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There are some really great new major features in Distant Worlds Legends, like bonus resources, characters, carriers, rail guns and phasers --- but there are also a lot of little improvements you will notice when you play.

I usually follow a hyper-expansion strategy in my DW games, so I was really interested in some of the improvements to invasions and ground combat.

For example, the attrition rate for ground troops in battles is now spread across all troops in the fight, not just one troop being sequentially destroyed at a time. Battles continue until one force is annihilated, but you are going to see readiness and strength more uniformly effected in surviving troop units. To give the player more information about ground combat, some new details were added to the colony screen (see top image). Now we can directly see the force ratios involved and watch the changes during the battle.

In terms of protecting yourself from invasion, keep an eye out for an important wonder -- the Merkidor Planetary Fortress (see bottom image)...

An impregnable stronghold with heavy defensive weaponry. Defense against invasion is increased by +200% for the colony with this wonder. It also provides a +30% development bonus to the colony.

Located on the armor branch of the technology tree, the fortress is a huge benefit for protecting your most valuable colony.

The duration of ground combat has also been tweaked so that battles with large opposing forces progress more quickly. That said, both you and your opponent still have enough time for reinforcement strategies.

In past games, did your newly conquered colonies immediately rebel? Colony tax now immediately goes to zero after a successful invasion. No more instant rebellion due to the previous faction's high tax rate. Troops on a colony's surface also help deter civil unrest.

One final note regarding troops. It always bothered me that unfinished troop units cost me the full maintenance cost. I was disadvantaged for adding four or five units to a colony build queue. As each unit recruited to full strength, I was paying for all the units as if they were full strength. No more. Now troop maintenance costs only begin when a troop unit is complete. There are no maintenance costs for troops while being initially recruited.

There are many other little tweaks and changes that improve DW gameplay, but as a diabolical tyrant, I particularly like the changes coming to invasion and ground combat. Speaking of tyranny, keep watching for some more notes about the new population policy features.

Good news about the tax reset on invasion.

Do I understand correctly that before in a 8 vs 4 invasion...

The 8 would burn down defenders to 3 quite quickly, then down to 2...0 taking 1 or 2 casualties?
While now they burn all 4 defenders equally, so the attackers all end up quite a bit hurt?

This would be a nice little change to "invasion hopping". I have never payed too much attention to my troops after invasion, and just loaded them ready to go to the next target. If the troops are a bunch at half health and easy to kill, I may want to reconsider that.

Is there any news on control of which troops go where, and on battle info?

In current DW, all the losses your troops take during ground combat are applied to one troop unit at a time.  So at the end of a battle the winning side would have some of their troop units destroyed, one troop unit with low strength, and the remaining survivors at full strength and readiness.  Not anymore.  Now all the troops involved in combat suffer attrition.  So the surviving force is going to have many units with lower readiness and strength of somewhat varying degrees.

EDIT: I should also add that only the troop units actually involved in combat change. Don't expect to see an entire force of 30 ground troop units receive experience bonuses (or attrition) just because they fought an opposing force of 3 troop units.

The above doesn't really sound like any new feature.

Just something which should have been ingame to begin with.

The fortress wonder is ok.

Nice changes! The "one vs. one" ground combats really didn't make any sense if you thought about it. Also, medical facilities are now very useful in warships transporting troops.

ORIGINAL: Malevolence
There are some really great new major features ... but there are also a lot of little improvements you will notice when you play ...

ORIGINAL: cookie monster
The above doesn't really sound like any new feature.

Just something which should have been ingame to begin with.

[8|]

The troll is strong with this one.

Nice improvements.Is the General a unit in itself or does it attach to a troop.

generals provide a number of bonuses that can help (or hurt) attack, defense, maintenance cost, recruitment, and recovery with all the troops in a fleet or on a colony. you assign them to a fleet or friendly colony. when assigned to a fleet, they will drop with the invasion force. the outcome of events like battles can improve their skills or spawn a trait. ground battles or building troops can also spawn a general. some races have an affinity for generals, so they spawn more often. they can be killed in combat.

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

Nice improvements.Is the General a unit in itself or does it attach to a troop.

In conjunction with what Malevolence stated;

The Troop General is a race character of its own. He/she can be assigned to a
colony planet with troops or without troops (the General will enhance troop
recruitment). The General can also be aboard a Troop Transport or any other
ship which has troops or a troop carrying component. The General can also
be assigned to a specific fleet which has at least one ship with a troop
carrying component. The General will accompany the troops during an invasion
and remain on the planet (if they are successful, and firstmost if they get
past the Planets' defenses and reach the surface)

Yes, the General, and any other character may be killed! Assassination,
planetary bombardment, SilverMist creature attack, and other ways! [:(]





"Where is that damn troop transport with our reinforcements?"

ORIGINAL: Malevolence

ORIGINAL: Malevolence
There are some really great new major features ... but there are also a lot of little improvements you will notice when you play ...

ORIGINAL: cookie monster
The above doesn't really sound like any new feature.

Just something which should have been ingame to begin with.

