GalCiv2 Forums
Whenever on the defending side or the attacker side, what are your preferred fleet compositions in the beginning, middle, and end?
Defending: at least 1 medium hull with decent weapons on each planet. Though this is not absolutely necessary, I prefer this to having to constantly look out for sneaky attacks on any of my planets; besides I usually produce many of those ships in the mid-game to keep my military rating up, until I get access to better weapons.
For my border planets: multiple of those or stronger ships. Also at least 1 ship with a few points of attack and plenty of speed (at least 5 pc) which I'll use to intercept enemy troop transports
Attacking: either around 3 medium/large hulls with plenty of attack or (if I'm really stomping the enemy) a fleet consisting of 1 spore ship and 2 medium/large hulls. You could do the same with transports though in many cases you'd need more than 1 transport.
In the beginning of the game I don't really have fleets yet, just dispersed ships for defense and in case I have a spin control center, plenty of ships in orbit around that planet.
In the late game I will have similar fleets but access to better weapons (at least 60 attack) and large or huge hulls. With those I rarely need to stack more than 3 ships in a single fleet.
[DA] Within range of my military starbase: tiny hulls, so that more ships in a fleet where they each get the starbase assist. OK for defence of a cluster of my planets and usually cheap to upgrade all of them.
All other fleets: same size or larger hulls than the enemy. I like to have some fresh ships nearby to quickly replace casualties which can go be repaired.
Smaller hulls get completely destroyed more easily so I only fill up the remainder of the logistics with them when I'm desperate.
Later, when I have larger hulls, 1 or 2 fast fleets to strike at enemy transports and weak ships trying to escape after losing the rest of their fleet. Also good for zooming around planets on auto-attack, destroying the last of an enemy's ships in the larger galaxies.
For planet defence early in the game, I can usually get some defence techs from Minor Races so my ships can take more of the small attacks (e.g. from the Drengin Coordinators Super Dominator Corvettes). Medium hulls with nearly all defence can hold off many of those attacks without being damaged.
It really depends a lot on the game. Generally, I use a mixture of the two biggest hull sizes I have for most fleets, although I almost never use tiny hulls and I rarely get Massive Scale Building unless an AI does, so in practice this means small/medium fleets early on and large/medium fleets later on. I tend to have 4 basic ship roles for medium and larger ships:
Occasionally, when playing with one of the civilizations that gets speed-boosting fleet modules, I'll create "carrier groups" consisting of a large or huge hull with a speed module, one weapon, and tons of defense, and lots of tiny/small fighters with nothing but weapons and life support, as well as occasionally other big ships thrown in there. The "carrier" lets me skip engines on the fighters so they can get more weapons, and takes the hits for them in battle so I don't constantly have to replace them (which means I don't have to give them defenses either).
Again, though, it really depends on the particular circumstances of the game. I'm playing two games on TA right now - one as the Krynn and one as the Torians. As the Krynn, my primary antagonist has been the Drengin (though we're at peace now and they're falling apart thanks to a horrible economy, and the Torians and remaining ex-Korath pirates are much bigger threats). They're using beams primarily, but they had lots of Dominator Corvettes, so I designed a specialized "Corvette Killer" medium ship with armor instead of shields to deal with those.
Meanwhile as the Torians, the Dread Lords have invaded, so I'm designed anti-Dread Lord forces consisting of 1 Lucky Ranger, of which I've found about 6; 2-3 medium "Attack Cruisers" (the heavy hitter archetype above); and tons of tiny "Kamikaze" fighters - basically a bunch of mass drivers strapped on an engine. It's working pretty well - I can take down a Dread Lord fleet while losing just the Kamikazes, which can be built once a week by my best planets - but I would never be using this formation in normal circumstances, which again goes to show how much of my fleet design depends on the game.
I tend to start the game by fortifying worlds with 6 tinies with mil starbase always at center of each sector. At first, only a gun on each. Eventually upgrading to version with both a defensive and a weapon.
When I'm starting to encounter too many mediums, I upgrade my pickets to mediums for extra HP. I take all tinies and upgrade them into tiny constructors and use em on the starbase. Hopefully by then I will have tech to ugrade +30 attack and +20 defense to make the starbases sturdier. At this point I have effectively won the game, it becomes a slow slaughter on the ai.
I haven't gotten above 'tough' in difficulty, but at my level:
I never spend resources fortifying planets. I tend to play huge and above galaxies and the number of ships to fortify versus the resources to build mobile offense-defense fleets doesn't make sense. Ships are for fighting -- and deterrence until you're ready to fight. Fleets sitting in orbit and not fighting are a waste.
