AFAIK military rating is the sum of attack plus defense plus hit points. So they should count for 6 points each.

i think you get points added to military rating for the total hps of your ships...
I could be just pulling stuff out of my #$%, but i remember something on this, fact or fiction.

The military strength calculations are majorly flawed

The military rating is the sum of attack values, defense values and hit points. It's something that's easily calculable and is a "figure of merit" that in some way accounts for quantity as well as quality. It's not really flawed, it just is what it is. It's main purpose is to determine the military component of the final score.

What is flawed is having the AI make military judgements based soley on this figure of merit. In my current game I've taken 45 of the Korx 70 planets and probably destroyed 200-300 of their ships. I'm also at war with the Iconians who are a bit tougher. I tried to get peace with the Korx so I could concetrate on the Iconians but they weren't interested. Oh well, another 25 planets and they'll be gone.

You would think that once you've captured over half their planets they would re-think their position on peace.

just got the game. It's a great game

Congratulations, you'll find it very addicting.

"The military strength calculations are majorly flawed. I was playing Terran engaged in a war with the Torian mid-game. They had many fleets, much outnumbering me. However I had a few giant ships (around about eight) that were tanked out at 30 damage, 30 defense and 40 hitpoints each. The Torians were fielding fleets that did about 4 damage per ship with no defense and 6 hitpoints. After about half a year (game time) of slamming the Torians (I wasn't keeping track but I took no casualties while the Torians lost a few fleets of eight ships so i'm guessing I took out 50-60 odd ships as well as several planets.), I open up negotiations with the Torians to negotiate their surrender and LO and behold the Torian begin to mock me. Now i'm thinking "What the hell? I just beat seven shades of crimson out of their ships." So I check the reason why they won't surrender... Apparently the Torians think they far outclass me in military might even though I have yet to lose one ship."

I thourghly understand the mathematical logic of this, but while playing in SP and being painfully made to realize you are fighting an AI, don't you wish you were playing another player in MP so you'd get a different response. I.E. They'd be adapting to your large ship strategy, as well as better able to negotiate, rather then just laught at you in the AI way, but still be losing and not realize it because they have fake boobs for brains. Yeah this game doesn't need MP.

If you are able to take a planet from the AI every other turn or so, they should consider your military to be superior, I think. Perhaps even if it is technically not superior.

For instance, my current game, masochistic, huge, 9 opponents, no tech trading. I started a war early in the game against the Drengin. My ships are pathetic. Their military rank is stronger, their soldiering is higher, but I took 1/3 of their planets and they still haven't sent even 1 ship against me. Their planets were undefended and had fewer than 200 million people.

Will they consider peace? No. Have I crippled them? Without a doubt. Superior technology is useless in the hands of retarded generals.

The stupid bug race that I can't spell yet somehow is about 10x stronger than all the other races combined right now in the game.

Thalians

Tha-lan. Thalan. It's not that difficult, is it?

Because of the military strength calc they declared war on me. 5 turns later I had captured about a third of his undefended systems and the rest was easy. By the time I had to deal with the few big shield ships my guns took them out no problem with no losses. The point that Mumblefratz made about how the AI makes decisions on war is exactly right.

I remember playing a game with an experimental mod someone gave me- Decided to test it out using merely a Tiny galaxy with two opponents. I was using the mod's neutral Iconians and the two opponents were Altarians and Arceans. For the longest time, I had neglected ship building. Suddenly, the Altarians decided I was going down. All my planets went into war-time mode and churned out ships like you wouldn't believe. I soundly bloodied the Altarians' noses. Eventually they saw my superiority and accepted peace- for a price, of course. I believe I insisted on some techs I neglected or even just cash- it cost alot to build and refit my fleets during the war.

Indeed.

One would expect losing more than half of their planets and every single ship they started the war with should make them more... amendable in the peacetalks.

Not so.
In my current game,,the Terrans jumped the bandwagon (I've been at war with one race or another since turn 17 on a gigantic map) opting for Bean- and Massdriver weapons.
Since everyone in the bloody universe except me (who perfers guided rockets) are totally in for slinging pellets at eachother I already had decent defence against MDs, so a few turns of research rendered the Terran fleet obsolete.

Skipping to the end of that campaign,,the Terrans are left with perhaps a quarter of their initial planets and only the pityful few Defenders they have managed to build after I sent them close to bankruptcy by choking their trade and eradicating anything that could be taken as an excuse for a Starbase (only starbases on the map are either mine or those I have given to my sole ally,,the trusty Arceans. Well,,not so trusty really,,but least they aren't waging losing wars AGAINST me heh).
One could belive that peace would be easy to get,,right?
Think again...

My initial demand was for them to give me a 21 class planet (which by chance had Aphrodisiac on it... constant invasions tends to exact a heavy toll on the population which was refused outright.
Out of curiousity,,I experimented what it would take to have some calm:
*5723 bc
*873052 influence points
* 29 planets
* the whole Missile techtree
* a third of my fleet and half my Mining SBs

Ain't gonna pay that...

Hence I invade the undefended planet I wanted in the first place...

...and promptly get a gleeful message from the Terrans that they in a last act of defiance have surrendered the remains of their empire to my ally the Arceans