More speed, Mister Scott!

from GalCiv2 Forums
It seems that having a lot of speed (in the form of numerous engines) presents a definite tactical advantage – you attack more in a combat. Take this example: 6 small ships with a speed of 3 and a laser attack of 1 (mine), no defenses. The enemy: 3 heavy fighters with a combined attack of 4 lasers and 2 missiles but with a speed of 2. In this particular fight I ended up with 33 attacks overall and lost 1 ship (for an average of 5.5 attacks per ship), while the enemy got off nine attacks (3 per ship), no survivors. A similar fleet of enemies, 3 of them with 6/2/0 and speed 2, then attacked my (now weaker 5 ship fleet) and got off 16 shots (5.3 each) and lost all ships, while I got off 33 (6.6 each) and took one loss. Does it seem to anyone else that strapping on a lot of engines gets you a huge edge in combat?
warfare
13,614 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Engines don't affect your combat status, and each ship gets one attack "per turn" as such. You don't get extra attacks if you move faster. Also, how is that possible? The enemy has 6 attack vs your no defence, and heavy fighters. You can hit at a theoretical maximum of 1hp per round, per ship. Using base HP's thats 5 turns to take off 30HP - 3 ships, 10hp. In their case, you also have 36hp - 6hp per ship, 6 ships. However, they have 6 attack and can do a theoretical max of 6dmg, each Thats not even half of your enemies single ship HP's. Even halving that, they should easily take 2 to 3 of your ships in the frst fight, and all of them in the 2nd case, they do a theoritical max of 24 per round, which, again halving, is 2 of your 5 ships gone, and you only being able to do 3dmg per round.

Are you sure you have numbers correct? If you did, say, 4 damage or 3 damage, it might pan out with luck. But they do 6x or 8x the damage and fire half as fast, meaning technically, for every 1hp you hit for, they hit for what? 3.5? and the HP totals are fairly similar!

Edit: Also, you attacked more as you had 2x as many ships. Simple maths
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ummm IAmGory, yes you do in fleets. You can attack once for every move you have left in fleets. If you have 12 moves for a fleet, you can attack 12 times. I've done it many many times using one fleet to wipe out planetary defenses on 3 planets that were close together.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@LogicSequence

Except that's not what they are talking about. All the attacks they are referring to are individual shots fired within one single fleet to fleet battle.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, but in terms of shots fired during a single engagement, movement has no effect. I can easily see how a 6vs3 results in a 33:9 shot ratio.

Round 1:
Fleet 1 attacks: 6 shots
Fleet 2 attacks: 3 shots

Round 2:
Fleet 1 attacks: 6 shots, killing one
Fleet 2 attacks: 2 shots

Round 3:
Fleet 1 attacks: 6 shots
Fleet 2 attacks: 2 shots, killing one

Round 4:
Fleet 1 attacks: 5 shots, killing one
Fleet 2 attacks: 1 shot

Round 5:
Fleet 1 attacks: 5 shots
Fleet 2 attacks: 1 shot

Round 6:
Fleet 1 attacks: 5 shots, killing one

Or something like that. . . I've mentioned before: the combat system is extremely simple. The attacking fleet fires, then the defending fleet fires. Rinse and repeat.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Speed = Very important. They allow more overall attacks in the strategic mode.

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Speed = Very important. They allow more overall attacks in the strategic mode.


Maybe you could crank up the willingness to place engines a bit more? It takes a LOOONG time before I see any AI fleets with speed above 3. Mostly they are at 2... (yes, this is >= Intelligent)
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Engines are also important to travel faster. In a gigantic map even a ship with 40 pc/wk takes a lot of turns to cross the galaxy. Doing that at 3 pc/wk is just maddening.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That's why I take +2 speed as one of my racial bonuses
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Speed = Very important. They allow more overall attacks in the strategic mode.



"Strategic Mode" ?

'splain please

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"Strategic Mode" ?

'splain please


on the main map, you get to attack one ship, move a grid, attack another ship, move a grid.. etc.


If you have an powerful fleet that only travels at rate of 1parasec/week.. the opponent might have enough time to construct a force to counter it.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"Strategic Mode" ?

'splain please


It means there is going to be tactical in the next patch!
















Errr....maybe
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
No it doesnt -- Lies Deception Deceit! AHH!
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It would definetly be nice to see the AI place more speed on their fighters. After the recent patch they upgrade their colony ships, freighters and transports a LITTLE bit. But the fighters are usually 2-3 speed at Intelligent and above.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
But the fighters are usually 2-3 speed at Intelligent and above

The default hull speed without engines. I've been constantly able to win most battles with my ships with single (warp for most game) engine put on. The speed of 6 allowed me to dodge their ships/fleets, and pick only the battles I could win. And to very efficiently "rotate" damaged ships between fleets on front and repair planets. Since I don't lose them, ships just keep collecting HPs. My current best one is a medium with 154 HPs
IMO the speed issue should be addressed more, esp. when fighting an opponent that uses engines.
BR, Iztok
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
No, the AI needs to place engines on everything. First strike is usually far more important than an extra gun, to say nothing of the strategic flexibility afforded by high movement fleets. As good as the AI may be in other areas of the game, its combat performance is decidedly poor, and that's due in large part to the hideously slow speed of its warships. I was hoping the last patch would address this somewhat, but have yet to see any difference - in about half a dozen games I've so far seen only a single AI fleet composed entirely of ships with an engine.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I played on intelligent difficulty. Made quite a lot of high speed vessels and gave them to one of the fighting AI's. But to my disappointment I saw that the AI didn't squeeze much use out of them. It didn't try to attack first, it didn't send damaged ships back for repair and such. You might want to have a look at this.

Wonderful game, if I may add