Escort ability for ships to guard freighters?

You can't group your ships with the small freighters AFAIK, but I think there is a proposal for the United Planets to protect freighters and you can build a wonder (or was it a super project?) that does the same.

While I haven't tried it, maybe you can combine freighters into a fleet with an attack ship.

Considering the relatively low cost of freighters and the difficulty in providing them with effective protection, I just keep some extra freighters to replace any destroyed. If you are dealing with pirates, no escort is likely to be effective and in war time I have had some success fending off freighter attacks without actually escorting them all the way. The AI seems to prefer blockade to search and destroy of freighters.

You can't group your ships with the small freighters AFAIK, but I think there is a proposal for the United Planets to protect freighters and you can build a wonder (or was it a super project?) that does the same.

You are probably correct on grouping with freighters.

The only way that UP resolution is likely to pass is if you have most of the votes. It is usually voted down by a wide margin.

The super project is the Galactic Privateer. One of the better projects.

The logistics cost of guarding a trade route would likely make the route cost a lot more than it produced.

You're probably better off having some freighters on hand as backups, and/or establishing less potentially risky routes, and/or spreading out your routes so an enemy can't completely disrupt all of your trade easily.

In GalCiv1, if an AI was harassing your freighters, it would usually be with a small number of ships, so you could counter with a slightly bigger ship or group of shipsto patrol or clean up the area. However, your ships and fleets are valuable and sending them all over on wild goose chases is rarely worth the "opportunity cost" either. Overreacting to an attack on a trade route could open you up to an attack on a much more valuable planet or something.

Telling ships to patroll risky areas along the route is pretty realistic. I don't know about in the game but having a significant military force shadow a single freighter probably wouldn't be practical logisticaly.

I'm not sure that GC2 does the same thing, but in GC1, the longer a trade route had been running the more money it brought in, and I'm not talking just the higher bonus the further along the path. In this case, replacing an established trade route with a new one is still somewhat of a loss.

That said, Galactic Privateer is your friend.

So note to self, If I go heavy on trade, make sure I get that tech as soon as possible, check....

it should be noted, however, that the Dread Lords ignore the Galactic Privateer, so I don't know if it works on "Minor" races.

Can weapons and armor be equipped on freighters? Not saying it would be the smartest investment, just curious if it can be done.

I always like a GFE experience. The best site I have found is www.darwinescortservice.com. They are little pricey but have had some of the best time of my life with these girls. I guess you get what you pay for. What is the most you have paid for escort/ hooker?