If I can beg, borrow, steal, or con warp bubbles out of an enemy -- and I'll trade drive tech to the Terrans to get them to make it -- then my command ships (usually class-named Delicate Harmony) have warp bubbles, two top-tier engines, one Laser V, and as much type-specific level 2-3 defense as will fit in the remaining space on a medium hull. If no warp bubbles then some other module, but one fast fleet is as good as two slow ones.
To the command ship I add two firepower ships; two good engines, one or two defense modules, and whatever firepower I'm using -- usually whatever nobody else is using, and I manipulate this, too, trading one good weapon type to everyone while researching another line. This is the Dire Radiance class of mediums.
That's my basic offensive-defensive fleet. It has tremendous resilience, I rarely lose one, and typically don't need anything more advanced, though I do upgrade them as tech becomes available. After I get more logistics I'll typically put small-hull fast transports with the fleet for invasions. When really good engines show up I might selectively upgrade fleets without transports with top-end engines and weapons as killer fleets.
I'll often take enemy small fighters, bought for influence in the early game, fly 'em to my mining bases or other people's mining bases, and upgrade them to no-engine heavy-type-specific defense-plus-a-gun fighters called Sit n Pound for defense of those resources; occasionally defense after I smash the enemy base and upgrade some of the fighters to constructors.
And that's it.
Depending on logistics I tend to go for standard military tactics (most of the time)
I group tiny and small hulls together in 1 fleet,medium hulls in a fleet of their own and large and huge on their own but I also put 1-2 huge hulls with lots of tiny/small hulls as a battle/carrier group where the smalller ships take the brunt of the damage while the huge hulls dish out the damage to the enemy.I have also mixed and matched different hull sizes within fleets in the past to mixed results.
If I'm going the El Cheapo route like I am in my current game, I use just frigates with not a lot of weaponry in the early game to attack enemy fleets and escort transports. In the middle of the game I upgrade my veteran frigates to use better weapons and a specific defence type. In the late game I skip over large hulls and start building huge hulled ships with more firepower than the frigates, but again, not completely filled out.
The idea is to not waste a lot of turns manufacturing ships but instead get some ships out there that have decent firepower when fleeted up and can be replaced without too much trouble. Plus, by keeping the design cost low, I save on maintenance. However, when a ship has gained hitpoints from many battles, it makes sense to equip it with more firepower and defences. So I will have particular designs that I only use for those sorts of upgrades.
On the defence though I tend to park one cruiser with the same armament is my frigate, a couple of integrity grids and decent defences in orbit with some throwaway fighters that can be easily replaced. The cruisers are costly and take time to build, but they can shut down all but the most determined attacks.
Me?
I tend to use battleships alot for my main assault fleets. I have fleets comprised of many fighters, a few frigates, and a battleship as defense fleets to be used with star bases. And I tend to have a Revenge Fleet, composed of the SUPER-ULTRA powerful ships. The Revenge Fleet is designed to find other enemy fleets of great power and smash them to pieces!
DA:
I put only the very cheapest ship in orbit around each planet, solely to prevent unescorted transports from doing snap invasions. Its very cheapness will let me replace it in one turn, complicating any invasion attempt. The true defenders are fleets based at rally points.
In my fleets, I typically have a few offense-only medium hulls and the rest larger hulls with the same offense value as the smaller ones, with the rest of the hull space packed with the best defense. In later battles, I may also include one "tank" with about half the offensive punch and the rest defense. The role of the "tank" is to maximize the chance that if a total annihilation occurs, my fleet is the last one standing.
Also, when the enemy has the "first shot" super ability, having one survivor is the way to get at least one salvo in.
Note that in some battles when both sides would be all destroyed,, that one ship will remain with one hitpoint and that ship will be the toughest. That is the same thing as when one fights the DL ships. The idea is to have my "tank" be that last ship. Having the last survivor is often the only way to preserve the planet or mining base the fleet is guarding.
With some minitiarization, the cheapest attack 1/defense 1 (sparrow + armour plating) fit into a small hull. Also good for building up a respectable military when these ships are relatively strong early in the game; but they're not cheap to upgrade later.
I do not put any defense on the orbital defender, and try to fit it into a "tiny" hull.
When I say "cheap," I'm talking serious low bidder contracts! 
Early: Military tech- wise I am behind the rest of the other races. 2 later up to 4 heavy figthers with increasing defense as time passes by.
