starbases are a priority target. This worked against the AI in DL because you could block the path of an enemy ship with crappy ships. So long as you left a path to the starbase open, the enemy fleet will always try to go around your crappy ships. You could then manouvre your crapy ships each turn to cause the enemy fleet to continually keep trying to go around them.

I do not know if this trick still works in DA?

I used this tactic in the DL campaign to neutralise Dreadlord ships while i slowly build up my forces.

Same with DL. I never even bother with starbase defences to begin with when they are viable, because your much better off building warships. Also why would anyone want to invest in starbase defences that will soon be a total waste of space sitting there looking stupid when your fleets arrive to provide a viable defence for the starbase??

I agree. In general I believe that defense is a distraction from the true task at hand. Clearly it is annoying when an AI takes out your mining SB's. It's even more annoying when promptly after your opponent takes out your SB an "ally" comes along and plops down their own SB on top of "your" resource.

However, regardless of how important mining resources are, they are not as important as your planets which are the source of your production of attack ships and transports. My opinion is that when you get into a war your prime concern is to win the war as quickly as possible. Spending resources on defending SB's is not how you end the war as quickly as possible. You end the war as quickly as possible by taking your opponents planets. Once you wipe out your opponent, or better yet reduce him to a single planet and then offer him peace so you aren't labelled with genocide, then you can take his resources and recover as many of your own that your "friends" haven't already absconded with.

Actually I feel the same way about defending planets. I'm not concerned if an AI takes an occasional planet of mine. If they do I do not let it distract me, I just keep taking their planets faster than they take mine. Once my opponent is sufficiently reduced then it's easy enough to come back and "clean up" any mess they may have made.

Another good trick i use to defend starbases (DL) is to surround the starbase with crappy ships and then give the ships to a minor race i made powerful. A minor race not at war with anyone will kindly not move any ships you give it!

That depends on a few factors.... if you have been at war allot then older ships will have experience making them more valuable on the front lines once upgraded. Also i will often not have the funds for upgrading. In DL there is usually an inexplicable and dramatic currency loss when war is declared, even when no trade routes are lost!

An example - I once had 2000bc dissapear from my net income of 5000bc just for war being declared and i had not lost any trade routes.

Thank you for all the advice.

Tourism is nothing.

Even if your ships are superior, they cannot defent the starbase while repairing in orbit around your planets! Because that is inevitably where they will end up after a period of time defending the starbase.

I think starbase defences are leftovers from galciv1, in that game they were quite potent since no fleets exist. And the games were usually over well before the AI started producing any 'excalubur' class vessels - the only ship capable of taking out a maxed out starbase in galciv1.

I do not see this working much at all. Typically the AI will stupidly rush the gifted ship off somewhare else instead of killing the starbase.

Starbases are only a priority target when the human player owns them!

Life support aside, You must be luckier than me then, i have never been able to get a gifted ship to attack a starbase! Oh sorry, once i had a gifted ship actually attack a starbase, when it returned an hour later!!

In galciv1 i used to send a fleet of constructors and a warship to an AI starbase, then i would surround the warship with the constructors and gift the warship to an AI at war with the starbase owner. The warship could then only escape by going through the starbase. This worked even for ships out of range!!! This does not work in DL, the ship will just sit there looking stupid, even if in supply range.

Hey, no slight intended, I never said you were wrong, i am just reporting my observations and it is interesting to see the different results. Perhaps gifted ships behave differently in DL from DA i don't know?

All i know is that playing DL, the gifted ships never attack the nearby starbase, they just piss off as if in a hurry to go and defend the homeworld!