Does anyone know how military strength is calculated

In most of my games I am rated near the bottom for military strength and therefore, get numerous threats and even declarations of war since everybody doesn't like me because I am weak. However, once the war starts, I almost always destroy whatever ships they send out to attack me. Most battles I win easily with a 5 to 1 or better advantage in enemy ships destroyed versus my ships destroyed. Obviously I am not as weak as they thought I was.

So, how is miltary strength calculated and what can I do to get a better strength rating? I suspect it has something to do with defenders on planets, which I almost never use. I prefer to have quick reactinig roving fleets of ships that can defend an area of multiple planets instead of wasting resources on defending each planet.

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I suspect it has something to do with defenders on planets, which I almost never use.

You're on the right path there. Military strength has to do with the combined attack/defense/hp of all their combat ships. Since each ship of theirs in individually weak, that means they have TONS of these ships scattered all over the stars. In battles that they are limited to their logistics ability, they have no chance vs a single ship that is much stronger by itself than it's opponents.

If somehow they could take all their ships and turn it into one mega ship and the same to you...you would loose most likely.

I prefer to do as you and run the leaner-yet effective navy method. Often I'll keep the ones on the line and a 2nd line to swap out for repairs. Other than that, my planets are empty.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

This has been a problem since day 1. Like Loupdinour says it's based on the total attack, defense and HP of all their ships versus your's. More precisely it's the sum of Attack + Defense + HP/10 for all ships.

As you say it's very easy to have ships that cut through them like butter and they still think that they're more powerful than you and what's more they act on that as well. This means that when declaring war or accepting peace they totally base how they treat you on your relative military rating as shown under your stats & graphs tab of the civilization manager.

However you can use this "problem" to great advantage by building the Spin Control Center and putting up ten cargo hulls fitted with nothing but the best weapons you have. Ships such as this would be totally useless in a real fight but they cause your military rating to go through the roof. With this no AI would ever declare war on you and if you declare war on them you can get all kinds of planets, tech and cash in exchange for peace and maybe a couple of outdated ships.

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Thanks for the answers. It's about what I expected, however, I am surprised that having the ships in orbit has nothing to do with the calculation. I guess that the AI has way more ships than me because it places them in orbit around his planets. More ships means higher military strength.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

I am surprised that having the ships in orbit has nothing to do with the calculation.

Actually it does. Any source of attack, defense or hit point bonus counts as part of the calculation. This includes military resource mining, any applicable tech and wonders or other source of weapons/defense ability, even military starbase bonuses and of course the 25% bonus that you get for ships in orbit.

You can actually see this on your military timeline graph when you declare war on an AI. When he launches ships from orbit you can see his military graph dip.

Yeah, the AI usually has *way* more ships than most folks keep around. Generally a couple of defenders for every planet plus additional fleets for attack. Usually the defenders are pretty weak but late game they can get pretty powerful.

It's sort of like Civilization where you'd attack a city with tanks and artillery and you'd have swarms of chariots and catapults come charging out. It was even funnier when a chariot or phalanx took out a tank or rifleman unit.

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KzintiPatriarch

Join Date 05/2007

+95

It's sort of like Civilization where you'd attack a city with tanks and artillery and you'd have swarms of chariots and catapults come charging out. It was even funnier when a chariot or phalanx took out a tank or rifleman unit.

I had two really insane battle results from Civ. 1) I lost a battleship to a settler. 2) A phalanx successfully defended against one of my nukes! The nuke still went off, but you could tell from the animation that the phalanx had won the "battle". I think nukes had an attack of 99, and phalanx a defense of 2.

I'm glad they fixed the battle calculations between archaic and modern units in later versions.

Sentient species taste better...

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