Some random thoughts :
- Invasion Defenses seem underrated compared to the rest. I rarely (if never) built them on my planets in GC 1, and considering room limitation in GC2, the defenders should get an interesting bonus. A fully upgraded Invasion Defense should nearly compensate air superioriy but it should be very expensive to maintain (top anti-air defense, guerrilla training for the population, etc.).
- What does the bonus for neutral races stand for ? It is an interesting concept though.
- I am still a strong advocate of planetary invasions lasting more than one turn. I have no idea how you can invade a planet with billions of people in 7 days, except if you use extremely radical invasion methods... An initial attack could have 3 outcomes : invasion successful, invasion repulsed and invasion turns to guerilla war (the latter case being more likely when the defending planet is highly populated). This would give an opportunity to the defender to break the blocus and bring some reinforcements. Furthermore, slowing down the attck could be one side effect of Invasion Defense buildings.

I perfectly understand that the attacking civilization hould get a huge advantage, especially if the whole population counts as soldiers on the defending planet. A civilization unable to prevent invasion ships from reaching its planets should be in big trouble. I even think that every invasion (failed or successful) should hurt the defending planet, causing huge infrastructure damage if destructive invasion tactics were used, provided that the attacking player committed enough troops to invade the planet.

I believe (maybe I am wrong) that Invasion Defenses (if not providing a huge bonus ti the defender) will seldom be a wise choice. Planetary room is a very scarce ressource in GC II and maybe the most precious (like high quality planets were in GC I). Except if Soldiering technology is extremely expensive, I'd rather research 2 technologies to get a +1 Land bonus (valid for every fight, atacking or defending) instead of building Invasion Defenses (valid only when defending and on certain planets) on every planet, to avoid wasting maintenance costs, planetary room, and useful time. Technology itself should moderately improve your fighting ability, but the most benefits should come from its practical implementation.

What about being good makes you a better defender(your ppl luv you and will do their upmost too defend ye) and, being evil makes you a better attacker?(IE:your insanity scares everyone and will do whatever they can to avoid death...). hmm what about employing commanding officers of planetary invansion? the better ones may cost more but have better tatics...random events and moral standpoint give you a selection and,if you select one their is a risk that the commander you picked may die in the line of duty... and have planets resent your rule for a while (like civ4 sigh...and, many others.). also a more devloped "nation" can defend itself Not by being more technologized, but by having to pay more maitance...also maybe you can bulid Mil.Bases on planets that allow you to construct transport mods and, allowing you to appoint one of the generals to defend your planet? hope some ppl understand what im saying.... anyways i got civ4 a while ago but lost my comp (im get real angry so i smashed it it sux anyways). so im hoping to be able to play later...

Planetary Invasion more than one turn ?

Why can not an invasion happen in one turn ?

A turn equals one month.

If Aliens do exist "and No I do not want to get in that debate" could not a Alien fleet conquer Earth in one month ?

I am pretty sur an alien fleet could invade Earth (a relatively small planet in the universe, with only 6 billions inhabitants) in one week. Of course, it would require using extremely destructive invasion tactics or a much superior technology. Using conventional warfare against a more populated planet having a similar technogy would take much more time on the other hand, even if the invader has complete air superiority.

"What about being good makes you a better defender(your ppl luv you and will do their upmost too defend ye) and, being evil makes you a better attacker?"
-Lowa

I like! I mean, consider - would you rather be attacked by Orcs or Amish? Er, bad example, but maybe Orcs versus Knights of the Round Table. The Knights would be falling over themselves trying to entertain their prisoners and offer them tea, while the Orcs... well, let's just say you wouldn't need to dress formally for the invasion to impress the officers.

On the other hand... when the going gets rough for defenders, I would NOT want to be stuck with a pack of hungry Orcs. Or especially lead them, considering that officers get first dibs on rations and assassination is the surest way to promotion in armies of evil. And that's aside from the fact that your typical Orc is cannibalistic. Knights, on the other hand... just sing a jolly song about valor in the face of certain death, and watch the suckers sally forth!

