GATK

[Gary Carpenter]

Quite frankly, I do not understand how you could have your troops captured except for poor planning and poor battle execution. This is of course based assuming the items above are correct, which is my understanding. I could be wrong though.

 

The OC then DIV, ALL both takes an order block, so if the defender GATK's in the first order block while you are OC'ing the fresh divisions . . .

 

I think after 1 turn an enemy population group should be fair game for the defender to GATK. How long do you think it should last? If a defending fleet arrives and stops further troop landings, do you think you should be able to come back 10 turns later and still have a beachhead on his homeworld? Why should an attacker be allowed to probe attack then wait a turn to see the results without risking the loss of his landing zone? This gives all advantages to the attacker. When an issue is in doubt, I think it should favor the defender.

 

I also agree that when someone COLB's a planet, all empires that already have a population group on that body should receive a message. Also, when someone GATK's and captures an undefended body, the "defenders" should receive notification.

 

I don't see the problem here, it's always been that you have a single turns free reign after the COLB to ensure you get your bridgehead if the defender is weak enough to allow you the high orbital. What is more disconcerting is that using the tactics you and your ally did, with COLBing turn after turn is that you would actually be blocking the defender from counterattacking. As long as you had two or three empires taking turns COLBing you could always claim your "counter-attack free" turn...but I am sure that was not what you were trying for...

 

/Locklyn

 

The newly pop seg laid down last turn and number received this turn is captured and DOES NOT stop ground attacks.

Both my pop seg, put down when I cleared the skies, and my allies pop seg put down that turn were taken.

 

SO the at my HW, you will not have a pop seg for lets see

 

Turn one you come in and clear my HW and put down a POP SEG

 

Turn two I GATK on pulse 1 talking your pop seg, cause my ally has an old pop seg in the world with some thing in it

 

Turn 3 you find this out and yell cheat get pop seg transferred back to you

 

turn 4 I spam GATK and take your old pop seg again and the troops in it are now mine, you yell cheat, pete creates a new pop seg for you and says he really hates to run battles in between turns, they almost always do not work right.

 

turn 5 you attack the HW, Everything is gated out, EVERYTHING

 

 

ALL of this could be fixed by Beoghans Idea of IF there are troops in the pop seg, automatically have them put into army to fight. IE pete does not have to DO anything. but pete has stated he is not interested in ideas to fix

[Gary Carpenter]

It is my understanding that when a COLB is done it is safe for the next turn. Why should it be safe after that? The defender should be allowed to attack pop groups.

If someone, does a COLB on turn one, lands troops and does a probe GATK on turn 2, I see no problem with the defender being able to GATK later on turn 2 and wipe out a poorly done beachead. The attacker should then have to 'start over' with a new COLB, etc. for future turns.

 

because if the defender attacks every pulse til you transfer down your army he will get your army, and the pop seg, NO BATTLE> This is the turn after the probe.

Let me get your situation straight, you are saying, Turn 1 COLB, Turn 2 DAF, NEWA, DIV GATK (this is with one division, or some nominal amount) to probe the enemy defenses to see what they have. Turn 3, DAF more troops and launch the 'real' attack based upon the results of the probe., correct?

and you believe it is unfair for the defender to GATK between the time of your probe, and the turn 3 GATK, is this what you are saying? That is defender GATKs on order 1 of Turn 3 and caputures all your divisions you DAF??

 

If that is the situation, my opinion still stands. It has always been my understanding that from Pete and posts, that the attacking pop group is only protected long enough to launch a GATK on turn 2, that is for the first few orders so you can do a DAF, NEWA, DIV, GATK. If I am the defender, and I GATK after the invader's probe attack, I should be able to capure the alien pop group (beachhead). If the attacker only did a probe attack, he should be prepared to do another COLB, wait a turn, then unload and attack on a subsequent turn.

I, for one, will routinely do GATK on my worlds near the end of my turn, to clear out such pop groups should they be there. And since we are pointing out flaws, I think it is a flaw that alien COLB on your planets are not reported to you. ie. "Alien #999 has established pop group #999 on planet Makebelieve 1b"

 

As for capturing enemy divisions in pop groups, I'll have to think about that one.

