Victory conditions with Ancient guardians (possibly even Shakturis).

[forsaken1111]

I still think you shouldn't be able to land troops while a planet has a spaceport/starbase in orbit personally. Seems cheap to just drop troops and lol.

[ASHBERY76]

ORIGINAL: forsaken1111

I still think you shouldn't be able to land troops while a planet has a spaceport/starbase in orbit personally. Seems cheap to just drop troops and lol.

Why? It you like realism I see no reason a space base should block a whole planet from invasion.

[forsaken1111]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

ORIGINAL: forsaken1111

I still think you shouldn't be able to land troops while a planet has a spaceport/starbase in orbit personally. Seems cheap to just drop troops and lol.

Why? It you like realism I see no reason a space base should block a whole planet from invasion.

Because I've used this method to take over entire empires without losing a ship or firing a shot. It feels cheap but its really the easiest way to take planets. Just build a bunch of transports with massive shields.

Sure one or two will die, the other 5 get through and lol I win.

I don't know how to fix it, just saying it feels silly. In reality it would take a lot longer to land troops on a planet's surface and the space station and combat fleet in orbit would have a lot of time to shoot at the transports I would think.

[adecoy95]

i agree, troop transports right now are the single most effective means to destroy your opponents, warp in, take the world at 30+ speed, warp out.... let the new shiny spaceports destroy all the enemy reinforcements that arrive.

a device you can put on space ports that prevent troops from landing could be handy, and it could definatly go in the game without feeling gimmicky.... perhaps a device that is so effective at killing your landed troops that any attempt to land would result in extreme losses... laser bees or something[:'(]


oh and as an added thought, just for the lulz, i took all the troops i got from the guardians from their ships, and it was something like 85, i used them to wipe out a neighbors that were not happy with me

[forsaken1111]

Here's an idea. The planetary shield projector you can build on your planets should stop troop landings until it is brought down by bombardment.

Of course it should probably be made more expensive as well.

[Aures]

I prefer the way the planetary shield works atm, makes bombardment totally ineffective and forces the invading force to use ground troops.

Troop transports are not unblanced if you stick to the default designs. The problem is players can design transports that are far more effective at rushing a planet than anything the AI has access to. Not sure whether anything reasonable can (or should) be done to make invading with an overwhelming ground force an unattractive option. Hopefully we will get the ability to mod default designs sooner rather than later so the player does not get so many advantages over the AI by designing ships sensibly.

[forsaken1111]

ORIGINAL: Aures

I prefer the way the planetary shield works atm, makes bombardment totally ineffective and forces the invading force to use ground troops.

Troop transports are not unblanced if you stick to the default designs. The problem is players can design transports that are far more effective at rushing a planet than anything the AI has access to. Not sure whether anything reasonable can (or should) be done to make invading with an overwhelming ground force an unattractive option. Hopefully we will get the ability to mod default designs sooner rather than later so the player does not get so many advantages over the AI by designing ships sensibly.

The only thing changing the AI's designs would do is make them able to use the same cheap tactic. It should be fixed, not made available to everyone. This is analogous to landing troops on a foreign beach without fighting their naval ships off the coast and taking control of the sea, it makes little sense in reality as the troops would be bombarded by the naval ships from behind and the enemy troops from the front.

Really though I don't care how 'realistic' the game is so long as it is fun, and being able to win the game without building a single destroyer isn't all that fun. Devote all of your money to troop transports and you win.

[Aures]

Yeah, I'm sure if enemy troops land on US shores (because the transports carrying them are too heavily armored to be blown up) the first the the US will do is promptly nuke its own territory. Sorry for the sarcasm, I know that is not what you were trying to get at.

I'm still not convinced the tactic is as cheap/unrealistic/unfair/unfun as you make out or needs fixing in the manner you describe. Don't forget that improved deafult designs would not be limited to troop transports. You would have to get past the beefed up ships, defensive bases and space port weapons before you could land troops. If a planet has a decent number of troops it will take a while for the invasion to succeed no matter how many troops you land. There is scope for change but I don;t think it needs to be anything radical. Maybe the AI should be more inclined to move in its own troop transports and land more troops (as I would do if somehow the AI managed to land an invasion force at one of my planets). Maybe the process of landing troops should take a little longer so it is harder to have troop transports land troops while under fire.

Btw are you actually able to go the whole game (with decently difficult settings) while building troop transports almost exlusively? I would think you would get pwned by pirates, space creatures and enemy ships. And what is the most heavily defended planet you have invaded? Taking a planet with max population (of a race that has stats that improve colony defense from the population), fortified bunker, shield, ion cannon, large space port, multiple defensive bases, gravity well projector, large numbers of good strength troops (with any of the troop facilities present) and a large fleet of ships defending it (assuming your tech level is comparable) isn't exactly a walk in the park no matter how beefy your troop transports are.

[forsaken1111]

ORIGINAL: Aures

Yeah, I'm sure if enemy troops land on US shores (because the transports carrying them are too heavily armored to be blown up) the first the the US will do is promptly nuke its own territory. Sorry for the sarcasm, I know that is not what you were trying to get at.

