BUG/EXPLOIT Invasion Tactics not reducing PQ on loss

from GalCiv2 Forums
Someone mentioned this on IRC but didn't seem inclined to actually file a bug report, so I'm doing it instead.

If you use a planetary invasion tactic like Mass Drivers, it will severely wipe out the planet's soldier population, but if you don't actually win, the planet PQ won't be reduced.

This leads to exploits like sending a troop transport with 1 person, Mass Drivering the planet's population to almost nothing, then follow up with a traditional invasion with your real troop transport. Tada, you've just conquered the planet with minimal troop loss, and no PQ loss to boot.
8,770 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree, this is major league cheese and needs to be adressed.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
It is not cheese. It was intentionally done this way to prevent cheese the other way around and that is being able to severely damage an enemy planet with the slighest invasion effort.
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Sounds like both are cheese to me!

You can cheese and avoid the negative aspects of powerful invasion tactics or you could cheese and do a doomed invasion to damage a planet (a terrorist attack of sorts).

If the AI uses the cheese mentioned in the original post it's not so cheesy. Real cheese to me is exploiting gameplay that the AIs won't or can't exploit.

Eek.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Sure, the AI can use it. If it gets unlucky on its attempt to invade your planet, but later invades it normally, it gets the same benefit as you would under the same circumstances. Oh, and sending only 1 troop in a transport is not effective at all. OK, so you manage to maybe kill 30 of their guys... great. They have 4070 remaining. Oh, and you wasted a transport.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Haven't had the chance to play yet, but my gut feeling is that the second method (where it reduces the planet quality no matter what) is more interesting strategically and less exploitative. Remember Sun Tzu: The objective of war is not to kill your enemy. The objective is to break your enemy's will to fight, or your enemy's ability to fight. Orbital bombardment definitely comes into the latter category, and possibly the former as well.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
i would make that if you attack the planet and use mass drivers; if you fail the attack, the mass drivers fail also, or something like that...
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I've been thinking, bah, who cares anyways, as long as it's balanced...
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top


Yes, but some invasion tactics like Mass Drivers majorly reduce the planet's population, making 1 man transport vessels virtually like nukes.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
to address this problem could be introduced the rule that to begin mass drivers or other special invasion tacticts the advantage factor of the defender shouldn't be more than 10. but i don't know if the advantage factor is caalculated before the invasion. in my opinion it's the only way to address the problem
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
i mean advantage factor shouldn't be more than 10 times that of the attacker so if advantage factor is 55 vs 5 for the defender u can't do special invasion tacticts
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Actually, I took a look at it, and Mass Drivers don't seem to automatically reduce the planet's population as I had been led to believe on IRC.

It gives you a huge advantage, but you still need the troops to utilize those advantages. So 1 person on the transport might be able to take out 100 people at the most.