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I have troops on troop ships orbiting an independent colony. I thought all I need to do is "attack" the colony, but when I do that, the troop fleet just doesn't do anything. What gives?

Hy Skunkpuppy,

welcome to this great game! Forgive the stupid question, but I can not imagine an other problem. Do you have troops loaded into the troop ships... If there are no troops the transport does nothing at all.
Or does the planet have any orbital shields? This can also pefent invasions as far as I know.

Have a good time with this masterpice!

Skunkpuppy,

chances are this is because your Troop Transport is out of fuel. Military ships, including transports, cannot attack when out of fuel.

Hi both,

Thanks very much. I've checked there is fuel and troops on the troop carriers. And it is troops not assault pods. I would attach a pic if they would let me

Did you declare "War" on them? I don't think it will let you invade until war is declared but what do I know I'm not sure of anything about this game anymore. You're lucky I can't even get my transports to load where I send them to load and then they go off somewhere across the galaxy and still don't load. Think I'm goin back to GalCiv. It's a much less complicated game and I can see the ship design features. The font in this game is sooooo small I don't think a rabbit could read it.

Did you declare "War" on them? I don't think it will let you invade until war is declared but what do I know I'm not sure of anything about this game anymore.

You do not need to declare war on anyone before landing troops on their planets. Moreover, it is impossible to issue a declaration of war to an independent colony as independent colonies do not appear in the diplomacy interface.

Sigh. I still I have no idea what I am doing wrong. Is there some automation setting or something perhaps?

ORIGINAL: Aeson

Did you declare "War" on them? I don't think it will let you invade until war is declared but what do I know I'm not sure of anything about this game anymore.

You do not need to declare war on anyone before landing troops on their planets. Moreover, it is impossible to issue a declaration of war to an independent colony as independent colonies do not appear in the diplomacy interface.

Then how am I getting more characters in my diplomacy screen than I had when I setup the game??? Who are these extra characters?

EDIT: I know the Guardians are one and they are in there also but who are these other characters. I know one of them is a Pirate from a pirate faction.

ORIGINAL: Skunkpuppy

Sigh. I still I have no idea what I am doing wrong. Is there some automation setting or something perhaps?

I have no idea either

With a fueled troop carrier (like a troop transport) carrying a troop, it should work to ctrl-right-click the colony (or the system if zoomed far out) and order "attack".

What could be wrong? You need to attack the colony, not a spaceport above it, but independents don't have spaceports.

If you have messed with designs it could maybe be possible to get some issue if the design is "invade when clear" (or whatever it says), but you need to have changed it to be this way. You could always click the design (link in the lower left with the transport selected) and look top left.

Is there already a ground battle at the colony? You should easily see that in the selection panel with the colony selected, the troop line. Not that it should prevent you from joining the fun, but...

No automation setting should mess up your attack even if you have everything automated. Automation does not change given orders, it just picks a new order once the previous one finishes.

Then how am I getting more characters in my diplomacy screen than I had when I setup the game??? Who are these extra characters?

Most of the factions beyond the standard empires you started the game with are in all likelihood pirate factions, which all should have a special flag indicating that status. Ancient Guardians can be an additional faction, as can another less friendly group which may occasionally pop up later in the game if the right storyline is enabled.

However, it is also possible for a sufficiently large independent colony to become a full-fledged empire. I think the required colony population is something like four or five billion people, though I am not certain. At that point, they should gain their own faction name, color, and influence bubble (though depending on the state of the game, it may be completely overwhelmed by a preexisting empire's influence bubble), and will be added to the diplomacy window. At this point, though, the colony is no longer independent; rather, it is the homeworld and capital of a new empire. Independent colonies, at least when discussing the game, are those colonies which are not part of an empire, not those which are not ruled from another world.


And sorry, Skunkpuppy, but I have no idea what's wrong with your troop ships.

try moving them all next to the target and rightclick it and set to invade there.

also, your troop ships are designed to Always Invade rite?

It could be they are actually invading he's just not seeing the invasion screen. Sometimes you have to click on the small troup icons in the planet window to goto the battle scene. Else it just plays out the battle without you seeing or even knowing about it sometimes. If you always have too few troops like I used to have you would lose every land battle anyways and would not know it sometimes as the messages sometimes come across so many and so fast you can easily miss one.

Ten thousand blessings on all of you. Indeed it was because for some strange reason, my design template had "Do not invade" on. When I updated and retrofitted, it all worked fine.

Mystery solved!

YAY let's have a beer!!!! Skunkpunny if buying

Is it maybe the setting for how far away a colony is for you to colonize? I am having the same issue my ships have fuel, they have troops and it won't let me. I have my game set to the lowest .5 sectors, and I believe this is whay.

Colonization range limits only matter to colony ships. You can invade any target your troop ships can reach no matter how low the colonization range limit is.

It would appear that Skumkpuppy's problem was that his or her troop ships were set to never invade in the design window. Perhaps your ships have the same issue.