GalCiv II: Size Matters

Part 1

from JoeUser Forums

When it comes to battles, size matters.  To balance that, Galactic Civilizations II introduces the logistics concept.

The logistics concept was designed to prevent the age-old strategy game issue where each side just builds a single mongo fleet/army/whatever and wipes out everything in its path.  The number of ships you can put into a fleet is hence limited by your logistics ability which you can research to improve.  How many logistics a ship uses is based on hull size.

In Galactic Civilizations II v1.0 that was:

Tiny: 2 points of logistics
Small: 3
Medium: 4
Cargo: 5
Large: 5
Huge: 6

It was done this way to keep it simple for players.  But here's the problem -- ship sizes.  A tiny hulled ship has 16 space.  A large hull has 55 space.  That's over 3X as much space but the large only uses up 2.5X in logistics. Advantage: Large hulled ships.  There are other factors involved too such as hit points and cost -- which are well balanced. But logistics are out of whack in our view.

So in v1.1, it's going to be this:

Tiny: 2
Small: 3
Medium: 4
Cargo: 4
Large: 7
Huge: 9

The various logistics techs will be pumped up too.  The fact is, we want people to be able to build swarms of ships as a viable strategy. We also want people to be able to fixate on building huge capital ships as well.  Now, the current system isn't horribly imbalanced by any means, the guy researching the larger hulls isn't able to put in time researching some mongo weapons.

If you go strictly by a spreadsheet, you can see plenty of imbalances depending on how you want to look at it and how nit-picky you want to be.

But I want to stress - the guy who's building huge ships had to go and research (or trade some equally valuable) technology to those huge hulls. They also had to put together the manufacturing capacity to create them and make the sacrifice of putting their marbles into a single ship rather than a bunch.  In addition, there are various "round off" things that they have to deal with as well and many components, particularly defenses, take size into account when determining how much size they use.

Update: 

After play testing during the evening and taking more into account things like starbase bonuses and the cost of getting those large hulled ships I made a minor tweak:

Tiny: 2
Small: 3
Medium: 4
Cargo: 5
Large: 6
Huge: 8

The Cargo hulls didn't need to come down because the new logistics abilities increase your logistics quite a bit. Before you would have 12 logistics after researching enhanced logistics. Now you'd have 15. You could hence fit 3 transports into a fleet at that stage versus 2 previously.


 

68,831 views 63 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'll say it again. Small ships are grossly more powerful due to the way military starbases work.

Would you rather have a fleet of two large ships with +2 to attack, or a fleet of 7 tiny ships with +2 to attack
from a military starbase? The fleet of seven gets a total of +14 more damage each "round" from that starbase.
The fleet of two large only gets +2.

If military starbases increased the percentage of damage that a ship did, THEN it'd be different. Capital ships would have an advantage then because they'd typically do more damage per ship.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
OR, the military starbases effect could count on the individual weapons on the ships instead on a ship as a whole..
Example:

Light Fighter with 1 Laser + Starbase with +2 Laser = 3 Laser attack strength.
And the very same applies to the heavier ships, so as you said more smaller ships would end up getting a higher attack rating than fewer larger ships, due to the bonus being given on a per-ship basis.

Now imagine if the bonus was given according to the number of weapons on the ship..
Corvette with 4 Lasers + Starbase with +2 Laser = 4+2+2+2+2=12

The current way it is..
Corvette with 4 Lasers + Starbase with +2 Laser = 4+2=6
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, but all those starbases have to be guarded, and all the constructors do add up production/cost-wise...

I find military starbases only useful in siege or defensive situations- not good for fast warfare, which is what I prefer.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
arstal, the thing is its not a preference thing. Eventually overtime the military starbase will be exploited and that will be the only way to do battle. If simplicity is correct in his accessment of how starbases work based on hull size then it is grossly imbalanced.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just looking at the "rate of increase" between sizes of ships.... there are some interesting differences:

Size
Tiny -> Small = 1.5
Small -> Medium = 1.5
Medium -> Large = 1.78
Large -> Huge = 1.72

Thus I would probably increase the size of Huge to 114 at least to indicate a 1.78 increase, or find a better scheme that allows for a more linear progression in size (ie where the increase in size capacity increases between sizes like 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8). This would yield sizes of 16, 24, 38, 65, and 118 respectively.

Cost
The rate of increase between Small -> Medium is off... Tiny -> Small is 1.6, but Small -> Medium is only 1.38... then jumps to a whopping 1.82 before going back down to 1.6 to reach Huge. I would probably use a rate of increase of about 0.05 which would give a cost range of 25, 40, 66, 112, and 196 respectively.