I'm still not convinced the tactic is as cheap/unrealistic/unfair/unfun as you make out or needs fixing in the manner you describe. Don't forget that improved deafult designs would not be limited to troop transports. You would have to get past the beefed up ships, defensive bases and space port weapons before you could land troops. If a planet has a decent number of troops it will take a while for the invasion to succeed no matter how many troops you land. There is scope for change but I don;t think it needs to be anything radical. Maybe the AI should be more inclined to move in its own troop transports and land more troops (as I would do if somehow the AI managed to land an invasion force at one of my planets). Maybe the process of landing troops should take a little longer so it is harder to have troop transports land troops while under fire.

Btw are you actually able to go the whole game (with decently difficult settings) while building troop transports almost exlusively? I would think you would get pwned by pirates, space creatures and enemy ships. And what is the most heavily defended planet you have invaded? Taking a planet with max population (of a race that has stats that improve colony defense from the population), fortified bunker, shield, ion cannon, large space port, multiple defensive bases, gravity well projector, large numbers of good strength troops (with any of the troop facilities present) and a large fleet of ships defending it (assuming your tech level is comparable) isn't exactly a walk in the park no matter how beefy your troop transports are.

Well in the game I was talking about I had escorts and frigates (size 125 and 175 respectively) for defense and pirate chasing but I executed a war without ever building or using a warship. My troop transports each held 5 troops, moved at a high rate of speed and had about double the shields of a standard transport. I would send 5-6 of those at a planet and if even 2 landed the troops it was game over, as I have never seen the AI put more than 10 troops on its own planets.

Only once did this not work, and it was against the arachnid race. Their home world's large spaceport managed to blow up all 6 transports... so next wave I sent 10 and "yay I win".

I really think the best fix for this would be making landing troops take much longer, so the troop transports are more or less sitting ducks if there is heavy resistance, and maybe change the AI's combat routines to target troop carriers first if they are inbound to the planet. You can achieve the same result much easier if you send some heavily defended frigates to screen the transports because the AI considers them more of a threat and ignores your transports entirely sometimes.

[Aures]

Ah ok, you have yet to see AI planets with 50+ troops (as I have). Different matter entirely. Anything with 10 troops or fewer is basically undefended in my reckoning, since my usual invasion force of 100+ troops would crush them quick smart. You must have some pretty good troop strength for 10 of your troops to reliably beat 10 enemy troops on their home turf, probably also means they did not have fortified bunkers (unless your troops are vastly superior to theirs). Troop rushing is a great early game strategy, but every RTS has ways of crushing the enemy early on by focusing on offensive forces while they are still building up. If you are able to dominate the entire galaxy with such a strategy it is time to raise the difficulty in the game setup.

Sounds like making dropping off troops at an enemy planet take longer (pretty much instant atm once the transport docks) might be a good solution then. Only issue with that is you can only land 2 troop transports at once (since you can't use the space port) so you would suffer extra attrition in all circumstances because it takes longer to get troops on the ground. As long as the delay is small it wouldn't be too much of an issue, if you have a ridiculous enough number of troops invasion is already impossible because the invading force can't land fast enough, this change would just lower that number (but it would still be more than the total number of troops a 100+ colony empire would have). The delay could be a fixed amount of time per transport/troop module or depend on the number of troops on the transport (but all the troops should land at once at the end of the delay, landing one troop at a time would lead to silly amounts of attrition until you get a sizeable force on the ground).

My preferred option would be for each troop module to have a troop throughput rate just like docking bays have a cargo throughput rate. That would mean the landing rate could be improved as you research better troop transport techs (and of course the massive troop compartment would have a better throughput than the standard troop compartment) and you could reduce total landing time by having more troop modules per troop on the transport (with a floor value at 1 troop per module so landing a transport with a single troop wouldn't be any quicker if you have more than one troop module). Or to put it more plainly via example, if you are able to land 1 troop per 10 seconds for each troop compartment but you only have 1 troop on board it would take 10 seconds no matter how many troop compartments you have. Being able to improve the landing rate would seriously blunt the effectiveness of troop rushing in the early game while allowing the massive invasion forces required in late game to get on the ground quickly.

[forsaken1111]

I don't think the game had been going long enough for them to research fortified bunkers. I won that game before I ever got any of the advanced tech, wiped out everyone with troop transports. You must be playing pretty late into the game to see 100+ troops on a colony, I have never seen that.

[Aures]

Well I haven't seen more than 100, that is the force I usually use to invade a colony/system to ensure quick victory. But 50+ is not unusual.

I would suggest maybe upping the galaxy expansion to create empires with more territory at the start and higher tech levels, or manually adding empires that start off in a better position than you.

[forsaken1111]

I may try that. My last two games have ground to a halt due to civilian transport issues.

[adecoy95]

i have NEVER seen a world with 50+ troops, and i play on restless and above. the most i have ever seen was 25 or so.