Military Rating... will this or won't this

AFAIK military rating is the sum of attack plus defense plus hit points. So they should count for 6 points each.

If you are using them for a useful military purpose(defensive) then they well deserve their military rating.

i think you get points added to military rating for the total hps of your ships...
I could be just pulling stuff out of my #$%, but i remember something on this, fact or fiction.

The military strength calculations are majorly flawed. I was playing Terran engaged in a war with the Torian mid-game. They had many fleets, much outnumbering me. However I had a few giant ships (around about eight) that were tanked out at 30 damage, 30 defense and 40 hitpoints each. The Torians were fielding fleets that did about 4 damage per ship with no defense and 6 hitpoints. After about half a year (game time) of slamming the Torians (I wasn't keeping track but I took no casualties while the Torians lost a few fleets of eight ships so i'm guessing I took out 50-60 odd ships as well as several planets.), I open up negotiations with the Torians to negotiate their surrender and LO and behold the Torian begin to mock me. Now i'm thinking "What the hell? I just beat seven shades of crimson out of their ships." So I check the reason why they won't surrender... Apparently the Torians think they far outclass me in military might even though I have yet to lose one ship.

On a completely unrelated topic, this is my first post, I just got the game. It's a great game and a cool community you got here.

~ Michael

The military strength calculations are majorly flawed

The military rating is the sum of attack values, defense values and hit points. It's something that's easily calculable and is a "figure of merit" that in some way accounts for quantity as well as quality. It's not really flawed, it just is what it is. It's main purpose is to determine the military component of the final score.

What is flawed is having the AI make military judgements based soley on this figure of merit. In my current game I've taken 45 of the Korx 70 planets and probably destroyed 200-300 of their ships. I'm also at war with the Iconians who are a bit tougher. I tried to get peace with the Korx so I could concetrate on the Iconians but they weren't interested. Oh well, another 25 planets and they'll be gone.

You would think that once you've captured over half their planets they would re-think their position on peace.

just got the game. It's a great game

Congratulations, you'll find it very addicting.

You'll never believe this... The Torians used (more like abused) a divide and conquer technique and hit me from all sides. My ships won but were unable to stem the full assualt and I lost two planets.

Then... Get this... After the tides turn guess who pages me... Commander of the Torians. Whats he want? He wants peace.

I managed to bargain a peace deal where he gave me back both planets he conquered off me (ironically I originally conquered them off the Torians).

The stupid bug race that I can't spell yet somehow is about 10x stronger than all the other races combined right now in the game.

~ Michael

"The military strength calculations are majorly flawed. I was playing Terran engaged in a war with the Torian mid-game. They had many fleets, much outnumbering me. However I had a few giant ships (around about eight) that were tanked out at 30 damage, 30 defense and 40 hitpoints each. The Torians were fielding fleets that did about 4 damage per ship with no defense and 6 hitpoints. After about half a year (game time) of slamming the Torians (I wasn't keeping track but I took no casualties while the Torians lost a few fleets of eight ships so i'm guessing I took out 50-60 odd ships as well as several planets.), I open up negotiations with the Torians to negotiate their surrender and LO and behold the Torian begin to mock me. Now i'm thinking "What the hell? I just beat seven shades of crimson out of their ships." So I check the reason why they won't surrender... Apparently the Torians think they far outclass me in military might even though I have yet to lose one ship."

I thourghly understand the mathematical logic of this, but while playing in SP and being painfully made to realize you are fighting an AI, don't you wish you were playing another player in MP so you'd get a different response. I.E. They'd be adapting to your large ship strategy, as well as better able to negotiate, rather then just laught at you in the AI way, but still be losing and not realize it because they have fake boobs for brains. Yeah this game doesn't need MP.

I recently played a game where the Thalians colonized a huge section of the galaxy and were looking quite dominant in some ways. The AI went bonkers tho', they maxed out shield tech really early but little else. They had dozens of planets yet only about 10% of them had a ship to defend them but the ships had 40-60 shield defence. How is this relevant? Well despite me having dozens of ships to their handfull the military strength calc showed them as superior.
When i noticed this I quickly dumped my beam weapon program and made a B line for the nano ripper and beyond as well as starting to turn out many 3k transports.
Because of the military strength calc they declared war on me. 5 turns later I had captured about a third of his undefended systems and the rest was easy. By the time I had to deal with the few big shield ships my guns took them out no problem with no losses.
The point that Mumblefratz made about how the AI makes decisions on war is exactly right.

