To Glass or not to Glass, that is the question

[Hempire]

Just wondering how all you warmongers like to do your thing. This is for general smackdown and not a question of Ithkul glassing.

[Breschau]

I invade while I have transports available. If I run out of transports, or encounter a particularly fortified world (seen some with 5000+ army strength) I just glass. At least til I get more transports to the system.

[Nolondil]

You forgot an option:

I invade till I run out of troops. Then I resort to glassing until I can build up my troop supply again...

:D

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by Nolondil
You forgot an option:

I invade till I run out of troops. Then I resort to glassing until I can build up my troop supply again...

:D

LOL

I invade a system, hold it, rebuild. Rinse and repeat.

[Da_Blade]

I invade everything, Blitz-style, i take the most worthy planets in a system, leave a small force behind and move my main force on to take the important planets in other systems, advance to a bottleneck and slowly cleanup behind it. Even late game i invade everything, even if it were only for the mobilization centres, who can keep your advances rolling, but i just like invasions. Late game i don't take the trouble of redesigning the DEA layout of conquered planets and disbanding the troops anymore though. Except the elite army's, i always disband them again, i just like using them too much :)

[mhelie]

I only invade planets with high infrastructure circles. They get you techs, are usually better suited to the inhabiting race and can be productive right away.

[Strifeguard]

I try to invade as much as possible, but with 1 key exception.

I absolutely refuse to let the Harvesters join my empire. Ever.

At no point in time shall an Ithkul ever walk around freely on one of my worlds. So, while I voted "I invade everything" (because I do) when it comes to the Ithkul, I always glass.

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by Strifeguard
I try to invade as much as possible, but with 1 key exception.

I absolutely refuse to let the Harvesters join my empire. Ever.

At no point in time shall an Ithkul ever walk around freely on one of my worlds. So, while I voted "I invade everything" (because I do) when it comes to the Ithkul, I always glass.

Why not have at kleast a few harvs, for ground combat, back-filling, etc? Don't forget that they can only migrate to a planet with an open region, and thus can't take over your entire empire... Ground troops can't "eat" people, and the Ithkul can't force people off of a planet without getting a toehold first...

[skykop]

Always invade the good planets, and then we will welcome the new citizens of the our empire with open arms, but with the harvesters, this is where the cockroach policy is enforced. Because once you are infested, you never get rid of those creepy things and have to packed your bags move to a new galaxy. So glass their planets and build parking lots. Never enough parking around here. :up:

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Ron_Lugge
Why not have at kleast a few harvs, for ground combat, back-filling, etc? Don't forget that they can only migrate to a planet with an open region, and thus can't take over your entire empire...
No but they can migrate to any outposts my people create...and eat them...thus slowing outpost growth to a crawl, and ruining my nice new meklar and gasbag outposts, with their beautiful bonuses.

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by Strifeguard
No but they can migrate to any outposts my people create...and eat them...thus slowing outpost growth to a crawl, and ruining my nice new meklar and gasbag outposts, with their beautiful bonuses.

Send 20-30 outposts to a planet at a time.

Works like a charm! Instant inhabitation of the entire planet, no waiting - and no harvs migrating in :D

:mad:60:mad:second:mad:limit:mad

[Hempire]

I didn't think Ithkul could eat gasbags, or silicoids right?

[InfoStorm]

I almost always try to invade every world. It's MUCH better to get a world with complete infrastructure already present.

I NEVER invade Ithkul worlds though.. They ALWAYS get glassed.

[RobHunt]

Originally posted by Hempire
I didn't think Ithkul could eat gasbags, or silicoids right?

Gasbags are a nice tasty snack, and silicoids don't actually get 'eaten', just burnt down and turned into minerals for industry.

Only race in the default arangement who cannot be eaten or killed are the non-corporials. Of course, this can be rather easily modded (cheer!)...

[Patton1942]

Originally posted by RobHunt
Gasbags are a nice tasty snack, and silicoids don't actually get 'eaten', just burnt down and turned into minerals for industry.

