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Are defenses simply to expensive?

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Are defenses simply to expensive?

from GalCiv2 Forums
The 'Exploring effects of simultaneous combat' thread by Velben seems to suggest that while there may be some form of shift in the next version of the combat system, ships with heavy defenses still are not as capable as ships with heavy weapons. It even seems that in some cases, the ship with better weapons is flat out better no matter if attacking or defending.

For example, Kanvium, which has an absorption of 4, costs 80mp. By contrast, a Quantum Driver does 4 damage and only costs 37mp.

Or take Ultimate Invulnerabilty, which is a sheild that has an absorption of 9. That costs 140mp. Disruptors III costs 70mp and does 8 damage. And let's not even get started with the Doom Ray. The Disruptor is also slightly smaller.

I've tried repeatedly to make effective defense-based ships, and its always failed. Not because the defenses are ineffective, per say. For most of the game you can put a ton of defenses on a ship, enough to make the ship very nearly invulnerable to a particular damage type. The problem is that those ships are also absurdly expensive. They're simply not worth the cost. Take the Sheilds vs. Beams example above...Disruptors vs. Sheilds, the weapon is half the cost of the defense. Let's say the hull is small (55mp) and has three Hyperdrives (10mp) for a total of 85mp without weapons. A ship with 5 Disruptors costs 435. The ship with five Ultimate Invulnerability sheilds will cost 785. And it can't shoot. Hah!

Every defense line has its cost increase dramatically as they evolve. This is not the case with the weapons systems, which see costs rise far less. Using the beams vs. sheilds example again, Beams, from Particle Beam to Disruptors III, increase in cost 280 percent, fromt 25mp to 70mp. Sheilds increase 466%, from 30mp to 140mp. Again, I'm not using Doom Ray because trying to use ANY defense against it is just about impossible.

It just isn't fesible to build ships with heavy defenses because they cost far to much. Ships with heavy defenses won't be built no matter the system as long as this is true. At its heart, a 4x game is about it's numbers. And these numbers show that weapons easily beat even the defenses that are suppoesd to stop them, in an economic sense.


I'm also very surprised by their cost becaues of this - trying to counter is, in the long run, is always going to be ineffective. Why? Because a defense only defends well against a certain attack. The other two work. That means if any random empire attacks you, there is a 2 in 3 chance that your defenses won't work. However, there is only a 1 in 3 chance that your weapon type won't work. Supposedly this is negated somewhat because if you're smart, you'll be building defenses for those empire you plan to war or which think are going to attack you. Empires don't randomly declare war. Still, it seems odd.

I think that defenses need a cost overall. What do you think?



42,587 views 111 replies
Reply #51 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Defense is best only for people who are scared that their ships aren't powerful enough. No offense. I put all the weapons I can on my ships and fly them straight into the enemy. I get only minor casualties and have lost only a handful of battles.
As soon as I get myself another computer, I'm going to try this strategy at painful difficulty.
Reply #52 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sorry, you get 'a handful' of casualties.... on a 'large' map against tough AI, I might lose perhaps four ships in the whole game. FOUR. Defence, properly used, renders your ships almost invincible. Hundreds of turns of constant war, being outnumbered three-to-one, surprise attacks, etc... FOUR ships. Once I only lost one in a game. I never lose a battle, unless it's 1v13 or something.

Not to mention things like defence reducing damage, so you can keep killing longer, lets small groups pwnzor whole enemy stacks, etc.
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Reply #53 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Pankotus have you tried using no defenses, but purely using speed and overwhelming first strike to fight battles?

If you pick your battles correctly, and attack only when you have overwhelming force (easy to do with superior speed and all weapon ships) , it's as good if not better than adding defense.
Reply #54 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Another thing about the system is that while it's perfectly viable strategy to focus almost 100% on weapons and ignoring defenses, doing the opposite, with minor research on weapons and mostly on defenses is clearly inferior.


