Ya i don't understand any of it. I think it's broken. I had 4-5k manpower to take a planet. first round i do Blitz and lose like 600. 2nd round blitz again lose like 500. then they beg for Truce i accept. all my fleeps have 0 manpower. It seems they never get back into their ship. And they were getting manpower back (from my reserves 25% per turn) orbiting the enemy system when truced.

And i don't see anything that can raise the 700 limit either, no techs nothing? i have all techs except the very lasts..

Bridger wrote:

how come my ships always have 700 manpower no matter how many fleets I bring?  It seems odd that if i press "invade" every ship above the system loses it's manpower but I still get only 700 men every time, regardless of how many ships/fleets.

Help?

Explanation of invasion from what I understand so far...

In alpha and beta version, all manpowers of all fleet blockading the star system could be deployed for the invasion. However, like lo-fabre said, the official release version added the feature of capping the invasion manpower to 500 (base value or default value) regardless of how much manpower your fleets have. If your fleet has less than the limit, then it doesn't matter (Eg. Fleet has total of 350 during ground invasion, it will show as 350/500). If all of your fleet has over 500 manpower (Eg. 5000), than things get complicated.

Initially, all the 5000 manpower will be deployed to the star system. You can check this by hovering your mouse cursor on the fleet at bottom panel, and on the bottom left of the screen, it will show fleet manpower as 0%. However, only 500 out of 5000 deployed will fight the ground battle and remaining 4500 will be reserved for consecutive ground battles that may occur if you fail to kill all the opponent's troops. In first invasion, let's say you lose 300 units out of those 500 who are invading and enemy wins a Minor Victory by losing 150 out of 500. Then, the 200 units killed will be replenished from 4500 reserve manpower and reduce reserve manpower to 4300. So, in next battle, you will fight 500 (yours) vs 350 (enemy). This also holds true to enemy fleet. If there are enemy fleets orbiting star system that you have begun the invasion, they will also supply their killed troops by deploying their own fleet troops as reserve troops in order to defend the star system. So, essentially, all ground invasions are about which side can reduce manpower faster.

Nizaris wrote:

Ya i don't understand any of it. I think it's broken. I had 4-5k manpower to take a planet. first round i do Blitz and lose like 600. 2nd round blitz again lose like 500. then they beg for Truce i accept. all my fleeps have 0 manpower. It seems they never get back into their ship. And they were getting manpower back (from my reserves 25% per turn) orbiting the enemy system when truced.

And i don't see anything that can raise the 700 limit either, no techs nothing? i have all techs except the very lasts..

Now, there are some technologies you can research to win ground invasions more easily. The base 500 manpower cap can be increased by researching certain technologies in the military quadrant of the tech tree. Those technology are the ones that increase the command points of the fleet. Like Universal Aerodynamics in Tier 4 (+200 manpower deployment limit on Empire) and Quantum Communications in Tier 5 (+300 limit).  So, if you are frustrated about the manpower deployment limit, you can research those to increase it. There are also technologies that increase the overall damage and health of all class of troops: Infantry, Armor, and Air. Deniable Operations in Tier 4 (Military), Might of the Endless in Tier 5 (Military), Dust Micro Loans in Tier 4 (Economy), and Ultratough Materials in Tier 4 (Economy) has these passive bonuses unlocked once researched.

Or if you think the manpower deployment limit is just stupid and throw it out of the window, you can edit the game xml files. Go to your Steam installation folder, then steamapps/common/Endless Space 2/Public/Simulation folder and find SimulationDescriptors[Empire].xml. Open with Notepad or Notepad++ and find (Ctrl+F) the line....

<Property Name="MaximumManpowerPerGroundBattleTurn" BaseValue="500"/>

You can change the BaseValue to whatever you want. Do not delete the quotes, only change the 500 inside. Although 100000 is an overkill, if you set it as 100000, you can deploy all your fleet's manpower and never have to worry about the manpower deployment limit. Make sure you save the xml file!