If you are able to take a planet from the AI every other turn or so, they should consider your military to be superior, I think. Perhaps even if it is technically not superior.

For instance, my current game, masochistic, huge, 9 opponents, no tech trading. I started a war early in the game against the Drengin. My ships are pathetic. Their military rank is stronger, their soldiering is higher, but I took 1/3 of their planets and they still haven't sent even 1 ship against me. Their planets were undefended and had fewer than 200 million people.

Will they consider peace? No. Have I crippled them? Without a doubt. Superior technology is useless in the hands of retarded generals.

I thourghly understand the mathematical logic of this, but while playing in SP and being painfully made to realize you are fighting an AI, don't you wish you were playing another player in MP so you'd get a different response. I.E. They'd be adapting to your large ship strategy, as well as better able to negotiate, rather then just laught at you in the AI way, but still be losing and not realize it because they have fake boobs for brains.

Actually, a human player's response would also depend on the quality of the information he/she had available - If in fact the information available indicated that a couple of large ship fleets were essentially all your opponent had and you had a plethera of small fleets sufficient (in your opinion) to take out or work around the couple of large ship fleets, your response to a peace overture may well be laughter on the way to someone's slaughter.

The stupid bug race that I can't spell yet somehow is about 10x stronger than all the other races combined right now in the game.

Thalians

Tha-lan. Thalan. It's not that difficult, is it?

Because of the military strength calc they declared war on me. 5 turns later I had captured about a third of his undefended systems and the rest was easy. By the time I had to deal with the few big shield ships my guns took them out no problem with no losses. The point that Mumblefratz made about how the AI makes decisions on war is exactly right.

I remember playing a game with an experimental mod someone gave me- Decided to test it out using merely a Tiny galaxy with two opponents. I was using the mod's neutral Iconians and the two opponents were Altarians and Arceans. For the longest time, I had neglected ship building. Suddenly, the Altarians decided I was going down. All my planets went into war-time mode and churned out ships like you wouldn't believe. I soundly bloodied the Altarians' noses. Eventually they saw my superiority and accepted peace- for a price, of course. I believe I insisted on some techs I neglected or even just cash- it cost alot to build and refit my fleets during the war.

I don't often seek peace. Once I get into a war, I usually take it to the end. However, the few times I've tried to seek peace, it's always cost me a lot. I don't understand how a race can seek compensation on my part after I've just whittled them down to a handful of planets the previous turn. They should be paying me for it. In any case, if I really want peace, I always have to pay through the nose for it.

Indeed.

One would expect losing more than half of their planets and every single ship they started the war with should make them more... amendable in the peacetalks.

Not so.
In my current game,,the Terrans jumped the bandwagon (I've been at war with one race or another since turn 17 on a gigantic map) opting for Bean- and Massdriver weapons.
Since everyone in the bloody universe except me (who perfers guided rockets) are totally in for slinging pellets at eachother I already had decent defence against MDs, so a few turns of research rendered the Terran fleet obsolete.

Skipping to the end of that campaign,,the Terrans are left with perhaps a quarter of their initial planets and only the pityful few Defenders they have managed to build after I sent them close to bankruptcy by choking their trade and eradicating anything that could be taken as an excuse for a Starbase (only starbases on the map are either mine or those I have given to my sole ally,,the trusty Arceans. Well,,not so trusty really,,but least they aren't waging losing wars AGAINST me heh).
One could belive that peace would be easy to get,,right?
Think again...

My initial demand was for them to give me a 21 class planet (which by chance had Aphrodisiac on it... constant invasions tends to exact a heavy toll on the population which was refused outright.
Out of curiousity,,I experimented what it would take to have some calm:
*5723 bc
*873052 influence points
* 29 planets
* the whole Missile techtree
* a third of my fleet and half my Mining SBs

Ain't gonna pay that...

Hence I invade the undefended planet I wanted in the first place...

...and promptly get a gleeful message from the Terrans that they in a last act of defiance have surrendered the remains of their empire to my ally the Arceans