[8|]

The troll is strong with this one.

NICE!!!!

I was specifically talking about the troop ground combat "Improvements"

The all troops take damage, and all new troops cost maintenance were hardly improvements.

Should have been patched out ages ago.

There has been no patch for ROTS since March, CodeForce haven't posted since around March.

I reported 10 serious bugs and never had a response.???

If you complained to customer complaints 10 times and didnt get a response wouldnt you be annoyed about uploading 10 save games to the server.

So before calling someone a troll... Check their post count, know ALL about their history, and previous bug reporting on this forum.

Haha the "new" guy calls me a troll!!!

Haha

Oh yeah trolls are repetetive and don't explain themselves I only posted once before being insulted.

Don't call people trolls who you don't know.

Green Button them!

This is my last word on this matter.

Hi Cookie Monster,

ORIGINAL: cookie monster
The all troops take damage, and all new troops cost maintenance were hardly improvements.
Should have been patched out ages ago.

Those were not bugs, so they would not have been patched. These are improvements, though they may be very minor for some players. We haven't even mentioned them in the features list, so Malevolence wanted to highlight a few that may be nice surprises.

There has been no patch for ROTS since March, CodeForce haven't posted since around March.
I reported 10 serious bugs and never had a response.???
If you complained to customer complaints 10 times and didnt get a response wouldnt you be annoyed about uploading 10 save games to the server.

You may have missed my post regarding Return of the Shakturi. After the major 1.5.0.8 update, we expected that the next update for ROTS would come in parallel with the work on Legends. I posted about that several times. Unfortunately, doing the update in parallel proved to be more difficult than expected. The good news is that another update is still coming and now it will have the full benefit of all the fixes made during the development of Legends as well.

We ended up having to do the same thing with the original Distant Worlds and updated that again after the Return of the Shakturi release (we also included some of the AI improvements in that update). I'm sorry this has caused frustration, but we're moving as fast as we can and you have not been forgotten.

Regards,

- Erik

Nice improvements. Thanks for the info.

There doesn't appear to be a clear reason why we aren't told the total defending strength in an easy to read single value. It would have been clearer to have the total defending strength given with the breakdown in brackets after.

To give the player more information about ground combat, some new details were added to the colony screen (see top image).

Is the tooltip describing what facilities actually do (for a wonder in this case) something new? Or just for wonders? Or do I just somehow have it not enabled in game?

ORIGINAL: Sithuk

Nice improvements. Thanks for the info.

There doesn't appear to be a clear reason why we aren't told the total defending strength in an easy to read single value. It would have been clearer to have the total defending strength given with the breakdown in brackets after.

To give the player more information about ground combat, some new details were added to the colony screen (see top image).

I agree something like "246K vs 320K (178K + 142K from population)" would be an improvement.

ORIGINAL: Keston

Is the tooltip describing what facilities actually do (for a wonder in this case) something new? Or just for wonders? Or do I just somehow have it not enabled in game?

Many tool tips in DW Legends; not just wonders.

Look like some nice minor tweaks.  Question regarding troops (and this might not be just for Legends but in general):

When troops regiments "heal", do they retain their strength?  I believe they do but it doesn't make logical sense.  If many troops die in battle and that regiment must get new troops, they'd obviously be getting green troops without the experience.  Thus, their overall effectiveness would be less now that green troops are mixed with the veteran ones. 

An army, supplied by veterans, is in most cases a better army than you can imagine. First of a veteran will help you not to repeat his mistakes on a battlefield. He will guide you through your fear or moral endeavours and he can train you.
A veteran army which is "replenished" by ordinary troops should therefore not suffer a mayor blow in overall prowess. Though a little penalty would be logical yes.

ORIGINAL: Nedrear

An army, supplied by veterans, is in most cases a better army than you can imagine. First of a veteran will help you not to repeat his mistakes on a battlefield. He will guide you through your fear or moral endeavours and he can train you.
A veteran army which is "replenished" by ordinary troops should therefore not suffer a mayor blow in overall prowess. Though a little penalty would be logical yes.

Should depend on the casualties taken. A unit that takes 10% casualties repeatedly will be quite experienced. A unit that takes 90% casualties will be drained of most of its leadership, at all levels.

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

Look like some nice minor tweaks.  Question regarding troops (and this might not be just for Legends but in general):

When troops regiments "heal", do they retain their strength?  I believe they do but it doesn't make logical sense.  If many troops die in battle and that regiment must get new troops, they'd obviously be getting green troops without the experience.  Thus, their overall effectiveness would be less now that green troops are mixed with the veteran ones. 

I never noticed any degrading of my 20,000 strong troop units when I was doing mass invasions.

My guess is that new recruits do not lower the troop experience, but this is just a guess.

When you have high level troops make sure to build the troop cloning facilty.

This way all your troops are high strength.

I always wanted to see this in any ground combat game, I really loved this experience / rookie mix in Panzer General 2. Afaik in DW once you gain the experience you retain it even if 90% of the troops are lost and the unit is renewed with rookies.