Eventually they will run out. Even with the Vodyani manpower generation buff there's a limit to how much manpower they can actually redistribute.

In fairness you're supposed to just blow their Arks apart, not invade them. The special Ark module to prevent naval engagement just makes life hard, but their ability to reinforce is no better or worse than a ground based empire. Just a big extra pool that you have to blast through.

If you want to win against Vodyani the easiest way is to choke their ability to effectively expand and to blow their arks apart while they move. I don't think I've ever seen a Vodyani AI actually perform well in any game because their core mechanics are just hard to leverage effectively.

Don't invade. Just turn on a blockade and bleed them dry until they can no longer put up a defense.

It still feels extremely cheap and broken, plus it basically makes it impossible to win with my preferred tactics, I tend to build a few powerful well armed fleets and blitzkrieg systems rather than relying on slow grinding wars of attrition, which the current mechanics basically necessitate.

Originally posted by Sidewinder Fang:

It still feels extremely cheap and broken, plus it basically makes it impossible to win with my preferred tactics, I tend to build a few powerful well armed fleets and blitzkrieg systems rather than relying on slow grinding wars of attrition, which the current mechanics basically necessitate.

sorry your only way of playing gets countered...if only the game wasnt designed to be adaptable or change. One strategy to rule them all!

Telling you right now, if you plan to play only ONE way against every AI. You are going to fail so many times. Especially if you play to the strengths of certain AI. Its like trying to run up a waterfall...like what are you doing?

This isn't some specifi trait of the AI that counters that strategy though, its an oversight that just makes the AI extremely cheap and annoying, if the vaulters had this ability with their portals it would actually make sense, it'd still be annoying as hell though and I'd probably still want it removed or at least limited to sensible levels in that case as well.

Originally posted by Sidewinder Fang:

This isn't some specifi trait of the AI that counters that strategy though, its an oversight that just makes the AI extremely cheap and annoying, if the vaulters had this ability with their portals it would actually make sense, it'd still be annoying as hell though and I'd probably still want it removed or at least limited to sensible levels in that case as well.

the Vodyani are virtual beings. You kill them and they just port more minds to bodies. It makes logical sense that defeating projections of virtual consciousness doesn't work that well.

And seriously. You're complaining that you can't zerg the faction specifically designed to be hard to take in an infantry war. Use your navy to cripple their ability to expand. Destroy moving Arks. Don;t waste your time trying to take planets that are't improved and don't have any infrastructure

Originally posted by Autocthon:

Originally posted by Sidewinder Fang:

This isn't some specifi trait of the AI that counters that strategy though, its an oversight that just makes the AI extremely cheap and annoying, if the vaulters had this ability with their portals it would actually make sense, it'd still be annoying as hell though and I'd probably still want it removed or at least limited to sensible levels in that case as well.

the Vodyani are virtual beings. You kill them and they just port more minds to bodies. It makes logical sense that defeating projections of virtual consciousness doesn't work that well.

And seriously. You're complaining that you can't zerg the faction specifically designed to be hard to take in an infantry war. Use your navy to cripple their ability to expand. Destroy moving Arks. Don;t waste your time trying to take planets that are't improved and don't have any infrastructure

What I said.

Originally posted by Autocthon:

the Vodyani are virtual beings. You kill them and they just port more minds to bodies. It makes logical sense that defeating projections of virtual consciousness doesn't work that well.

And seriously. You're complaining that you can't zerg the faction specifically designed to be hard to take in an infantry war. Use your navy to cripple their ability to expand. Destroy moving Arks. Don;t waste your time trying to take planets that are't improved and don't have any infrastructure

This isn't a trait specific to the Vodyani though, it only affects them because of some of their specific mechanics. Any ship in orbit provides troop support which is fine, and that troop support will replenish every turn if that ship is in friendly territory which is also fine because with every other factions ships you can fight them in orbit and destroy them to stop them providing support, which is invasion 101.

