How to defend a planet?

The easiest way is to kill the transports before they reach the planet.

Any ship in orbit will prevent an invasion until the orbit is empty.  If you put ships there, the AI will send ships/fleets until the orbit is swept clear.  SOmetimes, the AI fleet will have transports in it.

I have found that the AI often will send unescorted transports to planets w/o any defenders in orbit.  One trick is to build a few very fast transport interceptors, and station them carefully.  The idea is to have the interceptors able to spring past the undefended planet far enough to intercept the incoming transports while they are still over one turn away from your planets.  Thus, you can try to empty the orbit and defend that way.  If the AI sends an escorting fleet, you need to beat the escorts with regular ships.

Oh, and look carefully at the AI tranports not for just their speed, but also for armament, as sometimes thre AI slips sone weapons on the transports.

The transport interceptor trick is one way to combat the DreadLords themselves, as their warships are unbeatable until you tech up, but their transports are not.

If you cannot defend as above, the best defense is to max defense, of course, but also to have a planetary huge population and a very fast population growth rate.  Most here can recount games where they had a superbreeder race and watched AI invasion after invasion get wiped out, possibly using the birth rate enhancing buildings.

I was wondering if I can somehow use military starbases close to planets and let them defend the planet. I figured that if the starbase is strong enough, they can stop the enemy dead in its tracks. Or at least cause the enemy to use up a lot of ships trying to take out my starbase.

It might help if the enemy fleet decides to attack your starbase first, but it will still not be a defense against transports.

As LTJim said, have fighters with sufficient speed and sensors so you can intercept the transports.

You could put a starbase right next to the planet, but it wouldn't help if the enemy attacks your planet instead of the starbase.

Place ships in orbit to block them, and have others nearby to respond in your next turn.

It goes both ways, by the way. When you attack the AI planets, they are just as helpless.

General_Fear -

Ah, you may have a basic misunderstanding of military starbases.  All they do is assist ships within the zone of the base by increasing their attack, defense, and/or speed.  If the planet is in the zone or effect perimeter of a military starbase with various modules, the base will boost the effectiveness of the SHIPS in orbit at that planet.  The base will NOT help the planet itself.

I seems like there are 2 threads of the same kind. So I have to respond to this as well

LTjim is very right with his tactic but in DL the AI's built also very fast transports/ships, which means that in your outer rim planets can be invaded from the Fog-of-War. Eyes of the Universe and some fast Sensorships beyond those worlds (always in heading to the enemy) will mitigate this.

And, you can manipulate the AI even further. Only leave your second rim worlds unguarded - with some luck the AI will send his Troop Transports to these worlds - carelessly they will bypass the guarded first-rim worlds - whose defenders can have a fair game with em.

Occasionaly the AI will send Heavy Fighters in your reich to sweep away all planetary Defenders. The AI usually *locks* onto a ship (which could also be one of your Sensor Ships). Now you can use this opportunity to lure him into the inner core of your worlds, this will give you enough time to collect a strong fleet against him.

In this szenario fit Military SB also very well. For example, you could create a place where multiple MSB intersect and enhance your own ships Military - which will then even have a greater advantage/ lesser collateral damage. As well as you can drain the enemy ship of all of its movepoints. Such a constellation of MSB's is almost a 100% guarantee that the defended planets will never be invaded, sometimes slow ships can be entirely trapped in this web - don't destroy them, let them sit there with 0 speed, as they cost your enemy maintenance cost.

Lastly, sometimes SB's attract the enemies like honey the bees. They are a good way to lure enemy fleets to certain stronghold points (to then be destroyed..)

I've played about 10 games so far; currently on "painful" setting and still have not been defeated. Note: I've never had a planet of mine invaded by enemy forces. I've had a surprise attack take out ships in orbit, but a transport has never reached one of my planets. This is by employing the intercept method mentioned by LTJim. The AI can be predictable and as such, manipulated into wasting hardware needlessly.

djcityscapes -

Great!  As I moved up in difficulty, my experience was that I had to choose where to exceed the AIs, where to keep parity, and where to let them forge ahead and try to catch up later.  As I got more and more efficient, I would get so as to need lass and less of that third category.  Then, I'd move up again, and repeat.

At high enough levels, if you match in warship #s, they out-tech you.  if you run down the tech paths, they grossly outnumber you soon.  Etc.

What seemed to happen was that the AI sweeps would become large enough and often enough so that their transports could not be always intercepted.  Also, sometimes they were escorted.  This became particularly challenging at Suicidal.

LTJim, if I notice a hostile AI gaining on me in military strength, I always move to wipe them out before they can overpower me. I call it the "Ender Wiggin" Strategy. On the other hand, I try to ally with friendly AI's, then it doesn't matter how strong they get. But you are right in the higher difficulties its impossible to dominate in every category. I prefer to dominate in tech since tech will trump sheer numbers (most of the time).

Btw, I had a strange event happen to me over the weekend. I was allied with the Terrans and was not bothered by their progress until some idiot in my empire assassinated Allen Bradley. Now I was facing an enemy of equal strength, plus they had hundreds of "vengeance" ships scattered across the galaxy. doh!

In my first won suicidal that happened to me, too. Also with Terrans, who were by then the most dominant force. I nearly lost that game because of this event.

djcityscapes -

I'm not sure that OS Card strat will work at Suicidal with a full galaxy.  Let me know if you manage it, and how. 

I had to use different ones at Suicidal.

That's good to know. I'll let you know when I get there. Maybe in a few months.