Very true, you could even say usless. But this is obvious because, whats the point of having a really good defence if your attack is non existent. with the opponent doing all the attacking something will get through eventually, which is why I rarely go above 50% defences: It just isn't worth it. Yup Its a wonderfull thing variance...Using defences is just hedging your bets, its not foolproof, but its much better than having nothing
Reply #55 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Very true, you could even say usless. But this is obvious because, whats the point of having a really good defence if your attack is non existent.


Well sure, i did add to my ship one particle beam I or II . Otherwise 0 attack = autoloss lol.

But apparantly there is a very good point in haveing a really good attack, if your defense is literally non existent....

.Using defences is just hedging your bets, its not foolproof, but its much better than having nothing


"Criticals" can blow even the best defenses away.... I notice ships doing more damage their attack rating!



Reply #56 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One cannot state that if one had won a game by using or not using defences this means that strategy is clearly superior. One can say the strategy is sufficient or, in the worst case, not too detrimental to your cause.

I have used both balanced ships as all-out offence and both have suited me well. Will they both work with the new combat system? I'll have a boatload of digital crews ready to find out the hard way. What is certain is that battles will become far bloodier. Some believe this will pan out in favour of the balanced ships while others believe cheap kamikaze ships will be the way to go.

Whatever the case, one should not forget that variance is a measurement of risk (believe me, in the financial sector this measure is very important). As the power of the systems increase, the variance increase and hence, defences become less reliable. I believe a normally distributed random variable would help out a lot (but that's just me ).

But what are we basing the effectiveness of defences on? On manufacturing cost? Extra research effort? Space?
I believe everyone can agree that balanced ships tend to have a larger lifespan but does that lifespan compensate the extra effort? I guess it depends on the tech/manufacturing lead. If you can achieve a critical lead, he can't touch you and defences are worth it.

Veblen ran quite a few insightful tests in his thread. Among other things, they showed that although all-offence ships tend to lose out in some types battles, they seem to cause more manufacturing damage than they take. A Pyrus Victory so to speak. This becomes more important when the opponent is capable of focussing his power.
Reply #57 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
SleekDD you'll have to help me here, whatis? a pyrus victory. I think i'm getting what your saying, but it sounds cool and i might have to drop it into a converation somewhere and it would be usefull to know the book def.

Well sure, i did add to my ship one particle beam I or II . Otherwise 0 attack = autoloss lol.


I just didn't want to be rude...

richrf - these criticals don't happen that often, especially for me, I sometimes do get the occasional big hit, but its a real pleasure when my dreadnaughts go up against a massive fleet of high powered ships and all they roll is 0 with the occasional 10 thrown in. They soon die.

Reply #58 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
Are defenses simply to expensive?

IMO yes.

My current slowest-tech no-trading game on masochistic has put me in a nasty position. Most AIs have large tech lead in offensive techs (weapons, miniaturization, propulsion, logistic, hulls). However I had the best point defense (PD combo - 3 points in defense, size 4 on medium hull), and my intended targets (Korx first, Drengin in distant future) are using missiles. So far so good one would say. But when I try to build a ship to counter korx's common design fregates (missile attack 10-15, 0-2 armors), I have two nasty choices:
- I can either build a 12 missile attack 3 PD ship fort about 300 BC, or
- 8 attack 12 defense ship for 500 BC.

Either design is IMO flawed: the 12/3 has not enough defenses to survive the return fire from their ~24 logistic fleets (I have 16), and the 8/12 is way too expensive to be produced in battle-significant numbers in a reasonable time. Also, its low firepower will not allow me to quickly kill their bigger and significantly more numerous fleets, and I'll take losses through the defenses. And korx already have some attack-30 battleships, against whose are my 12 defenses a wet paper...

So what will I do? Probably nothing. I'll keep turtling around as I did thrugh most of the game, playing diplomat and a trader to please big powers, and preying with transports on weakend smaller civs, whose defenses have been put down in wars with mayors. All that because I can not afford to field 500BC fregates in a game, where their avarage planets produce three times as much as my good planets do.

My 2 cents.

BR, Iztok
Reply #59 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Imagine I want to invade your empire and gather all my military power to attack one of your cities. Against my 1.000.000 men you can gather just one 1000 from that city. We fight and I win but only 2000 soldiers on my side survive. Did I really win? My military is smashed and all I have to show for it is one city. In fact, it is likely you could retaliate and win the war in the end.