The problem is because you can't attack Vodyani Arks that are anchored which means they basically provide infinite reinforcements, in theory any other faction could do this if the player was stupid enough not to gain space superiority first or possibly if the fleet was cloaked and the attacker couldn't detect it.

It makes more sense if ships and arks in a blockaded system don't receive troop reinforcements because blockades are literally supposed to stop things getting in or out of a system, unless the ships are cloaked and the blockading fleet can't detect them.

If the Vodyani are supposed to be so good at defending their planets give them a buff that actually makes sense and applies specifically to their faction like a bonus to damage defending their territory or maybe an improved version of the draft tactic where they can draft more of their pops at once. Rather than just letting them exploit a loophole in the mechanics.

Originally posted by Sidewinder Fang:

This isn't a trait specific to the Vodyani though, it only affects them because of some of their specific mechanics. Any ship in orbit provides troop support which is fine, and that troop support will replenish every turn if that ship is in friendly territory which is also fine because with every other factions ships you can fight them in orbit and destroy them to stop them providing support, which is invasion 101.

The problem is because you can't attack Vodyani Arks that are anchored which means they basically provide infinite reinforcements, in theory any other faction could do this if the player was stupid enough not to gain space superiority first or possibly if the fleet was cloaked and the attacker couldn't detect it.

That sounds like a unique mechanic to me. Vodyani systems are ships. So they behave like ships. Including being able to generate manpower because their population isn't a physical population, it doesn't need to be transported physically only housed somewhere. Simply blockading their systems won't prevent them from fielding more soldiers because their soldiers are empty shells projecting their consciousness from the safety of their Ark.

It makes more sense if ships and arks in a blockaded system don't receive troop reinforcements because blockades are literally supposed to stop things getting in or out of a system, unless the ships are cloaked and the blockading fleet can't detect them.

If the Vodyani are supposed to be so good at defending their planets give them a buff that actually makes sense and applies specifically to their faction like a bonus to damage defending their territory or maybe an improved version of the draft tactic where they can draft more of their pops at once. Rather than just letting them exploit a loophole in the mechanics.

Vodyani are made of virtual data. Destroying a shell means nothing.

And they have a unique mechanic that justifies making them so hard to kill. It's called an Ark.

Your problem is that you want to use a hammer when you really need to be using a screwdriver. Vodyani are extremely susceptible to resource starvation. Blockade their systems, don't worry about taking them. It's a waste of time and gets you nothing. Look for moving Arks to shoot down in naval combat. Look for Leechers. Starve them. Once you've blockaded their systems you've effectively removed them from the game, and they have fewer systems than almost any other factions because Arks are stupidly expensive.

After you've blockaded their systems they can no longer field (good) ships. You need to only use a token force to continue to bleed them. Eventually they have to make the choice between trying to retreat their ark form a useless system or having a system sitting and doing effectively nothing.

On top of all that they have weak manpower generation. Eventually they won't have the manpower to defend against a constant stream of siege fire on their systems. Or you'll field enough manpower to beat them into submission anyway.

Originally posted by Autocthon:

That sounds like a unique mechanic to me. Vodyani systems are ships. So they behave like ships. Including being able to generate manpower because their population isn't a physical population, it doesn't need to be transported physically only housed somewhere. Simply blockading their systems won't prevent them from fielding more soldiers because their soldiers are empty shells projecting their consciousness from the safety of their Ark.

If that's the case then why under ideal conditions can any other faction replicate this feat and why is it not something hardcoded to the faction like the Unfallens immunity to influence conversion?

Can you show me anywhere in the game or official developer materials where it says the Vodyani specifically have the ability to constantly reinforce besieged planets and that's part of their design rather than some plausible but unsubstantiated theorycrafting on your part based upon their lore.

It still looks a lot more like an emergent phenomenon that arises due to the unforseen interaction of different game mechanics, similar to canal cities in civ 5 which were never originally planned or forseen by the developers.

Originally posted by Sidewinder Fang:

If that's the case then why under ideal conditions can any other faction replicate this feat and why is it not something hardcoded to the faction like the Unfallens immunity to influence conversion?

