Help! Getting creamed in fleet combat

from GalCiv2 Forums

Hi, I'm a relative newbie here, been playing GC2 for about 3 weeks. 

My question concerns fleet battles and why I can virtually never beat the computer.

Game is plain vanilla GC2.  Haven't bought the xpacks yet.  Difficulty is "challenge."

In this one game, I've played it out by restarting from various saved games at least 8 times over the last week.  No matter how I adjust my tech priorities or ship designs, I get clobbered by the computer (specifically the Altarians in this game), in basically every fleet battle, no matter the tonnage balance between the two fleets.

My ships are typically huge class hulls.  There may be 1-5 in a given fleet.  Weapon tech is maxed to the end tech.  Depending on the game iteration, it could be beam, missile or MD.  I've tried all three.  Defense is stacked against beam because that is the only weapon type used by the Altarians in this particular game.  Defense tech is always max.  I have max miniaturization and logistics techs, and reinforced hull techs.  Design is about 55% weapons, 7-8% engines, and 35-37% beam defense.

Bottom line, the Altarians will crush 2 of my huge class with 2-3 smalls.  They've crushed 5 of my huge with 1 huge, 1 large, 2 medium, and 2 small.  When I get first shot I might destroy 1 or 2 ships, but I still lose.  If I don't get first shot, I barely even inflict any damage.  Battle results show me with vastly more initial HP, similar total defense levels, but him have 2-3 times my attack strength usually.  Bottom line is my stacked max tech beam defenses seem ineffectual against his weapons, and my weapons are only moderately effective against his defenses.

He doesn't have military starbase bonuses in most cases either.  These battles are mostly in my own systems.

Trying to understand what I'm missing here about the combat system.

Thanks in advance.

- woolfe

strategies
5,977 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
maybe maxing out your attack you should try maxing out defencive and little offenceive.

and pluse they could have xeno ethics by now so if there good they get high defence if bad high offence
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You will need to post some numbers for one of the fleet battles for anyone to be sure what your problem is.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Will do. By posting numbers you mean the summary you get at the end of the fight that gives initial HP, attack strength, def stregnth, etc?

- woolfe
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
maybe maxing out your attack you should try maxing out defencive and little offenceive. and pluse they could have xeno ethics by now so if there good they get high defence if bad high offence
End of quote


What are the magnitude of the bonuses for being good or evil? I'm neutral. Is that bad?

I think this Altarian is evil, which might explain his higher attack rating/tonnage than me.

- woolfe
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
By posting numbers you mean the summary you get at the end of the fight that gives initial HP, attack strength, def stregnth, etc?
End of quote

Nope. That means specifying for each ship in battle weapons strenght, defense strenght and amount of hitpoints (e.g. huge hull with 400 beam attack, 300 shields and 150 HP). If you'play DA or TA, then you'd also need to specify all weapons for each ship (e.g. 15 doom rays, 30% weapons bonus, no Luck ability).

Battle results show me with vastly more initial HP, similar total defense levels, but him have 2-3 times my attack strength usually.
End of quote

Altarians may have several mined mil resources. That's what gives them such a high attack bonus. To find that, check their ship composition (count weapons that ship has), and check the firepower it actually has. The differrence is attack bonus.

To fight an opponent that has such an advantage you need to:
1) destroy at least some of his mil-mining starbases;
2) use LOTS of defenses on your ships (1.5 his average ship has attack);
3) kill his economy (planets and econ- and morale-mining starbases);
4) since you're playing DL you can use kryo's combat simulator to predict battle outcomes and avoid those you can't win.

For more on ship combat check wiki: ship combat and fleet combat.


BR, Iztok
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for the input, everyone who replied. I was able to go back and this time barely win a tech victory by holding out just long enough. I actually won some of the fleet battles this time.

Some things I discovered:

1. The Altarians definitely had a weapon bonus for being evil;
2. Getting first shot is absolutely critical, particularly against an opponent whose has an advantage in attack strength;
3. Per the above post, they probably were mining mil recourses, though I never thought to look for those (good suggestion);
4. There is a fairly strong advantage for using larger numbers of smaller ships vs. smaller numbers of larger ships.

On point number 3, the issue of fire control, i.e. overkilling targets, which is discussed in another thread here, is only part of it.

I also noticed that the end tech weapons scale their size requirements linearly with the hull size. This is a HUGE advantage for smaller ships in terms of attack strength/tonnage ratios. Although this is irrelevant at lower tech levels, when you reach the end of the weapons tech trees, it's a massive advantage for smaller ships.

Also, the the reinforced hull techs add a flat amount of hit points per ship rather than a percentage. This favors the side with the higher number of ships.

While having larger numbers of smaller ships means that a higher percentage of your tonnage is taken up by engines, this disadvantage is way over-compensated for by the above two factors, especially the first factor.

I'm hoping that the expansion packs rectify this rather quirky tendency to favor smaller ships that is pretty apparent in DL.

- woolfe
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
They do indeed. First of all, the first shot rule no longer applies unless you are the only one with the first strike super ability. Otherwise, each ship gets a shot even if it is destroyed in the first round. The weapon techs don't seem to favor smaller ships quite so much (though still more than I'd like them to) as well.