Are logistics pointless and other HP musings

Zonk84

Join Date 02/2006

Are logistics pointless and other HP musings

So I'm sending my big, beautiful, 57 logistics points, completely modern fleet to invade the evil Replicators... 2 Aurora class battlecruisers (HUGE), a couple Odyssey class battlecruisers (LARGE), 3 Promotheus class (MEDIUM), and a whole mess of x-302s (small). We're near the end-game, I've got all offensive and defensive techs researched - the Replicators are teched out in missile and missile defense techs... so I've got the advantage.

Still -- I expect to lose a fair bit of my fleet in the attack on an outlying system. I save the game before attacking. No planets in the 4 planet system have Orbital managers -- so it's fleet vs. 1. Sure enough -- only 1 of the Odysseys survivess.

I reload -- this time splitting a single Odyssey and attacking all 4 planets alone. Single turn -- no loss, plus a ship that is now massively stocked with XP hitpoint bonuses. This was no lightly defended system -- each planet had at least 1 dreadnought, multiple battleships, and a number of defenders.

I've been playing for a few hours now -- totally disbanded all my fleets -- and am just launching single ship attacks... doesn't matter if it's vs. 1 ship (though that's preferable) or vs. a fleet -- I'm only attacking with one ship at a time. My losses are WAAAYYYY down. Even taking on an entire enemy fleet -- I just order the attack right and I end up coming out ahead (I've done multiple save/reload scenarios).

I'm beginning to think there's not really a whole lot of points to logistics and fleets.

The problem is that the 'winner' always survives the fight -- and with a tough enough attack, I can send my heavily damaged HUGE ship anywhere and against anything.... starbases included.

It seems to me there really needs to be some sort bonus to forming a fleet -- shared defenses or something -- otherwise it would seem the advantage is heavily tilted towards the single HUGE or LARGE hulled ship. This advantage seems even starker when you have a technological advantage.

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In Civ, the AI gets to cheat pretty blatantly at any difficulty above Noble. Also, you should be bombarding the city defenders down to minimum hp before attacking anyway.

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I think part of the problem here is that the units are representative. A spear man is an entire unit, not one guy. I will even buy that under certain circumstances a spear man unit might successfully take out a far superior ground unit....Key word there ground unit. The reference someone made above to Poland in WWII is a perfect example. Im sure the polish calvary managed to do some slight damage to some armored units before being completely wiped out. Nothing that couldn't be repaired almost immediately, but I really doubt they did much to any of the air units...You need AA, missiles or your own air force.

The whole Civ developers BS line about how it's reasonable because of attrition is just that...BS. They simply didn't want any combats to be automatic wins.

Don't ever make the mistake of confusing military and political battles. The military damage done to US/Allied forces in Iraq is completely and totally negligible from a military perspective. Militarily it can be sustained for an infinite amount of time. Even with Iranian and other help, the opposition forces simply lack the ability to hurt the US/Allied forces on any kind of real scale...And they qualify as something more than spear men...The civ equivalent of Fanatics or Partisans depending on your version and view. The military attacks are all about generating negative political consequences, because they can't really hurt the US/Allied forces in a significant military way.

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

In Civ, the AI gets to cheat pretty blatantly at any difficulty above Noble. Also, you should be bombarding the city defenders down to minimum hp before attacking anyway.

Not so easy in civ3 since your very unlikely to damage the units bombarding, instead you just destroy buildings which are then impossible to replace since communism won't allow cash rush buying, and Democracy is dead set unusable in war time.... unless of course you want to starv the populations of your cities, stagnate your science rate and run out of money! Infact because communism cannot cash rush buy, it is often far easier just to destroy cities you capture.

In civ4 i don't usually bother building artillery at all since their bombard got horribly nerfed.

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In the North African campaign in WWII, far and away the greatest losses of Axis combat aircraft in theater were inflicted by the original SAS (and some by PPA, I think). These were both EXTREMELY light motorized infantry forces, albeit specialized. One of the key points in simulation at the operational-strategic level and the strategic level is that your "battles" are not really modeling battles, per se, but rather the entire spectrum of conflict over the period of a turn. The Britsh forces in theater could only just hold their own in the tactical air battles of each day, but in the scope of the weeks and months of the operational-strategic problem they found a way to defeat the enemy air forces.

