So bought the game today and tried it out. So far so good, especially liked Endless Legend features being integrated.

So I've started a test game with Vodyani as they seem to be quite unique. Here's a problem I've encountered however:

- When an enemy major faction (with troops) entered my system they just bypassed the defending fleet (defend command) and my Ark entirely and just started a land invasion.

On another note, the Ark mechanic isn't well (correctly?) explained (look at "Ship Bound" text). The way it is worded is that Ark is your colony, so I imagined that all system improvements were build on Ark itself. I think this mechanic needs more work put into it. Maybe space battle to weaken Ark's defenses and then invade or not to be able to land-invade Vodyani at all? Destroying an Ark is a huge setback to empire afterall (loosing all improvements and all pops).

Also games2gether platform doesn't see me buying the game even though I've linked my Steam account a while back.

Cheers.

You don't permanently lose your Ark, I think you can scavenge it back.

UndeadPuppy wrote:

You don't permanently lose your Ark, I think you can scavenge it back.

I mean it as an option to balance suggested change (immunity to land invasions). 

Right now the mechanic is full of contradictions:

Is it a colony or a colonization ship?

* If it's a colony then why is Ark destroyed after invasion? Why are system improvements transferred out of Ark after invasion? Why pops are transferred to planets?

* If it's a colonization ship then why FIDS production is stopped after withdrawing the Ark?

* And in both cases, why enemy fleets can bypass Ark's and system's defenses?

If Vodyani are working as intended then info text must be more clear on the mechanics, that's all.

Cheers.

Zagato wrote:

I mean it as an option to balance suggested change (immunity to land invasions). 

I agree. They should either follow traditional invasion mechanics and have their system (and ark) taken; or have the entire colony function as a ship. This would make early wars against the voydani harder as you have to kill the ark to colonise the system, but as they are already weak at this stage in the game it could work (especially as it is only slightly stronger than a med class ship if you spec it for fidsi boosting).

Tornodo_X12 wrote:

I agree. They should either follow traditional invasion mechanics and have their system (and ark) taken; or have the entire colony function as a ship. This would make early wars against the voydani harder as you have to kill the ark to colonise the system, but as they are already weak at this stage in the game it could work (especially as it is only slightly stronger than a med class ship if you spec it for fidsi boosting).

On the flip side, Vodyani can do nothing about outposts, since Arks are unable to contest, or outright take, outposted systems, forcing them to wait for a colony to invade, or to move on, so there's a disadvantage to counter having to deal with arks to grab systems. It was kind of a shock to learn that opponents actually can benefit from not boosting their outposts against you as Vodyani. I'll admit to having not tested every possible option here though, so if anyone knows of a tech or strategy that lets you overcome inability to beat outposts, please let me know, I may have been doing it wrong (I kind of still hope I was doing it wrong).

UnderDarkLord wrote:

Tornodo_X12 wrote:

I agree. They should either follow traditional invasion mechanics and have their system (and ark) taken; or have the entire colony function as a ship. This would make early wars against the voydani harder as you have to kill the ark to colonise the system, but as they are already weak at this stage in the game it could work (especially as it is only slightly stronger than a med class ship if you spec it for fidsi boosting).

On the flip side, Vodyani can do nothing about outposts, since Arks are unable to contest, or outright take, outposted systems, forcing them to wait for a colony to invade, or to move on, so there's a disadvantage to counter having to deal with arks to grab systems. It was kind of a shock to learn that opponents actually can benefit from not boosting their outposts against you as Vodyani. I'll admit to having not tested every possible option here though, so if anyone knows of a tech or strategy that lets you overcome inability to beat outposts, please let me know, I may have been doing it wrong (I kind of still hope I was doing it wrong).

Did blockading them not work? It takes awhile, but it does eventually kill off the outpost.

Of course, that might not help much with early-game...

Blockading as in guarding the system, or leeching them of essence. I didn't try blockading them since I had only one 'real' fleet and was using them for stuff, and my ark could go elsewhere to colonize, so I didn't try it. I'll test it next game I play, thanks.

Can't leech outposts at all actually.

I was able to leech a Sophon outpost to death.
If you leech enough the outpost will get negative growth and disappear eventually.

So if it there an unprotected outpost, it is free food for your leechers :)

Odd.  I literally just tried to in the game I used for my tutorial video.  I've even got it captured.  Maybe it was just a brand new outpost and thus I couldn't leech it?

I will try to confirm it in another play-trough. 

I'm not that good with the Vodyani tough, so it might take a while..

Maybe I should watch your guide first ;) 

RageMcGeezaks wrote:

I was able to leech a Sophon outpost to death.
If you leech enough the outpost will get negative growth and disappear eventually.

So if it there an unprotected outpost, it is free food for your leechers :)

This. I finished my first game as Vodyani and was able to leech every single outpost near my borders to death. Then came searching here to see if it's intended!

The leeching results in negative growth rate (as shown by icon on outpost when inspecting system) and when the outpost timer counts down to zero it disappears completely instead of forming a colony.

I was able to smother every single colony that neighbouring Lumeris bought around me, which left them completely hamstrung and open for early killing. Seems like a strong tactic against AI which is slow to react to leeching.

Gyumaou wrote:

RageMcGeezaks wrote:

I was able to leech a Sophon outpost to death.
If you leech enough the outpost will get negative growth and disappear eventually.

So if it there an unprotected outpost, it is free food for your leechers :)

This. I finished my first game as Vodyani and was able to leech every single outpost near my borders to death. Then came searching here to see if it's intended!

The leeching results in negative growth rate (as shown by icon on outpost when inspecting system) and when the outpost timer counts down to zero it disappears completely instead of forming a colony.

I was able to smother every single colony that neighbouring Lumeris bought around me, which left them completely hamstrung and open for early killing. Seems like a strong tactic against AI which is slow to react to leeching.

Thanks for reminding me and for confirming ! 

I also managed to reproduce this, but then I forgot to post it here.

Leeching outposts to death is the Vodyani way to deal with them.

I find it very immersive in their playstyle. I only hope Cravers could do something similar.

I definitely agree that something needs to be done about ground invasions against Vodyani. Right now, the arks are in a really weird hybrid spot regarding them.