Mid: No fleets apart from transports grouped. Lone medium or later large ships.
Late: Four huge with 100 - 150 attack 250+ defense (and ship defense bonus plus extra HP) plus one tiny or small support ship with fleet speed and defense bonus, sensors but no weapons or defense. The huge ones are built as empty hulls and upgraded when added to a fleet (money is not an issue late game).
1 strat that serves well - only in the early days - are cargo ships w/1 each best sensors/life support, all the engines that can fit with 1 small weapon. These cats can raise pure heck among enemies - annihilating transports, constructors, colony ships (spore ships), asteroid mine camps and defenseless Starbases. When several are used, your enemy will scream for peace in double quick time
The obvious problem with this strategy: what if they destroy the defender, then invade that same turn?
As I played at more difficult settings (DA metaverse games), I found more AI transports (and colony ships) have weapons; and AI constructors with engines and weapons.
Although the AI does indeed sometimes put weapons on a transport, I can never recall an invasion of a planet by armed transports.
Never.
And I have been playing DA for years, and never lower than Tough, and usually on Suicidal. It may happen, but it has never happened to me.
Instead, the AI will send transports at unguarded worlds, or will add an escort warship in a two ship TF, or simply embed the transport in a real fleet.
The intent of the planet defender is ONLY to prevent the snap, unescorted invasion by a transport.
Also, don't forget the mutual annihilation combat rule. That is, it does not happen. Instead, the toughest warship left remains with maybe 1 HP. Even a Tiny has a few hitpoints, while the transport has just 1. Thus, it may still be the last one standing even if an armed transport did attempt an invasion.
In short, the one-gun wonders really do prevent transport-only invasions.
I'm not talking about armed transports, I'm talking about a warship or ships destroying the defender, then the AI invading.
The intent of planetary defenders (in my defensive style/strategy) is NOT to repel a fleet invasion. As I have said, the defenders are simply to prevent cheap, snap invasions by transports only.
I feel that it is simply not cost effective -- if it is even possible -- to have adequate defenses in place at every planet, or even every border planet in the larger maps.
Now, one can try the improvements that allow orbital fleet defense and greater hitpoints, but they never stop me when I invade. There are other reasons, not the least if the ability of the attacker to concentrate while the defender must do the opposite, spreading the forces amongst the planets being defended.
I have found it far more effective to have defensive fleets (usually at rally points at mining bases in the space DMZ) and (if necessary) pickets of cheap ships to allow reaction.
In Suicidal, the AI will send fleets at mining bases, preferentially, it seems anyway, so the fleets serve a vital purpose there. In Suicidal, the loss of a built-out Green anomaly mining base (with its +34% or +39% Economic bonus) can be fatal.
Quoting LTjim, reply 17Although the AI does indeed sometimes put weapons on a transport, I can never recall an invasion of a planet by armed transports.
Never.Well, the Yor just did it like 3 times in a series of battles for a planet where our borders collide
Let's be sure we are saying the same thing.
In the instances you cited, did the Yor use an unescorted (but armed) transport ONLY to attack/invade a planet with an armed defender in orbit?
Jawohl! All i had the 1st time was a freighter sweetly orbiting awaiting orders to begin a trade route. The Yor Xport moved in for the kill. I re took the planet and purchased a defender type ship (like an attack of 1 rating and zero defense) Then 2 armed Yor xports attacked - one dying with me defender whilst the survivor re took the planet.
I'd never seen anything like and i've been playing DA since it came out. Tough level with max AI setting
Okay, then.
I wonder if each armed transport "thought" the other was its escort.
As for the freighter case, the absence of an AF may have allowed the AI's script to attempt an invasion.
As I said, it has never happened to me, but I will keep watching for it.
They may have - all 3 had armor and shields too - low ratings like 3 and 4
I have to confirm sightings of armed transports attacking unarmed ships in orbit in order to take planets. This has happened to me two or three times ever...
I generally don't keep defending ships in orbit. There are only two situations:
-When I am not at war (to boost my military score).
-When the AI has much stronger ships. In this case I will pile all my best ships in orbit around a planet that allows them to all defend the planet at once. This reduces casualties in the midgame and allows for optimal destructive power. I then "bait" any enemy fleet I can handle to this planet (which often resides deep in my territory for quick reinforcements) to thin the enemy horde. The real action still takes place at the front though, where the AI's failure to hold on to its planets by trying to defend them all with a few ships in orbit is a defnite proof that decentralised defense just doesn't work as you'll just be eaten in small bites.
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