Ideas For Invading Big Planets

Invading big population systems.

Well you can either out number them of course and out soldiering (soldiering stat) them helps.
But ultimately the use of a cheesy tactic will remove the most stubborn planet.

The tactic I think as chessy involves the use of mass drivers invasion tactic.
Basically attack the system with just under half the defenders numbers (depends) using the mass driver tactic. Repeat if necessary, this will lower the population to invadable levels without any negatives results. Then just conquer the system with normal tactics or using military drones depending on the defenses.
~SDC~
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I sure hope they kill this piece of cheese - but I suppose it is hard, since the opposite (always inflicting the PQ and improvement losses, even if the invasion fails) could lead to invasions of 1 mill troops just to wreck the planet...

The biggest cheese tactic is to choose your closest planet and destroy the colony. THe AI player then happily builds colony ships. Destroy these one at a time and watch their huge population drop veryu very fast. Colony ships have no population limit so this tactic can quickly be used to wipe out vast population. Only problem with this tactic is all other remaining races will also send colony ships to the now empty planet.

Paul.

~SDC~

Exactly right Ralegh, not sure how you'd fix this though.

The invasion system is nicely done but too simplistic to avoid these pitfalls.

Perhaps if it were a tad more expensive and instead of giving such a high advantage instead killed a small population (5-15%) and lowered the defenders bonus by x amount. If you win... do what it does now.
The idea being yes you are mass driving the planet but you also are trying to invade it so we only mass drive key defenses. Sort of like a tactical nuke strike on a planetary scale.

Perhaps you could have 2 types of mass driver attacks, a tactical strike and the current one with an expensive price tag? Anyway I'll try not to hijack this thread and send it off on tangents

Just saw your post Paul, thats got to be the one of the worse bugs!
I don't know for sure but if you destroy the alien colony ships around their world does the population go down?
I only asked due to my last game, had 200 billion troops ready to take on a massive population and after destroying the colony ships in orbit I went to attack and well.... the enemy only had just under 3 billion people left in that system?
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Yes. Same goes for transports, too.

Wow, Solitair, that's an amazingly nasty exploit. I'd never thought of it.

Thanks vincible, now I know for sure why I was left with so many transports... of course now that I know that I sure to use it to my advantage. Poor AI never gets a break does it

~SDC~

The default population on a colony ship seems to be half the population of the planet. This is far too high, and is very annoying if I've selected Auto-Launch Ships. Trying to colonise a PQ 13 world with 10,000,000,000 people is likely to cause a rebellion. I would suggest making a colony ship normally contain 100 million people or half the population, whichever is lower. This would prevent The Solitair Gambit.
And if you're looking to change the unsuccessful mass-driver invasion technique, how about saying that if an attack with mass-drivers wipes out X% of the population, then it has X% of the damaging effect of a successful invasion? So if the population was reduced by half, it would do half the standard PQ damage, etc.


~SDC~

Hmmm by what you said you gave me an idea Matthew.

The effect of the attack with mass drivers could be related to the number of troops attacking to try and limit the exploit.

So every 1 million troops attacking increases the advantage by 1-2% with a cap on it at 150%. That way the more troops you commit the better the advantage, the more likely success and well more likely you get a hurt planet. Perhaps the costing should be based on troops deployed as well. At least this would limit mass drivers to major invasions, instead of any invasion.

Not a finished concept but what do you think?
~SDC~
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Hey and if your really tick off and don't care anymore( which has happened to me before) you can always take 16 constructers and build a Terror in a nearby sector and go and blow it up, very nice, very clean( at least soldierwise LOL )
Your fellow player,
Jaxel

~SDC~

Jexal

With really hugely populated planets, especially if they are decked out with the planet defense techs, I don't invade. All you need is 5 constructors and 5000 bc to build a terror star and obliterate the star system. So, if I can't culture flip the really big star sytems, I use terror stars. Like transports, terror stars are particulary effective in alpha strikes so the AI can't retaliate.
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Hey ricbayer
I use the other constructers to max out the military modules on the Terror Star( so it can blow up planets and boost the attak and defence of my starships in latter conflicts).
So that what I use the extra constructers for.
Your fellow player,
Jaxel


~SDC~

To deal with the Mass Drivers. All they need is a flag to say that you used Mass Drivers on the planet earlier -then if you get the planet later you get the penalty as well but in the meantime they can carry on without it. Perhaps if the planet changes to another empire in between it loses the flag.

~SDC~

For big pop planets, even if they have a some defense improvements, I still have never had trouble invading. I usually have around +8 or more to soldiering and the AI doesnt hit these techs as aggressively. So, I will send 4 CT's against a planet with 40 billion people and will lose at most around 6bil.

I have got some simple ideas about invasion tactics balancing. I write them again.

What would a perfect invasion tactics system be ?

1) Traditional warfare should be used very often. Slightly advanced invasion tactics should be used for some major battles. Highly effective invasion tactics should be used only for key worlds.
2) The invader should be penalized for using highly effective invasion tactics. So using an invasion tactic should be carefully planned.
3) The defender should not be penalized way too much than the invader if the invasion is repulsed, anyway it should be possible to hurt (a bit) undefended planets.
4) The soldiering ability should be a key factor.

A few suggestions :
1) The efficiency of an invasion tactics should be related to the number and the soldiering ability of invading troops. A full load (5k) would only be required for complex invasion tactics. Gas warfare for example would only require 1000 M troops to have full effect, etc.
2) The cost of an invasion tactic should be related to the defending population, the soldiering ability of the defender and/or the PQ sum of all planets (with a minimum cost). The stronger the defender, the more expensive the invasion.
3) The damages to the planet quality and improvements should be maximum only if the invasion succeeds. If it fails, it should be dramatically lowered, and related to the number of defending troops killed.

I think one of the most effect things is the way the game Alpha Centauri dealt with atrocities.

If you mixed in that some invasion tactics that reviled by all but Evil Players, or that made players wary of regardless. Make the UP ban some atrocities from its formation so you have to leave the UP to do them.

That way yes you can bombard a planet but guess what the good guys now hate you and the bad guys are wary of you... keep going and they will intervene. Something like that mixed in with the invaders numbers would be interesting too.

~SDC~