Only race in the default arangement who cannot be eaten or killed are the non-corporials. Of course, this can be rather easily modded (cheer!)...

I thought Stephen Rooney posted that the Ithkul wouldn't / couldn't eat Cybernetic or Geodic races? I'm pretty sure of this.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Patton1942
I thought Stephen Rooney posted that the Ithkul wouldn't / couldn't eat Cybernetic or Geodic races? I'm pretty sure of this.
They don't eat the Meklar or the Silicoids. (Apparently the Cynoids have enough "biomass" to keep them happy)

However, they do slowly reduce both Meklar and Silicoid populations, and gain minerals from doing so. (They're being "melted down")

You can see this by opening up the "RaceModifiers" spreadsheet. Under the column "FoodVal" all races have a value of 1, with 3 exceptions. The Meklar and the Silicoids have a value of 0 (melted down for minerals) and the Non-Corporeals have a value of -1 (not affected by harvesters).

[Hikari]

I have some basic ground rules:

If a system has more than one enemy world, I always invade the most populated/advanced world immediately, and change its build que to immediately start building a Mobilization Center. If the other planets are worth taking (see below), then I 'insta-drop' troops on them once the Mob Center is done.

Otherwise, I determine a planet's value by a very simple formula: If it has less than 10 population points, I turn it to dust so I can recolonize it with the "best fit" race for its habring/gravity. The only exception to this rule is if the planet contains a race/magnate I lack and want, in which case I may conquer even if its a low population.

Sometimes I do conquer Harvester worlds (they get some nice bonuses), but it's an all or nothing proposal: if I don't want a predominately Ithkul empire, I don't take any. Generally, the way I decide is by how many magnates/conquests I have at the time the opportunity arises. If I've got a lot of races in my empire, I'd rather let them auto-expand unfettered by Hungry Hungry Harvesters. If I've got few/none, then I'm only too happy to get some nice Ithkul to annoy my enemies with! (Nothing "steals" outposts quite as mean as Ithkul. Even if they somehow secure the planet, they're already infected!)

-Hikari

[teecee]

I tend to "add everyone's distinctiveness to my own". I think that the multiracial empire is the ONLY way to go, even if you're Ithkul. The enemy populations <ahem>, I mean, new citizens are usually out of unrest pretty quickly and it's a great way to diversify your empire.

The only time I'd glass a planet is if they enemy AI had done something to piss me off. Of course, I'd wait for a suitably crappy world. Makes no sense to glass a potential industrial powerhouse.

tc

[herknav]

I only glass when I don't feel like waiting, (especially late game, it can take a LONG time as enemy fleets apear every turn and half the time you are forced to defend a planet instead of assaulting one...). I have become very good about limiting my TFs in system to 10 or less now, (nothing worse than FINALLY getting the dice roll and assaulting that last planet, only to realize that you have 10 attack TFs and the one Trans TF is on the sidelines.. and just to think, you "defended" a planet last turn with 3 Trans TFs.. ). I like the multi-cultural aspect of having as many races in my empire as possible. I love having the 'kul... my empire is big enough for all :)

[ethmoid]

As with many of the above posts, I also think a multispecies empire is the only way to go. The ability to fully utilize your available planets is absolutly imparative. I also like playing collectivist gov.s so I too add their biological and technoligical distinctivness to my own. And yes, I too think the Ithkul are a scourge that can only be delt with by absolute extermination. I don't have anything against them individually. I just don't want them eating my other citizens. The only one who does that is me. Don't get me wrong, there is a time and a place for them. In fact they are my second most favorite species, behind the Psilon. They just have a specific place in my MOO3 schema.:D

So, I invade nearly every planet I encounter, unless it falls under the following acceptions:
1) It is populated by Ithkul and I am not currently playing that species -or-
2) I currently have a species amongst my peoples that would be better suited to the environment(and I am paying that much attention).