HP
This one is really skewed. The greatest rate of increase is to Large (1.75) but it drops down to (1.71) to go to huge. Again I would probably use a rate of increase of about 0.05 and end up with a HP of: 6, 10, 17, 30, 56 respectively.

The additional hit points and size for larger ships would compensate for the starbases granting multiple bonuses to the smaller ships (ie 5x +2 beam = 10 as opposed to 2x +2 beam = 4)

Logistics
This one is a little hard considering there are so few numbers but I think you pretty much have it set correctly.



Big Picture
I think those numbers might even out some of the smaller discrepancies, but the logicstics one is still an issue. Don't forget.... its not just the difference in size/logicstics that matters... but in the rate of increase between the size of hulls as well. It should always be bigger and better by at least the same factor as the previous level if not a little bit more. Try adding the rate of change between attributes to see this.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think the starbase issue is at least partly countered by the fact that small ships are limited in speed+defense. I like having 2 engines per ship, it lets me run circles (at the moment) around the AI. But then I need larger hulls since the engines take up lots of space.
Faster ships have a significant advantage, since a squad of 4 big ships getting first strike vs like 10 small ones kills 3-4 right away (mid-late game), the counterattack wont even hurt much if the larger hulls have defenses. Also, I dont play too defensivelly myself, so speed >> mil starbases for my priorities.
I think especially once the AI starts focusing on speed a bit more, the hulls will balance out a lot more, I'll probably stick to my big fat capital ships though
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't like using military starbases on the offense all that much either. But the AI does, and I have done it. It's pretty effective. It's not that tough to have two or three fast constructors around under your fleet. As for speed, the bases can actually INCREASE your speed (you wanted fast warfare) with speed bonuses. Building a highway of military starbases to the frontlines is something a lot of people do already anyways if only for the starbase-highway effect.

Regardless of whether we're talking about offense or defense though, the argument is the same. Why should small ship users get a big bonus to defense while large ship users do not? What do big ship users get to compensate the fact that they got some expensive tech, spent a lot of production, and probably had to specialize a planet to get their warhulks out?
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What's the point of bothering with military starbases except in key sectors? They only cover a tiny area of space. Clearly more of a hassle if anything if you're going to go on the offensive.

Besides, all that time wasted making constructors could be spend making ships that don't suck and winning a war.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well on large and smaller maps if you build a military starbase which covers important planets you can draw most of the enemy fleets into it. Basically if you place the starbase right all the important battles can be fought within its area of effect, once its time to move on the enemies back is broken and there is little resistance left.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For tough fights, I queue up several constructors (cheap to make) and build a starbase on the spot. Well defended home worlds that also give me the smaller sister planet are ripe for that.

Fly in, drop a base, add some +attack modules, declare war, kick butt, take planets, wait for the enemy to come to you since you're now deep in their territory in a well defended area (thanks to the starbase and new planets).


Plus I don't think you're giving enough benefit in 1.1 to all the research and construction that goes into those larger ships.

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
thanks for theinfo
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Building constructers in short amount of time is not a problem for me 1 week on my most productive planet well almost all up to medium hull in 1 week, but you pay the ship full price per round and that's not cheap.

Anyone here changing his spending slider to 100% if he can?
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That's over 3X as much space but the large only uses up 2.5X in logistics. Advantage: Large hulled ships.


Don't ship components also get slightly bigger for the larger ships, not so much as to cancel out the extra space but is it really 3X bigger as far as fitting components is concerned.....or have I forgotten something?
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This post is the first change i have seen that i think is totally wrong.

If you put this in the v1.1 patch then i will choose not to download it and i will be stuck using the old version.

Why?

This change does not make sense. The fact is that the old way was more balanced. Someone already stated the effects that starbases have. The larger ships are in fact much more costly to produce.

Also, you are forcing this playstyle change through game mechanics. Never forget that i am playing the machine here and not other players. With this change you have effectively put fewer ships in each of my fleets.

Honestly, what i would like to see is this set as an option.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't get why anyone thinks they should be balanced out. Bigger ships are a higher tech; they should be better. Why not balance out lasers and doom rays while you're at it.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I do want to mention an overlooked fact of large vs small ships. Rate of fire is 1 per ship no matter howpowerful the shots. a single ship can never overcome a swarm all other things being equal. building another disadvantage into large ships just leads to single planets and large ships being impossible to defend. if seperate weapons systems picked multiple targets it would rebalance a few things on this issue such as never getting out from a battle unscathed just becuase you shoot first. it also would make large ships a viable alternative which they have not been from my limited experience.

