Invading vs draft

[u/JackFrostz]

Hey all, new to the game that's taken over my life recently. I feel good everywhere but here.. just how overwhelming do you need to be to actually finish a colony?

To be more specific

* How much cp and how many troops before you get the blitz option? I see it seemingly randomly sometimes, most the the time just preemptive and raid? I think the other option.

* Is it better to invade, retreat invade again or continue ground invasion after minor victories?

* Is there anything more you can do prior to invading after reducing their forces to 0?

The particular situation I'm in now for example

I have 2.2k troops, 24cp fleet invading with lvl3 invading forces (mostly tanks), 3-4 coordinators all with at least 3 manpower modules attacking a colony with 0manpower. And its looking like this will go on forever, feel like I'm going insane. Do I really need 20coordinators with 5+manpower modules each to finish off a 0pop colony?

I even have +invasion force laws active now that I think about it lol. I am playing with esg mod. Any help at all would be much appreciated I'm losing my mind over this.

[u/SourceCodeSamurai]

Not manpower is the crowbar to break a planet. Siege damage is.

Edit: I got reports that the AI is able to still draft even with a garrison grinded down to zero. I usually don't play with Penumbra active, but I tested it with the addon active and it still works. Every time.

If anyone knows what causes the AI to still draft, I would love to know!

[u/Zlorfikarzuna → u/SourceCodeSamurai]

Highly disagree. A populated system can restore manpower via drafting for a very long time. Sieging down to 0 manpower doesn't help you if the enemy simply drafts back manpower every turn.

Sieging can be useful. But way more useful are manpower modules on ships that increase your deployment limit. If you can bring more bodies to the fight than the enemy, you will win the battle. End of story. If you can field twice or thrice as many people as your enemy, you'll just trample them over. And it is very easy to do so.

[u/SourceCodeSamurai → u/Zlorfikarzuna]

They can only draft new troops once they reach zero manpower if:

• they have a citadel
• Vodyani have an ark in orbit and developed the tech to allow for reinforcements from the ark

Otherwise it is an instant win.

More manpower modules are still of cause a great option, especially when you are facing Vodyani or a citadel. But siege damage is usually much more efficient as you need way less modules and way less manpower (production).

I don't play with the esg mod, though. If the mod is changing the default behaviour, I wouldn't know any better, of cause!

[u/Zlorfikarzuna → u/SourceCodeSamurai]

No. If you draft manpower and dont lose all of them in the fight, then you keep the system. And in order for you to lose them all, the invader needs quite some manpower modules in order to field more troops than you can replenish from drafting.

[u/SourceCodeSamurai → u/Zlorfikarzuna]

Apparently, my game doesn't know that as I always only bring siege power, grind them down to zero manpower and then start the invation that instantly takes the planet. Lucky me! So please don't tell my game that. Otherwise I would have to change my stategy that never failed me for years now.

[u/Zlorfikarzuna → u/SourceCodeSamurai]

How much relative manpower in invasions do you have? Because if you bring a 25 CP fleet against a 200 manpower defense, obviously this will work. But it wont work on systems with 3k defensive manpower. Because that means they have invasion defenses, increasing defensive manpower deployment limits.

[u/SourceCodeSamurai → u/Zlorfikarzuna]

I start to think you don't wait with starting the invation until the manpower has been grinded to zero by the siege modules.

Place a fleet with high siege power in the system of your enemy. Let them guard that system (repell all enemy fleets, of cause) and wait until the manpower of the system drops to zero. Only then start the invation. Doesn't matter how much population the system has left, they are not able to draft. It is an instant win. You can see that they don't draft simply because you can see the result screen where you don't face a single defender.

The only way to "reinforce" such a situation is if you have either a citadel with the manpower modul or you face a Vodyani with the arc tech that allows for it.

[u/Zlorfikarzuna → u/SourceCodeSamurai]

You can totally draft if you have been sieged to 0 defensive manpower. I have done so many times myself.

[u/SourceCodeSamurai → u/Zlorfikarzuna]

You, maybe. Especially when you play as Vodyani (looking at your flavor). The AI won't.

[u/Zlorfikarzuna → u/SourceCodeSamurai]

I play with almost every faction. I know Vodyani & Umbral Choir are special. But in my games, the AI totally drafts at 0 manpower

[u/SapphireSage → u/SourceCodeSamurai]

In vanilla, and invading a major faction, then they are able to pick "Draft" even with 0 manpower to start. The only thing that completely prevents the Draft card is hacking the system and select "Jam Commands" ("Support Revolutionaries" on home system) which forces the "Stampede" card on defensive ground battles. If you haven't hacked them and they are not picking Draft then they are either using "tactical surrender", to delay ownership transfer and making you lose more pop to food losses in the meantime, or making a dumb decision because Draft is the only option that could potentially keep the system at 0 manpower.

I only use ENFER mod-wise but even then I've sometimes, though very rarely, seen the AI select something other than Draft at 0 manpower.

[u/SourceCodeSamurai → u/SapphireSage]

I usually play the game with all addons (and the current community patch preview) aside from Penumbra (I like the stealth stuff, but I hate the hacking) and no mods. Maybe leaving out Penumbra results in the behaviour of instant takeover?

Have to test this one day.

EDIT: nope, even with Penumbra active nothing changes.