However, occasionally I just want to glass a planet. I do get a certian amount of perverse pleasure from reducing a planet of billion of computer generated beings to a lifless ball of dirt. It makes me feel all tough and brutish.

[Flinx]

I invade everyone and trade the planets I do not want for plants I do want from my friends -- usually the ones within my borders.

[Cipher]

My option wasn't really listed so I picked to glass all but the juicy planets. This is what I do:

Check the planets in the system--say they're Eoladi. There is a gas giant that is Sweet Spot for them, and a little low gravity planet that is yellow 2. I go to the Planet screen and find that star system, then I check the habitability of the planets for each of my races--Evon, Eoladi, Elerian, Audrieh, Ajadar, Klackon, Darlok. . . Since the Eoladi are the best match for the gas giant, I invade it. When I find the best match for the yellow 1 world, I glass it and send, for example, a Ajadar colony ship to make that low gravity world a green 2.

[Kralizec!]

Why glass a planet when you can assimilate it into your empire? Nothing like having a fully populated, ready made industrial world ready to do your bidding. :)

[Da_Blade]

Even a moderately or just new world is worth taking over IMO. First of all it saves you the trouble of micromanaging a colony ship over there, second it saves your pop the effort to make new population to inhabit the world (forced procreation units ;)) and last it saves you the time to develop it to the the point it is at now.

[ethmoid]

This thread actaully brings up a point that has been bothering me of late. If the newly captured planet isn't all that hospitable for the resident species, and they have yet to terraform it and there is still plenty of room, will a better species within your empire migrate to that planet? Also, will the current species migrate out to "greener patsures"? I know its not exactly that simple given population pressure, migration distance and so on, but my question remains.

Does anyone know or at least have an opinion?

[Kralizec!]

ethmoid wrote:
This thread actaully brings up a point that has been bothering me of late. If the newly captured planet isn't all that hospitable for the resident species, and they have yet to terraform it and there is still plenty of room, will a better species within your empire migrate to that planet? Also, will the current species migrate out to "greener patsures"? I know its not exactly that simple given population pressure, migration distance and so on, but my question remains.

Seams like a reasonable idea to me. Especially if it was an enclave world too far away from friend planets for much migration.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by ethmoid
This thread actaully brings up a point that has been bothering me of late. If the newly captured planet isn't all that hospitable for the resident species, and they have yet to terraform it and there is still plenty of room, will a better species within your empire migrate to that planet? Also, will the current species migrate out to "greener patsures"? I know its not exactly that simple given population pressure, migration distance and so on, but my question remains.

Does anyone know or at least have an opinion?

The resident population will likely move out, but since all races have a "StayPercent" rating higher than 50 (the lowest is 60) the majority of the population is likely (based on a d100 roll) to stay behind. (From the Population spreadsheet)

Since only 1 race can occupy the region of a planet, and the resident species of the planet is unlikely to move out, chances are, they're there to stay. On the other hand, species that prefer the environment will try to move in *if there's an open region* If there aren't any open regions, the population will not change significantly.

[Hikari]

I can't help but wonder: do the people who are saying it's ALWAYS worth conquering a world mean in the short term, or the long term? I'd have to disagree with the latter.

Post-patch, the computer has a marked tendency to colonize every planet within its borders. The way it does this is by pumping out System Colonies. Colonizing in this way results in the predominate species on a planet often being a "poor fit" for that planet, in many cases even a Red or Yellow habring preference for them, sometimes even with Red or Yellow gravity preference to boot!

If you conquer these worlds, you're basically stuck with the population as it is set. Any regions populated by the poor-fit species are basically theirs forever, and they will usually possess enough regions to insure that the planet will remain predominantly of their species, and thus never be terraformed away from their preferences (to those of a race better suited for the planet that might migrate onto the world).

