I'm totally against this idea. That's exactly how poor handled invasions should end up. U pretty much asking to conquer everything without much trouble and not bothering yourself with sieging/investing manpower - that shouldn't be a thing.

If attackers didn't completely wipe out the defenders that means you should press retreat button(unless you want deplete enemy system's population) and bring some additional manpower deployment modules or siege some more but not pushing again. And again. And again. So as i see it it's the problem of how u handle it not of the mechanic itself.

BadBecauseMad wrote:

I'm totally against this idea. That's exactly how poor handled invasions should end up. 

It's also how well handled invasions wtih huge amounts of manpower end up.

If attackers didn't completely wipe out the defenders that mean you should press retreat button(unless you want deplete enemy system's population) and bring some additional manpower ..

It's nothing to do with how much manpower you bring. It's to do with how much manpower you deploy. You can bring 10x the system's manpower and grind the system population to dust without ever being in danger of losing.

Winning in a single turn requires an empire's worth of manpower deployed at once. Yes, you can do that. But then, if battles are over in a single turn, why  even have manpower as a mechanic?

Dragar wrote:
It's also how well handled invasions wtih huge amounts of manpower end up. It's nothing to do with how much manpower you bring.

Nope.

Dragar wrote:
It's nothing to do with how much manpower you bring. It's to do with how much manpower you deploy. You can bring 10x the system's manpower and grind the system population to dust without ever being in danger of losing. 

I was actually refering to manpower deployment modules not sheer manpower you bring. Forgive me my poor wording. I corrected myself there.

Dragar wrote:

Well, I agree you can apply overwhelming force.  That's currently the only strategy that works, and it utterly trivializes all the manpower mechanics.

I don't see how it trivializes manpower mechanics. On the contrary imo it's what enables usefulness of sieging, manpower deployment modules, pops with manpower/ground battle bonuses, manpower stock/generation mechanics/buildings/faction specifics, different tactics, etc.

Besides, not bringing overwhelming force is a definition of poor handled invasion.

But all those things are at the margins. Plus 1% here, plus 100 health there, +100 growth per turn, etc. is not going to make a blind bit of difference when you (I assume, like I) deploy 5000 manpower onto a single system. 

They might, if battles were encouraged to be about deploying (and losing) the minimum amount of force in the most optimal locations, or having battles involving casualities on both sides, etc.

Slashman wrote:

You either commit to a siege or you wait. That's the point of it. 

What does Draft have to do with that? Your statement is true with or without that strategy available. Draft just means that any non-overwhelming force options grind up the system population to zero.

Dragar, sir, i can understand where your feelings come from since i'm a gene hunter and getting Vodyani in my Empire might be really tricky exactly for those reasons you describe and because it might be really hard to bring an overwhelming force to take down an Ark with pops still alive and keep at least one Vod after succesful invasion. But 100% of the time it's not the draft my problem but how i actually handle it with siege, manpower deployment modules, troops distribution, troops' health/damage bonuses and invasion tactic.

I can't remember when i had any troubles with draft since mapower deployment modules were introduced. After sieging that is.

BadBecauseMad wrote:

Dragar, sir, i can understand where your feeling come frome since i'm a gene hunter and getting Vodyani in my Empire might be really tricky exactly for those reasons you describe and because it might be really hard to bring an overwhelming force to take down an Ark with pops still alive and keep at least one Vod after succesful invasion. But 100% of the time it's not the draft my problem but how i actually handle it with siege, manpower deployment modules, troops distribution, troops' health/damage bonuses and invasion tactic.

I think you're misunderstanding my complaint. It's not that I can't deal with Draft. I can. It's easy - bring an overwhelming force, and even with Vodyani that's easy enough at the point it matters. 

The problem is that what's the point of all these combat mechanics, the repeat battles, the differences in manpower replenishment, and so on, if all anyone should do is drop overwhelming force on a system or not invade atall? It makes the entire combat system completely unncessary.

It functions as a threshold: got enough deployment? Take system. Otherwise, don't bother (unless you want to grind the population up). What a waste of a whole game mechanic!

BadBecauseMad wrote:

Dragar, sir, i can understand where your feeling come frome since i'm a gene hunter and getting Vodyani in my Empire might be really tricky exactly for those reasons you describe and because it might be really hard to bring an overwhelming force to take down an Ark with pops still alive and keep at least one Vod after succesful invasion. But 100% of the time it's not the draft my problem but how i actually handle it with siege, manpower deployment modules, troops distribution, troops' health/damage bonuses and invasion tactic.

I've had the advantage in all of the above areas. The results are great, the opponent loses most of their Manpower, turn after turn!

But it doesn't matter as long as they can scrape by with 1 Troop left alive, as the difference between 0 and 1 is the difference between taking the system and fighting against another Draft. So you can keep beating down your opponent all day and it won't win the battle until the attrition leaves them unable to draft anyone, or you resort to absurd overkill.

IceGremlin wrote:

But it doesn't matter as long as they can scrape by with 1 Troop left alive, as the difference between 0 and 1 is the difference between taking the system and fighting against another Draft. So you can keep beating down your opponent all day and it won't win the battle until the attrition leaves them unable to draft anyone, or you resort to absurd overkill.

We're going in circles. If attackers didn't completely wipe out the defenders that means you should press retreat button(unless you want deplete enemy system's population) and bring some additional manpower deployment modules or siege some more.

IceGremlin wrote:

Ground Battles boil down to "wipe them out completely ine one move or go home," with no room for attrition on the invaders side. Which leaves things very boring if the only invasion tactic is Blitz and the only fleet build for invasions is Maximum Deployment.

The way i see it - it enables sieging - you can't just invade and take the system in one turn without it and sieging gives your opponent time to react - build ships, bring reinforcements, etc. So you actually have a choice of fast sieging or high deployment limit or mix of both but lower gunpower/movement/defense.

When it comes to taking system for yourself(oposing to pillaging/destroying/depleting pops) you bring fleet with manpower deployment and sieging modules, siege system to 0, then invade using middle tactic(sry can't remember the name) if not enough(no way) - blitz next turn. It's not boring or a problem it's just the optimal way to do it. And if i want to damage enemy system i would use high manpower low deployment limit with orbital bombardmnet tactic. And etc depending on the situation and what you want to do there would be an optimal way to do it and i can't call it boring just because i want to do only one thing - take systems for myself.

I'm not saying sieging helps against draft. Manpower deployment modules do and with them draft is just a non-factor.

BadBecauseMad:

"We're going in circles. If attackers didn't completely wipe out the defenders that means you should press retreat button(unless you want deplete enemy system's population)"

This is certainly the case, but the question is: why is this good design? Why isn't it the case that if you don't completely wipe out the defenders, you continue battling again until manpower is depleted on one side or the other? That would make combat more than 'can you wipe out the defenders in one turn?'.

It might be, as you say, that the design is supposed to be that players can choose between throwing manpower away to damage enemy systems, rather than even trying to capture them. If so, that's pretty weird.