My ungrateful subjects

[dmm]

I am nearing the end of a long SEIV solo game in a huge galaxy. I am WAY ahead of the last remaining computer player, but he won't surrender. Unfortunately, I accidentally set the game up with a rather small max number of ships (doh!!), and because it's been such a long game, the computer player's ships are almost as good as mine. So, rather than slug it out, I am slowly crushing him with intel, getting his colonies to rebel. I succeed with 1 or 2 colonies every half a dozen turns or so. The problem is, that the PC then glasses the colonies (not always, but usually). I wouldn't care except that my ungrateful subjects apparently consider these to be military defeats. Now I am having to deal with entire systems rioting all at once. Most annoying is that they were "ecstatic", or whatever the term is, only one turn before, so I am getting no warning. I know that I can make them happy again by bringing in a war fleet, billeting soldiers in their homes, and building facilities to spread propaganda. (Sheesh, are they dumb, or what?!) But this is getting tiresome, and now I am running up against the unit limit (doh!! again).

Any other suggestions?

[douglas]

The unit limit only applies to units in space. Units in cargo, such as troops on a planet, do not count towards that total. Minefields, deployed satellites, launched drones, and fighters launched outside of combat or with no carrier to return to at the end of combat do count towards that limit, but any and all units that are in cargo are exempt. You could have several billion troops in your empire and it wouldn't matter at all as far as the unit limit goes.

[Xrati]

If I remember right, you can build ground troops at those planets to ease the rebelous attitudes...

[dmm]

Thanks douglas and Xrati. Esp. douglas -- I didn't know about that loophole in the unit limit. That will solve my problems. My subjects will be so happy about my new Dept. of Homeland Security! Surely, there's nothing like an onerous police state to gratify the masses! My new official title will be ... Big Brother.

[capnq]

Xrati said: If I remember right, you can build ground troops at those planets to ease the rebelous attitudes...

Only if they aren't already rioting. Once the riots start, you need ships in orbit, and/or to import troops from elsewhere. (You don't specifically need a troop transport to get them there, though. Anything that can carry cargo can transfer troops to the rioting planet.)

[geoschmo]

You may not know this, but while your subjects are fickle and quick to anger, they are not too terribly bright. You don't have to spend a bunch of time and money training and equiping front line shock troops to keep the peace on all you worlds. You can simply slap a badge on an unarmed raw recruit and the ignorant masses will be suitably cowed by their mere presence.

(Translation: A cheap small troop unit with no weapon component will work just as well to increase happiness, and you can build many more per turn. )

George

[Randallw]

Just don't set up police and forget it. I've done so only for the enemy to invade and show the cops what real soldiers do. Nowadays I give the cops some guns.

[geoschmo]

Randallw said:
Just don't set up police and forget it. I've done so only for the enemy to invade and show the cops what real soldiers do. Nowadays I give the cops some guns.

This is true, but it depends on whether you prefer keeping the enemy from capturing the planet at all costs. If you would rather it be glassed than captured, then give your troops guns. If you'd rather the planet survive so that you can recapture it more or less intact, then you want to make sure your troops are unarmed, or they will repel the invaders and get obliterated from orbit for their trouble.

At least against the Ai. While I have heard of a few AI that will attempt to capture planets with troops, I've not heard that any are smart enough to alter their strategies to alter glassing the planet if the invasion is repelled.

[douglas]

I arm my police troops for two reasons:
1) Force enemy players who want to capture my planets to actually take losses in their troop forces.
2) Have a ready-made ground invasion force ready without much advance planning. Need to launch an unexpected offensive and you'd rather capture than glass? Just round up some police troops and put them on the job, they can be replaced while the fleet is already moving rather than forcing the fleet to wait for them to be built in the first place.

[dmm]

More thanks. I did know about "police" units, from this forum. One nice thing about unarmed "police" troops is that, if they fail to keep your colony from rebelling, they won't present any impediment to you recapturing it with real troops. In the particular case of the game I'm playing now, I don't have to worry about the planets being attacked by anyone.