 

the Unfair part is the defender captures your army intact, and can DIV into his own for defense, unless, you do another COLB to get a safe pop group.

 

You can not GATK and capture a EMPTY pop group, even now

 

the other problem is pete would not let us get the enemy pop segs off our HW's earlier in the game, now he acts like he never heard of such a thing.

[Lord Deependra]

Quite frankly, I do not understand how you could have your troops captured except for poor planning and poor battle execution. This is of course based assuming the items above are correct, which is my understanding. I could be wrong though.

 

The OC then DIV, ALL both takes an order block, so if the defender GATK's in the first order block while you are OC'ing the fresh divisions . . .

 

I think after 1 turn an enemy population group should be fair game for the defender to GATK. How long do you think it should last? If a defending fleet arrives and stops further troop landings, do you think you should be able to come back 10 turns later and still have a beachhead on his homeworld? Why should an attacker be allowed to probe attack then wait a turn to see the results without risking the loss of his landing zone? This gives all advantages to the attacker. When an issue is in doubt, I think it should favor the defender.

 

I also agree that when someone COLB's a planet, all empires that already have a population group on that body should receive a message. Also, when someone GATK's and captures an undefended body, the "defenders" should receive notification.

 

I don't see the problem here, it's always been that you have a single turns free reign after the COLB to ensure you get your bridgehead if the defender is weak enough to allow you the high orbital. What is more disconcerting is that using the tactics you and your ally did, with COLBing turn after turn is that you would actually be blocking the defender from counterattacking. As long as you had two or three empires taking turns COLBing you could always claim your "counter-attack free" turn...but I am sure that was not what you were trying for...

 

/Locklyn

 

The newly pop seg laid down last turn and number received this turn is captured and DOES NOT stop ground attacks.

Both my pop seg, put down when I cleared the skies, and my allies pop seg put down that turn were taken.

 

SO the at my HW, you will not have a pop seg for lets see

 

Turn one you come in and clear my HW and put down a POP SEG

 

Turn two I GATK on pulse 1 talking your pop seg, cause my ally has an old pop seg in the world with some thing in it

 

Turn 3 you find this out and yell cheat get pop seg transferred back to you

 

turn 4 I spam GATK and take your old pop seg again and the troops in it are now mine, you yell cheat, pete creates a new pop seg for you and says he really hates to run battles in between turns, they almost always do not work right.

 

turn 5 you attack the HW, Everything is gated out, EVERYTHING

 

 

ALL of this could be fixed by Beoghans Idea of IF there are troops in the pop seg, automatically have them put into army to fight. IE pete does not have to DO anything. but pete has stated he is not interested in ideas to fix

 

Sounds like its working pretty well to me.

 

As I understand it, the defender cannot attack until the turn after the first enemy pop group has been placed.

Sounds to me like your ally started the invasion a turn early, effectively alerting the enemy and giving them time to react.

 

I do agree we need a fixed policy on troops in stockpile. At the moment we are relying on Pete noticing and manually adjusting them.

 

There are three options:-

1) The code is adjusted so all troops in stockpile always fight. In that case, the defender never needs to issue a DIV order.

 

2) Allow stockpiled troops to be captured. While technically captured troops should not then fight for their captor, 99.9% of the cost of a division is the materiel, not the population. Unless you want to have the system convert captured troops back down in to their components, I think assuming some of the captor's surplus population takes over the equipment is okay.

 

3) Destroy all captured stockpiled divisions.

 

I would lean towards option 2. Its simpler and uses the existing code. It also encourages both parties to get their orders right.

[Gary Carpenter]

Quite frankly, I do not understand how you could have your troops captured except for poor planning and poor battle execution. This is of course based assuming the items above are correct, which is my understanding. I could be wrong though.

 

The OC then DIV, ALL both takes an order block, so if the defender GATK's in the first order block while you are OC'ing the fresh divisions . . .

