I'm a big fan of defense. Good defenses mean you can have smaller fleets, which is an economic plus. Also, your ships have a better survival rate, allowing them to gain more xp, making them even tougher.

In a recent game, I made a 4-ship, Large hull fleet stacked heavy on defense, and proceeded to waltz through the entire galaxy with it. By the end of the game, these 4 ships had 250 offense/700 defense, had destroyed upwards of 100 enemy ships and had taken a total of 10-20 hp of damage. Aside from a few ships I kept around to make sure no one circled behind me to cause any trouble, those four ships were all the military expenditure I needed.

In a recent game, I made a 4-ship, Large hull fleet stacked heavy on defense, and proceeded to waltz through the entire galaxy with it. By the end of the game, these 4 ships had 250 offense/700 defense, had destroyed upwards of 100 enemy ships and had taken a total of 10-20 hp of damage. Aside from a few ships I kept around to make sure no one circled behind me to cause any trouble, those four ships were all the military expenditure I needed.

Is this only possible if you have out teched your opponents? In many of my games my opponents can match my tech or even out tech me and whats more they focus on different weapon tree.

It would only take one or two unlucky rolls out of the many rolls in such an engagement to destroy your dreadnought.

Hi!

It would only take one or two unlucky rolls out of the many rolls in such an engagement to destroy your dreadnought.

So there's a lesson: don't attack with a lone ship. It receives too many shots, because it can't clear opposing ships fast enough.

I usually match amount of my defenses with the attack rate of the most common design of an opponent. In the early-to-mid game that's quite easy, after that it becomes increasingly difficult. That's why I win most of my games before late game. After I get an advantage I just keep rolling over more and more AIs, so no one had quite a chance to get to max tech.

BR, Iztok

P.S. Arrrr! Can't edit the uncomplete post!

In the early game when weapons have low attack strength, defenses are useful but in the late game they are overmatched by the much cheaper weapons. Say a very expensive dreadnought loaded with advanced expensive defenses attacks a fleet of several fighters loaded with much cheaper advanced weapons. Odds are your dreadnought will roll a low defense score against a high attack score from one of the fighters. It would only take one or two unlucky rolls out of the many rolls in such an engagement to destroy your dreadnought.

At least for me, I tend to do the exact opposite, though my conditions may be different.

I find that early on the AI's have a noticable technical lead on me (playing suicidal). In my early wars, I generally have no effective defense against the AI's weapons and my weapons usually lag behind the AI's. I find the only effective strategy is what I call the gnat. I build small hull ships using two engines with the best weapons I have and no defense. I get my logistics as high as possible and crank out fleets of cheap ships that gradually wear down his superior technology fleets. Actually, I avoid engagement with his fleets as much as possible and go after his planets until he's dead. I usually have to use this strategy for at least the first two wars.

Once I've conquered a couple of AI's I'm generally on a more even footing with the remaining AI's and have at least one top line weapon plus the top line defense to my next opponent's best weapon. Then I make a large hull ship with say 4 doom rays and 5 aereon missile defense plus generally 4 engines. I still would never go against his fleets with a single ship but I'll take a fleet of seven of these against anything he's got. Yes, the defense isn't perfect and some of my ships get killed, but with a base defense of 50 which turns into >100 with various bonuses, my ships last quite a bit longer than his.

I find defense the way to go as Moosetek said. Large hulls 2/3 defense with lots of engines just don't die once you have a few military resources. (which are easy enough to snatch off the AIs)

The AI doesn't use much in the way of defense, so that 1/3 offense is more than enough to kill the enemy while he thrashes against the defenses...

The only problem with this is you don't have many ships early on. But since they don't die, you slowly take over the game with them. (esp once your economy is moving and you can upgrade damaged ships)

This strategy works because the AI doesn't switch weapons in any meaningful time frame. The AI not building cheap "ship killer" type ships also allows this strategy to work.

i only started using defenses since 1.2, now I'm sold on them. In my last game I was mostly equal tech (I had better diplomacy, governments and influence, nothing combat wise), and my fleets were going almost with out damage. Since I was building them specifically to use weapons they weren't defending against I cut right through them. It took about 7 of thier to get one of mine.