Yes, this does indeed sound like a good call.

popup target has a point... but i dont want my fate to be decided on a click of the space bar and how decked out my ships is alone. it is a strategy game. lets throw in some strategy

This is a prime example of the difference between strategy (overall, I want to conquer them, decision making) and tactics (nitty grity, you go there, decision making). Of course you have to have some tactics in a game like this, as even directing individual ships (or groups of them) would be a job for the Admiral and not the "President" when it comes to attacking places. But you would never have the President (Overlord of multiple worlds) on the battlefield, directing battlefield tactics. The only series I've played that combine strategy and tactics in a way that makes sense is the Total War series and that's because they're set in a time when kings and princes did command their armies on the battlefield and so would need to "be there" and good tactics could win the war.

As to the question of "failed" invasions hurting the infrastructure of a planet, I would say "Yes", but only if that infrastructure somehow includes the population. This would mean, for example, that a planetary bombardment of a planet with population 6 Bil would leave only 3 Bil (or so) even if the invasion failed. Which might lead to a tactic of sending in a first wave invasion to soften up the enemy, followed by a traditional invasion.

p.s I think all the stuff on Good/Evil/commanders giving defending/attacking bonuses should come down to a single Morale bonus, which could be something like; Good or planet having an ~80%+ population happiness would mean a +1 defending Morale bonus, Evil or planet invasion force came from having a ~70%+ pop happiness would mean a +1 attacking bonus...

as for invasions lasting more than one turn/ week that is realistic. if theres a large population on the planet it wont last one and your going to have to come back and try and invade them again. lets leave it at that. as for infrastructure damage. why dont ya'll look over my first post on this subject and maybe would combine ours... say invade one particular planetary improvemeant that ends of getting destroyed in the invasion.

Exactly what I meant Popup Target.

Currently the only way to really attack the population of a planet is to do a ground based attack (at least it was last time I played, haven't had time to play the beta recently), but if you do a bombardment or something like that I don't think it directly kills off any of the population, which leads to the cheese you meantioned above, therefore any type of attack on infrastructure or PQ (although I do think that PQ damaging attacks should be very limited), should also attack the population to the same (or a scaleble) percentage.
This would mean that an individual invasion would still last only one turn, but you could send in a transport with a small crew that would bombard the planet, then another one that would hold the full invasion force (your marines). This might also mean you'd design two different types of transport, with different modules (although I can't remember of the top of my head what modules there are).

As to selecting which buildings you bombard (Delta Leader), I think it'd work better if certian buildings had a higher chance of being chosen as bombardment targets by your commanders in the field, therefore these buildings (and the ones round them to a lesser or greater degree), would be the ones with the highest damage/first to be destroyed by the bombardment.

Also I think it'd be nice if we could decide how long our bombardment from space should go on for, i.e. a percent silder, 1 end being "only hit the highest threat buildings", at the other end "destroy everything!!! Mwwhhahahahhaaaaa!!!" Ahem, or something like that;).

I have no problem with the week invasions.At this galactic scale using future tech, the main defensive force of a planet could be wiped out that fast.The abstraction part of games in this scale, is the armies land on the planet and continue to fight smaller insurgencies for a long time,hence transports gone.

I would like to have invasions factored into planets.I would like to see lower influence and morale on invaded planets, and only for a limited time, a mines value for all planet tiles.This would factor some realism into invasions.Where at the moment the planet continues like nothings happend.Apart from the population drop.

ya gotta keep in mind when it comes to "realism" these arent planets they people have spread out on over centuries. these are colonies which means the pop is gonna be all together in one spot. there not defending thousands of years of culuture and know every single cave on the planet so they can do a guerrila war. with that said home planets where all this is true should have some sorta extra diffuclty. does anyone know if there is any difference to invading a home planet?

I gather that having a moon, like ours, helps out with production by 10% increase in social and military areas. I believe there should be a help from having a moon also in the area of planetary defense making it harder to invade. The phrase "Sword of Damocles" should work here for my proof. Who wants to invade a planet without taking out the weapons on the moon base first.

W/R
Suralle