planetary bombardment?

[nskripchun]

I've been playing for a few days now and I can't seem to figure out when and when I can't do a planetary bombardment... it just seems to happen infrequently and randomly.

Does it require a certain kind of task force type and size? A certain kind of weapons?

I noticed there's no b0mbs in this version of MOO. =/

Thx for the help.

[vmxa1]

If you have fleet in orbit and they have no colony ships there you should be able to select assault planet and control combat. Then comit and if you win the next phase should give you a new screen. You need to be sure to select control again here or you will not be allowed to bombard the planet. I have screwed this up many times.
I have seen a number of cases where I did not get the option to control and hence bomb or even the second phase at all. I have yet to figure out the ques for this.

[nskripchun]

^ah, thanks a lot for the tip.

Lately, my fleets have been getting rather large with 8+ taskforces and I've been lately letting the AI control the space combat, since I'm going to win anyways.

Maybe I can't bombard because I select to AI control the ships in battle.

I'll do some quick tests to see if this checks out.

[vmxa1]

That will prevent you from bombardment, if you let the AI do it. I do not understand why. Of course the AI offers me blockade after I have been attacking/bombing for several turns?

[nskripchun]

Yeah, I guess it's a bug of sorts.... =(

You think the vaunted AI would know when to bombard (when you have no transports/no transports are enroute).

That's OK, I've now resorted to invading planets using overwhelming. 1 Army of Experienced Armor + 2 Armies of Trained Battleoids have been working fine for me, heh.

=)

[bakalov]

I have experienced the same problem - but the bombardment still can occur - I think thah if you do not have troop transports around then the AI will automatically bombard the assaulted planet. If your force is big enough then you can see that the colony you have assaulted just disappeared ....

[BobD]

The AI is really screwy when it comes to planetary bombardment. It's crazy that you have to choose Control Combt on each and every turn. If you don't do this then you can't bombard (or land troops). You also can't bombard an enemy planet that is not yet controlled by the enemy (pop. < 1000). And if you happen to eliminate an enemy planet there's a chance that your diplomats will lose contact with that empire! This somehow means that you're no longer at war with them until contact is re-established (go figure).

[bakalov]

I have found a thing that is even worse:

I started attacking a system with several enemy planets in it (in fact that was the Orion system). Finally I managed to kill the system defence. The system had 2 free planets (out of 7 totally) and the emigration came to them very fast (on the next turn). Good, I thought, two colony ships came and made them into colonies. What a stupid thing! When I proceeded with the antarian planets I found myself in the following cycle: The antarans produced several ships each turn (may be ~10) and send them to attack my newly established colonies. My enormous fleet was there too and each turn I got the options
"assault planet"
"intercept fleet"
"defend planet"
No matter what I selected I was always taken to defend my planet, over and over again .... this may be was because they keep on attacking, losing their ships, building new and attacking again and so on ...

I wonder what battle comes out when both players have fleets, planets and both select the "assault planet" option. Who will be attacker and who will be the defender? Why I always ended up defending and could never attack them?

I found a solution to the situation when I gave my 2 colonies to them (thank god they accepted :-) and then killed all the planets by bombardment and captured only the last one ....

Did someone have the same problems?

[Harry Seldon]

Someone else had it and solved it by building a mass of system ships to defend the planet, moving their fleet out and back in again.

It sounds like the NO have a higher initiative than the human players. It probably doesn't matter what you choose because they go first and they attack your colony.