Ground combat best strategy

[Brazuca]

The opinion please? yesterday i launched a 3 battleoids army atack and battle against more than 100 mobile some marines, militias and support, i take 2 regions on the first turn and are kicked from the planet on the second, i used on the second turn atacker spread defense strategy, i lost in nunber soo i decided to fortify and wait reinforces,i began to loose ground are looooooossssssseeeee the planet...soo sad...i have to learn to think well when i fight on 4 fronts, the fleet do well but the army...could do a lot of better

[SINISTER1974]

Well each round of battle the planet gets extra units for defense so i noticed. I think its only the militia that gets larger. Also depends what terrain and what you chose for battle intensity and collateral damage. More cautious you are more damage you take.

Here is what i do when attacking a large system or strong planet.

1) Send in atleast 2 armies if not more. Use different types of support ( hackers, magazines, etc....) Soon as you send one transport fleet loaded up with military units send another 1-2 turns later. Or even send 1 each turn. If your first attack fails or you succed but start getting beat back later you have all of those reenforcements there to help out. Also chose low battle intensity-its slower to win but safer for you.

2) If its a solar system and not a planet find a suitable planet for your race. Destroy all system defenses and planetary weapons on that planet. Defeat that planet and make sure you dont damage to many buildings or population. Build a mobilization center right away, then worry about unrest, food, etc..... While you are waiting for that to be built (8-20 turns if that or more) build extra ships, troops, and transports. Once thats built lay seige to that solar system one planet at a time. Use mobilization center to add extra ships and troops to defeat other planets. Move onto next solar system

3) Bombard planet till nothing is left-then send troops.

4) Blockade planet till it is no longer a planet and send colony ships to it.

5) Experiment with different battle plans. Each battle plan has a counter--so it really depends what the enemy picks as well. I usually use
a) maneuver
b)divide
c) ambush

and use these when ive been fighting for awhile and have the enemy on the run

a)massed assault ( can cause much damage to your troops)
b) Echelon
c)flank

and use these when war isnt going to well

a)fighting withdraw ( either for my planets or when im waiting for more troops to arrive on planet im attacking)
b) trap (ive had nothing but good results from this, when loosing and needing to spare time)
c)surprise

rest i havent tried yet--really havent needed to.

Also if all else fails use nukes, chem and bio weapons --im not sure if thses effect your troops or not--but i think they would as in real life.

And morale is a huge aspect of ground attack--try to keep it high.

[Vince278]

For major worlds I mostly use item 1 above. Tactics is like rock-paper-scissors so it really doesn't matter what you pick, it all boils down to how lucky you are against what they pick. I don't see much difference in using NBC weapons either (sometimes it may pick up the pace...). I use high intensity to inflict more damage and low collateral damage to preserve the structures that I will soon be using. What does seem to make a difference is choosing what race to attack with if you have multiracial troops. For example, it would be better to use Eoladi to attack that gas giant than say Sakkra. (BTW - The same idea works with spies. Better to infiltrate the humans with a human spy than with a Tachidi pretending to be a human)

[Brazuca]

not good

i like to use blitskrieg, Hitler was a *****, but this atack plan is genial, so i can't stop on a system i must atack quick and strong, i create reinforces at my home systens and when i an to far i create Mob centers, i used to create strategic areas and when i take one, i stop to build up my forces and a mob center and move to the next area, each strategic area contains no more than 6 star systens and at the end a single pass system were i stop and blockade the acess to my new systens, that is the advantages of play with few short star lanes, i don't use to bombard, it's don't kill ground troops or kill so few wille the planet take great damage, a normal army for me contain, one of each support unit ( i don't care the exp level ), and 25 experienced best combat unit that i have, a multiracial army were i don't care to target an army to a specific planet, gas to insaeis, and so on,i used to get a low damage, low intensity on a weak planet using massed or limited resistence strategi, if planet are well defended and i don't have overwhelming numbers, i use a low inteinsity heavy damage, defensive strategy ( if i have ground to loose ) or a experienced troops strategy ( vertical envelopment ) or divide, flank, trap ( if i have land to loose ), when i take i disband the army and put a infantry corp to take care of the planet, if the things get bad i reinforce with another corp, at least the infantry have some use, i would like to see the face of the mens fighting the rebelions, the people--
>
--> the army:
, the -->rebelious leaders: , the planet is safe again.

[coryl]

I've tried invading a few times but it always seems sort of pointless. I just bomb the planet clean and move on. From the apparent amount of effort put into it, ground combat is supposed to be important but it's just a sideshow in my games.

I agree that ground combat is essentially rock/paper/scissors so why are there so many choices?

[gloob]

I prefer to conquer 30k + population planets instead of nuking them. If you're lucky, they have a mob centre . Invading may take quite some armies but hey, you'll get a new world for it.

Always produce ground units in quantities of 10, it's a lot faster than producing 1 by 1. From mid game on, armies of ground units produce very very quick compared to space ships. Also, transports are cheap compared to up-to-date Dreadnought combat ships. The only problem is to keep track of the warp drive installed .

In mid game, a force of 100 mobiles is not hard to produce and you can conquer a home system with it. You only need to plan a combat ship less and 100 mobiles more.