I usually don't include defenses until I'm using medium hulls, the smaller ships are just too small and quick building.

I already posted a couple of threads on this topic a while back and i'm sure others have as well. Look, the point is that you will almost always "loose" if you use defenses. There are situations when it can be valuable but only because you are already winning against the AI by a huge margin, whether in your technology or economy.

A couple of things to keep in mind. Although anecdotal evidence does have its place in arguments, it is also very subjective. Just because defenses worked in one game you played does not mean something else would not have worked better, or that it will always work, or work for another player, or against the same AI or settings, or different situations or against different ships or against different numbers of said ships or on and on. If you really want to prove a point, use something concrete, something that is fact and will not change from game to game.

Here is something pretty quick that you can do. Create a huge defensive ship and a small offensive ship in the editor. Write down their costs and have them fight in the fleet simulator on this forum. Increase the # of fighters until they will win the majority of the time. Compare the prices of the fighters vs. the price of the big ship. Trust me, you will always lose on a cost-to-cost basis.

Anyway, I really don't feel like repeating everything that i said over again, so i'll just link and copy my posts in case anyone has the patience to read it.

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"Reducing Luck in Ship Combat"
https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=346&aid=126491#983546

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Looking back at my original post, I realize now that I ended up arguing the wrong thing. The main problem that I see in ship combat goes along with the example I posted previously. Fleets of high attack ships will easily win against larger ships, with more balanced attack and defense. Although the variation and randomness of defense, aka. “the luck factor” does participate in giving the capital ships a disadvantage; I feel now that my original solution will not fix the heart of the problem.

So first of all, what exactly is the issue?

The problem is that a decent number of smaller ships will consistently beat any capital ships on a price to price basis. As long as their attack rating is almost on par with whatever-ship-your-attacking's defense, you will get the advantage. In other words, there isn't any point in building larger ships or using defense. They will only get beaten by a smaller number of much cheaper, stronger fighters. I really just can't see anyway where "no defense, all offense fighters" will lose in any situation, whether the opposing ships are balanced or all defense or otherwise. Once again, use the fleet simulator to prove this to yourself.

Why does this happen?

Because defense sucks. Honestly, just looking at the stats, I can’t help but feel it is gimped. The only advantage is that you can research it quicker and it usually takes up less space. Everything else seems to be against it. Armor is not only much more expensive but it also does not match weapons in effectiveness at higher levels.

Ultimate Invulnerability
Cost: 140 MP
Size: 3
Absorption: 9

Doom Ray
Cost: 150 MP
Size: 10
Damage: 22

I just don’t see how this is fair, I’m sorry. It will take at least 3x Invulnerability to be of any use against the Doom Ray, but it will cost nearly 3x as much. Keep in mind that armor does not even really do its job well. It’s simply too random when against multiple opponents. Even with double the defense, you still will likely lose. Also keep in mind that it really does not matter if that capital ship is in a fleet in not. You will still lose on a price basis. Also keep in mind that a researched armor is only effective against one weapon in the game, while a researched weapon is effective against two. Also keep in mind that armor will not kill an enemy, you need to invest in weapons too.

I believe that a lot of tech balancing changes were made in 1.1. Some of them were good (Nano Rippers). However, some were bad (Armor). It was completely nerfed all across the board; defense used to be much, much cheaper and was actually a good investment back then. I don’t understand why these changes were made. Was armor that overpowered that it required a tripling of cost? Perhaps some of you that played 1.0 can comment.

Honestly, I can understand that armor still has its niche uses. But it is not doing its job effectively and is not anywhere on par with weapons. I believe this really needs to be changed. Once again, armor was a lot better back in 1.0 and I simply don’t understand why 1.1 messed it up.

