In SF 4X game you have fleets and army. And I found relation between those quite odd. Typically only one (basicaly always the fleet) is dominant while the other is not so important. For example in MOO2 you can use fleet to bombard the planet and effectively kill all enemy troops, so if you can accept the devastation of the infrastructure you can ignore army and focus on strong fleet alone. Basically, once you won the space combat the planet will be conquered eventually, enemy ground troops can only prolong it.

Or the other way round (extremelly rare, actually I know only one example). In Chapter Master it's all about ground troops, if your legions can win ground combat you get the planet. Space ships are mostly for transport and occasional skirmishes.

How to make it so both fleet and army is important?

Thoughts:

A controversial question, can ground troops invade an enemy planet without orbit control by their combat fleet? It's not as weird as is sounds, imagine a single ship (super battle cruiser) protecting a planet, does it mean that a group of 100 quick small transporters (assault gunships) can't get through? Such super battleship could maybe shot down like 5 of those (or less), so it would mean that 95 got through...

Similarly about blockading a planet. Isn't it weird that a single ship (no matter how powerfull) can effectively prevent all transports coming to the planet? Sure, trade would be disrupted, especially when it comes to large tranpost ships, but medium sized frigates (not to mention smuglers) could get through without loses in such scenario.

How about this unusual mechanic: combat fleets orbiting a planet provide coverage (10%, 50%, 90%, etc) depending on number of ships (not technology or power, only quantity, maybe also affected by speed since faster ships can intercept transporters more efficiently). You can invade a planet without any orbital supremacy, but each ground troops transport would suffer casualties equal to enemy orbital coverage.

War might also evolve toward low collateral damage and negligible destruction because inhabitable planets are extremely valuable. It only takes a little bit of rules enforcement (e.g. an overly powerful civilization or faction of arbiters or an empire or federation embracing all warring factions) to make destroyed planets and genocidal wars a non-issue.

If letting a damaged enemy ship fall on the underlying planet is an unacceptable hazard, if nobody uses anything more harmful than small firearms with non-polluting bullets, if leaving behind arrows or bullet cases is a war crime, conquering or defending a planet becomes a very labor-intensive activity both in the air and on the ground, with fair battles and prudent engagement rules.  

On 31.07.2017 at 7:30 PM, Polama said:

From a realism standpoint, the main issue is that if you can land a soldier you can probably land a nuke (or drop a big rock) and if you aren't overly concerned with collateral damage that's likely to be a much cheaper option than waging war on a distant world.

Indeed... So, the only solution is:

- planetary shields that prevent bombardment but not landing troops (which is a bit weird but I suppose acceptable), also, in such case can the planet have ground installations that target orbiting fleet (missiles, fighters garrisons, etc)?

- a convention prohibiting bombardment

How about blockade and starving the planet off? Should a planet surrender after prolonged blockade? Does prolonged blockade reduce troops combat efficiency? Can blockaded planet build defensive installations (like ground missile launchers)?

On 31.07.2017 at 7:30 PM, Polama said:

The flip side (armies without fleets) is easier to solve by making them easy to destroy in transit or by making it hard to wage war without orbital support. I'd be less concerned about sneaking a fleet onto a planet than waging war without a large, slightly removed source of supplies. Assuming a scorched earth policy by your foes, how would you ensure a war's worth of supplies at single landing, without just landing large supply depots for the defenders to bomb?

Yes, for a traditional army control of the orbit is required due to supply requirments.

Except for rare races, like a big transport ship which warp out, launches several hundred landers and warp out. Then those landers crash on the ground and it holds alien like eggs which spawns and the fun begins. No supplies needed in such case.

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