whats the point of invading planets anymore?

[lord momo]

so i just recently played a game in which i had a transport fleet concisting of 5 regular armies (experienced), 7 clones, and 2 xnenomorph. in the past that comp was enough to topple most planets so imagaine my surprise when i use that same comp against a planet with only 5 defending armies. I wound up losing all of the normal armies and about 3 of the clones, i understand that they reworked ground combat so you dont just steamroll over planets but at the same time whats the point of having these massive armies when your just gonna lose half of them the moment that make landfall?

[DrUltraLux]

You need much larger armies, or need to engage in bombardment of the planet to destroy some of the defending armies before invading now.

[Zuul]

Defensive armies are powerful now. However, orbital bombardment now does direct damage to troops on the ground. The "fortification" level that basically meant you HAD to bomb is gone.

Meanwhile, any ground fortifactions that are built have to be reduced to rubble before the troops inside it can take bombardment damage. Combined with planetary shields you can now create massively resilient fortress worlds with ground based FTL inhibitors to just absolutely shut down an offensive for a loooong time, or require the attacker to have prodigious masses of assault armies, and the willingness to lose most of them.

[DrUltraLux]

War Exhaustion for ground assault casualties is high also for the record. So assaulting a world with massive casualties isn't always viable.

Makes defence a real legitmate thing you can do as a strategy now. :)

[Gingermonkey]

If you take your time, you can literally bombard the defending armies to death, allowing a single army able to take the planet.

[HeLLfire]

Generally depending on your race and tech\perks you want double the amount of troops the defending side has, and elites (gene warriors\psi warriors)

With that you should take very little losses, as the amount and their hp should allow them to disengage, depending on planet\combat width. Will take a few months to regen tough.

In general i suggest softening them up until all fortresses are ruined and then invade.
And if you can get a morale damage army general get him - it's extremly good.