Cheesy Goodness?

from Stardock Forums

Something I found the other day while I was embarking on my D.R.E.A.D program (Drengin Re-Education And Deportation).


When invading a planet, if you are grossly outnumbered, there are some different tactics to use, right? These tactics have some rather devastating consequences. You win, but at a cost. Either PQ drops drastically or the improvements are mostly destroyed.

Unless, of course, you lose.

Then nothing changes except for the defender casualties and, well, you lose a transport.

Here's the cheese - -

If you attack with a devastation tactic and lose, you can immediately attack the much, much weaker defenses with another transport, using traditional tactics, and suffer no losses to planet PQ or improvements when your second wave rolls through town.



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Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
It's also necessary. If the effects of the tactic were applied to the planet regardless of the outcome, you could simply zip around with transports loaded with 1M troops and tidal the enemies core planets... or even mass-drive them if you're feeling really nasty. Who cares if you capture them... they're wrecked now :)

~SDC~
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
There's some cheese either way. And it's a fine line to be able to predict "Well I'm going to lose this one even if I use core detonation." If you played it that way, you just might win once in awhile and be stuck with junk anyway.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
The other methods have no affect apart from maybe troop loss if you lose the invasion.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I've already discovered this tactic.

Tidal generators are cheap and give your invading force a big advantage. But they don't seem to destroy any planetary improvements if you lose the battle.

Also, everytime you invade, the ratio of your losses to the enemy's losses always seem to be constant (the random number spinning around doesn't seem to actually affect anything). So if you attack first with a small army, you can accurately predict how big of a force you need to get the enemy population close to zero without actually winning the battle.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I truly believe this is what's called "strategy" not cheese. And I feel that at Genius+ levels, the AI should be able to do the same to you. The first wave is your vanguard, and making sure they cause as much havoc as possible before your main force arrives is good tactics. (Forget the non-realism, this is a strategy game, not a sim - or if you HAVE to justify it to yourself, you can pretend the attack did neglegible damage with the smaller force; that your vanguard did just enough to help out rather than using enough "outside" help to devastate the area.)

"I only hope when the data is analyzed a weakness can be found."

~SDC~
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
See, I don't know, Gordeleth. I can suspend realism easily enough for the purposes of a strategy game. Tidals, Core-det, Mass Drive. . these are all expensive and drastic attacks. _Something_ should happen, even if the ground war loses.

"The first wave is your vangard, and making sure they cause as much havoc as possible. . " Definitely. So, if I spend a thousand to Mess Stuff Up, then something should be messed up.

Where it becomes cheese is when you can use these drastic measures to wipe out massive numbers of defenders and as long as you leave just 1 mil. citizens left, then your next wave comes in clean and there is nothing to show the devastation. That isn't strategy, that is an oversight.

Likewise, I might not want to occupy a planet. My strategy might be to just remove their capacity to wage war. Leave the Drengin oil to the Drengin people, but I'm ferdamsure wanting to scorch their earth somewhat. 1 transport, 100 mil troops, core-det.

Surely not the full negative effect if you lose the ground war, but something.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Although if you lose perhaps it can be rationalized after the fact that your plan to blow up the core failed to blow up the core and that's why you lost.

I kind of would like it to where you could assign your invaders not to take over, but to just wreak havoc. IE blow up the core and stuff and damage the planet without taking over. Then a probablity of success of the tactic could be assigned (lower if you're attempting a true takeover by it) then fight it out. You could then muff up the planet all you want without taking it over, Muff it up and take it over, or just take it over as you see fit. And of course allow the computer to use the same tactics.

Then again if you truly wanted to just muff up a planet. You'd just seed the place with flesh eating nanoprobes and be done with it. Or in the case of the Torian Goody Goody's salt the atmosphere and watch em shrivel like the slugs they are.

Now that would be befitting of the mighty G.R.O.S.S. empire.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Sure, it may be minor cheese (and I really don't think so), but as I've already pointed out, even a minor PQ or project hit from a failed invasion would be infinitely more abusable

Remember that the effect of the tactic has nothing to do with the number of invading troops. If a failed attack using 1M troops + core detonation dropped PQ by a mere 5% (nevermind the full 20%), a simple rinse and repeat would completely tank the morale of your enemy's core world, at minimal cost to you. The rich, stinky ubercheese that could be inflicted is almost certainly why failed invasion tactics *don't* have any effect.

~SDC~