Managing an Offense

[stanberyc@yahoo.com]

Hi all,

First time posting here and first I just wanted to thank the regular posters here as you all have provided tons of awesome information that have turned an intimidating game into one of my favorites over the past couple of months.

I am now seeking more wisdom about going to war! In my current game, I was almost tied with one other race for the top spot, but still several % shy of winning. I decided to go on the offensive and take their colonies to increase mine and hopefully give me the last push to victory.

However, I'm finding the management of my offense and defense rather tedious. Every time I take a planet I feel like I have to babysit it while I build a defensive base and recruit several troops to defend it while I move on to the next planet. I then have a few fleets for defense that repel any attacks on my planets, but they aren't able to stop them all so I end up losing a planet or two. I take the planets back and babysit them which makes it harder to defend as I now feel like I have to leave one defensive fleet there. So between waiting on troop recruitment and sending fleets here and there, it feels like for every hour I play the game I only conquer one planet and re-conquer two of my own.

How do you handle your wars? How many fleets do you manage and are any of them automated? Thanks to the folks here, I am a fan of doing everything manually in the game, but I'm willing to try some automation to help things go smoother/less tediously.

[ReadeB]

Planning..

1. Build or redirect a defensive fleet to show up right after the defending enemy fleet is dispatched.
2. Drop enough troops to handle the invasion and any followup revolts. Be prepared to leave a garrison that can handle revolts/pirate attacks on-going. Consider recruiting their replacements as soon as you know you are attacking.
3. Have a constructor standing by to repair the attacking fleet.
4. Have another constructor at the nearest space port ready to build a gas mining station in the same system or close by for easy refueling.
5. Have another constructor at the nearest space port to build the defensive base, if the colony is small.
6. If possible, have a Resupply ship shadowing the attacking fleet and deploy at the nearest fuel source until the gas mining station is built.

[stanberyc@yahoo.com]

Thanks ReadeB,

I usually don't have much problem with my fleets getting damaged as they outgun my competition by a considerable amount (though I'm only on normal difficulty) and they're all sporting repair bots. Additionally, I try to get a gas mining base up ASAP after I take over a new planet to help with fuel.

Few questions though:
Do you build cloning or robotics facilities to speed up troop recruitment?
How do you build your resupply ships? I'm still having some issues using them properly with my fleets.

I appreciate your help!

[Jeeves]

ORIGINAL: tophertzu

Hi all,

First time posting here and first I just wanted to thank the regular posters here as you all have provided tons of awesome information that have turned an intimidating game into one of my favorites over the past couple of months.

I am now seeking more wisdom about going to war! In my current game, I was almost tied with one other race for the top spot, but still several % shy of winning. I decided to go on the offensive and take their colonies to increase mine and hopefully give me the last push to victory.

However, I'm finding the management of my offense and defense rather tedious. Every time I take a planet I feel like I have to babysit it while I build a defensive base and recruit several troops to defend it while I move on to the next planet. I then have a few fleets for defense that repel any attacks on my planets, but they aren't able to stop them all so I end up losing a planet or two. I take the planets back and babysit them which makes it harder to defend as I now feel like I have to leave one defensive fleet there. So between waiting on troop recruitment and sending fleets here and there, it feels like for every hour I play the game I only conquer one planet and re-conquer two of my own.

How do you handle your wars? How many fleets do you manage and are any of them automated? Thanks to the folks here, I am a fan of doing everything manually in the game, but I'm willing to try some automation to help things go smoother/less tediously.

The trick to success in war is not to bite off more than you can chew. You need several hundred troops excess of your garrisons. Very large troopships with 4500 shields carrying 64 troops can conquer a homeworld in days, just send 3-6 depending on the strength of the opponent's troops. For their colonies, just one large for large colonies, or a troop ferry carrying 16 troops for those with just a defensive base or less works fine. Send your fleets to nearby locations, then when all are ready, tell them to move to the colonies they'll be conquering. When all are in place declare war ( best to sell the war to an opponent of your victim) and while in pause select your invasion forces and tell each to attack its target.

That should do it...

Lonnie Courtney Clay
p.s. my wars typically last less than a week, with the empire's defeat.
p.p.s resupply ships make excellent invaders if you lack colossal construction.

[CyclopsSlayer]

As well always remember the Combined Arms Boni. By themselves Armor and Infantry are just at base strength, however having both gives a +25% to troop strengths. The same for have Space Superiority, etc...

Try to make sure your Troops have the appropriate General in command. A Recruiter, SpecOps or Planetary Defender commander without the appropriate units present serves minimal purpose, but any is better than none.

[stanberyc@yahoo.com]

Do the troops get that bonus on defense or just offense? Do you prioritize building any of the defensive structures?

