EXPLOIT- failed invasions

from GalCiv2 Forums
ok I am guity of using this exploit.

When invading a planet I always send in a suicide 1st wave of 500-1k troops and have them do something really devastign like mass drivers. They'll loose but they'll wipe out like 4k-6k enemy troops. The catch is since they lost, the planet doesnt loose quality. I then send in the much larger main force in with traditional warfare and win the planet intact. Honestly though, invasions are so hard unless you have vastly superior tech that if this exploit gets taken out, I'd like to suggest that the entire population of the planet should NOT all fight. Maybe it should be a ratio based on militarism/soldiering/loyalty or something.
8,982 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
ya i think just about everyone knows about that by now...and its purposely left like that.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
yep... its a "tactic" ..not an "exploit"
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Martyrdom for the cause.

I don't bother with that usually.. If its a planet I want there'll be plenty of troops to take it for me.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I tend to gas all the planets I take. With 1000 troops and a decent Soldiering/Tech bonus, the planet is usually mine. Against lower-level AIs, anyway.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
yeah thing is I only play against Intelligent. Honestly Im kind of dissapointed with the AI. I've played 5 games straight that I didnt finish since all that was left was wiping out all the weaker AI oponents. Pity.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I DO consider this an EXPLOIT and I think its good that you realize this too.

However I disagree on you saying planets are too hard to capture.

Consider that a planet by default has 5mill pop. And for every 5mill more at start of game, u need 1tile farm 1 tile entertainment. I think thats a big cost to pay and its fairly balanced.

Also consider that as the "invador" you get a HUGE bonus, such that you need a much lesser army to attack.

As an example, in the campaign I noticed that 20Dread Lord men would kill 4.5million + of my men single handedly.
However when attacking, 1000men would alone kill their 20 when doing fairly weak attacks (i.e. gas or normal).


So you see that you DO in fact get more troops, its just less visible. And when you kill their soldiers, their population also dies which causes an enemy to go into debt.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
i would suggest planetary invasion defensive tacticts to prevent these exploits in planetary invasion.In history invaders or attackers needed at least a superior army to balance defense advantages so i don't understand why there is no way to defend a planet from an invasion.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
i would suggest planetary invasion defensive tacticts to prevent these exploits in planetary invasion.In history invaders or attackers needed at least a superior army to balance defense advantages so i don't understand why there is no way to defend a planet from an invasion.


Planetary invasion is an entirely different animal from practically any historical form of warfare. In the real world, a planet would be incredibly vulnerable to warships in orbit. Building and launching new ships would be virtually impossible, since the orbiting invaders have a terrific view of everything that's happening on and aroung the planet and are in a position to easily neutralize potential threats. GalCiv2 is actually relatively nice on this account; it's not possible for a hostile fleet to establish a proper orbital blockade around a planet.

Actual invasion of a planet would be somewhat harder than simply blockading it, but the attacker would still have an overwhelming advantage simply because they can smite targets from orbit with relative impunity. The principle behind "Mass Drivers" could be applied on a smaller scale to destroy launch pads, troop concentrations, and surface-based weapons in much the same way that bombs and missiles would. Even better, kinetic weapons such as these could be launched from outside the range of surface-based weapons.

So, yeah, that's why a planet is basically dead meat to a competent invasion force once its orbital defenders are taken out.