Often times these worlds could have potentially been industrial giants somewhere down the line, but instead they're wasting away waiting for terraforming techs (and then wasting tons of money and productivity on using and maintaining them) and gravity modifications, and even then they're likely to be less productive than they would have been with a natural Green/Sweet Spot species inhabiting them. Basically, by conquering them you're trading a potential industrial giant for a perpetually mediocre, do-nothing world.

And what are you even getting out of it? Even "quick and painless" ground combat with Low Collateral Damage and no NBC weapons tends to destroy pretty much everything on a lesser developed planet. You might come out of it with a couple of DEAs and a Basic Systems Module at best.

Sorry for the rant. It just seems to me that the belief that "it's always worth it to conquer a planet" is really short-sighted, and I thought I'd give anyone curious a window into why I think that.

-Hikari

[RobHunt]

Actually, Hikari, you aren't quite right. Migration means that, eventually (it may take awhile) the species that would be the best fit for that planet will probably start to show up there. Especially if you play with mods that help make races move if they don't like the habitability circle of the world.

[ethmoid]

Its not quite that simple, though. If said bad-fit species occupies all the regions than the planet is "set". I was soundly in the conquer-all camp, but I am starting to see that as in all things there is no easy answer to this question. I would have to say that it is best to conquer the well developed planets in a system and glass the bad-fits or less developed planets to make room for your own citizens through colonization or migration. That way the species chooses the planet they want.

[Hempire]

Wow, I'm surprised at the closeness of the votes between invade all and invade juicy. It's all a matter of style I guess but invading those scrawny planets with poor race choices gets old real quick.

[SnowFox5]

I tend to want to glass everything, and most of the time I do, because I don't know how to land troops yet, well not very well anyway.

[Poptoad]

I like to invade everything, just because I play in small galaxies; therefore the game is decided at relatively low tech, and glassing will take forever.

[eclipser1]

THANK YOU FOR RESSURECTING A YEAR-OLD THREAD!



/invades everything except the ithkul, they get glassed...

[Poptoad]

YOU'RE WELCOME!

[cousLee]

Well, it will depend on a number of things. I only have my first win my belt, but have started plenty ;).

My last game, going for senate victory, I didn't glass any planets save one or two. i wanted the pop for the votes. What I would do is check the hability ring for the current pop. Yellow or better (98% of them) I invaded with no bombarding. the very few that were nasty for the currents, got glassed as I could re-populate with happy campers.

That being said, my next win will either be last man, or ataran-x victory. Being that I like medium clusters, and have no desire to manage THAT MANY planets, I will glass all but finest planet in the system. This of course after I have set up my core systems (10 or so).

Guess it could depend on the victory you are aiming for.

[Nephyte]

Once I realized that Harvesters can not in fact take over my empire, I started assimilating them into it.

They have nice bonuses, so it doesn't bother me if they end up taking over a few extra worlds that had open regions.

Even if a planet has open regions, doesn't mean Harvesters are neccasarily going to get them! Sometimes other races beat them to the migration =)

And seeing as I take all other planets by force and keep most of there population/buildings intact, rarely do Harvesters manage to get a decent foothold into my empire.

So I take everything, and only glass a planet if it manages to hold out for too long against my ground forces and slow my galactic advance to much.

As far as transports/troops go. Never a problem having enough of either. I never scrap a transport once it has 211+ Warp drive engines, and I always recycles troops. Once an entire system is under my control, I disband all the armies on the planets in that system and send them back to await new assignments.

[Spectrometrist]

