Overwhelmed by minor regime less than 5 turns into the game

[btonasse]

Just bought the game and this happened (regular difficulty). I think on turn 4 a myriad of minor regime units appeared and just took all my hexes. When attacked the outcome was invariably defeat even when I had superior numbers. The only unit that had successful attacks was a walker I got via an event, but one unit could not stop 10+ counters surrounding me from every side. And even the walker couldn't beat some of these units that had 100%+ entrenchment bonus even though they had just entered a hex the turn before (?).

How am I supposed to avoid this? Is this just bad luck or am I missing something? Thanks in advance, any insight is welcome!

[Hazard151]

Bad luck, sounds like you have a slaver/raider neighbour.

[Frostwave]

First thing welcome, second beginner is best place to start its not like other games beginner will give you a run for your money regular might be a bit hard for a new player. Third watch Dastactics tutorial vids and read first half of manual the rest of it can be used as a reference guide.

link to tutorial vids

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4833342

[76mm]

Same thing happened to me, but on beginner and on Turn 3! At least I hadn't spent much time on the game...

Next game was completely and totally different, but still not easy. I would definitely recommend starting on beginner.

[btonasse]

Thanks guys, will reload on beginner difficulty and see how it goes.

Also, how do I improve recon on a hex?

I'm more or less halfway through the manual and don't remember having read anything about it, or maybe missed it.

[JWW]

I think this is actually good to hear. It shows there is a very great deal of variety built into the game including untenable opening positions. Now I've started six games, all on beginner, and have not see a situation even approaching that, but I think it it good to hear.

[Hazard151]

ORIGINAL: btonasse

Thanks guys, will reload on beginner difficulty and see how it goes.

Also, how do I improve recon on a hex?

I'm more or less halfway through the manual and don't remember having read anything about it, or maybe missed it.

Recon is a unit stat; your Recon Buggies provide a good number of it relative to their size and motorcycles are best at it, but the easiest way to increase recon is to just pile in more units.

I mean, a single hex is something like 200 km per side, so just a thousand foot soldiers in that hex probably aren't going to have a lot of information about the hexes around them, but a thousand of recon buggies sure will simply because they can move farther and faster.

Not that you'll need that many buggies. A single independent battalion should deliver something like 40 recon to all hexes around it off the top of my head, which is enough to detect the presence and type of enemy forces, if not an accurate count of numbers.

[Frostwave]

For the future to make things easier for you. When I have a question first thing I try is to check the manual. Quick way to do this is use this link copy it into Explorer's address bar hit enter or just click on link and after it loads it should have a search function located on top of page. Type in a few words related to your question and then you should see a number displaying the amount of results and to the right of that arrow buttons keep clicking on the right arrow until you find the section that has your answer. If that doesn't work then off to the forums to ask. Also good idea to use search function in the forums to see if someone else has asked the same question. Can save you time waiting for a response. Best of luck with your next game.

https://www.matrixgames.com/amazon/PDF/ ... _EBOOK.pdf

[scottrossi]

When you're starting a new game, pay attention to the amount of raiders on a world. They'll crush you if they are right near you, and if there's too many, it's going to be a painful game. I've also had this happen on worlds that were 0% raiders, but with the nomads. They're usually smaller and easier to deal with, but still troublesome.

[zgrssd]

Recon is a unit stat. You need 40 on a hex for unit information - otherwise you can run into a ambush. 100 for a usefull combat chance preview. Note that some terrain provides "hide points", increasing the tresholds accordingly.

100 Infantery/1 Unit of Infantery usually have 1 Recon. So even a whole Brigade of 5000 Infantery has issues getting 50 onto any one hex.
10 Buggies/1 Unit of Buggies meanwhile has 5. So 50 Buggies have 25.
The best a Motorcycles, 7/Unit for 35 for a independant size 5 unit.

If you go with bigger formations later, it becomes a non issue. Infantery Regiments are 36 subunits, so 36 Recon. But they are giant sinks of Manpower. And usually a lot of small units are better.

[FlashXAron_slith]

LOL same her since turn 5 the raiders swarming around my city ...

started a normal game, but with epic research and no ministries and armies , only militia ...

already killed over 30000 raiders and managed to build a "MP batalion" , which was able to hold the city with the militia ...
don't know, if they ever will run out of manpower or the game cheat also in that field ... if so , it is senseless ...
I really hope we will get in some months an "routine which controls pc nations", which has to play with the same rules as human players,
than it will be a great game

Really wish the devs the best, that they could find a solution for this task !