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"Simple Way to Fix Defenses"
https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=247&aid=127872#989710

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Defense is gimped. I hope this point does not need to be argued. Take a look at the stats of any weapon and its corresponding armor. Try out some ships in the fleet simulator. You will be inclined to agree. Yes, it does have its uses, but it is not doing its job at the moment. It needs improvement.

The solution also needs to be as easy as possible to implement. Although i would like to see huge, sweeping changes in ship combat, it probably is not going to happen in a patch. Not only will it take time, but it will also probably raise its own balancing issues and concerns. My point? Lets focus on what can be done.

My suggestion is pretty simple. Actually, its someone else's. I found it to be very effective: add a small HP bonus to armor. Lets take Ultimate Invlunerability for example.

Cost: 70 MP
Size: 3
Absorption: 9
HP Bonus: 3

For every installed module, it would add an extra +3 HP for the ship. Of course, this number can be anything balanced, but +3 sounds pretty good. Lower techs will have less of a bonus, perhaps counting in decimals like .5. Also, the cost of all armor should be cut in half. Defense now is just far too expensive, even with the HP bonus. I've mentioned this before but if you take a look at 1.0 numbers for armor, they were 4x cheaper while weapons remained completely unchanged. That means armor cost was quadrupled for absolutely no reason.

Although returning the numbers back to 1.0 would definitely help, i believe this solution would be much better. More HP means a ship can take a bad roll and keep on trucking, instead of being completely annihilated. Defense is far too random for its own good, but that was another post. I'll leave with some numbers in case anyone wants to play with the fleet simulator.

I see your point, Infoceptor...

But we're battling the AI, not other players, and until I see them field fleets filled with tiny/small hulls with nothing but weapons, I'll continue making my massive sluggers, which simply wade through their armadas as if they weren't even there (later in the game, of course).

The survivability of larger hulls vs. comparable AI designs makes them very much worth it. Because quite frankly, I'd rather lose zero expensive ships than a hundred cheap ships.

Hi!
Just to add my 2 cents...

The situation where I find defenses invaluable is fighting long-distance wars. In a serious attack on an opponent, fighting in core of his empire I can not afford losing half my attack fleet, because they have only weapons. I need them to last, not to die gloriously and leave my newly gained planets without protection.

However defenses are worth using while firepower of an average opponent's ship isn't significantly higher than hit points of my ships, when his lucky and my unlucky roll means only some damage, but not immediate death of my ship. That's why I like playing with small number of planets and slow tech advances. Makes tech progress slow, and defenses usefull for a much longer period of the game.

So the problem with weapons/defenses ratio is end-tech related. The first problem I see is: ultimate weapons are just too powerfull. The FP/size ratio for the rest of weapons slowly increases from 1/15 at start over 1/2 in mid game to 3/2 in late game, then suddenly jumps to 2.5/1. That's IMO too much. Either FP of ultimate weapons is too big, or size is to small.

IMO Infoceptor had a good proposal:

add a small HP bonus to armor

I'd expand that to ALL defenses, and a progressive HP bonus to base hitpoints of the ship. Like all Titanium armors/Chaffs/Deflectors add 1 HP, all level 2 defenses add 2 HPs, all level 3 add 3 HPs etc., up to last type of defense that adds 6 HPs each.

This would not change the early and mid game significantly (too low amount of new HPs, because defenses at that time-frame are to big to be used in large numbers), but in late game a dreadnought could have 200% more hit points, and that, coupled with decent defense and ~30% nerfed ultimate weapons, should make quite some difference.

Well, my 2 cents. I have to add that I don't have much experience with ultimate weapons tech. All my games are over much earlier.

BR, Iztok

It is easier to add hull techs to increase hitpoints, since some of them do that already.

I find really funny the argument that "Defence are useless 'cause a lucky shot can still destroy your ship". In my actual game, I actually tried the "many-small ship with only of offence" (a strategy I herad many time on this forum) to replace my actual fleet of corvette with 50/50 (in %!). Guess what? When you have no defence, your ship will die on ANY shot, no just the lucky ones!

Sure, defences are more expensive. But unless being really unlucky, your ship will have a much better kill/death ratio.