Thanks!

[CyclopsSlayer]

ORIGINAL: tophertzu

Do the troops get that bonus on defense or just offense? Do you prioritize building any of the defensive structures?

Thanks!

As to OFF/DEF it all depends on the exact name of the bonus skill, but all units have an OFF and DEF strength, and if you watch a few combats you'll see the bonuses popping in and out.

As to the planetary structures, on key worlds likely to be targeted I will build Armored Bunkers, but the Cloning Centers, Special Forces, Armored Training I build on safe zone worlds in my back field and transport them to the front as needed.
As well, consider the primary races on the worlds in your empire, concentrate the recruitment on worlds that will give you stronger troops for the same maintenance costs.

(an old but I think still close to correct list)
Ackdarian - 8800 - Ackdar Defender
Atuuk - 5700 - Angry Hunting Party
Boskara - 14000 Boskaran Executioner
Dhayut - 12600 - Dhayut Mercenary Trooper
Gizurean - 9200 - Gizurean War Swarm
Haakonish - 12400 - Haakonish Battlematon
Human - 12100 - Strike Trooper Battalion
Ikkuro - 13100 - Ikkuro Strike Commando
Ketarov - 6900 - Ketarov Battle Group
Kiadian - 12800 - Kiadian Strike Trooper
Mortalen -13300 - Mortalen Conquerer
Naxxilian - 11700 - Naxxilian Fighting Squad
Quameno - 9400 - Quameno Battlemech
Securan - 7400 - Securan Assassin
Shandar - 8000 - Shandar Protector
Sluken - 12800 - Sluken Terminator
Teekan - 5500 - Teekan Trapper Group
Ugnari - 7100 - Ugnari Warbot
Wekkarus - 8000 - Wekkaru Guardian
Zenox -10300 - Zenox Roboguard

[Jeeves]

I make it a top priority to keep my maximum strength troop a Naxillian for reduced maintenance cost, and clone him everywhere...
New colonies build defense bases if they are a warrior race NAX, BOS, MOR, SLU, IKU until they get a military academy built, then special forces. Make sure the population is going to stay a military race before buying that expensive facility. Best to always build a cloning, shield, bunker, then the academy, that way you can always build the clones.
I don't build much armor, about 64 is enough when of a military race. Clone troopers can be stronger than maximum strength armor by mid game, and armor is useful only for getting the bonus for having it in the combined arms attack or defense.

Always invade with special forces if there is a bunker, generally 8-16 per attack location is enough.

You can't depend upon looking at the colony to see how many troops are there to determine whether you have enough, especially at homeworlds. I've invaded colonies that had only a few troops, only to have troop ships in orbit drop reinforcements, which brings up another point. You can get a plus 25 bonus for having planetary defense units in your invasion force, and 6-12 of them will really help if he tries to reinforce...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[ReadeB]

@Tophertzu

I play most expensive research, so I don't usually bother with cloning or robotic.

I use the strongest race I have to make strong units. 1 armor and 1 spec for to get the +50% with Elite troopers from the Academy.
Disband older/weaker units and replace with newer or more experienced. Adjusted for race, stronger ground units cost the same in maint as the weaker ones being replaced.

Resupply ships are like mobile gas mining stations for refueling. They have to be deployed (special action) on a fuel source in order to be used. Give them enough defense to ward off pirates, but I've never had a problem with groups targeting my Resupply ships.

I very rarely build defensive facilities and try to use defensive bases and fleets to keep the troop ships away.

I also build small fleets of 4 ships with assault shuttles, hyper-deny, and a few weapons to track down any stragglers.

[Unforeseen]

I always go with Robotics for my infantry.

[stanberyc@yahoo.com]

So I ran into an issue where I got a colony ship with a much stronger troop type and settled a planet with them. Unfortunately my native race quickly out-grew the stronger race and now I can no longer recruit the better troops. Is there a way to control which population grows so I can keep a planet as my troop recruitment center?

[Unforeseen]

I do this quite a bit, in your current situation you will need to to set your native race to resettle via the same family policy control, just be sure its not set that way for your entire empire or you will have a mass exodus on your hands. Then when it reaches a desirable level..i always prefer ZERO, change it to do not accept.

When you first colonize conquer a planet that you intend to use for such things, you need to be sure that you immediately set same family to do not accept.

Remember this does not affect other races, matrix didn't allow for very much control here so if another race migrates to your planet there is nothing you can do about it. I find this especially annoying because i have a personal policy of always exterminating Insectoids in every space 4x game i play by whatever means necessary. Unfortunately in DW that sometimes means purging the planet of friendly races as well.