The war is waged by space ships, troop transports, and planetary defenses. All battles happen sequentially in random order at the start of each turn, see Initiating Battles.

Combat phases

  1. A space battle, either a Tactical Combat or a Strategic Combat. This stage determines which military ships are destroyed or retreat. It is possible to destroy a colony during this phase if enough damage has been dealt to the planet.

  2. A Planetary Bombardment. If the defender has no fleets or defensive structures left, the attacker may bomb the colony randomly destroying during this phase. Each bomb may randomly destroy a military unit, a building or a unit of population. Depending on your goals you may want to do maximum damage to the colony or to damage it just enough to successfully capture it on step 3.

    1. If you have a stellar converter in a fleet you can destroy a planet instead. There is no defense from it, the colony is destroyed in one shot and the planet becomes an asteroid belt.

  3. A Ground Combat. You need to have transport ship(s) in your fleet for this. It plays automatically, you capture the colony if successful.

    1. A telepathic takeover is an alternative way to capture a colony. Possible for telepathic races if large enough ship is present. This can be thwarted if defending side is telepathic or has a leader with a telepathic skill deployed in a system.