4 ships
3 atk 0 def- 16 hp

vs
1 ship
12 atk 0 def- 55 hp?

only balance factor is that 1 the large ship would probably at that point have about 17 atk and be able to fit in some defense to prevent the swarm from being a perfect solution. but as pointed out the military startbases adding +2 to each ship or more make it very unfavorable for the large vessel.

16-16-16-16 vs 55
4-16-16-16 vs 43
0-16-16-16 vs 31
0-4-16-16 vs 22
0-0-16-16 vs 13
0-0-4-16 vs 7
0-0-0-16 vs 1
0-0-0-16 vs 0
or
16-16-16-16 vs 55
4-16-16-16 vs 43
0-16-16-16 vs 34
0-4-16-16 vs 25
0-0-16-16 vs 19
0-0-4-16 vs 13
0-0-0-16 vs 10
0-0-0-4 vs 7
0-0-0-0 vs 7

these result not accurate but illustrate the potential for a large ship to shift a battle alone. but the cost involved then shows that the smaller ships will have 2x the fleets and the individual battle would means less being that balanced and large ships are a losing proposition.

perhaps it might be an option to configure the feel of the game in the future for the scale of logisitics to ship size?
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Military bases are a perfectly logical argument, imagine this:

x --- x
| -o- |
x --- x

... where each X is a military star base (it should be a square if the ASCII art fails miserably) and the "-o-" as your planet in the center. This is a perfectly possible set up with 3 spaces in between each base. In this set up, a ship can gain 16 defenses in each category with very basic military research. Now, park a ship with 1, yes ONE defense (in any category) and one offence on top of each base for defense and one on the planet. Let's see how many fleet dies attacking this set up. The cost for this invulnerable setup? 4 starbases, 5 small ships. By the time the AI has anything that could REMOTELY destroy your guards, your ship would have upwards 100+ HP due to leveling. No fleet needed, just pure military starbase mayhem. If you really want, add a few more ships into the fleets on guard and on the planet. The cost for these ships? about 2 maintenance (100 pp), and it'll slaughter anything and everything. Military bases are very powerful, you just have to know how to use them. The downside? Well... it's very boring. I've never scene any AI break this setup, I could have the weakess military in the world and I couldn't care less (all I need is 1 defense and 1 offense). Now, obviously this is an extreme case, but surely you can see that military bases is extremely powerful (If you think that is bad, there is also a 7 way military base set up for a whooping 28 defense in each category, and if your planet is at the border of a sector, then all hell break loose).


However, to argue that small ships is more powerful than big ships on this point alone would be a mistake. If *I* was up against this setup, I certainly wouldn't send in my tiny ships just so I can level theirs. No, a thousand small ships against this wouldn't be enough. Unless you're at the end of the missile tech tree with your 25 damage blackhole eruptor, you have no choice but to use very big ships filled with weapons if you have ANY hope to wear this defense down (assuming using my own millitary base isn't an option, and very possible with careful planning).

Secondly, the only thing WORSE than a millitary base defense like this, is a military base defense like this that uses HUGE ships. Ready for this one? Build your huge ships, add one laser, and one titanium armor. That's it, you're done, it's over. With military bases, huge ships can be just as powerful, and you know what? they don't cost that much more either (a whopping 115 BC more, aka ~2 maintainance more than a TINY ship). But you get 42(!!!) more HP, that's 8 times a tiny ship. This huge levels like no tommorow, I have a level 72 huge that has 560+ HP in one of my old save games somewhere (yes, it's nearly empty, a laser, and titanium armor).


Military bases are very powerful, definite yes. Does that make tiny ships more powerful? no. I don't think I ever want to face these military base setup with huge defenders. The difference is HP. With some luck, tiny ships can be taken out if they roll a bad defense. A huge ship will just sit there laughing at you while they lay down the smack. The only way to beat this is to get top of the line weapons, psy beams, or blackhole gun/eruptor or doom ray. Then start praying you get a good offensive roll before they kill you. (Extra kudos to stardock for not making this game multi-player, facing this would really suck, and you know everyone will do it on their homeworld just to piss the other guy off. )