(Re "What is PPA?" - Look it up (hint: it's NOT Polish Peoples Army). Amusing to any wargamer, I think.)

drrider

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

The Britsh forces in theater could only just hold their own in the tactical air battles of each day, but in the scope of the weeks and months of the operational-strategic problem they found a way to defeat the enemy air forces.

WW2.... recources diverted to attack Russia = Victory for Britain, end of story. Thank God Hitler was too racist to march over the world hand in hand with Stalin, we have racism to thank for our freedom!

Ah yes, a good example of another dissadvantage of having evil alignment in Galciv, your diplomacy rating should be crap, even when dealing with other evil races. Since both Hitler and Stalin were evil basteds and still couldn't get along!

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I realize this is bringing up an incredibly old thread, but I was reading it while stuck at work.

My suggestion would be both a somewhat naturally slower tech rate, to encourage more time spent in the "mid"game, and various bonuses to be detailed below.

While a Battleship can effectively target multiple smaller craft, one would assume it'd have a hard time hitting them all as they swarm in three dimensions around the entirety of the ship. It's like trying to get a bunch of bees off you. Small ships IN A FLEET should recieve a defense bonus based on their mobility and spread. I don't know if a percentage or a flat addition would work better, but realistically, it'd have to be relatively large either way. Perhaps only award it if they're attacking (they had time to mobilize and join formation). Have that scale with each step in hull size, with medium getting a very small bonus (or none), large ships getting either no bonus or a small penalty, and the capitol ships getting a small penalty.

I'd also suggest giving the chance of something akin to a critical hit against craft of smaller than the one firing. Have some % chance that if your Dreadnaught is firing on a small fighter that it's Cap Ship grade plasma cannon is going to destroy the fighter so entirely that it doesn't GET that chance to use it's parting shot. That would make it so that in fleet battles, your cap ship can take out some of the fighters without so much of the risk of "I'm going to die anyway, so **** it, go solo". Don't base it on First Strike like it used to be, just a low, random % chance. Say 5%. Or maybe 2% per class difference, up to 8-10% for a Huge firing on a Tiny.

I know I had a third idea, but in the rush to finish up before quitting time, it has slipped my mind. Bleh, this will have to do for now. I don't proclaim to be an expert at this game or game balancing either one, so I'm entirely open to (constructive) criticism. Thanks.

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I think what needs to be done is simply increase the defence rating considerably. No ship should be able to take out another one of the same class with a single shot. This is just ridiculous.

As for the fleet advantage I would say there needs to be some multiplicative bonus for using the fleets, maybe determined using the logistics level as someone has already suggested.

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Just my poor near-newbish 2 cents

One thing about these massive attack ships. in all the sci-fi shows a ship has enough problems trying to power its engines, defenses, and weapons all at once. (how man times did Geordi reroute power...?) Now this may just be absolutely impossible without a total AI re-write, but why not attach an energy value to each ship hull and ship component. Then not only do we have sizes to worry about, but energy requirements as well. There wouldn't even need to be a new tech tree, as the power-plant line could lend energy bonuses (much like miniturization) to ship hulls. But still, Defenses could require much less energy than weapons, and other components of course would almost be negligible. This would force players, and the AI, to strike an optimal balance. Becuase a ship with all offense would run out of power very quickly and not utilize all its hull space. While a ship with a balanced load could utilize all its space, have less attack, but significant defense, enough to take out the opposing all offense ship of the same time (assuming equal techs)

Maybe thats a crazy idea, but the term "it feels right" comes to mind for me. maybe not for anytone else, and maybe there is a significant flaw here that I am not seeing. But this could also help to balance the various weapons out. (Beam weapons should require more energy than Mass drivers, which should require more than missiles (since missiles carry their own energy).

/2 cents

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