Ground Forces

[Ordinator]

Will planetary Viceroys EVER stop making ground forces? Is there some limit...say 1 army of best troops for each planet and some for TF's and then it will quit? Or does it just keep churning them out. Just curious if it is possible, aside from locking out military production on every planet, to get your empire to make NO military units. This may sound silly and unwise, but is it possible?

[RobNelson]

Not that I know of.

[Ordinator]

Not entirely what I wanted to hear, but also not a big shock.

[RobNelson]

I guess you just have to use the build queue lock to work around it.

[AdamGoetz]

The way I look at it, ground forces are (by maintence budget) a minor cost next to ships.
And I have run out of troops before (admitedly it was at a stage in a game where I was averaging 4 new ground combats a turn - had 12 ground combats in one turn - most of them multi-turns that hadn't finished). Having to wait for troops to be built/return throuh delay is a rare occurance, but when it happens you could be there looking for a Rhea planet to queue up some Battleoid*10 on.

[Ron_Lugge]

I've often run out of troop transports / ground troops in the past.

OF course, it primarily happens with my production maxed meklar (I drop their ground combat stats to nothing)

[PinkPriest]

in fact, i've not only run out of ground troops, i sometimes (in early-game) had to add them manually because i needed them and the VR wasn't building any.

[Beamup]

One truth I have realized is that a war takes way more troops than one would initially think. Many a time I've thought, "OK, that's plenty of troops for any purpose," then gotten into a war and been badly short of the troops I needed.

In fact, I question whether there really is such a thing as "enough" troops... seems like I can always find a good use for more. Now, too many support units is a big problem with the default AI, but I modded that a long time ago.

[SnowFox5]

Originally posted by Beamup
One truth I have realized is that a war takes way more troops than one would initially think. Many a time I've thought, "OK, that's plenty of troops for any purpose," then gotten into a war and been badly short of the troops I needed.

In fact, I question whether there really is such a thing as "enough" troops... seems like I can always find a good use for more. Now, too many support units is a big problem with the default AI, but I modded that a long time ago.


I first need to get the mod made by the offical site, but will this mod to stop support units being made work with it?

[Beamup]

Yes. Though it's not something I've posted publically. There are many threads in the mods forum about what to do, and some mods that include such a change (among other things). When I get home and have access to my modded file, I'll post the changes I made so you can make them yourself.

As promised, here's what I did. Change the numbers in the TroopRatios table to:

preference 0 12 12 12 12 12 0 1 1 1 1 1

This means to build 12 combat units for every set of 5 support units, which is just about the right ratio for Armies.

[CrazySonoran]

I dont mind them building troops at some of the planets I do however mind bringing up the military build queue and seeing a planet at 3% production a big red exclamation point and 2 marines queued up. :cry:

[Strifeguard]

Okay, this seemed as good a place as any for this, so here goes:

While Armies are easier to move/invade with, are they the "ideal ground force"?

I've noticed that the AI, when mobilizing defensive forces (and in the handful of offensive ground maneuver's I've seen it perform) often chooses to create smaller units comprised of many different types of units. That is to say, while I create an Army of Armors, they'll respond with a Corps of Marines, a Corps of Armors, and a Corps of Mobiles. Now, based upon other deployments they'll make that turn, it will become apparent that they had the units necessary to put down an Army of Armors, but instead they *chose* to create a "mixed force".

This suggests to me that they were programmed to prefer (in some instances anyway) mixed forces to homogenous forces.

Does anyone know of any benefit to this? Any drawbacks? (aside from the obvious "mobiles have more hits than marines" etc.)

[AdamGoetz]

It is unknown how much the types of grunts are affected by hidden code. We have no real idea of hidden stats. It is known that in the original plan, the types of troops would have a massive effect on what could be done with them.
ie Only Marines and Battleoids would even have been given the option of Vertical Envelopment

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by AdamGoetz
ie Only Marines and Battleoids would even have been given the option of Vertical Envelopment

Wel, that much is true at least. You cannot do vertical envelopment without marines or battleoids...

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
Wel, that much is true at least. You cannot do vertical envelopment without marines or battleoids...
Umm I have to disagree here, my Mobiles do verticle envelopment all the time...

[Iskabis]

do you play the gasbags? they might all get it, where other (dirtbag) troops might only get it for specific units... (would make up, just a bit, for them being such p**spoor ground troops... :) )

-rhyssan

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by Strifeguard
Umm I have to disagree here, my Mobiles do verticle envelopment all the time...

All you need is a single marine or battleoid to get it. I am sure it is so, because ti used to be a popular tactic of mine before patch, then after patch in a new game i suddenly saw the tactic missing, and wondered if they had taken it out. Later i saw it back with marines and battleoids.

[Ordinator]

Originally posted by Strifeguard
This suggests to me that they were programmed to prefer (in some instances anyway) mixed forces to homogenous forces.

Does anyone know of any benefit to this? Any drawbacks? (aside from the obvious "mobiles have more hits than marines" etc.)

I cannot see any benefit, simply because if you take a mixed force, and put it up against an equal number of batteloids, won't the batteloids win?

I cannot say yes or no for certain, because I always make sure I overwhelm my opponent, and watch my borders very carefully so as to make sure I can. If I am attacking I like at least 2 to 1 odds, and I usually have my entire force (except support units) the best that I am able to produce. Haven't lost a skirmish yet..... <gently thumping wooden desk>

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
All you need is a single marine or battleoid to get it. I am sure it is so, because ti used to be a popular tactic of mine before patch, then after patch in a new game i suddenly saw the tactic missing, and wondered if they had taken it out. Later i saw it back with marines and battleoids.
Okay, so I was correct, in the one game I was playing, I had a force comprised entirely of Mobiles. No marines, no battleoids, and it could perform "verticle envelpment".

I then, however, noticed a different problem. The Mobiles were all "Avian". In the strat guide it states that Avian units can perform verticle envelopment regardless of "available technology". Apparently this is one aspect of the game that wasn't entirely hacked-out between Strategy Guide Release and Software Release.

[RobNelson]

It does make sense that the avians can fly. I just don't know if they can carry an MPC...:eek:

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Ordinator
I cannot see any benefit, simply because if you take a mixed force, and put it up against an equal number of batteloids, won't the batteloids win?
No.

Keep in mind that ground forces have several statistics, not just "hits". While battleoids have more "hits", marines have more "initiative". Now, none of us knows what this means, but it's clear that there's supposed to be some kind of cost/benefit to each different kind of ground unit.

Perhaps this affects battle tactics, perhaps this affects terrain. There's no real way for us to know without info from QSI.

[Da_Blade]

Ah yes, Avian do get a 1 for vertical envelopment according to the spreadsheets.

In my experience hits and attack are the best modifiers when fighting in friendly terrain and grav, but initiative and evasion are the best to have in hostile terrain. I'll think the spreadsheets say this too. Evade and initiative are good stats to have.

Evade makes how many shots hit you, and initiative makes in what region and terrain the battle will be fought (atmoshpere, underwater, etc.). Now, fighting in green environments you get nice bonusses in both evade and initiative. These bonusses are not there when fighting in red environments.

So my advice would be; if you'll fight in a red environment for your troops, which is green environment for the enemy troops, bring marines. If you'll fight in green terrain for your troops, bring the heavy stuff. Since environment is a very large factor in ground combat, you'll see that marines do much better then battleoids in red environments, which are 80% of the world you'll invade...