Noobie Question(s)

[Slick]

Kim & all: The difficulties in capturing planets is definitely a recurring issue. I became so frustrated with it (in simultaneous games) that I have been doing excessive testing. It certainly is not intuitive and it involves lots of variables. And I am by no means an expert at it. I have a couple of test games in progress where I am experimenting with ship capture in one and planet capture in the other one which I play from time to time to tweak my skills. Here are some of the things I have learned, off the top of my head. Please chime in with corrections and/or additions. All of these are for simultaneous games with strategic combat since tactical combat can be done manually.

- Your troop transports can be of any hull design so long as you have at least 1 cargo carrying component on board, but if you want it to work right, you must give your troop transport the SHIP strategy of "capture planet"

- If you want your transport to work in a fleet, you need to give the fleet the "capture planet" strategy as well. This will make the fleet work as I said in the post below.

- If you want to try to capture more than 1 planet in the same turn, give the fleet orders to attack the target planet, then load troops from that planet then attack the next planet, etc. The loading of troops can get all screwed up using this set of orders if you have other cargo carrying ships in the fleet. The fleet will load troops into the first available cargo carrying ship in the fleet from the top down. Any troops over its capacity will spill over into the next available ship. Bottom line: the game is not smart enough to load troops into troop transports. Select your "capture planet" fleets with caution if you intend to use carriers or have support ships which can carry cargo. Remember, one of the requirements for the "capture planet" strategy to work is that the troop transport is actually carrying troops.

- I have had very little success in getting more than 1 troop ship in a fleet to work together. I got very frustrated trying to get them to work together and have given up in favor of 1 larger, more heavily shielded/armored transport. Of the few times I got it to work, the result was poor since each time troops drop, a separate ground combat session is generated. Either I win after the first ship drops its troops or I lose with the first ship, the militia regenerates and I lose with the 2nd ship too. I have read about using troops in the first wave with only shields followed by the combat troops, but I have not been able to coordinate this with more than 1 troop ship.

- The number of militia per population is set in settings.txt. If the defending militia win a battle, they regenerate to full strength before the next battle. The only time that this does not happen is if the battle is not completed within the 10 turns of ground combat.

- Having a massive fleet with your troop ship is not really a good idea because your fleet can very easily glass the planet. I almost have to add and remove ships as required on a case by case basis to tweak the fleet for different size planets and differently defended planets. If anyone knows how to configure a rather large fleet so that it will be able to handle huge to tiny planets without getting killed or glassing the planet, please speak up.

- Beware of satellites and moons. If you capture the planet before satellites and moons are killed, they will turn around and glass your newly captured planet, killing all of your troops on the ground. In strategic combat, if this happens, it may not be obvious at first what went wrong if you are not looking for it. Even a couple of satellites or 1 WP on a moon can glass the newly captured planet before combat is over. On this note, I have yet to successfully configure a fleet with multiple troop transports to capture a planet AND its moons in 1 round of strategic combat. The only times that it wasn't catastrophic were when there were no WP's on the moons. Anyone know how do this? Maybe breaking up the fleet into a sub-group for each planet/moon might work, but I haven't done this.

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head. I was going to make an entry for the FAQ for this topic when I felt more comfortable with the mechanics after more testing. Maybe a veteran out there can lend some good advice??

Slick.

[Fyron]

- Having a massive fleet with your troop ship is not really a good idea because your fleet can very easily glass the planet. I almost have to add and remove ships as required on a case by case basis to tweak the fleet for different size planets and differently defended planets. If anyone knows how to configure a rather large fleet so that it will be able to handle huge to tiny planets without getting killed or glassing the planet, please speak up.

I rarely ever see planets with heavy defenses and really low population.

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by dbt1949:
Another question for you all. What kind of victory conditions do you use? Right now I'm just trying to destroy everbody with this uber fleet. But I'm always missing some colony ship somewhere and by the time I make my rounds of the galaxy the bad guys(some anyway) have built back up their strength.

I guess I should take it a little slower and send colonies of my own into the abondoned systems,but I was just trying to take a shortcut.....and it didn't work!

I created an old galaxy if I remember right and every other region is a black hole or radiation or rogue planets or something. Don't think I'll try that again!

Last man standing can be a little annoying at the very end. Just colonize and defend the best planets per system. The AI won't come back strong from a nothing position. That said, you won't win until every Last planet, ship, and satelite group is destroyed. Ususally I take over those guys, just to find where they are. Scanner sats in each empty system will help you. If you've won you have ships and resources to burn.

Originally posted by dbt1949:

I created an old galaxy if I remember right and every other region is a black hole or radiation or rogue planets or something. Don't think I'll try that again!

This galaxy type is full of eye candy, but the AI is not as good at playing these quadrants. It doesn't know how to pace it's supply to cross empty space.

[dbt1949]

More question for you experts out there.
How do you handle spying,either yours or theirs? I build tons of intelligence centers and still their spys keep getting thru. Also,how can I spy?(wan't that a TV series? )

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by dbt1949:
More question for you experts out there.
How do you handle spying,either yours or theirs? I build tons of intelligence centers and still their spys keep getting thru. Also,how can I spy?(wan't that a TV series? )

dbt1949, you don't know how happy I am to see your question. You've discovered the most important part of intelligence, the part most people who hate intel haven't figured out, building lots of facilities.

In fact I have a tear in my eye -- our little NEWBIE: has gone and grown up and become an EXPERT: (click links)

Okay, yes, you have to build lots of intel facilities. But you also have to select intel projects. Click the alien head on the commad bar to get the diplomacy window. There is a button for intelligence. Select them like you select research projects.

[ January 11, 2003, 17:18: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Of the few times I got it to work, the result was poor since each time troops drop, a separate ground combat session is generated. Either I win after the first ship drops its troops or I lose with the first ship, the militia regenerates and I lose with the 2nd ship too. I have read about using troops in the first wave with only shields followed by the combat troops, but I have not been able to coordinate this with more than 1 troop ship.

This is an artifact of there being 10 ground combat rounds per turn. With so much shooting going on, it is usually over extremely quickly.

In my mod I set the # of ground combat rounds to One. That means your troops are almost guaranteed to survive for a while, and allows reinforcements to arrive from both races. When invading a large world, it can take a year or more, which I find much more realistic.

[dbt1949]

Thanks!

[ January 11, 2003, 17:30: Message edited by: dbt1949 ]