Can you show me anywhere in the game or official developer materials where it says the Vodyani specifically have the ability to constantly reinforce besieged planets and that's part of their design rather than some plausible but unsubstantiated theorycrafting on your part based upon their lore.

It still looks a lot more like an emergent phenomenon that arises due to the unforseen interaction of different game mechanics, similar to canal cities in civ 5 which were never originally planned or forseen by the developers.

Empiric Evidence - If it was unwanted it would have been patched a long time ago. It's worked this way since day 1. The only difference is now a Vodyani player gets to force you to siege them out, instead of you always having the option to blow their Arks up.

What is the problem? Do Vodyani have thousands of manpower on the Ark itself so even when you siege the system to 0 manpower they have enormous reinforcement from the Ark itself? Are you bringing in barges with modules that increase manpower deployment limit on attack? Are you only attacking with a "fleet combat-ready" fleet? Ground combat is its own kind of animal. I don't believe that invading an Ark with your few thousands of manpower deployment and fitting tropps type (as in, not trying to smash a wall with your ♥♥♥♥ by spamming infantry vs their fully upgraded tanks USSR style) won't crack an Ark open in 1-2 turns.

I don't buy into that lore soup of an "explanation". You can spin everything around using some wheelchair "lore" explanations. Arks get a refill because the manpower gets poured into the ship, and since many people complain about invading Vodyani, it seems that a sieged Vodyani system doesn't impair the Ark manpower refill, contrary to how blockading (or sieging?) a system stops the system's Manpower Defense recovery. Unless someone can cite a developer's response all we can do is just some self-righteous chest beating. My opinion is that this is cheap, because Vodyani player can just respecc their attacked Ark into full manpower modules, keep pumping Manpower everywhere else in the empire, or even grief the attacked by grinding all their population into manpower (chain gangs convert essence not pops into manpower, but this essence, and thus food drain, can drive growth below 0). And since Arks have multipliers on modules, an Ark with all manpower deployment modules can host close to whole empire's manpower stock. Maybe this opinion ignores some other aspects.

But honestly OP I doubt THIS extreme is what you're facing. Maybe your preferred tactic needs some changes? Bringing in manpower depoloyment modules to dump thousands of manpower at once or siege modules to drain system's defense in 1-2 turns is not yet a war of attrition. Bringing in shiny fleets full of only guns and shields is. Ground combat shouldn't be an afterthought when planning a war effort, you can breeze through enemy forces and get absolutely smashed by their ground defense.

Dunno if it's optimal, but some scout hulls have really high amount of utility slots, so you can have blueprints of very industry-efficient manpower barges. Maybe for some empires Protector or Coordinator hulls are better for this, because having at least 1 engine, preferably Scavenged Ramscoop, greatly improves such barge's mobility, and you don't need to build additional escort ships with Fleet Movement for them, or not as many at least. Sophons for example have crappy scouts and 6 utility slots on upgraded Protectors.

Originally posted by Sabotague:

I don't buy into that lore soup of an "explanation". You can spin everything around using some wheelchair "lore" explanations. Arks get a refill because the manpower gets poured into the ship, and since many people complain about invading Vodyani, it seems that a sieged Vodyani system doesn't impair the Ark manpower refill, contrary to how blockading (or sieging?) a system stops the system's Manpower Defense recovery. Unless someone can cite a developer's response all we can do is just some self-righteous chest beating. My opinion is that this is cheap, because Vodyani player can just respecc their attacked Ark into full manpower modules, keep pumping Manpower everywhere else in the empire, or even grief the attacked by grinding all their population into manpower (chain gangs convert essence not pops into manpower, but this essence, and thus food drain, can drive growth below 0). And since Arks have multipliers on modules, an Ark with all manpower deployment modules can host close to whole empire's manpower stock. Maybe this opinion ignores some other aspects.

