Is Ground Combat Rare?

[LGM]

I have played this game since it came out, and I have never fought a ground combat battle. Is there anyone else there like me that has never had the ground combat experience? I only play against people, not the AI.

There must be few people who ever utilize ground combat. I myself tend to prefer taking colony ships over playets as that is much cheaper.

I have experienced ramming and boarding paries.

I almost always take Ground Combat at 50%. I figure it is better to save racial points and decide every battle in orbit. If your enemy is invading, you have already lost and the Ground Combat points are better put to use elsewhere.

[Suicide Junkie]

I usually take Ground Combat @ -50%, and just use gobs of troopers.

It is very nice when you can capture a planet intact, and have an instant population gain of ~3 Billion, plus fully operational resource facilities.
All those troops get the population back to Jubilant by the next turn, and you're rolling in money.
You can haul off those people as slaves, and use the planet as an instant military base.

[PvK]

Yes. I use troops whenever I can, as opposed to acting a cowardly genocidal spoiled brat dictator maniac who thinks his spare time is worth more than the lives of billions of civillians. Besides, it gives me the perfect justification to wage war against people who don't. As SJ points out, it can be a huge savings and gain in time and resources, from a purely pragmatic view. And, all I have to do is not go to -50% and I get a huge advantage taking planets from munchkins who think troops are useless. Probably because all your subjects would really rather serve in my empire, because you are a cowardly genocidal...

PvK

[geoschmo]

I use troops all the time. I rarely decrease my ground combat level, but I never raise it either. When almost everybody is dropping ther's to 50, 100 does just fine.

Glassing your opponents planets is like pushing a ball down a hill, capturing them is like pushing a ball off a cliff. It's speeds up the process.

If it's a border system that I can't defend effectively, I like capturing the world, loading as much of the pop as I can on my transport, scrapping the fac's and leaving the planet for the enemy to glass. Put the pop that's left to work building some mines/sats/fighters, just to make it a little more trouble for your enemy. Works even better if you can get the planet that has the space port.

Geoschmo

[wr8th]

I used some troops (along with a halfdozen LCs) to capture the homeworlds of 2 neighboring neutral systems (who declared war on me first, honest). Rather than continue capturing planet after planet, I demanded their surrender, to which they readily complied and voilà, an immediate boost to my population, facilities, ships, etc. An added benefit was that one species is methane breather which will do nicely since I have a couple huge methane worlds in previously controlled systems.

[Bman]

I usually go down to 80% ground combat and make up for it with extra troops. As a funny aside, what do people commonly use for troop transports? In a game I am in now I am using anything available in my fleet that has cargo storage. Since in simultaneous play, your transport drops all of its troops you cannot go on a rampage and take a bunch of planets in the same turn unless you have multiple troop transports. I found myself in lightly defended enemy territory with a big fleet that included 1 troop transport, 2 mine layers and several colony ships. I took some of the troops out of my transport and put them in the mine layers and colony ships! Then I just plot a course for as many planets as I can move to in a single turn. I laughed when I watched the combat replay and my little colony ship moved up and dropped its 2! troops and conquered the planet. Although I had thought the local militia would have been enough to put down 2 troops

[geoschmo]

I haven't gone as far as using colony ships. A tad expensive for troop transports. Plus they aren't any faster than a transport, so what's the point? But I will use just about anything else. I will retrofit obsolete frigates and destroyers with cargo bays a lot.

Geo

[capnq]

I like to "roleplay" my races, so I often set their characteristics to match my concept, rather than to maximize in-game benefits, especially in solo games against the AI.

I use troops fairly frequently, both for maintaining order on my planets and to capture population that breathes another atmosphere type.

[Gryphin]

I also "role play" my own personal values.
I use ground troops at %100, never thought to use less. Hmm, Something to test.
I always use troops or blockading till the AI races agree that starting a war with me was foollish and accept my demand to surrender.
In tactical combat, I stop fireing at planets when there is still one weapon platform left
I will not:
Use bio warfare
Glass a planet
Destroy a colony ship

While on the subject,
Since It is hard to track the results,
Does anyone have a good idea about how effective Armor or Shields are for Troops? If so, how it should be allocated?

[Suicide Junkie]

Shields were not counted on troops until recently.

I don't think the CD Gold had it, but the next patch out will.

Shields are incredibly powerful on troops (64 hp/4 KT), but only when they actually get counted.
16 hp/kt, compared to a ship-based PSG V, which provides 9.4 hp/kt worth of shields, 10.4hp/kt total.