A Pyrus victory is a victory that cost you so much to achieve that it could lose you the war in the end. The base lies in ancient Greek mythology concerning a king called Pyrus or something but I'm not too clear on that. Appearantly, he led a military campaign he lost one victory at a time.

In this game, such victories are more or less possible, depending on how good the AI is at keeping the pressure on. After all, even balanced ships will take damage sooner or later so if they can't repair properly, they will go lost because of neverending waves of cheap, fragile attack vessels. If the AI can't target fleet properly, experience will show that defence is better than it should be in theory, after all, surviving one battle and repairing completely earns you experience which means more HP which means more survivability.
Reply #60 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I just match my defenses according to my opponent. If I'm fighting Torians first with Railguns and Armor, I'll develop Armor and Energy Weapons etc. I generally keep a somewhat higher attack than defence. Seems to work well for me and avoids "unrealistic" ships of all attack. I'm sure it would be cheaper for the United States military to build tanks as just one big cannon and no armor, or navy ships with a million missle launchers but made of fiberglass with no ecm and other defenses so why don't they do it? They couldn't get the people to man these platforms that's why. How would it be to be on a ship with NO defenses? Would anyone here sign up for that ship? It reminds me of Dungeons and Dragons.."The best sword is X so that's the only one I'll ever own" etc. Min/Max I believe it's called. I suggest people just try to play within the spirit of the game. Be James T Kirk and stop being Nerlman the accountant.
Reply #61 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"Pyrrhic" victory: http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory

I like to build balanced ships. I like seeing a frigate shoot down every missile fired at it. But it really is too damn expensive to build that sort of ship if you get in the middle of an ugly war.

I took a good, long look at the components in the ship designer because of this thread. I never paid attention to how much a component cost. I only paid attention to how much room it took up. If it was going to cost me speed or too much firepower, then I'd skimp on the defenses. Otherwise, I'd cover the hull in protection. Now that I've looked..... Yeah, the defense modules are priced outrageously.

Sparrow missile: Attack 1 Cost 16
Smart Chaff: Defense 1 Cost 30

Harpoon III: Attack 3 Cost 55
PD Combo II: Defense 3 Cost 70 (almost balanced)

Quantum III Torp: Attack 10 Cost 70
Aereon point defense: Defense 10 Cost 140

Laser V: Attack 1 Cost 25
Deflectors: Defense 1 Cost 30

Phasor VII: Attack 5 Cost 50
Advanced/Superior force field: Defense 5 Cost 90

Disruptor III: Attack 8 Cost 70
Ultimate Invulnerability: Defense 9 Cost 140

Every defense is more expensive than the matching weapon. At the high end, they are double the cost. No wonder people just ignore them and build all-attack ships.
Reply #63 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
They are not too expensive IMO. I often use them. there is one point I think has been missed, in that the most of the combat simulator results are for ships of the same size battling it out (i think). in this case, defence doesnt work out (even with simultaneous firing), as the simulation results show.

however, consider one large ship against many smaller ones, with similar overall cost for each side.
in this case, you spend much more time defending then you do attacking (you have one attack, then get shot at maybe 4-5 times), and so defence is much more important!
in these sorts of battles, defence is well worth the extra investment.

in my games, the computer often has large fleets of small ships, so I find that defences really pay off. If I gave my larger ships no defence they would die very quickly indeed, and the extra attack would be overkill anyway on the computers undefended smaller ships!

so in summary, if against a large ship with high attack, defence no use. against same attack split over smaller ships, defence very useful indeed as you defence roll many times.
Reply #64 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Have to agree with Mikeswi, I too only looked at hull size normally, but looking at the cost shocked me.
Reply #65 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't think defenses are too expensive, it just depends on the situation.

In my current game the Torian had a 4 times higher military rating and I guess about 10-15 times more warships, however I had a large technological advance. I used mainly large and huge ships, while he stuck to tiny and small ones and only a few mediums. My designs were mostly balanced, for example I had a battleship design with an attack of 34,def 49,speed 19.
The Torians kept sending me shitloads of groups of maybe 10-16 ships each, with an attack of 30-50 and defenses 5-15 in total.

