Commander Salamander

Join Date 12/2006

Opponent parking his fleet next to my undefended planets and not attacking?

I'm fairly new to the game, but have thus far been quite successful in my first few games on 'tough' difficulty. A key to my success has been ignoring military completely until my economy/research are thriving. However, I get the feeling that I've been getting lucky and/or inadvertantly stumbling into an AI weakness. In both of my last games the Drenging parked a fleet of ships (including transports) next to my key planets while I still had *zero* military, yet did not attack. After about ~10 turns I was able to crank out some ships and secure my planets. If they had attacked during this time, I would have been annihilated. Has anyway else encountered this behavior?

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

I've not specifically seen this although I do the same thing about ignoring military until I'm really forced to. I assume you're playing DL because AFAIK in DL the AI's are more likely to perform a "surprise" attack.

You certainly don't need any military until someone starts building ships that have attack value. I usually keep an eye on the military rankings as the colony rush draws to a close. Also, you usually do get some kind of warning even if it's only a demand for money to protect you from themselves. I usually pay these demands but start working on a military ASAP.

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It's called "Saber Rattling" or the euphemism the US likes to use, "Force Projection"

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

I think The Ai will readily invade you if you have no military. the only reason it would not take advantage of this situation is because it is being distracted by what the other races are doing.

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I've had them park fleets of fighters outside my planets and then invade with transports. I tend to do the same thing. Park a few capital ships outside a planet to keep anything in orbit down, and then send in the transports to take the planet(although in my current game the Drengin seem to have 5000+ troops per a planet one of which is a class 8 with over 10,000).

-Spencer

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

(although in my current game the Drengin seem to have 5000+ troops per a planet one of which is a class 8 with over 10,000).

While waiting for your population to recover, pull back your forces and let the drengin go on the offensive. Leave one or two of your planets unprotected so they bring transports. Over time, their population will go down, while yours will go up, and up, untill your ready to invade again.

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I don't have any population porblems, they just have a lot of troops at thier disposial on this one planet and I havn't gotten around to upgrading my trnasports with an extra troop module yet

-Spencer

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

I don't have any population porblems, they just have a lot of troops at thier disposial on this one planet and I havn't gotten around to upgrading my trnasports with an extra troop module yet

Ah yea, so useless are those early model transports hehehe, i never even try using those ones - you gotta have the patience of a saint!

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Thanks for all the responses!

I assume you're playing DL...

Indeed I am. I guess I've just been fortunate so far, because in both of those games the AI could probably have wiped me out if it had only bothered to attack. Perhaps the fleet transports didn't have enough troops to take the planet though... I hadn't really considered that possibility.

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