Ground Combat

[RTGPete]

Sounds like we could use alot more information on ground combat results. Not numbers (since we dont want to just reduce everything to number crunching), but more general information on how environment, leaders, installations, tactics, and all the other factors may impact things. After all (assuming you have any surviving troops at the end) you certainly would know how many died in combat, how many died from adverse environment (or how it affected them), how the enemy fought (racial modifiers),whether or not your army released nuclear/chemical/biological weapons, etc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually I think the ground combat results are pretty good as is. You have enough information to see the exact TAC bonuses from both sides, and you even get a nice display of captured technology at the bottom. Ground invasions of note are incredibly rare in the game in any event.

 

Your enemy always releases nuclear/chemical/biological weapons, and always uses every weapon he has at his disposal. It's just a matter of both of you bringing along the right equipment and technology. Ground tactics simply emphasize one area over another.

 

Lifeform GCM's modify odds by making your troops dish out more than normal firepower.

 

Lifeform DEF makes your troops harder to kill.

 

I'll eliminate the word "unmodified" outright.

 

Assuming that losses will be even at a 1:1 odds ratio would be incorrect. It is wise to increase one's odds, especially on an invasion of an alien world, as much as alien-ly possible. Odds of a few to one (3:1, say) are not sufficient to overcome the many disadvantages of dropping one's troops on an alien and almost certainly hostile world.

 

One might make a comparison between this ground combat system and those used in many classic hex-based wargames. With the emphasis on achieving column shifts here, the odds table is set up to encourage that strategy, so while 1:1 odds in the hex-based boardgame were somewhat risky, it is generally unwise here. While 3:1 odds is what you wanted to achieve in the boardgame, you want more here. However, the basic idea is the same - move those odds up as much as possible to push the results chances more and more in your favor.

 

If you are a brain-in-a-jar race and choose to invade, you are not building divisions so much as to gain odds as to bring along fodder for the casualty list. Your odds must come from column shifts in this case, while your troops are there in abundance because you're going to lose a lot of them....and you want to end with something surviving in order to achieve victory. Your DEF and GCM are probably horrible anyway, so odds shifts are where it's at in this case. Naturally, the alternative is to hire a mercenary who is actually good at this sort of business

[WKE235]

Pete -- Can battles result in damage to existing infrastructure? Can a big battle result in destroying some industry and mines and the like? OR, do those stay essentially unaffected in a ground battle? I suspect the answer may be no, as despite my listing of nuke weapons, the HW seemed pretty normal. No piles of radioactive this or that laying about. No reports of destroying "X" mines. At all seemed up and running. Of course it could be as simple as the weapons in use were still pretty weak .. so the side damage just never occurred.

 

 

Note -- trying to get a big odds shift aka board games does make sense, at least to me. The defender should always get an advantage as you have to advance into their fire to take their turf to defeat them. Also, they defenders know the terrain and can prepare for advancing troops. So having to get enough odds through piles of fire power and/or TAC advantages make sense. I guess the other option to a mass attack is to soften them up first with orbital bombarments. But this is softened up by the various shield techs like Tower Shields for the troops. Which just require bigger MDD's to get through. And lets not forget how all the ground techs immediately are given to all constructed units. No need to rebuild things like ships. Hmmmm ... all those quiet turtle players out there, sitting with a balanced force of 20-30 mixed divisions on their HW's, could be very difficult to conquer. As long as you stay active and keep building troops, you could stay safe in your shell for awhile (or at least till someone develops a stellar detonator and blows your whole system out of the game).

[hobknob]

The anwer is apparent again. Build more troops. The turtle with 20-30 divisions will be a minor speed bump when the 200 division army lands, even with inferior technology.

 

[Ixitixl]

The story can be very different if the "turtle" has some major racial ground combat bonuses... In one ground war I was involved in, the odds ratio was 7:1 in my favor; and his army was slightly larger than mine.

[WKE235]

The anwer is apparent again.  Build more troops.  The turtle with 20-30 divisions will be a minor speed bump when  the 200 division army lands, even with inferior technology.

 

   

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And what is the turtle player building while you ready build the 200 divisions + 200 troop berthings + TWD + engines for quick movement? Lots more troops themselves .. using the stockpiled iron and light metals. By the time your 200 get there, they are facing 250.

 

AND .. how do you tell there are "X" troops there? Use a spy? Pmap and Orb's don't do it.

 

Plus, you have to first build a colony on the planet on turn X. Only then do you know where to disembark the troops on turn X+1 (which you then assign to a division, and then give the division combat orders for attack and defense, plus then you have to transfer in any legendary characters to that army, and then finally you are ready to attack .. whew!). If the player is active and stays for the fight, you could easily lose your forces to a GATK while still landing the troops, before assigned to a army (so no defense).

[Lumeria]

If the player is active and stays for the fight, you could easily lose your forces to a GATK while still landing the troops, before assigned to a army (so no defense).

 

You cannot attk an empty pop seg.

[ali-t-akua]

The anwer is apparent again.  Build more troops.  The turtle with 20-30 divisions will be a minor speed bump when  the 200 division army lands, even with inferior technology.

