[BUG] Invasions are unreasonably hard.

from GalCiv3 Forums

Is it just me or is invasion bugged?

This is my attempt to invade the Drengin homeworld at the end of the tutorial. As you can see I have a 10:1 battle advantage, a +40% soldering bonus and a strong  tech advantage, and I've also nullified resistance with biological warfare.

Not only do I lose, but my invasion force is slaughtered to a man, while 50% of the defenders survive. I even lose all my transports. The numbers don't even add up. Apparently I lost 3 times as many soldiers as they did (1,501,061 to 540,611), but I started with 3 times as many legions as they did, and while I was left with none they were left with 5 legions. So actually I lost 6 times as many legions as the defenders!

So if that force only managed to kill 50% of the defenders that suggests that a force of twice the size would kill _all_ the defenders. But if I wanted to win comfortably without losing most of my invasion force I might need what, 3 or 4 times as large a force as I already have, so 9 or 10 to 1 numerical advantage? So what sort of battle advantage should I be looking for, 40:1 or something?

Prior to invading I already found it irksome that I couldn't even determine what ships are defending a planet before attacking. If I encounter a fleet in space I can see what ships are in it, but if they are defending a planet they are invisible? I do get an indication of my chances of success before attacking the defending fleet, but without any indication of what type of ships are defending the planet I have no information with which to adjust my attacking fleet.

Before invading the planet I can see I have 3 times as many legions as those defending the planet, but no indication of the chance of success and no option to back out before committing to a doomed invasion.

There is an annoying pattern emerging of not having the necessary information upon which to make an informed decision. Possibly I could build an advanced spy network to acquire this information, but if that's the only way to get this information then that's seems like a shame as it's no longer an option but an additional required step. Options are good, they give the player agency. Additional required steps are bad, they just create more work without adding interesting mechanics.

Incidentally, how do I study the design of an enemy ship I encounter in space, see what modules it has fitted and so on? I've ready the manual and I don't see anything about combat at all. There is a decent amount about how to design your own ships, but really what's the point if you don't know what kind of designs the enemy is fielding?

Are addional mechanics in these areas present in the main game waiting to be discovered?

 

37,444 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Are you placing all of your legions on a single tile right next to the colony capital before starting the invasion?

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Publius, reply 1

Are you placing all of your legions on a single tile right next to the colony capital before starting the invasion?
End of Publius's quote

 

This is what I do, but I don't think the mechanic is working as intended.

Even with superior forces if you spread them out you almost always lose.

If you place them all on one tile you almost always win, even if you have fewer legions.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Invasions in a sandbox game don't seem to be this lopsided, but I noticed the same thing in the tutorial.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I don't understand the minigame, I arranged my forces to encompass all the structures on the planet. I had enough forces that I could double up some of the hexes and prioritised hexes that were adjactent to multiple structures.

The result above was from auto-resolving the combat.

I tried auto-resolving and manual combat using different strategies multiple times, with the same result in every case.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I tried dumping every unit right next to the colony capital with this result.

Whatever the mini-game is supposed to be I think it's fair to say that invasion is almost certainly not working as intended. And the fact that auto-resolve consistently loses in cases where victory should be reliably assured is pretty bad. Better QA required!

 

P.S. Thanks for the tip Publius :)

 

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I've had this happen several times. The auto resolver is wacky and never to be trusted, even with overwhelming odds. 

Instead I manually place all my units next to the capital (and cities, if any). 

Im not sure what the point of this exercise is. There is always one right way to do it and no real choices to be made.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

double post

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Frogboy made a post on these forums a while back giving an example of an invasion in one of his games.  I don't know about the auto-resolve, but apparently when the invasion starts your legions make a bee-line from wherever you've placed them to the capital, fighting any enemy legions and destroying any improvements along the way.  So placing all of your legions right next to the capital maximizes their strength (since any enemy legions placed elsewhere will not wear down their strength) and minimizes destruction of improvements.

The only reason I've seen to not do this was in that post by Frogboy, where he knew he didn't have enough legions to take the planet but wanted to degrade it by destroying improvements.  So he put his legions far away from the capital so that more improvements would be destroyed as they made their way to the capital.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I find that stacking legions into one army and placing them next to the capital gets the best results. Numbers plays a major factor in ground battles. A moderately sized army can survive a dozen legions if they show up one legion at a time, but will fall if the legions show up as one army.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Publius, reply 8
.
The only reason I've seen to not do this was in that post by Frogboy, where he knew he didn't have enough legions to take the planet but wanted to degrade it by destroying improvements.  So he put his legions far away from the capital so that more improvements would be destroyed as they made their way to the capital.
End of Publius's quote

Right. The issue there is that I already know in advance if I am legion-deficient, so I am going to just park and wait for backup so I can take the planet whole. Generally, destroying enemy installations on planets you intend to capture is self defeating and a waste of legions.

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting leiavoia, reply 10


Quoting Publius of NV,
reply 8
.
The only reason I've seen to not do this was in that post by Frogboy, where he knew he didn't have enough legions to take the planet but wanted to degrade it by destroying improvements.  So he put his legions far away from the capital so that more improvements would be destroyed as they made their way to the capital.



Right. The issue there is that I already know in advance if I am legion-deficient, so I am going to just park and wait for backup so I can take the planet whole. Generally, destroying enemy installations on planets you intend to capture is self defeating and a waste of legions.

End of leiavoia's quote

I'd have to agree with that, unless possibly I was in the state Frogboy was in where he was losing ...

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Does anyone know the significance (if any) of the green hexes on the invasion map?

Reply #14 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

When I played the tutorial, I didn't face any Drengin legions.   Then again, the AI didn't do much of anything at all.  I'm not sure, maybe I should have played on Genius.  Didn't occur to me that maybe I should be playing on high difficulty setting--for the tutorial.