I invade because I HATE the two hundred colony ship parking lot that develops in the wake of my fleets advances. The AI always seems to move colony ships in at the same time as I manage to unless I take them with the invasion fleet. Of course when I take them with the fleet the computer seems to decide that of the 20 fleets in system I want to fight with the 6 single ship colony fleets and only four of my armadas :mad:
And of course that brings us to the Ithkul. I must admit that I was of the glass and recolonise mindset however two recent events have changed that. In one recent game I was happily glassing Ithkul worlds and once the system was 'cleansed' I would open up the brave new frontier for some of my profit minded and adventurous citizenry (I'm sorry was that your house we just bulldozed - why don't you move out to this lovely unfilled space out on the rim. Previous inhabitants? Not that I know of). This was all going swimmingly when things went somewhat pear-shaped. The system I was recolonising somehow became infected. Still not sure how this happened prolly some harv's hiding in a cave or something but it was late game and I just not could not be stuffed forcing a whole system into revolt so I could glass etc. And to my complete surprise the Ickies as I came to affectionately know them integrated quite nicely and didn't cause any more unrest than the thrice-damned liberty-minded Nommo. In the next game after that I never managed to get my hands on a Rhea or Mrrshan world and so when as the war heated up with my friendly neighbourhood harv's I decided to give them a whirl as shock troops. And as I to some degree (at least in my own mind) role-play my games I enjoyed the mental imagery of my Corporate government's biowarfare department gengineering super harv soldiers. And of course the look on my enemies citizens as these rabid blood-suckers are air-dropped special delivery. :D

[CanadianBEERman]

Anything size 5 or above i invade, anything smaller with a population of 15k or higher gets invaded, everything else gets glassed. I find the glassing can help by giving ur allies planets to colonize so u don't start choking their expansion and they tend to not go all "we were Allies, but now i feel like attacking u for ****s n giggles"

[robberbaron]

The first game I played was on easy. In that game I invaded everybody. I didn't know about recycling the troops, so I made fresh recruits every turn. Boy was that a pain. I never gained a tech and figured that that part of the game had been changed from MOO2.

My second game (medium) I played the Iku and modded them to be really dumb super builders and great spies. The spying didn't work, not one tech. At about turn 200 I was 5 levels behind with shield 3 and unmodded rail guns and very light armor and the first level of armor AND only rocket launch missiles AND antonite missiles. Glassing planets with these weapons took forever but I was determined to use ONLY my super builders. About turn 225 I had wars on three fronts with all enemies using phasers. I had to give up.

So by experience, I knew that the spy mod didn't work and that invading didn't gain any techs (first game I already had them, I guess).

Switched to Klackton for my super builders and dropped the spy mod also dropped diplomacy to zilch. I then hit the auto play for 50 turns. I came out on turn 50 with alliances with everyone and one of my spies just stole something. huh? Well I had my super builder and the negatives didn't appear too bad. I built up every planet in my borders condition be da**ned. And when war came I glassed and repopulated quickly. Only problem I could see with glassing was the LOOONNGG supply lines and getting my auto colonize ships coming into a system that hadn't been totally glassed yet. Finished at about tun 700 with 985 planets. I've gotten better and now am sole survivor at less than 500 turns.

After about 10 games I found this board and that the CYNOID are the better ones to mod into super builders, so I switched races and started a new game. I also read on this board that you could get tech occasionally through invading, yeh right (must be VERY occasionally), I KNEW from my first game that that just doesn't happen.

About game 12 I read on here that an easy way to reduce your HFoG was to switch governments. My HFoG was 5.1 so I switched governments AFTER making sure nobody was upset BEFORE I switched. I switched and lost 3 planets to revolt... not bad... 5 turns AFTER the switch I had gone from 240 planets to 111 planets with more cynoid empires than would fit on the diplomacy page. So I chickened out and backed up the game..... couldn't UNDO the switch BUT I zeroed the Opp meter and maxed the unrest finance. I lost about 25 planets in five turns. What this paragraph is all about is that I noticed that over half of the revolters were infested with harvesters. So I HATE harvesters, glass them for spite. And yeah I NOW know that the change of government HFoG reduction was a pre-patch remedy.