 

   

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And what is the turtle player building while you ready build the 200 divisions + 200 troop berthings + TWD + engines for quick movement? Lots more troops themselves .. using the stockpiled iron and light metals. By the time your 200 get there, they are facing 250.

 

AND .. how do you tell there are "X" troops there? Use a spy? Pmap and Orb's don't do it.

 

Plus, you have to first build a colony on the planet on turn X. Only then do you know where to disembark the troops on turn X+1 (which you then assign to a division, and then give the division combat orders for attack and defense, plus then you have to transfer in any legendary characters to that army, and then finally you are ready to attack .. whew!). If the player is active and stays for the fight, you could easily lose your forces to a GATK while still landing the troops, before assigned to a army (so no defense).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I have always had the impression that in this game an actively played defense will be nearly impossible to overcome for another player. Maybe my impression is wrong but I would expect that you will need at least one ally in order to beat an actively played position. Two would be even better because while you are building troops and transports, your opponent can be building trrops as well where as when you have allies each can take a specific task or pool their resources.

[hobknob]

It is entirely possible that a position that is turtling ahs been producing 10 divisions a turn for 90+ turns. I don't think it very likely, but it is possible. I would suppose that they could be left alone or else just nuke the planet until there is no pop left.

 

The question was not what 900 divisions would take to be beaten, rather that the player with 20-30 divisions of a balanced force would be difficult to overcome.

 

[WKE235]

If the player is active and stays for the fight, you could easily lose your forces to a GATK while still landing the troops, before assigned to a army (so no defense).

 

You cannot attk an empty pop seg.

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GATK is not population group specific. It merely tells your army to attack and engage any and all enemy forces on the planet. Now, if there are no enemy forces, there is no "attack" per say (so your troops can be embarked via EAF, and moved elsewhere .. very useful for taking multiple colonies one after the other on one turn). But any POP groups that belong to the "enemy" (anyone NOT of your race) still get transferred to your control and ownership (including any stockpiles in those locations).

I know this works as I have taken multiple colonies in a turn where the only thing on the planet was the races Imperial Flag. I flew through on one turn dropping colonies on all the target worlds. The next turn, I follow through with landing one bored infantry, formed up the division, GATK, EAF, and move to the next planet to repeat (till the ship runs out of AP's). The more AP, the more you can take this way in a turn (if there are no enemy troops around). Your guys march in, change the name tag on the door, the place is yours, and off they go.

 

I can promise you that Pop levels in the group make no difference in taking the location. I've taken locations with no installations, no stockpiles, and 0 POP. I've taken fuel depots with no installations, 0 POP, and just Fuel stockpiled. I've taken groups with no installations, just POP and piles of other goods all unused. And of course I taken colonies bursting at the seems with goods and workers. And all have been transferred over to my control with no problems.

 

Well .. there was ONE small problem .. one location did get transferred to my control .. but disappeared from production queue even though they kept producing Iron every turn. Strangely the Stockpile listed two Iron piles in the same Pop group, one of which I watched increase each turn for several turns, showing the industry was mining away. Pete's attempt to fix this strange little bug resulted in the whole colony disappearing from my reports .. not quite the fix I had in mind given the piles of lovely Iron they had and could produce. Who knows, someone may have an extra colony on their reports right now, as they had to go somewhere, right?! Anyway, I hope he will correct this on this turn per my emails.

[Lumeria]

But any POP groups that belong to the "enemy" (anyone NOT of your race) still get transferred to your control and ownership (including any stockpiles in those locations). 

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If this is true then all one must do is issue a HW GATK order on impulse 1 of every turn and they cannot EVER be ground assaulted.

 

I hardly believe that is what Pete had in mind.

[WKE235]

But any POP groups that belong to the "enemy" (anyone NOT of your race) still get transferred to your control and ownership (including any stockpiles in those locations). 

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If this is true then all one must do is issue a HW GATK order on impulse 1 of every turn and they cannot EVER be ground assaulted.

 

I hardly believe that is what Pete had in mind.

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Quite correct. And I asked Pete on this exact same questions long ago .. and got this answer

 

** On one turn you create the pop group. On the following turn, once you know the pop group #, you can offload troops (in your first order if you like), create an army there, DIV them, and GATK. The owner of the world cannot stop this process unless he destroys your troop transports before they OC the divisions. If for any reason he GATK's to try and take your pop group as a matter of course, I can intervene to prevent it - such a strategy would simply be an attempt to use game mechanics to defend a world, which I can prohibit as a matter of course. --Pete

 

IN other words, there is nothing in the game programming to stop this. But Pete is aware of this potential for someone to twist the game in a way not intended. I think I have a later mail where I posited during the reverse (do a GATK near the end of every turn and hope it comes after the person builds the colony), and got a similar response from Pete (dang, can't find it ...Pete?). Not an elegent solution. But it works.

 

Still, for the defender, if they know the invasion is coming .. they have at least 3 orders (Land troops, Form army, transfer in divisions, GATK with no leaders and using default battle options) in which to prepare defenses. So they could still DISM something and build lots of Field Fortifications or a similar defensive installation, carry out some other action based on tech advances, assign leaders, give battle orders, etcetera... Another is move in a fleet from someplace else on Action 1 and try to destroy the invader.