To me, large ships have a very huge advantage because of it's HP, not because of it's hull size. So I personally don't see anything wrong with changing how much logistics they take up especially since you guys are also upgrading logistics technologies. Basically, all it does is makes logistic technologies all the more valuable. It's fine because 9 tiny ship or 6 small is still nowhere equal to 2 huge, IMO, so I'll still research it like always. Although I do think it's a little odd that the jump from medium ships to large ship is 3 logistic points. It made sense when medium was up to 5, but now it sorta looks wierd. It's like saying either make medium ships or make huge ships, tiny, small and large are useless.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't really agree with bringing the logistics of cargos from 5 to 4. It means that I'll be able to have three transports in a fleet too soon, and that will tip the balance to me against the AI.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I guess if we don't like the change we could just change the Logistics for the hull types in the GC2Types.xml. does anyone know if this works?

thanks,
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree with Kalin's point on Hp.

Indeed, if there's anything wrong with combat, it's the increase of Hp that experienced ships get.

I have a small hull design that doesn't work if you build them from scratch. It's a ship with all weapons and minor (if any) defense. It works if you have 25+Hp, which is actually quite possible, because it can just take the damage, but it has so much firepower that it murders them before he can die. Even through semi-optimized defenses.

If your ships have enough Hp, you can overcome any defense and any offense. And if the enemy has been fighting you with beam weapons against your shields for some time, then switches to something else, it's too late because your ships have too many Hp for any attack to be effective. Their ships are fresh and you're flying small hulls around that have more Hp than a fresh Large hull.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
guess if we don't like the change we could just change the Logistics for the hull types in the GC2Types.xml. does anyone know if this works?

thanks,


Yes, it does work, I've tried it. It is VERY easy to mod logistics, now if only brad will say how he will change logistic technologies I can test of this out right now, lol. Just make sure you mod the logistic for all the hull types ^_^;; I've even modded the base hull speeds in an attempt to boost the AI's ship a bit. I have to say, they are doing somewhat better. Changing existing ships, adding new ones, massive types... all currently possible. The only thing that isn't possible is to add modules that increases HP, or items that has multiple purposes (hopefully they will add these in sometime in the future). I'm just waiting for the mod folder to work so I don't have to remod everytime they release an update.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wow!

People saying they do/dont want it because it will PERSONALLY benefit them

Lets make the game more balanced and better for EVERYONE, instead of just thinking about what it means to our own strategies... we are all human, we can adapt. Ultimately it means a better "fun" factor all around.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top




I think you missed the point. This affects only those whose playstyle is to use big ships against the AI. We will have fewer ships in our fleets and as a result it will increase our workload without any increase in fun.

This change will reduce the number of large ships in a fleet by half.

I normally mix a large or huge ship with mediums. After this change the system will favor smaller ships.

This change does not bring balance as what is there to balance against except an AI. Your play style does not affect me at all as this is not a multiplayer game at all.

What has happened here is my technological achievements in hull size can now be almost negated with smaller ships. Before you paid a price for falling behind in hull size and now you do not.

This change makes no sense from a realistic or historical sense anyway. I mean really how many battles have commanders sent a bunch of frigates after battleships?

Bottom line is this... This change is not needed, swings the entire balance in favor of a playstyle by those who build large numbers of small ships and it was fine the way it was.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Don't ship components also get slightly bigger for the larger ships, not so much as to cancel out the extra space but is it really 3X bigger as far as fitting components is concerned.....or have I forgotten something?


Yes, so a bigger hull was already balanced by the fact that a Laser V would take up more space on the larger hull.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
guess if we don't like the change we could just change the Logistics for the hull types in the GC2Types.xml. does anyone know if this works?


Yes, it does work, I've tried it. It is VERY easy to mod logistics, now if only brad will say how he will change logistic technologies I can test of this out right now, lol. Just make sure you mod the logistic for all the hull types ^_^;; I've even modded the base hull speeds in an attempt to boost the AI's ship a bit. I have to say, they are doing somewhat better. Changing existing ships, adding new ones, massive types... all currently possible. The only thing that isn't possible is to add modules that increases HP, or items that has multiple purposes (hopefully they will add these in sometime in the future). I'm just waiting for the mod folder to work so I don't have to remod everytime they release an update.


Yes, that is the solution for me then. I will simply download the patch and change all of the logistics settings of all of the corresponding hulls back to the original scale.

Also, i would like to point out that any changes we make in logistics are somewhat in balance because the AI can do the same thing we do fleet wise.

I guess we have Stardock to thank to allow us to mod the game to this extent.