 

I think after 1 turn an enemy population group should be fair game for the defender to GATK. How long do you think it should last? If a defending fleet arrives and stops further troop landings, do you think you should be able to come back 10 turns later and still have a beachhead on his homeworld? Why should an attacker be allowed to probe attack then wait a turn to see the results without risking the loss of his landing zone? This gives all advantages to the attacker. When an issue is in doubt, I think it should favor the defender.

 

I also agree that when someone COLB's a planet, all empires that already have a population group on that body should receive a message. Also, when someone GATK's and captures an undefended body, the "defenders" should receive notification.

 

I don't see the problem here, it's always been that you have a single turns free reign after the COLB to ensure you get your bridgehead if the defender is weak enough to allow you the high orbital. What is more disconcerting is that using the tactics you and your ally did, with COLBing turn after turn is that you would actually be blocking the defender from counterattacking. As long as you had two or three empires taking turns COLBing you could always claim your "counter-attack free" turn...but I am sure that was not what you were trying for...

 

/Locklyn

 

The newly pop seg laid down last turn and number received this turn is captured and DOES NOT stop ground attacks.

Both my pop seg, put down when I cleared the skies, and my allies pop seg put down that turn were taken.

 

SO the at my HW, you will not have a pop seg for lets see

 

Turn one you come in and clear my HW and put down a POP SEG

 

Turn two I GATK on pulse 1 talking your pop seg, cause my ally has an old pop seg in the world with some thing in it

 

Turn 3 you find this out and yell cheat get pop seg transferred back to you

 

turn 4 I spam GATK and take your old pop seg again and the troops in it are now mine, you yell cheat, pete creates a new pop seg for you and says he really hates to run battles in between turns, they almost always do not work right.

 

turn 5 you attack the HW, Everything is gated out, EVERYTHING

 

 

ALL of this could be fixed by Beoghans Idea of IF there are troops in the pop seg, automatically have them put into army to fight. IE pete does not have to DO anything. but pete has stated he is not interested in ideas to fix

 

Sounds like its working pretty well to me.

 

As I understand it, the defender cannot attack until the turn after the first enemy pop group has been placed.

Sounds to me like your ally started the invasion a turn early, effectively alerting the enemy and giving them time to react.

 

I do agree we need a fixed policy on troops in stockpile. At the moment we are relying on Pete noticing and manually adjusting them.

 

There are three options:-

1) The code is adjusted so all troops in stockpile always fight. In that case, the defender never needs to issue a DIV order.

 

2) Allow stockpiled troops to be captured. While technically captured troops should not then fight for their captor, 99.9% of the cost of a division is the materiel, not the population. Unless you want to have the system convert captured troops back down in to their components, I think assuming some of the captor's surplus population takes over the equipment is okay.

 

3) Destroy all captured stockpiled divisions.

 

I would lean towards option 2. Its simpler and uses the existing code. It also encourages both parties to get their orders right.

 

 

Actually what it encourages is blind attacks, OR doing more COLB's always have a safe pop group, and Spamming GATKs by the defender.

 

More pop groups mean slower turns

 

While technically captured troops should not then fight for their captor LOL Technically with the tech we have you should be able to put down the army on the ground in the exact defensive or attack pattern you want, at the levels of tech in this game, there should be NO unload everything into a pile everyone look for your gun, and now line up, now fight

[hobknob]

However it works there are only two real issues at hand. The attacker has to be able to establish a beachhead and the defender has to be able to boot them back to space. The first part generally works just fine however timing can always bite you in the a$$. The latter has never worked and it continues to be a problem. The defenders have got to be able to get rid of those pop groups. It matters not if an entire army is still sitting in crates ready to go or not. If the attacker fails to attack on impulse 4 on turn 2 then the beachhead pop group should not be safe. Just about all of my ground assaults have happened thus and have worked fine. The problems turn up when I get delayed, either by allies, fuel, circumstances, fuel, forgetfulness, fuel, mistakes or fuel, just to name a few. When that happens I just drop a new colony beacon and try again in a few turns.

