allow the attacker to invade, capture or bombard the cities.

Defender thereby have a whole week to try and stop the sieging ship with whatever means. Be it attacking it directly, requesting help from neighbors to deal with it, or even negotiate peace with the attacker. This would slow down war a lot, but I am not sure that we have ever wanted war in Hazeron to be super fast.

The time needed to siege a solar system is a little hard to decide on. Maybe basing it on the amount of population in the solar system and/or capital statuses of the cities.

I am not sure how this would work with the noncombatant system. You should probably be able to siege a system even if the owner(s) are offline, but then even once the solar system has been contested the attacker likely has to wait for them to come online to proceed with the attack.

Originally posted: (Update thread post) 2022-01-13 FYI #92

[Deantwo]

I would rather we work on making sudden attacks from large empires less devastating and fast. If eliminating another empire is more of a hassle than helping them relocate, we will see less reasons for newbiestomping and more diplomacy. For example attacks on a much smaller empire could be automatically broadcast to everyone within range, letting people know what is happening even if the defender is inactive, that way neighboring empires have a chance to mount a united defence against the attacker if they become more aggressive.

Originally posted: (Update thread post) 2022-01-13 FYI #117

[Celarious]

I would rather we work on making sudden attacks from large empires less devastating and fast. If eliminating another empire is more of a hassle than helping them relocate, we will see less reasons for newbiestomping and more diplomacy. For example attacks on a much smaller empire could be automatically broadcast to everyone within range, letting people know what is happening even if the defender is inactive, that way neighboring empires have a chance to mount a united defence against the attacker if they become more aggressive.

Originally posted: (Update thread post) 2022-01-13 FYI #117

Honestly, I believe what Norm said about returning to the original loyalty system is the best option. Remove building damage entirely, unless the flags have been captured and the defender's city is under "conquest" as they'd technically be in for a bit when the loyalty flipped over. Yes, it will allow military buildings to fire at the attackers in safety, but I don't see this is a huge issue considering how much of an advantage attackers currently have

[Yurk Embassy]

Honestly, I believe what Norm said about returning to the original loyalty system is the best option. Remove building damage entirely, unless the flags have been captured and the defender's city is under "conquest" as they'd technically be in for a bit when the loyalty flipped over. Yes, it will allow military buildings to fire at the attackers in safety, but I don't see this is a huge issue considering how much of an advantage attackers currently have

I however get the feeling that narrowing down the siege system to loyalty would dismiss other factors and raise absurd questions like: "why can't I just bomb his city if there is literally nothing tangible that stops me from doing so? Not to mention you wouldn't care much for the locals' loyalty if your plan is to ravage the entire city; an enemy shipyard, for example, might not be a viable position for you to maintain afterwards, and destroying it entirely before retreating back into your territory should remain a possibility.

I think there needs to be a physical barrier that stops you from blitzkrieging the crap out of your target. Some of us have been talking of a planetary shield system. Allow me to suggest a more detailed idea of the way it would work.

It would be a building capped at one per planet, that'd require the typical components for high-tier, tech buildings, along with perhaps materials required to make shield generators. That would basically be the one thing that everyone would want to establish as fast as possible on their homeworld. Once built, there should be a thirty-minute to one-hour countdown before the shield is raised (to prevent another shield being instant-raised during the late stage of a siege), as one could assume such a shield would need to charge quite a bit before turning on.

Once the cooldown is over and the shield turns on, there would be a huge force field with an absolute ton of HP. Nobody except friends and Empire citizens could cross it (or maybe Neutrals, too, I guess it could be handled in the Policy tab or the building's F10 menu). The shield would need to be continuously bombed for a certain amount of time (it would be unable to regen if it has been shot in the last hour), forcing empires to station Officer-commanded ships or to remain on site themselves for hours straight, and giving the defender more time to react before actual casualties start piling in. Of course, assembling a larger attack force would also be more rewarding, as they would be able to down the shield faster. Maybe a cap on how much maximum damage per second the shield would take (excess damage would pretty much be wasted) could balance that, but at the end of the way, it's only fair that greater numbers give a certain advantage over your enemy. I also think it would be fair if breaking the shield destroys the generator itself and forces the owner to build a new one afterwards.

Lorewise, it could be an invisible force field of some sort. It would stop intruders from trespassing it, and you could assume it would produce a small gap to let friendlies in and out upon detecting them. It should not be allowed on moons (less mass meaning less natural gravity, that would interact with the way that shield works), as moonbases should remain relatively easy targets to pick on.

What do you guys think? I feel like it would leave that sense of ruleless freedom Hazeron has, by making the obstacle to constant blitzkrieg physical and concrete, rather than just "rules being rules."

[Deantwo]

I think there needs to be a physical barrier that stops you from blitzkrieging the crap out of your target. Some of us have been talking of a planetary shield system. Allow me to suggest a more detailed idea of the way it would work.

...

It should not be allowed on moons (less mass meaning less natural gravity, that would interact with the way that shield works), as moonbases should remain relatively easy targets to pick on.

My main issue with it is the exact reasoning explained in this thread. If you are attacking a solar system with many worlds, or a large ringworld, you will be attacking many of those planetary shield systems one after the other. And it doesn't account for if the world suddenly change owner to a neutral third-party empire while it is being sieged. That is why the topic here is specifically about contesting a whole solar system rather than individual worlds.

You can have important moons in a solar system though, if the player don't plan ahead a moon colony could even be vital for the solar system's survival. So it would seem very weird to me that you would allow some worlds to be unprotected. For example what if the solar system only has uninhabitable worlds, and some tiny moon is the only source of ice (water and air), if that source is lost the other cities might decay after a few days.

What do you guys think? I feel like it would leave that sense of ruleless freedom Hazeron has, by making the obstacle to constant blitzkrieg physical and concrete, rather than just "rules being rules."

It might be physical and fancy, but it doesn't solve most of the issues.

I know sieging with propaganda isn't super exciting, but it makes owners and visitors very aware that something is going on when they enter a solar system and their communication channels are all: "You will be exterminated! Siege complete in 5 days!"

[Deantwo]

Honestly, I believe what Norm said about returning to the original loyalty system is the best option. Remove building damage entirely, unless the flags have been captured and the defender's city is under "conquest" as they'd technically be in for a bit when the loyalty flipped over. Yes, it will allow military buildings to fire at the attackers in safety, but I don't see this is a huge issue considering how much of an advantage attackers currently have

So you mean you want the old-style city conquest returned? But that wouldn't stop an attacker from capturing a whole empire within hours at all.

The old-style city's conquest and loyalty system was very much based on the attacker capturing the city, and then the defender login and capture it back with ease if loyalty hasn't flipped yet. Sure loyalty was nice for giving the defender time to retake what was lost, but it was not a fun way of doing war.