I had no problems shooting them down with my lone battleships: once I managed to shoot down 4 of this fleets in one turn with the same ship - over 50 enemy ships destroyed, and my battleship only needed some repairs after that.

Then I remembered this thread and made a experiment: I turned one of them into a attack 96, no defence ship.
I attacked one of the usual Torian fleets, and guess what: it only destroyed 4 ships (ships, not fleets!) before turning into space dust.
And I did have the first strike in that fight (my standard battleship can win even if I allow the AI to have the first strike)

I guess if I used 4 or 5 ships of the attack-only-version they might be able kill all enemy ships before they could shoot back. But why should I do that? The attack-only-version is about 40% cheaper than my standard version, BUT having to have 4 in a fleet,to do the same job that a single balanced ship can do, would mean I would have to spend more than 2x for maintenance and build costs.

I think thats the way to get powerful defensive ships:
- Have a techological advantage. Investing more in research means you will get less ships, but more powerful ones
- Get all the hitpoint improving techs and trade goods. A hitpoint improving ability - like choosing the war party - doesn't hurt either
- of course get all military resources you can get ..
- Defences on small ships are a waste, there is no point putting expensive armor on a tiny ship that has only 6 Hitpoints. The early game is an exception of course, the early defences are cheap and 1 point of armor can help a lot at this point
- Don't build the 60 defense, 1 attack ship Richrf mentioned. An attack of 1 means it will take at least 6 rounds just to blow up a tiny ship! The longer it takes to destroy the enemys the higher the chances are to get a very bad defense roll.
Remember, if you have 60 defense it means your effectiv defense is a random number between 1 and 60.
Build something more balanced, like 30 attack, 30 defence.
- Watch what the AI is doing. If they use all 3 kinds of weapons, it might be a good idea to forget about the defences as you will have a hard time researching all 3 counters measures.
In most of my games the AI races somehow decided to use only 1 kind - sometimes beams, sometimes missiles but in most cases mass drivers.
Reply #66 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You don't need defenses if you can take out the enemy in the first strike. Attack - Level Up - Attack - Level Up... During the Dread Lords campaign I lost ZERO combat ships (if you exclude the slow ones given at the start of some missions), playing on level Tough. Removing first strike in v1.2 will make defenses more useful for attackers and less valuable for defenders (as they now could take out an enemy attacking ship even if taken out in the first strike, such as the Dread Lords' fighters).

In my first Metaverse game playing on level Painful (gigantic, every abundant, tight clusters), I have yet to lose a ship and rarely take damage, without defenses, due to the first strike advantage!
Reply #67 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Iztok wrote:
My current slowest-tech no-trading game on masochistic has put me in a nasty position. Most AIs have large tech lead in offensive techs (weapons, miniaturization, propulsion, logistic, hulls). However I had the best point defense (PD combo - 3 points in defense, size 4 on medium hull), and my intended targets (Korx first, Drengin in distant future) are using missiles. So far so good one would say. But when I try to build a ship to counter korx's common design fregates (missile attack 10-15, 0-2 armors), I have two nasty choices:
- I can either build a 12 missile attack 3 PD ship fort about 300 BC, or
- 8 attack 12 defense ship for 500 BC.

Based on my intuition and previous experiments, I don't think either of these option is ideal.

This is a fairly classic situation to be in against opponents at levels higher than Tough. You're facing opponents with superior techs and bigger fleets. The problem starts with researching defenses this early. Put your research points into weapons, logistics, engines, and miniaturization (not armor or hulls) and field small or tiny all-attack ships. They're cheap, and against superior but unarmored ships, they're the most effective bang for your buck. (Especially pre-1.2).
Reply #68 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Brenner2 wrote:
I don't think defenses are too expensive, it just depends on the situation.

Yeah, and Brenner2 goes on to describe exactly the kind of situaton where they're best: On large, high-tech ships fighting small, low-tech ships. In situations like these, defenses sure are worth it. Like comment #65 points out, shielded ships are nigh invincible, while similar all-attack models do get destroyed.

