A Newbie Question About Planet Invasions: Help Please

[Zorromorph]

Here's my conundrum. Ive got a few TFs of combat vessels, plus a TF of 4 transports, which hold my Corp of Marines that I want to invade with, in a contested system. So I win the space battle, skip bombardment, land troops, and fight the ground battle. At the end of said ground battle i have 14 units left in my corps(12 Marines, 2 Psy-Ops). Then the next turn comes up. Im informed that my transports and Ground Force have been disbanded, and will be in my delay box for 4 turns, blah blah blah. So, 2 questions about this:

Why didn't i just continue the ground assault the next turn?

And

Why did it only give me back 2, instead of all 14, units in my ground force?

This didnt happen on my first attempted invasion, and I don't know what I did wrong. Thanks for any feedback in advance.

[JosEPh]

When you fought the Ground battle did you control or let the AI control?

If you controlled : there should have been a grid map of the planet you are assaulting. Once you start the Battle if you are taking regions the Grid map will change to your color. If it didnot change you were not successful and your forces were defeated.

If you let AI control you would not see any of this, and...

Why didn't i just continue the ground assault the next turn?

And

Why did it only give me back 2, instead of all 14, units in my ground force?

because you lost and only 2 of the 14 survived.

If you control ground combat over on the right towards the middle is a pull down menu of different types of attacks. Did you chose one or just take what the AI "suggested", i.e. Massed assault or Attacker withdrawal etc..

At the bottom middle right is a section which shows your type units and how many of each as wellas the enemies force composition. As combat is initiated these Units #s will decrease on this section. Whoever loses their units the fastest is generally the loser, unless the combat time expires before someone's forces are destroyed. This goes along with the color change on the Grid map or lack thereof.

Maybe you knew all this? Or maybe not?

JosEPh:)

[zanzibar]

Actually, the TRANSPORTS are in your delay box, not the actual ground troops... since your grunts are on the ground, the AI figures you wanna recycle those ships to put your next army onto it ;)

[Zorromorph]

Thanks for the responses, but what actually happened, as I have finally figured out, is this: I fought the battle, and there were literally NO casualties(I used attacker attrition, which the AI thought was best in the situation). Both my ships AND 2 of the 14 units in the attack were in the delay box, i got both messages.


However, what happened(I conjecture) is that they built a fighter base on the planet(it wasnt there when i assaulted, but was the next turn). So all I can assume is that my fleet bailed, attempted an emergency evacuation of my troops, and only succeeded in getting the two units out.

Any reaction/anyone have this happen to them before?

[JosEPh]

Both my ships AND 2 of the 14 units in the attack were in the delay box, i got both messages.

If these were the only 2 sitrep msgs you got about this invasion then you lost. If you had gained even 1 region on the planet a sitrep would 've been generated stating so. Was there a sitrep report stating that your invasion failed? Should have been. And it would be in the group of sitrep reports right after the Red and before the yellow.

Side note: Attacker attrition is not a very good choice, it's a delaying tactic that will only draw out the invasion, or cause you to lose.

Was the defending troops Militia or Infantry or what? If you had Marines and they only had Infantry or Militia, then Vertical envelopment or Massed Assault would have been better choices as would Surprise or Ruse. These 4 have Better success rates than most of the other choices. But it Does also depends on what you are facing as opposition, i.e. Marines, Armor, or Battleoids.

If you did not recieve a sitrep that your Invasion failed and only got the 2 as you said, I've never ran across that situation.

Did you save that turn with the Sitrep Msgs? If you did you could go back and recheck the Sitrep to see if there was also a failed invasion msg.

JosEPh:)

[Zorromorph]

No, I did not get a SitRep saying invasion failed ... btw opposition was mostly split between Militia/Infantry, as it has been with all planets so far. Massed Assault getting me killed tho, enemy had like a 10-1 kill ratio twice with even amounts of forces, my Marines his infantry, on my last planet. Dunno if its cause its their homeworld or what, but im coming back with more odds in my favor :)

[Doomshade]

massed assault, use surprise (at least from what I have read and seen in my own games this has worked the best for almost all attacks). Like josEPH said.

[JosEPh]

Massed Assault getting me killed tho, enemy had like a 10-1 kill ratio twice with even amounts of forces, my Marines his infantry, on my last planet. Dunno if its cause its their homeworld or what, but im coming back with more odds in my favor ...

Massed As. with Matched units facing each other hinges upon the overall experience level of the ground forces used. I.e. your Marines are recruit level and the Defending Marines are Trained or Experienced you will probably lose. But other factors Do come into plat also.

What was your battle intensity setting, and collateral damage setting?

What race? Terrain type? These greatly effect your chances too.

Example: when I'm attacking Sillicoid (I'm usually humanoid) they like Surface and Mountains. If my force is an equivalent, i.e. Marine vs Marine and Militia, I would use Pronged or Sweep, High Intensity and Avg Coll. Damage. If the Grid Map does not start changing to My color quickly or even slowly I know I'm in trouble. But using the above Pronged or Sweep with Marines vs Marines usually is successful.

Armor vs Armor Vert. env is not allowed, and then I use Ruse, Surprise, or Massed Ass.

Battleloids vs Battleoids or Armor Vert. Env usually works 80% of the time. But if the Sillicoids are using Armor and Marines, or Marines and Militia the success rate goes down. Marines being more mobile than Armor so they evade easier.

Some races on Defense with marines have a bonus to the use of Defensive Vertical Envelopment. The Klackon enjoy such a bonus.

Gerra and Pedxing posted some of the Ground Combat tables in this forum. Hope they havn't disappeared.

Look them up and copy 'em down for reference.

JosEPh:)

[Awsric Armitage]

Gerra''s thread JosEPh eluded to is the Teknicolor tables thread. There are alot of combat tables and they combined them eventually towards the end into some smaller sets of usable tables.

Basically on the first invasion turn you want to use a battle plan that will gain you more ground. JosEPhs suggestions are good but also check out the tables. Each manuever has a percent succede and fail against the others and there are alot of other factors also like terrain, environment, troop experience, etc..

Beam-Up did a pretty extensive testing of ground combat and I think I linked to it in the Hot Links thread.

There is alot more to ground combat than most think just from casual observance.

[Shogo Yahagi]

Surprise isn't all it's cracked up to be. Near the end of the Teknicolor tables thread is a table normalized for the success rate.

Basically, when Surprise works, it's very, very good. When it (or any other attack choice) fails, it is very, very bad. In the long run, Surprise will fail a lot, because it has a haigher failure rate than almost any other choice.

If you look at the spreadsheet without taking failure into account, it looks like there are a couple of no lose choices that you should use all the time. However, their high failure rates will come back to bite you in the rear.