Aeson
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Joined: 8/30/2013
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As far as 'magic numbers' of troops, I generally aim for a minimum strength two to three times greater than the strength of the defending army (you will need to have at least one ship in system in order to determine this). Preferably higher, if I want to win the invasion quickly or am unsure of whether or not the enemy will be able to drop additional troops on the planet before it falls.
Remember that Planetary Defense Units can shoot at units before they touch down (both invading troops and reinforcements to the defenders), that Armored units can provide the 'Armored Breakthrough' bonus (+25% strength) if present in sufficient quantity, that native planet types provide a 10% bonus to the troops and non-native planet types can provide a 10% penalty (e.g. Ackdarian troops will get a 10% bonus on ocean worlds while Naxxilian troops will get a 10% bonus on ice worlds; note that the bonus or penalty appears to be per unit rather than 'if you bring enough the whole army gets the bonus' and the displayed bonus is an average over all the troops deployed), and that Special Forces are capable of destroying facilities on the planet during an invasion.
Also note that each troop type has a different quality level and may require a different amount of space on the troop transports. Armor requires 200 space on the transports, infantry and special forces 100, planetary defense units 400. Armor is very strong offensively but offers less defensive strength for the cost than infantry and cost twice the maintenance. Special Forces are stronger than infantry offensively and equal defensively, but (like armor) cost twice the upkeep of infantry. Planetary defense units cost four times the upkeep of infantry and are generally weaker, but offer the ability to shoot down troops before their landing pods reach the ground (i.e. before the opponent can fight back); I believe this holds true when the PDUs are in the invasion force and the defenders attempt to reinforce, though I'm not sure and I wouldn't bring PDUs along for an invasion for that anyways (the strength per transport capacity of a PDU is grossly inefficient by comparison to the other three troop types).
A further note on troops: you must have sufficient capacity on a single transport to fit a unit. You cannot split a single unit across multiple transports; that fleet with 520 transport capacity spread equally between two troop ships effectively has 400 troop capacity, because at 260 troop capacity per transport you're only going to be taking 4 infanty/special forces units, 2 armor units, or 1 armor and 2 infantry/special forces units, and you're not going to fit a PDU. Troop allocation in the fleet menu is by size, incidentally, so 50% armor, 25% infantry, 25% special forces on a fleet with 400 capacity will reserve 200 transport capacity for armor, 100 transport capacity for infantry, and 100 transport capacity for special forces. If ordered to pick up troops at a planet which does not have sufficient troops to fill this out, the transports will initially only load troops up to the reserved amounts, but if ordered to load troops again at worlds which cannot fill out the required loadout the transports will eventually take the hint and just pick up everyone they can carry. Also be advised that how your transports are loaded can matter; if your standard troop ship has 200 capacity, then if it picks up 1 infantry or special forces unit it cannot load armored units. This can occasionally cause annoyances with leaving high-volume troops (armor and PDUs) behind despite having the capacity in the fleet to carry them simply because too many of the transports picked up an extra infantry/special forces unit or something like that. It also makes the total fleet troop capacity somewhat deceptive, as noted earlier.
Also remember that the troops of different species have different base statistics. If you're recruiting green troops, Naxxilians, Boskarans, and Mortalens have roughly twice the strength of the equivalent Teekan, Atuuk, or Ketarov troops. There's a list of base troop strengths here:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3529930
Infantry units multiply those base values by 100/100, armor multiplies those base values by 300/150, special forces multiply those base values by 200/100, and planetary defense units multiply those base values by 50/75 to get attack/defense strengths (note: don't use the ratio; multiply by the first value for attack strength and by the second for defense strength). The researchable attack and defense bonuses are a further multiplier, if I recall correctly, though they apply only to newly recruited troops.
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Edit- I also don't usually bother with bombarding. The AI can set up planetary shields, nullifying a bombardment strategy. I just recruit an obscene amount of troops and overwhelm the defending planet's ground forces.
The other issue with bombardment is that if you only have one or two bombardment weapons per ship (which is normal for computer designs unless it happens to have Shaktur FireStorm torpedoes), it'll take obscene numbers of ships, obscene amounts of time, or both to actually bombard a colony to death. The unmodded game's bombardment weapons are only killing off 0.5 to 5.22 million people every real-world second per weapon at normal game speed; a large colony's natural population growth could counteract that to a significant degree.
I will say, though, that the computer doesn't really like planetary shields that much; it tends to prefer bunkers even if it has access to both.
Regardless, there is one bombardment strategy that cannot be nullified by planetary shields, though it doesn't leave you with a colony to conquer (or a world to settle) afterwards. Planet killers are not something you can count on obtaining in any given game (I think there's a maximum of four or so of them on the largest map size with the greatest number of planets and all the storylines enabled, down to 0-1 of them on the smallest map size with the fewest planets and all storylines enabled, and without the right storylines you won't have any at all), unless you're playing with the Ancient Galaxy theme (which makes the Super Laser into a weapon you can obtain by standard research), but they'll blow a shielded planet to bits as easily as they'll blow an unshielded planet. Grand Moff Tarkin endorses (er, endorsed) this bombardment strategy; I'm sure nothing could possibly go wrong.
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(Such as an important caslon mine for refueling near enemy territory)
Personally, I would tend to suggest also having a couple Resupply Ships on standby to temporarily replace any key fuel mines that are lost or to set up in hostile space, if your ship ranges and speeds are such that fuel is a concern. The ships tend to be lost less often (they can run and they tend to be roughly as powerful as a fortified mine), and they take less time to deploy than it takes to build a new station. They're also a more reliable solution for advanced fueling points in hostile space than capturing foreign bases; it's very easy to cripple something to the point of near uselessness when you're trying to capture it.
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Setting up mutual-defense packs with an empire who a) likes you, and b) is close enough to help defend you or distract your enemy, is a good way of covering your back when you're at war with someone. Use your ambassador to boost relations with the person you want as your ally, and send them gifts, free-trade agreements, trade ultra-rare luxuries, etc.
But remember to look at who they do and don't like before agreeing to an MDP. The best alliance partners will be both well-positioned and friendly with most or all of your friends. If gaining an ally has a decent chance of creating a new enemy or turning an old friend into a neutral (or worse, a hostile) party due to poor relations between the potential ally and the other empire, think carefully before signing the paper. Maybe the Naxxilians are a decent alliance prospect against your Boskaran neighbors, but if they're on terrible terms with your neutral-to-slightly-friendly Quameno neighbors, it might not be worth the potential war with the Quameno just to have the Naxxilians on your side when the fight with the Boskarans comes.
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Is there a way to save the designs from one game to the next, so you don't have to duplicate the work every time? That might make it at least tolerable.
Yes, there is. There are a couple ways to do it. The more difficult way would be to find the design templates in C:\Matrix Games\Distant Worlds Universe\designTemplates (default directory) and edit those to your liking. Alternatively, in the Ship Designs screen there are two buttons: Save Selected Designs and Load Designs. I've never used them, but if I'm not mistaken they're the easier but less flexible way to do what you're looking for.
< Message edited by Aeson -- 6/10/2015 3:37:10 AM >
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Combat is kicking my... - 
So it might not be for everyone, but it will certainly help keep all your ships fueled up.
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