All this leads to this game I'm in now. CYNOID super builder. I was at about turn 200 (seems this is were a lot of stuff starts to happen) and I was out happily glassing planets and recolonizing them when an ally went from alliance to war with no warning. Now this friend had several systems that we shared within my boarders, I was hard pressed with two wars already using my new construction on these two fronts, so I couldn't afford the ships required to glass these ex-friends. I had left ROY building what ever he wants and he had built a bunch of mobiles and marines.... hmmmm what to do ... what to do... transports are CHEAP..... hmmm I've got about 100 obsolete ships in the reserve.... hmmmm a quick micro manage and the next turn I have about 30 2 slot missile carrying transports add in a couple of out of date flotillas plus the system ships that Roy insisted on and BANG two turns after he declares war I invade four shared systems. Quick. Easy. CHEAP! And then to make things better 3 out of the 4 worlds gave me new tech!! Well, Well a convert has been made. I have gone from two tech levels lower than the highest to 5 levels above the next highest. It is now turn 420 I have about 220 planets left to conquer I am now landing on 10 to 18 worlds a turn. Think I can finish by turn 500? That's my goal.

PS I still glassed the harvesters. I can do without the unrest.

PSS I have been recycling the troops regular now, but I have a question. I have been afraid of revolt so I have been stationing new recruit marine armies on every couquered world when I remove the shock troopers, the question is, is this neccessary? Will the people revolt without troops? IF needed how many should I leave. Right now I'm building 8 to 13 ARMIES of marines every turn.

PSSS I'm saving my Elite battloids and armor for a planned invasion of Orion, when I have 10 Elite armies I'll go in.

Psssst Just learned last night about the Gargantans, Burthris, and IKul as the best troopers. Still learning.

[Thoth]

I invade everything. Every building I can capture is one less that ROY has to build. I even invade Ithkul, especially now that I figured out how to stop them from migrating. The turn I conquor an Ithkul nest, I set migration to that planet. I don't care about people moving *to* the planet, but setting migration also stops people moving *from* the planet. Let the Ithkul eat cake, not my citizens. :D

[elizibar]

I try to use a combination. But I don't just invade 'juicy' worlds.

When I'm at war I'll pick a region of space out for that race to continue to occupy (can range from large territories for happy workers like Insects or Cybernetics to a lone planet isolated from everyone else for Harvesters) and glass the rest of their worlds.

This gives me the benefits of both absorbing an already existing industrial base as well as being able to start fresh in an optimal setting on a number of other worlds. (And there's the RP benefits: "Yes, this is the CYX-7231-CYB Cynoid reservation, you don't want to stop there. Let's continue on to the New Colony Region, I hear that development on Pleasure Pit is finished. It'll be a good time I tell you!")

Early on I tend to conquer more than nuke (especially considering my race's constant poor bioharvest and mining, those shortages get annoying :p), later I turn whole empires into glittering shards of silicate to adorn my Celestial Crown.

[robberbaron]

Well, I found a problem with NOT glassing planets.

That is if you are looking to conquer the galaxy as quickly as possible. Assuming that you have all the industrial base that you need, if you move into an enemy's system and glass its eight planets in 8 to 10 turns and move on to the next system. Of course, you leave another fleet there to wait for your colony ships and to discourage others from taking the empty planets. BUT if you conquer planet #1, THEN the enemy has the option the next turn to PREVENT your attack by simply attacking YOU first.

That game that I mentioned above, I didn't make my goal of 500 turns because of this very delay. The last sillicoid died on turn 500 (I think he went broke, his 1400 ships disappeared when I got him down to two planets), but the Orions took till 508.

The strange thing about attacking the Orions was that I started my attack on turn 450, it took three waves of 4k Elite armies to take the first planet. That's when the frustration began! The Orions would attack my PLANET and 160 ships with 36 ships of thiers, throw their fighters and run. And they are FAST to leave too, usually in battles my missiles can take a TF or two from an attacker, but not the Orions.

In retrospect, for speed I should have glassed the Orions, but they had a tech I hadn't ever seen before and on turn 450 it looked real juicy (Auto Fire Disenagration Beam). On turn 500, after all other opponets were destroyed and the Orions had killed off all my Elite armies I was just ticked off and wanted to prove it could be done. NEXT time I'll glass or start earlier.