 

It is also completely irrational that a thriving HW doesn't have the faintest idea that an enemy has dropped a pop group amongst the teaming masses on the world. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time and continues to really bug me. It should be fixed.

 

Let me also stand on my soap box and say that manual fixes between turns are a real pain. You can't plan when a manual fix is implemented just prior to the following turn. I have had numerous fleets fail to engage and sometimes they get fixed but not anything like always. I have also lost numerous fleets this same way and I find it quite annoying that I usually only find out about it after having sent in my orders, which is almost always on the date they are due and rarely early. The wasted orders to fleets that have been manually deleted do add up over time.

 

So, the comment at the top of this thread that pop groups have been reinstated and all is well is really beyond the pale. If these battles are over a HW then the defender should not be put in jeopardy by these last minute fiddles. If every correction was made the weekend turns came out and all sides knew about it 100% of the time then it could be accepted, but not in the current system.

 

In any event, good luck to all involved in the wars that started this thread.

 

Now where is my morning caffeine....

 

[Breoghan]

Actually Gary, I didn't say that troops in the pop group should automatically be able to fight. What I said was that captured divisions in the pop group should not be handed over intact to the defender when he counter attacks an unprepared invader. I pointed out that defenders might capture the boxed up (which would make automatic deployment technically 'unrealistic') division's equipment, but not the loyalty of the captive troops. I would be happy to see it broken down into component parts, with the soldiers themselves being shipped off to prison camps (eg henceforth out of the game!)

 

I was then, and am now speaking hypothetically, as I haven't come up against this particular problem myself. One thing this whole discussion is doing is to help 'educate' we players who have been in the game for a variously shorter time than you guys.

[hobknob]

From a logical pint of view you shouldn't be able to capture troops, but from a game mechanics point of view it may be a different story. I have captured plenty of Divisions over the years and they have just been part of the spoils, just like capturing colonists, troopers etc.

 

Since we are reconciled to have a 4 impulse safe zone to allow for the NEWA, OC, DIV and GATK to take place then one should not be able to loose troops during that time period either, however, once you are past that then the situation is different. At some point the defender has to be able to clean up his planet else the attacker will have a permanent advantage.

 

Opinion aside I am pretty sure that Pete would step in and fix a problem that results primarily from a game mechanic requirement.

[Gary Carpenter]

So, the comment at the top of this thread that pop groups have been reinstated and all is well is really beyond the pale. If these battles are over a HW then the defender should not be put in jeopardy by these last minute fiddles. If every correction was made the weekend turns came out and all sides knew about it 100% of the time then it could be accepted, but not in the current system.

 

 

 

 

pop group reinstated, with probe troop in it or knowledge of what I would of seen if pete had pulled my probe troop out to defend is what was offered.

 

I refused any compensation, because if everything went as it was supposed to( a point I diagree with) then I should get no compensation.

 

SO I all I really know, is the troop that was in my pop seg is now controlled by the enemy, and he has at least two troops, one from me and at least one to make the attack, unless checking whether there are troops in the army doing the GATK is also hand moderated, and pete missed that, then I only know he has my one troop.

[Gary Carpenter]

Well one MAIN problem is PETE, if he sees the troops in pop groups he deletes, or pulls them out into an army to fight, depending on what is going on.

 

Now with my troop getting captured, Pete did not see it to pull it out.

 

I want it done the same for EVERY battle. EITHER pull them out and have a battle or gift them away, BUT DO NOT make this a random, by relying on PETE to see it.

 

SO after my loss of troops, if someone shows up at my HW, I am going to spam GATK to try and get the attacking troops, if PETE pulls them out and there is a battle instead, then the game is not longer FAIR, because it depends on the GMls whim, not rules.

[Gary Carpenter]

I have captured plenty of Divisions over the years and they have just been part of the spoils, just like capturing colonists, troopers etc.

 

 

THIS is PETE again, and having to notice that there are troop in the pop group, IF he sees them he deletes them.

 

how i know this,

 

I was attacking an ally HW, to build something he could not build early in the game.

