Cruelsader

Cheesy fleet tactic

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Cheesy fleet tactic

How to exploit fleet targeting

from GalCiv2 Forums

I ran into trouble in my last game (maso difficulty). I had been experimenting with some new strategies (and doing badly) when 4 out of 5 major races declared war on me. In order to survive I was forced to pay some attention to fleet combat in TA :) It seems that the basics are the same than in DA: the defense (armor/point defense/shields) is either not cost-effective if you have low or medium defense (because the whole opposing fleet shoots at the same target and the defense depletes) or makes the ship invulnerable if you have very high defense (because the defense refreshes each round). This is no news, of course, see e.g. the excellent post by Wyndstar https://forums.galciv2.com/145674#1207075 Also, the formula for order of fleet targets is well known. Quoting from galciv wiki: "Before the combat begins, each side determines the order it will fire on the opposing side's ships. This order is based on the formula Total Attack / (Total Defense + Hit Points); the higher the result, the higher priority the target will be given. All ships in the fleet will fire on that target. If the highest priority target is destroyed, the next ship to fire will begin targeting the next highest priority ship, and so on."

However, I discovered that TA has changed the priority formula. The new special modules (such as Stellar Avenger - Arcean module that boosts attack ) have heavy impact on prioritizing targets. A ship with at least one weapon and special module seems to be targeted before any other ship. Therefore the ideal fleet composition is one ship with maximum defense, one special module and one weapon. The rest of the fleet has to consist of ships with maximum attack without special modules. Enemy fleet shoots at the heavily armored target doing little or no damage while your attack ships happily tear the opposing fleet apart. With this tactic (exploit really) I never lost a ship again. I thought that some of you may be interested in this little trick when playing their own experimental games or just going for a high score. Have fun!



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Text in italics is edited after feedback and further testing to reflect the effect of special modules more accurately
28,954 views 32 replies
Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I just recently acquired Twilight of the Arnor and played through as Terran, primarily because it was the most familiar tech tree.  I like the fact that you now have incentives to diversify your fleet content.

 

In DA, it was simply either all-attack fleets or hyper-defense SuperShip.  This time, there are many ways to construct your fleet.  More importantly, you now have reasons to build Small and Tiny hulled ships without additional Engines as firepower escorts for your heavily armored capital ships - very Terran, IMO.

For my part, my initial setup was no-engine Smalls with a Medium capital using a Warp Bubble module.  The resulting firepower and speed combination was competitive with an all Medium all-attack fleet, and the fleet tactics were more fluid and interesting.  I'd build attack-primary no-engine Smalls for planetary defense, then pick 'em up for offensive purposes using an armored Warp Bubble Capital Ship.

Large Ships came with Tulon technology, so I equipped my Larges with those, increased Logistics and packaged it with a Medium Warp Capital.  This allowed me 2 high defense ships in transit, and when the ships are at the front, you can swap the Warp Ship with more Fighters for mroe firepower when you need it (fleet's not as mobile in this composition).  Then you can reuse the Warp Ship to fetch more stuff from back home.  Very, very nice.

 

I like.  Cheese?  Maybe, but no more than all-defense ships were already.

 

 

 

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Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting kryo, reply 10

've been lobbying for the ability to establish targeting priorities (for both the player and the AI)


That'd go into a tactical combat sort of thing, which really isn't in the cards for GC2.

How much different would it be from the new Starbase Build Queue feature? That's really what I envisioned when he asked the question. Options being "Default Targeting", "Highest Attack Value Targeting", "Highest Armor Value Targeting", "Special Modules Targeting" (for example).

Reply #29 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The problem is, how does the AI know when to use different targeting priorities than the default?

For example, let's say that I intend to attack a fleet which has one or more ships with fleet-boosting modules, and the rest of the fleet consists of high-attack no-defence ships.

If I were going to attack that fleet I'd almost certainly want to attack the ships with the most firepower, and leave the ships with special modules for last if they only have a few low-end weapons on them.  The inherent danger in this approach though, is that the fleet-boosting modules will be functional for as many rounds as it takes for my ships to get around to them.  So if the module boosts the fleet's weapons, my ships will take more damage than using default tactics, which target armed support ships preferentially.

Maybe, it would be more optimal if I could tell my ships to first cancel out the firepower advantage by destroying some of the firepower-heavy ships first, then focus attention on the ship that has the weapons-boosting module, then mop up the rest.  However, if the opponent knows that I can do this, all his ships that have any decent amount of firepower are going to be encased in defences.  This means that not all the firepower I direct at those ships will score damage, some of it will be absorbed by defences.  So, it will take me far longer to cancel the firepower advantage, and this makes the special module ship a more tempting target.

In my opinion, this could give human and AI players something to think about when designing their ships, but it should be an optional part of gameplay.  Also, no matter what tactics you use, losing ships is inevitable.  When ships survive battles and gain experience they become tougher to destroy, but in order to take advantage of that you have to take a risk with them again.

Reply #30 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Having targeting priorities would be too complicated to make a strategic game around with the defense/offense/module factors thrown in.  It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.  Making an algorithm that would be able to deal with it would be even tougher.

Reply #31 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Well I tend to agree that strategy can go so deep to the point where you're parlaysed with indecision.  Automatic targeting priorities make decision-making a bit more straightforward, for both human and AI.  At the same time, it limits what you can do with the fleet system.  All the ships will basically follow textbook manoeuvres and fire at the exact target they're supposed to.  They won't improvise when the battle doesn't go according to plan.  There isn't actually much that you can improvise with.

Reply #32 from Stardock Forums Top

I think the easiest way for the AI to solve this would be for it to determine its recent casualty rate.  If it has been too high then it could change tactics to another attack method.  This would force human players to respect a more even keeled battle fleet.  It would be a less swift version of humans battle concepts.  You sort of throw things at the wall till something sticks.