You can use anything to spin a lore soup explanation. But at the end of the day Arks aren't colonies they are ships and the way they currently (and always have) work is in keeping with how ships work when on a friendly node. The fact that it has a solid tie-in with the lore of the Vodyani and central fantasy of the shipbound affinity is just bonus.

Hell, the Supremacy DLC added an Ark module which specifically forces players into a ground combat slog if the Ark is equipped with it. If the Vodyani ground battle situation was a problem I doubt the module would have been on the table.

And any player stupid enough to attack an Ark that has devoted such a ridiculous amount of effort (and wasted an entire systems economy) on being unassailable deserves to be frustrated. Attacking Arks in ground battle is dumb, it always has been. If an Ark is outfitted with the protection module don't fight it, just blockade it you'll do nearly as much damage to the Vodyani players economy with a simple blockade siege (wasting their precious manpower generation to restore the manpower of an Ark which will also have minimal functional contribution thanks to the blockade disrupting many of its infrastructure and ship building options).

Force the player to decide between having a non-functional system for an extended period, sending in a fleet to reclaim the system, or cutting their anchor and risking losing the Ark entirely. It's a no-win scenario for them, and every outcome is a win for you.

And the whole time siege damage will be wasting the relatively stunted manpower generation of the Vodyani player. Meaning they have to devote resources to generating manpower no matter which choice they make. Manage to blockade multiple Arks and the Vodyani will succumb to the effects of resource shortage.

The Vodyani can fight off ground battles forever. Don't waste your manpower. Use their weakness to resource shortages against them. Use their weak manpower generation against them. Force them to choose between a slow death and gambling on avoiding a swift one. There's a reason Vodyani are good in the hands of players and borderline useless to the AI.

You can use anything to spin a lore soup explanation. But at the end of the day Arks aren't colonies they are ships and the way they currently (and always have) work is in keeping with how ships work when on a friendly node. The fact that it has a solid tie-in with the lore of the Vodyani and central fantasy of the shipbound affinity is just bonus.

Then we are sieging ships, not colinies. According to their lore, vodyani does not build any infrastructure or something outside of arcs and Should lose control of sieged system. Then Ships can not reinforce thier manpower. Problem is solved.

Originally posted by Autocthon:

Force the player to decide between having a non-functional system for an extended period, sending in a fleet to reclaim the system, or cutting their anchor and risking losing the Ark entirely. It's a no-win scenario for them, and every outcome is a win for you.

And the whole time siege damage will be wasting the relatively stunted manpower generation of the Vodyani player. Meaning they have to devote resources to generating manpower no matter which choice they make. Manage to blockade multiple Arks and the Vodyani will succumb to the effects of resource shortage.

The Vodyani can fight off ground battles forever. Don't waste your manpower. Use their weakness to resource shortages against them. Use their weak manpower generation against them. Force them to choose between a slow death and gambling on avoiding a swift one. There's a reason Vodyani are good in the hands of players and borderline useless to the AI.

That's called strategy.

Nice one saying, Autochton. I didn't even knew vodianny ships where hard to conquer, now I know how to conquer them.

Thanks boi, yow changed my mind =]

I'm gonna add my salt and tears in this long-forgotten thread. Strategy explained above is actually viable, and, honestly, I never thought of that, but it is not suitable when you are trying to destroy their newly established colony. Haven't played in a while, hoped I could just destroy their outrageously far-away newly spawned colony in my constellation in no time, to then being hit by PTSD and Vietnam flashbacks. It's stupid and annoying that I have to devote resources on a siege fleet just to get my previously empty Behemoth mining system back. And while I do it, they have the audacity and time to place another one a system away from the current. That is just retarded and cheap, I don't have to make a full armada just to kill some nasty settlers. At least reinforc rate could be changed according to system level, that would be fair to have such defences on "core" worlds. Also, about "lore" explanation-even if consciousness could be copy-pasted, vessels they call bodies is high-tech devices, they can't be actually mass-produced on a blockaded ship. I mean, I was killing about 500-700 dudes, there is no way they could replenish them on any arc ship regardless of how upgraded it is, and any stocks they could have can't be so massive.