What causes a 'stacking' mentality...?

A bit like a traffic jam......

from GalCiv2 Forums
Hello

The Altarians have just gone to war with me and whilst I am within their area of space I have noticed several stacks of their ships like this.....

http://img247.imageshack.us/my.php?image=galciv2exe07ud.jpg

As you can see they have several escort type ships that they leave clumped together, not in a fleet formation, and it is as though for the duration of the war they are forgotten about. There are three other stacks that you might just be able to make out on the mini map, that seem equally forgotten.

I ended up using a single fighter to destroy each of them, in that stack formation, over a couple of turns, or more. Whilst the Altarians were using other ships in their fleets to launch their campaign against me these clumps of stacked ships did nothing.

I am playing the latest beta at the challenging level.

Whether the Altarians consider the ships to be useful or not it would seem more credible to at least have them used in a fleet formation as I am approaching to destroy them.
5,367 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
bump...

I am wondering this too.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmmm...... It actually sounds like a sound strategy to me. The number of ships is disquised. So if you think he has one ship, and you attack with a pair of fighters, you will be received with the unpleasent suprise of six ships. Ofcourse this only works against humans who don't pay very much attention, and when the ships actually move.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
They're using a rally point.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Rally points or dodgy strategy it just seemed that a greater part of the Altarian ships were motionless, in redundant stacks, doing nothing when approached.

The other stacks, equally as large, just stayed motionless letting me destroy each one as an individual ship rather than within a fleet.

This type of 'clumping' behaviour just takes believability from the game, in my opinion.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
They're getting ready to form a fleet.

It is bad strategy, but it isn't unbelievable- I know since I do this myself sometimes

I do it because I'm lazy, but there's probably a different reason for the computer doing it. If you leave them, they will form a fleet eventually.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have run into the same thing with other races as well. And likewise, they just all sat there as my single fleet blew them all up.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

They already have a fleet in there if you look closely.

So it's a big fleet protecting a bunch of future fleets.

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Those "little" fleets are transports with escorts. I do the same thing just before I attack an opponent.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Intended or not, I agree with the OP, it's horrible strategy. I'm the laziest of players but even I don't leave single ships just lying around in stacks, I'll always make them into fleets. If you've got one fleet protecting a stack of single ships then if the fleet gets killed the rest are just free kills for enemy fleets. That's why I always use "fleet" rally points. As far as I know you don't pay extra for having your ships in fleets so there's no excuse.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I can see a reason not to just have it randomly form fleets when ships are stacked since it would have to later evaluate all of it's current fleets to decide if it should break them up or re-organize. Although that's not hard to do for us, that would be quite a bit of excess processing to perform. I think that they should be a little more efficient though in forming and assigning these fleets as this can obviously be taken advantage of. The "guarding" fleet for example has 2 transports in it and so even though its maxed on logistics, it hardly fills that role correctly.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I disagree with #9 - its not horrible strategy. There IS a formed fleet protecting the other lil guys.