picking up troops after ground combat
 

In SEIV I used to be bale to capture multiple planets in a turn by setting a fleet to capture planets, then moving the fleet to a planet, then ordering it to pick up troops from the same planet, then move to the next planet, and so on. This does not appear to work under Gold. Anyone got any ideas?

Re: picking up troops after ground combat
 

Use multiple transports?
One large transport per planet should be enough, except for homeworlds.

Re: picking up troops after ground combat
 

I thought that multiple transports wouldn't work - all the militias would come back so if you didn't take them over the first time and they had no Troops then you couldn't take them over with a second transport either...

Re: picking up troops after ground combat
 

Gravey101:
Are you talking about turn-based movement or simultaneous movement?

Re: picking up troops after ground combat
 

simultaneous.

It definitely used to work. And definitely does not now. I just ran a test to confirm what I am seeing in PBW games.

Stangly enough, if you give a fleet orders to pick up troops from a planet where they already reside, that works fine.

Re: picking up troops after ground combat
 

Gravey, I am sure I tried this with 1.49 and couldn't get it to work. Unless I wasn't doing something exactly the way you were.

By multiple transports I believe he means simply having enough transports in the fleet, each loaded with enough troops to capture one planet. Then you can hit as many planets per turn as you have transports for and are in range of you fleet, but leaving the troops behind after each assault.

I have had some sucsess usign this technique. I have further refined the tactic by having additional transports that are faster than the fleet, but not part of the fleet. I have the extra transports follow along behind the fleet picking the troops back up after the fleet moves on to the next planet. I have used this and captured as many as three planets in the same turn, by having three transports in the fleet, and the extra transports picked all the troops up during the same turn and met me at the Last planet. It was quite beautiful to behold when it timed correctly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Every once in a while I would make a mistake though and a transport full of troops would run into an enemy planet with no escort and either was blown up by mines or died valiantly rushing into the teeth of the weapons platforms.

Geoschmo

[ July 25, 2002, 01:47: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: picking up troops after ground combat
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It definitely worked in 1.49. I've used it a few times in PBW (personal record: six planets captured by one fleet in one month-- the planets were aligned just right). I could have sworn I successfully used this tactic in my simultaneous solo Gold game, but it's been so long ago that I might just be misremembering (or just wishful thinking).

Geo: when you tried it, did you have line of sight to the target colonies? It won't work if you can't see that there's a colony on the planet.

Quikngruvn

[ July 27, 2002, 06:44: Message edited by: Quikngruvn ]

Re: picking up troops after ground combat
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The militia only come back if ALL of your troops are killed. If your troops happen to have enough shields to survive the first 10 rounds of ground combat, the reinforcements can arrive without the militia being refreshed.

Re: picking up troops after ground combat
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It still work (in fact I did it yesterday).

The way that works (at least to me!) is with the order ATTACK instead MOVE. Select the order to attack a planet, then, Load Troops, attack other planet, load troops, etc.

Re: picking up troops after ground combat
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, that's probably why I couldn't get it to work. I always use the move to order when attacking planets, because of some problems a long time ago with the attack order that have since been fixed and I never got out of the habit.

Geoschmo