[Laiders]

Game explicitly states slavers do not need manpower in the same way. Their heavy presence in your zone allows them to recruit and replenish from your population or sell slaves of your pops to same effect. This is why you check them at your borders, if possible. This is in the manual. It is a feature not a bug and it is a key fact in defeating them. Encircle and destroy, encircle and destroy. It's not that hard.

BTW all people who have been stomped by raiders/slavers. I remember reading in the changelogs that there were some bugs allowing them to spawn with way more units than they are supposed to. Those are being addressed. You may want to consider playing on the latest patch and restarting if you got swarmed by totally disproportional forces as that may not have been intended.

Flash you were unlucky to even get raiders/slavers on a Siwa class. Why to you persist in highlighting the game in its worse possible light using misleading, disingenuous and partial information to discourage new players? Why do you also persist in never reading the manual even when explicitly told to and when sections of it explaining your problem are quoted at you?

EDIT: apologies Flash those are definitely raiders as they have a zone. See above bug. Militia will keep coming until city pop is out. Depopulating a city will take a while. Encircle and destroy, encircle and destroy. They are only militia and have all the staying power of wet tissue paper without makeshift vechile support.

If you have buyer's regret, talk to Matrix Support about a refund. If you have questions learning the game, ask. If you have constructive criticism, then critique constructively. If you just want to sh*tpost, go somewhere else.

[zgrssd]

Did you ever have a wide defensive line? Something like 1 unit per hex, in a 10+ hex line?

Encirclement is a very dangerous thing in this game. But so is entrechnment on the defense. And those enemy troops are only militia quality.
That being said, this terrain seems unusually flat. Even infantry can only go up to 50 Entrenchment there.

[MC456]

An MG Infantry Brigade is a perfect starter as your first multi-unit military recruitment. At the start of the game you can use your militia to defend key points, in which case they will also get entrenchment bonuses as defenders. Surrounding enemy formations with your 5 infantry battalions will make quick work of them. Try to get an attack from at least 3 directions. Or better yet, just let them run into your machine guns and it will be a meatgrinder for them.

Attach an Artillery battalion or Light Armor (with howitzers) battalion to your brigade and it will be piss easy.

[Hazard151]

Yeah, artillery's great advantage is that it blows apart entrenchments. Opening up with a bombardment before performing a normal attack is pretty effective.

[btonasse]

To all (but the 'funny' guy, of course): thanks for your invaluable tips!

[76mm]

Just started a new game at the beginner level in which my neighbors are slavers. They have no cities or resources in their territory, yet their army is bigger than mine, and they have tanks at the very beginning of the game. To top things off, a two hundred man slaver battalion has held off my 3000 man regiment for several turns in a row, inflicting heavy losses.

While I'm wrestling with the slavers, who have absolutely nothing worth conquering, my other neighbors are now encroaching from two other directions.

In my opinion the slavers need to be nerfed, because this isn't fun at all.

[Naselus]

Raiders and other minors will (and should) never play by the same rules as the player. They're the equivalent of Civ's Barbarians, they're not intended to be other nations really. They're really only dangerous if you're on a low starting tech level, they fall apart very easily once you start to out-tech them - once you have a single decent unit of light armour you can pretty comfortably crush almost limitless numbers of them.

[FAA]

I’ve never seen that but I usually plan on planets with small populations, usually about 1 mil after the apocalypse, so minors don’t have as many men I think.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Naselus
They're really only dangerous if you're on a low starting tech level, they fall apart very easily once you start to out-tech them - once you have a single decent unit of light armour you can pretty comfortably crush almost limitless numbers of them.

Yes, I always start with lower tech levels, but I thought that meant that everyone started at lower tech levels, not just me?

Besides that fact that it will take my research some time to get light armor, in my last two games I've struggled to build even infantry, because I have no IP or metal. And in the last game, the infantry I did build was slaughtered by a vastly smaller slaver infantry force.

If I keep having to abandon 3/4 of my starts because of stuff like this, I'm not sure this is the game for me.