Bombarding can't hurt ground troops - bug or feature?

[WiZz]

Hi all!

Today I was gaming and saw one interesting thing. Bombs can't hurt troops in Legends.
Long ago I read Erik's post, where he said, that troops were located in underground bunkers and can't be damaged by bombs.
But in ROTS I remember well, that bombarding was extremely useful before planetary assaults, especially against capitals with their huge garrisons.
Bombs in Legends easy kill the leader, generals, governors. Or are they such heroic that don't hide in bunkers?

Can me anybody explain?

[tomjoolz]

I could kill ground forces with bombardment with the .04 beta. Haven't tried with the most recent patch.

[WiZz]

Interesting. I'm use 1.7.0.6...

[Gray Death]

In 1.7.0.5 i had the same problem, bombed a planet down to 15% quality and still 23 battaillons on the planet...

[Gelatinous Cube]

But will those troops still be good on defense? Did it affect their readiness? Or maybe mess their health up but not kill them? Or is it useless?

No point in bombarding a colony if it won't kill the troops, unless you're just trying to be a dick to the other empires.

[DasTactic]

I've noticed this as well. It is really a matter of bombing the planet until it is wiped out now.I preferred the old way where troops took attrition.

[Evil Steve]

ORIGINAL: Das123

I've noticed this as well. It is really a matter of bombing the planet until it is wiped out now.I preferred the old way where troops took attrition.

me too. i bombed a planet down to 10m population: it still kept it's full garrison. i was hoping that being completely broke that the ai might disband the troops, but it didn't.

it's making the taking of home planets (already quite difficult), more difficult.

Steve

[Erik Rutins]

Hm, nothing was changed here intentionally, so I'm moving it to the support forum as a likely bug.

Regards,

- Erik

[apbarog]

Pre-Legends bombarding did affect enemy troops as well as enemy population. In my last Legend's bombardment, with the original Legend's release code and no patch, there were over 20 enemy troop units, and a large population. The bombardment killed off population until there was none. There were still many enemy troop units. I cannot say with 100% certainty that no enemy units were killed by bombardment, but for killing off billions of population, it seemed like none were killed. Then, when all population was gone, all of the enemy troops and all of my invading troops disappeared, as there was no longer a colony there.

[elliotg]

Thanks for all the feedback here.

No bug in this situation, it's just that troop attrition now works differently in Legends. Each bombard impact randomly applies damage to a different troop at the colony. So a single troop will take some damage, but a single bombard impact is not normally enough to wipe out the troop unit. Because the bombardment tends to spread damage across all the troop units at a colony, there is less chance of troops being completely wiped out - instead their readiness will be reduced. They can still be destroyed however (if the same troop unit is bombarded often enough).

In summary, population is more likely to wiped out before troops are (especially at small colonies).

In the next update I'll increase the amount of damage that bombardment does to troops at colonies. This will make the old strategy of wiping out troops by bombardment more viable.

[DasTactic]

I've been bombing the large homeworlds and I haven't noticed any reduction in troops even when the initial population is massive.

[Bingeling]

Did you check defense strength with and without bombardment? Even if you can't kill them, you could still have reduced their strength to a fraction and paved the way for invasion.

If this works, it becomes a "pre invasion bombardment" and it all feels quite WW1

[Okim]

Used bombardment in 17.04 pretty often to soften defences. Worked like charm. Played as humans and used first level bombs, the next game used shaktur torpedoes as boshkara - both did kill troopers. Haven`t yet used bombardment it in 05-06 though.

[Gelatinous Cube]

Ah, thanks Elliot! Works like I thought then. If you bombard a colony and then invade, you should win much more easily! Nevermind the amount of troops.

Can you check enemy troop readiness by mousing over? I know you can with your own, but not sure about enemies.

If this works, it becomes a "pre invasion bombardment" and it all feels quite WW1

War in this game has always felt very WW1, with just a dash of WW2 at the end-game. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but I love it.

[DasTactic]

Here are some hard numbers from 1.7.0.6:

Start pop 2,500K; Quality 60%; Defensive strength 1230K (+ 21K from pop).

After bombardment:
Population 650M; Quality 25%; Defensive strength 1167K (+5 from pop).

So reducing the population by 75% and the planet quality by 60% only reduced the defensive strength by 5%.

I still think this isn't working as intended. 5 percent reduction isn't much of a gain.

[Erik Rutins]

Troops on a friendly planet can also recover losses fairly quickly though. The bombardment damage may not have been enough to make a significant dent in repair and recruitment. The next update should have a balance tweak for this.

Regards,

- Erik

[DasTactic]

In the test above, my troop carriers were the ships with the bombardment weapons. There was no delay between stopping the bombardment and landing the invasion troops.

Good to hear it will be tweaked though.

[WiZz]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Troops on a friendly planet can also recover losses fairly quickly though. The bombardment damage may not have been enough to make a significant dent in repair and recruitment. The next update should have a balance tweak for this.

Regards,

- Erik

I think, planets under siege with destroyed infrastructure by orbital bombarding can not support ground troops much. Is it necessary to write examples from earth history?

[ASHBERY76]

ORIGINAL: WiZz

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Troops on a friendly planet can also recover losses fairly quickly though. The bombardment damage may not have been enough to make a significant dent in repair and recruitment. The next update should have a balance tweak for this.

Regards,

- Erik

I think, planets under siege with destroyed infrastructure by orbital bombarding can not support ground troops much. Is it necessary to write examples from earth history?

Last time I checked the whole world has never been orbital bombarded by Aliens so we have no frame of reference at this scale.It is important not to make it weaken the A.I even more by a simple bombard homeworld and invade tactic.

[WiZz]

Even in rots a value of a bombarded homeworld reached to zero as a target for conquer. I just ask to get back a battle influence of bombs to the level in rots. [:)]

And I want to ask another thing. Is it possible to get AI to use more bombs? Because I can't see bombs in AI design [:(]