So you're exactly right that in these situations defenses are worth it. But it's still possible that defenses are too expensive.

One, the kind of situation you describe only occurs in the late game. For the early and mid-game, defenses may be too expensive to use. Two, you probably could have won earlier if you pressed the attack as soon as you had an advantage. To paraphrase the way someone else put it on these forums: Defenses aren't useful for gaining an edge, but they're great for turning an advantage into complete dominance.

I don't know, reply #65 has it all right, I just want to stress that, at least as far as I see it, the statement, "Defenses are worthwhile in some situations" and the statement, "Defenses are too expensive" can both be true. I think there's some grey area and the question is not completely answered (especially for simultaneous-firing), but with how I play (aggressive, no tech trading, suicidal) it looks like defenses should be ignored until the last 20% or so of the game.

Incidentally, my endgame (for conquest victories) usually has this pattern. The "endgame" period begins when I have uncontested military superiority in my own space and no major imminent threats. Maybe I've taken a handful of planets. Economic, industrial, and starbase infrastructure is well developed. I go for a period of somewhere around 20-30 turns of intense military research (70-100% research spending), then a final stretch of 100% military spending where I crank out ships and transports and mass driver the galaxy into submission. It's not uncommon for this last burst of research and to be the first time I invest in shields. It's rare that I research shields before the last or second to last generation of ships.
Reply #69 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I play heavy defense and almost always do well. Despite having few weapons on a ship, if you have tons of armor and whatnot, they can't do eough damage to you in the first place and your piddly weapons just wear them down. It's like having tons of inpenetrable flying steel walls. (And literal walls for having armored Star-Bases, too.)

I dunno why so many people think defense is useless, a good defense is a good offense because you just slowly, lumberingly, impenetrably move forward, grinding your enemies under through time rather than a single huge blitz.
Reply #70 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It sounds good in theory, DamnedChoir, but the numbers indicate that building armor heavy ships just isn't a strong strategy. A ship with few weapons and tons of armor would benefit by exchanging shields for weapons: It would take less damage on average since it would finish the enemy fleet faster. The right balance depends on many factors, but in the tests I've done I've never seen a ship with more defense than weapons be preferable to a similar, balanced ship. Putting it another way, I'm about 90% confident that in all cases it is not a good idea to build ships where the defense value is greater than the attack value. There may be a few rare exceptions, but I think most of them are ones where the player has a huge advantage anyway.

I expect you're going to war with a tech, and probably production, advantage relative to your opponents. Try building ships with a ratio of about 2 attack to 1 defense and go to war earier, within the first 15 months. You may never go back. Or not. Invincible ships are fun, after all.
Reply #71 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
me, i don't even bother researching defensive techs, i've found they just take up too much space on the ships to be worth it. i mean, kanvium takes about 20 sp, while the nano ripper only takes 14 and does more damage than the kanvium defends
Reply #72 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is entirely the problem. 5 attack and 250 defence vs 100 attack 0 defence...60 hitpoints each...combat simulator shows the defence heavy ship winning just 5 out of 50.


The problem isn't the random distribution. The reason that the all-offense ship wins so often is because, when he hits, he's going to do brutal damage. It takes 12 rounds for the defensive ship to win. However, the offensive ship will deal 60 damage much sooner, despite the overwhelming defenses.

Civilization 2 solved this problem long ago: the stat that determines how often you hit should not determine how much damage you do. Civ2 had attack vs. defense, which decided who did damage to whom, and Firepower, which decided how much damage it did.

Not even D&D has you doing damage based on your to-hit roll (unless you crit). That's what makes defense weak; the fact that a shot that has a modestly reasonable chance of getting past a 250 defense is going to cause massive damage.

Perhaps what should happen is that the quantity of damage dealt is equal to the attack - defense (not the rolls; the actual values), with a minimum of 1. That would make high defense ships viable, assuming that this is something that is desirable.

