What I Hate Most About SEIV - Page 3

Master Belisarius · #21 November 12th, 2001, 05:56 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Slaughtermeyer:
If your fleet consists entirely of ships all of which have both troops and weapons, should you designate all of your ships as troop transports? Will their weapons be used against the planet's defenses?

Yes, I think that you should designate all of them as troop transport.
About the weapons, I don't know... probably they would use the weapons if fail to take over the planet.
Anyway, IMHO, you should have different ships designs for your attack ships and troop transports.

Slaughtermeyer · #22 November 12th, 2001, 08:42 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Master Belisarius:
Yes, I think that you should designate all of them as troop transport.
About the weapons, I don't know... probably they would use the weapons if fail to take over the planet.
Anyway, IMHO, you should have different ships designs for your attack ships and troop transports.

That's another thing I hate about SEIV, too much "I think that you should..." "I don't know...probably" and "IMHO you should have" when trying to figure out basic game functions that should have been explained in the manual. I did a test and found out that ships designated as attack ships will indeed drop troops.

[This message has been edited by Slaughtermeyer (edited 12 November 2001).]

taterbill · #23 November 12th, 2001, 08:50 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Master Belisarius:
Not very hard... at least to me! I have conquered a lot of small colonies.

Yes, I've managed to take a couple lightly defended small colonies also.

But taking a homeworld is pretty much impossible. Any fleet strong enough to get past the weapons platforms, defending ships, satellites, etc. will invariably glass the planet before the troops land.

Or, you try some different strategy and then the ships don't do enough damage to the homeworld, and your 100 troops get annihilated trying to take on all 4 billion of the population.

In tactical combat, I could bombard the planet until, say, 500M population was left, then send in the starship troopers. Simple. If you know a strategy to reliably accomplish that in strategic combat, then please share.

The strategy dialogs allow you to say "bombard planets until 70%" or whatever - the problem is, it doesn't work. Your ships bombard the planet until it is 70%, then they look around for more targets, and finding none, return to the planet to continue scouring it of all traces of civilization.

To me, this is the one glaring gameplay problem that desperately demands attention. All my other complaints are merely cosmetic or easily worked around.

Well, at least I feel better getting it off my chest...

Bill

Suicide Junkie · #24 November 12th, 2001, 05:00 PM

Will the ships blow away the planet if the troop landing is a stalemate?

If not, use 2-3 Large Transports full of heavily shielded troops.

I was a race with 50% ground combat, and I took an 8Billion pop planet that way. First load had 375 troopers, second boat was a smaller transport, with only 125 or so. My troops got whittled down over 5 turns, and at the end, my troops lost by the slimmest margin (<10% of the militia survived)

The key is that militia don't regenerate unless there are no foreign troops waging war on the surface.

So, if one boatload of troopers can survive 10 rounds of ground combat, dump 1000 of 'em on the planet and wait.

If you break up your fleet into squads, with each troop transport as leader, you can probably get all the transports to drop and run, while under cover of the warships (use a formation with the leader in the middle)

taterbill · #25 November 12th, 2001, 07:51 PM

S_J,

Your post brings to mind a off-topic question I've had in my mind for a while. What is the formula for calculating how many militia will be on a planet? And what are the statistics of a militia?

It would be nice to be able to know what I'm about to go up against.

Thanks,

Bill

Suicide Junkie · #26 November 12th, 2001, 09:11 PM

See settings.txt for the exact numbers, but IIRC, there is:
1 militia for every 10 to 100 million.
Militia have 1:4 firepower:hitpoint ratio.
Probably 10 damage, 40 hitpoints.

I'll look it up when I get home, and edit this post in about 3 hours.

bearclaw · #27 November 12th, 2001, 09:56 PM

Research. I much prefer the way research was handled in SE3. That was one of the best features in the game. I don't like this "all or nothing" method in SE4. Although, it does work nicely for Intel.

------------------
"You don't know the Power of the Dark Side. I must obey my Master"

MegaTrain · #28 November 12th, 2001, 10:09 PM

What the heck are militia?

You mean the population of a planet actually defend it like troops would? And how formidable are they? How many troops are sufficient to take over a medium-population planet. (Medium troops, filled with Ground Cannon III)

I thought I'd be able to simply pop my troops down there and take over the planet.

Glad I found out about these now, I'm about to launch my planet-conquering fleet.

rdouglass · #29 November 12th, 2001, 10:55 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Slaughtermeyer:
That's another thing I hate about SEIV, too much "I think that you should..." "I don't know...probably" and "IMHO you should have" when trying to figure out basic game functions that should have been explained in the manual....

Sorry, but that is one of the things I like MOST about this game - figuring it all out. The game has so much depth (in game and in modding) that it takes a long time (and a lot of questions) to get stuff figured out. If it was easy to figure out and get the pattern that won all the time, it would quickly bore me and I'd find something else to play...

Just my (humble) $.02....

Suicide Junkie · #30 November 13th, 2001, 02:09 AM

quote:
What the heck are militia?
You mean the population of a planet actually defend it like troops would? And how formidable are they? How many troops are sufficient to take over a medium-population planet. (Medium troops, filled with Ground Cannon III)
I thought I'd be able to simply pop my troops down there and take over the planet.
Glad I found out about these now, I'm about to launch my planet-conquering fleet.

You may want to add some defense to those troops, otherwise they'll be cut down faster than you can say "oops"

One tiny shield generator III provides 60 hitpoints!

But aside from that, militia are insignificant for planets of less than 500Mil or so. They will prevent a half-baked capture attempt, so you'll need a dedicated transport design, even if its only a destroyer hull.

Be sure to bring at least 50 troops to any planet capture, large planets will require hundreds of troopers, or planetary bombardment.

Planetary militias will be fully restored to their original size whenever your landing forces are completely defeated.
If your troops hold out for 10 rounds, you can drop additional reinforcements from a second (or third or fourth) ship.

If your first transport's troopers are wiped out, don't bother sending the second one in, since it will suffer the same fate against the same conditions.
If the first troopers are still there, the second wave faces fewer militia and enjoys a larger attack force. Keep dropping reinforcements until you win.

With a decent ground combat racial characteristic, a single Large Transport, filled with 375 Troops should be more than sufficient for most worlds, and a second transport can be used for homeworld assault.