Attacking a planet with ships -- WHY ?

from GalCiv2 Forums
Here is the situation. I move a fleet of 5 ships into orbit and notice that there are 4 ships defending. When i initiate battle, it's my FLEET vs 1 ship. Then i easily win the battle and i can repeat this until all 4 ships are dead. Now, i take no losses with minor damage if at all. If the ships around a planet acted as a fleet, then i would take much more damage and perhaps even lose to 4 better armed ships that i can just pick off when they fight solo.

The downside of "fixing" this, though it might be worth a fix, is that a planet can be defended by many ships(10 maybe?) and you can't invade to the planet until all the ships are out of the orbit. So it would seem to me you could protect your planet at least for a few turns by keeping a full orbit of ships. Now some might cheese and quickly build 10 unarmed hulls(satilites) just so they can kick them out in 1turn.

Just thought it might improve things to combine into one fleet on the planet.

Brian
5,134 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Check out the neat plantary defense techs!

The planetary improvements are complely worthless though, any civ is better off getting the first strike while in space.
The premise is that if suddenly an enemy battle fleet zooms into orbit it takes a while to get the defensive ships into positions, hence a logistical nightmare is created.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think that, if the planet has the "orbital fleet manager" built, then the defending ships WILL act as a fleet in battle.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Undecided. Presumably with sensors, you can see their ships coming from a "mile away". Shouldn't be too hard to get them up and ready to battle in the 5 turns it takes them to get here.

Juan, that's why i mentioned it. Was hoping someone might at least consider the idea.

Brian
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


I think that, if the planet has the "orbital fleet manager" built, then the defending ships WILL act as a fleet in battle.


Yes they do. I attacked a planet with one and well, 7 defenders in one fleet versus 4... it works.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oh is that a tech? Sorry, i havn't gotten that far into it yet.

Brian
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, there is a branch of techs that are dedicated to planetary defence. The ships docked in planets will be able to attack as a fleet so long as you dedicate a tile for planetary defence on each planet you want like that. However, to be honest, I never built one. I usually fill each planet with the out-of-date ships. Sure the enemy may be able to easily mow them down one by one, but that usually gives me time to assembly a fleet in space, and take care of the potential invaders.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The nice thing about taking out the ships 1 by 1 is that it really racks the xps up for your attacking ships. Ive amassed some really huge fleets this way in their hps by attacking planets. By the time I was done I had some seriously xperienced ships that could take on some huge armadas.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think the planetary defenders should ALWAYS be a fleet. The AI throws so much resources into defending fleets (while a human player mostly constructs mobile fleets of interceptors) that it should at least have that advantage. And if the planetary infrastructure doesn't allow the coordination of troops you're very likely NOT in the space age at all.

Anyway, planet defenders should always be fleets AT LEAST in the ammount allowed by the logistic.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
as people said you need to research it first.
however, with the next update, ships will fire back no matter if they are destroyed in one shot.
so even if you are 10 vs 1x10 (shoot those ships one by one) those one ships will return fire and damage your ship, so even though they are not in a fleet you will be damaged or even lose the battle if you are not stronger.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think that it's easy to forget just how big planets are when playing a game of galactic conquest. I can certainly see why it would be difficult to defend a planet near the surface simply due to the planet itself acting as a giant, physical barrier which could easily divide your defensive efforts if you didn't know where your enemy was going to strike.

That being said, I agree that the orbital fleet manager is a bit under-powered. I rarely if ever use them and have yet to ever actually build one myself (sometimes I delay tearing down existing ones on a captured planet until the area is clear of threats). I think researching the tech and having an empire wide effect would be acceptable. Maybe a super-project that would be empire wide would also be worth a tile (especially after the elimination of first-strike). One suggestion I have read is that they allow the spaceports to be upgraded to add the ability. I would be fine with any of these options, or even not changing it at all, but what I think is most important is that the AI will have to know how to handle strategic defense no matter what the system in place is.

In general, I believe that this game's favor of the attacker is intentional to facilitate a more dynamic experience, rather than allowing long, static stand-offs with defenses that can't be broken by either side. They have recognized however, that things as drastic as first-strike advantage are a bit broken and are working to remedy the problem. I believe that this will be addressed in the future as well.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One suggestion I have read is that they allow the spaceports to be upgraded to add the ability. I


That's a great idea, I'm going to take it to the "easy tweaks" thread.