Strange buildup of forces

[triggerman602]

In my current game there is a mark IV planet with over 4000 units on it. I have never had any units on or near this planet besides scouts though. It has never been alerted. What could be causing a particular planet to gain so many reinforcements? Its built up to the point of border agression and i now have a stream of markIV ships flying across the galaxy to get me.

[3dfx]

get a missle silo,and nuke em !

[keith.lamothe]

Just checking: are hybrid hives on?

[triggerman602]

I'm not worried about cracking it. Just wondering why its so full when iv never touched it. Its nowhere near me anyways.

Hybrid Hives are not on.

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, weird, though sounds similar to another report, will look into it.

[RedrumJackle]

I have a planet quickly approaching 4k and it is also a IV in one of my games heading on 12hours into the game. Though it is alerted to my presence.

What options do you have enabled for extras?

Dyson Spheres, etc...

I remember one game where four planets were on alert, and I was no where near them to begin with. Nor did I even scout them to alert them of my presence. I believe this is the work of the Dyson Sphere. Not sure, but its worth the thought. I'll keep my eye out for such cases. =P

[eRe4s3r]

When a Mining Golem nukes a planet all around it are on alert (fun on spokes ,p) same applies for other golems

Though after 12 hours an IV world is always going to be a roadblock

[x4000]

It sounds like in this specific case it is none of the normal things. I suspectitcould be overflow reinforcements if there are fewplanets actually on alert. Let's say you captures 12 planets but by a quirk of the map only 3 are now on wrt. That means each ai now has 12 reinforcement points to spend every cycle, and only 3 best places to spans it on. Therefore each of those 3 gets one reinforcement point every time, and then those other 9 get put... Elsewhere. In your case, not that I've seen the save, it could be that a lot of them have been stacking on this one planet for a while.

Usually if you've taken 12 planets, often you'd have 24 or 32 or more planets on alert (VERY much dependent on map type). Which is actually to your advantage, because as long as all 24-30 planets are no home planets of the ai, you wind up with reinforcements being so diffuse that you have a pretty easy time by comparison.

It's basically a matter of how much you're telegraphing your intentions, versus how much you're distracting the ai with irrelevant alerts. This is one reason the snake maps can be harder than you'd think (despite how easy it is for you to defend on them).

[Fox Soul]

I do find the snakes to be extremely easy for my strategies, but I always hate moving up the defensive structures.
Gotta do it carefully and quickly. Especially when there is no trader and on more complex maps.

Anyway, I've seen strange build up of forces where there is like a highway of ships going from planet to planet.
There would be like 5-10k ships in this highway. Which to me explains why there would be a high number of ships on a newly scouted world that hasn't made any real reinforcements of its own.

[x4000]

Ah, yeah, that can also definitely happen: special forces ships passing through can prevent planets from building up much if they are constantly passing through.  That's rare that it happens to the extreme you mention, but with bottleneck planets after you've destroyed a lot of special forces guard posts (or in a few other isolated circumstances) it's definitely possible!

[triggerman602]

Here is a save of my game that it is happening in. The planet is marked with a P5. Its in the lower left section. Might have something to do with the fact that i did an 8 planet start.