In any case, that's not the point of defense, as the game is currently designed. The point of defense is to mitigate the damage an enemy does. At no time is a "high defense" ship viable (that is, a ship with more defense than offense). Instead, your defense should be about 1/5 to 1/3 the expected enemy's attack. What that does is cut down the quantity of damage that the enemy does. Oh, they still hit, but that roll that might have caused 15 damage on 0 defense becomes perhaps 10 damage. The first would have killed a "heavy" fighter; the latter lets him live this round to fire again next round.

Defense is about stopping 1-shotting of your ships. It allows them to potentially survive the initial volley. In 1.2, this means your ships get to make 2 attacks rather than one.
Reply #73 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
I don't think either of these option is ideal.
...
field small or tiny all-attack ships.

My thought was much more radical: both are crap.

Your idea with "horde" is plausible, however the universe in my case is huge with occasional everything, my prop tech is just warp II, and my production planets are 5 sectors away. To have small-hulled ships at the front in a reasonable time, I'd need to sacrifice a weapon for another engine, thus lowering the attack strenght even further.

Yeah, I did a mistake by researching defenses that high. Currently I lack everything else in wartech, but at least my infrastructure on planets rocks, and I'm leading in research now. I should cover that gap in next 30 or so turns - the slowest-tech no-trade sucks, if you're the underdog.

BR, Iztok
Reply #74 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Veblen you are right about balancing the defence level depending on the circumstances, but Iztoks got you on the engines. On those tiny ships you can't fit the three or four engines that i slap onto my dreadnauts and leave room for weapons. in the mid to late game its all about having numerically small fleets with tremendous firepower and defence being able to attack many times and travel further to do so.

Its also a lot about personal preference aswell. I like my ships and hate loosing them: I kept loosing at draughts/checkers to my grandad because of this weakness. And its the reason I don't use the 'mongol horde' tactic you describe, it may weaken my overall gameplay, but I can't help myself. Each to their own.

Reply #75 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Re: #73, #74

I've played most of the time on small and medium maps, but my current game is on a Huge map, and I can definitely see what Iztok is talking about with the engines. In fact, in all my simulations, the number of engines has always been held constant. It's likely that on larger maps, when you need ships that can cover greater distances, the optimum number of engines per ship goes up; since this takes up a greater percentage of the space available on small ships, needing more engines may push the ideal small/large balance towards large ships. And since defenses are better on large ships than small, it's possible that one should prioritize defense research more on large maps... never thought about that, really. But makes a lot of sense with some things I've been seeing on my current game.

Anyway, yeah, my current game is on Huge. I started with 3 unexceptional planets way off in the corner (3.5 sectors to the closest other habitable planet)... this is the result of me hitting ctrl-n a few times until I got what should be an impossible starting position. Three AIs, Terrans, Torians, and Iconians. Suicidal, tech trading off. I'm evil, they're all good, and all at war with me (and no wars between them to date). Terrans have 11 colonies, Torians 14, Iconians 10. My 3 planets are holding them off just fine (it's September 2229) and I'm getting ready to try taking some planets. It's a weird game.

Anyway, I knew I'd be at a huge production and research disadvantage due to the small number of planets. Fortunately, evil let's me get some crazy bang for the research buck. Here's my current ship:
Small hull, 3 psyonic beams, 1 hyperwarp drive mk 2, 2 hyperwarp drive (extreme miniaturization)
10 hp, 36 beam attack, 14 speed, cost 535
10 hp, 47 beam attack, 17 speed (with racial weapon bonus, military resource bonus, and propulsion tech bonus)

All 3 AI players are fielding ships exclusively with mass drivers and armor. If they got matched defenses I think it would be over. If it weren't for being evil and having access to the psyonic beam, I think I would have had to research larger hulls and some defense techs to stay alive.

GC2 still surprises me when I play it on unfamiliar settings, which is great.

(Here's the latest Terran battleship, if you're curious: 46 hitpoints, 48 mass driver, 174 armor, speed 6, cost 1866. They've never been at war with anyone who used mass drivers, so I don't know what that armor is for, but it's sure helping me out. Most of the recent Torian ships have been 12 or so speed, though, which is getting dangerous.)