I called Pete as I had never done anything like this before.

HE said you know all those troops in stockpiles will be lost when you attack.

Really?

Yes, when you attack a HW with troops in the stockpiles they are lost.

OH.

OK, i will have to wait, a turn then, while he moves them.

 

 

did not know the only reason they would be lost is because Pete saw them.

 

course now I know I could capture troops in any pop group over one turn old.

[WKE235]

However it works there are only two real issues at hand. The attacker has to be able to establish a beachhead and the defender has to be able to boot them back to space. The first part generally works just fine however timing can always bite you in the a$$. The latter has never worked and it continues to be a problem. The defenders have got to be able to get rid of those pop groups. It matters not if an entire army is still sitting in crates ready to go or not. If the attacker fails to attack on impulse 4 on turn 2 then the beachhead pop group should not be safe. Just about all of my ground assaults have happened thus and have worked fine. The problems turn up when I get delayed, either by allies, fuel, circumstances, fuel, forgetfulness, fuel, mistakes or fuel, just to name a few. When that happens I just drop a new colony beacon and try again in a few turns.

 

It is also completely irrational that a thriving HW doesn't have the faintest idea that an enemy has dropped a pop group amongst the teaming masses on the world. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time and continues to really bug me. It should be fixed.

 

Let me also stand on my soap box and say that manual fixes between turns are a real pain. You can't plan when a manual fix is implemented just prior to the following turn. I have had numerous fleets fail to engage and sometimes they get fixed but not anything like always. I have also lost numerous fleets this same way and I find it quite annoying that I usually only find out about it after having sent in my orders, which is almost always on the date they are due and rarely early. The wasted orders to fleets that have been manually deleted do add up over time.

 

So, the comment at the top of this thread that pop groups have been reinstated and all is well is really beyond the pale. If these battles are over a HW then the defender should not be put in jeopardy by these last minute fiddles. If every correction was made the weekend turns came out and all sides knew about it 100% of the time then it could be accepted, but not in the current system.

 

In any event, good luck to all involved in the wars that started this thread.

 

Now where is my morning caffeine....

 

 

One item here .. on the turn after you drop the COLB, it is always possible that the enemy has built more ships. If your hold over the HW skies is weak, if they issue any order to scan space on round 1, a space battle will commence. Now, if you OC on round 1, the OC will always work (per Pete) as the battles happen after other orders are processed. If you are moving in a transport and it arrives on round 1, well, it can trigger the space battle itself. And yes I did have this happen to me (transport moved in, battle ensued, held the skies, but the transport went down in flames with 100 units). This makes for some interesting choices. If you are certain you will win the space, you can move in the transport after the battle (if you didn't win, well....) and your ready for the OC next turn. If you hold off before moving in, you best include a lot of ships as escort with the transport, just to be safe.

[Soerenjev]

So you just need a new order (Establish Beachhad) that creates a pop group, lands divisions and forms an army out of this divisions within 1 pulse.

[cestvel]

So you just need a new order (Establish Beachhad) that creates a pop group, lands divisions and forms an army out of this divisions within 1 pulse.

 

And assigns officers as well

 

It would have been better from the start when Armies would have been entities from the start, just like fleets and would have actually move when loaded on a ship.

 

This army would have no need for a popgroup and could assault a popgroup directly from orbit.

 

Maybe Pete could implement these and call it "Jump Troop" tech, where improved and advanced weapons are pre-requisites for

[Soerenjev]

So you just need a new order (Establish Beachhad) that creates a pop group, lands divisions and forms an army out of this divisions within 1 pulse.

 

And assigns officers as well

 

It would have been better from the start when Armies would have been entities from the start, just like fleets and would have actually move when loaded on a ship.

 

This army would have no need for a popgroup and could assault a popgroup directly from orbit.

 

Maybe Pete could implement these and call it "Jump Troop" tech, where improved and advanced weapons are pre-requisites for

 

[sir smeg]

why settle for a new tech, you could use all those shiny troop shuttles that have been sitting around since before you realized there really was no use for them.

 

Sir Smeg