Planetary Turtling: The ultimate balance issue.

Forget bombers, forget nukes, forget tank-blobs, forget arty creep, forget commander rushes. Those are all legitimate ways to win the game. The real problem PA has right now is that once you get set up on a planet by yourself, it can become impossible for the enemy to invade you.

Space transports and orbital fabbers are way to fragile, and if the enemy spams enough units (which is really easy if you completely own at least one planet) it becomes impossible for a portal to stay open for any amount of time.
I know planet smashing is one of the selling features of the game, but right now it's the ONLY way to deal with an enemy who has become entrenched like this. And this isn't always possible in galactic war, or maps with only two large planets and no moons.

Right now the multiplanet game-play seems to be in a position when the only way to win is to kill the enemy before he can become entrenched on a planet by himself. Once he is, the game turns into an un-winnable stalemate for both players. This is similar to how in tick tack toe the person who goes first can always put himself into a position where he cannot lose, only win or draw.

As multi-planet gameplay is a core feature, I'd say this issue should take highest priority when it comes to balance issues.

until the latest patch I would argue you can make a nice place to set down with anchors. But now you have to spam / make them fast if they have unbrellas bellow or it won't work very well. I think this will get address more though. There are many more changes and balancing to do.

Ever since multi-planet game-play became a thing I remember instances where the game would slow to a crawl from the masses of unseen units the enemy was building on that other planet, and my units would simply vanish as soon as they entered orbit around the enemy.

It's actually improved since then, now sometimes my orbital fabbers last long enough to build a teliporter which is promptly destroyed by the millions of bombers the enemy had been spamming.

we can play a game where we bolth have two equal planets I will be the attack and you the defender. You will not be able to defend against an attacker that knows the game well.

if you send 1000+ avengers it should sort it out.

1000+ avengers won't do anything about the 1000+ bombers that blow up my portals before anything can get through.

you're doing it wrong!~

Build tons of anchors. Also, send nukes at the spot where you are building a teleporter; when units rush to destroy the teleporter, they will all die to the nukes while you can just rebuild the teleporter.

Can you nuke other planets? I thought it was only possible to nuke targets on the same planet or when two planets are orbiting each other?

At any rate the problem right now is doing this with basic tech available in early galactic war. If I had nukes, i'd probably also have Haleys and would probably chose to smash them instead of invading. Alternately find the commander with radar satellites and nuke him from orbit without invading.

Ohhhh yes you can!

From what range?

And what if you are playing GW and don't have T2 tech available?

I'm pretty sure you need both an advanced factory of one type AND a tactical/nuclear missile upgrade for GW. I've had complete air tech and I still didn't see any nuke facility from the advanced air fabber.

Interplanetary nukes work at any range now - the problem is, they now cost over 80K metal, so they can get a lot of anti-nukes for every nuke you build.

As for GW, you generally want to focus on killing their commander. If you're lucky, they'll be dumb and send it to one of your planets, where you can shoot down or reclaim the Astraeus then kill it. If you're not that lucky, you can target the commander with SSX's, nukes, or a mass orbital vanguard drop, depending on what tech you've unlocked. And if none of those techs are available, you just have to get fabbers to the other moons ASAP before the AI gets there in force.

It seems the best strategy for GW is to put fabbers on every planet as soon as possible and then fight three wars at once. That or just spam sub commanders like ZaphodX did, in which case it doesn't matter what you do.

I unlocked orbital loadout so that way I always have orbital defenses, stations, and fabbers as an option for winning. Just have to survive your first fight to get something better than orbital to start with.

Guys, this is only a problem until the unit cannon comes out and they said they will work on that after the release so lets be patient for that.

Unit cannon can get units to other planets in a pinch, sure, but anchors can STILL shoot at them meaning cover planet in anchors = huge stalemate.

Bottom line is, when you can control an entire planet, your offensive options are outweighed by your defensive options. The game switches from one which encourages aggression, to one which encourages building a perfect defense.

Not the best video to show this, but i sent a fleet of 8 laser platforms, advanced radar and 20+ space fighters directly on top of turtling AI commander. I should've zoomed out on the replay better now that i think about it. All you see is the lasers... and boom - game over.



Edit: Stupid forum doesn't let me link to the video.. Fast forward somewhere 13:40.

If theres another planet to dip out to at the start, then that's me jumping on that boat, abandoning the starting planet... metal income surges past 600 while others worry about defense on the main planet and only bring in like 250/s.

I'm sure they will catch on sooner or later hah