Wyndstar

Join Date 06/2006

+12

Defense - Devs please read!

Defenses net negative to empire

OK, I played a game last night that revealed a SERIOUS problem in the current game balance. I was playing a medium map as the Thalans, on Obscene difficulty. The game played out, and through a series of surrenders the game came down to just me and the Korx. (Maybe people liked them because of trade? Everyone just kept surrendering to them). At this point in the game, the Korx controlled maybe 60-65% of the planets, I was outnumbered just under 2-1. In a few turns they went from cool to hostile and then declared war. Our militaries were about even - the Korx were slightly higher, but they had significant advantages in population, industry and economy. I had slight advantages in miniturization and hp%, but I could see the writing on the wall. They were going to grind me to dust, and there was nothing I could do.

We were both using fleets of 4 medium fighters as our combat craft. They were using Anti-matter torpedo II, and I was using Disruptors. They had fleet attack values of about 220 missle per fleet, I had attack values of about 200 laser per fleet. They had hit points of around 22/ship - I had hit points of around 25/ship.

In the initial fighting, our fleets just mutually wiped each other out in one turn, with the attacker surviving with one hp (sometimes 1-3 hp, and sometimes one ship left with full hp). So in any battle between fleet "units" I would lose 3-4 medium fighters.

I was using defense (I just like throwing superior deflectors on my ships, only 30 bc and 1 def is 1 def is 1 def) barely, but I had a lot of defense tech I had traded from minor races earlier in the game. (Note, minor races seem obsessed with defense tech in every game I have played in DA, is this intentional??) And then I had an idea.

I GAVE the Korx Advanced Force Fields (size 5, cost 90, def 5 laser). They gave me a dialogue about how my sneaky diplomacy tricks wouldn't work on them and they still hated me. Only, my sneaky diplomacy trick HAD just worked, I had given them a trojan horse.

Predictably, the Korx started to build ships with laser defense. This had two effects. First, the average time for them to build a Korx Frigate when from 4 weeks per world to 7 weeks per world. Second, their overall attack values per fleet dropped to about 160 missle.

Now, not only were they kicking out fighters slower, the ones they did kick out killed slower. Combat battles would no longer take just one turn, it would usually take me two "rounds" of combat to paste the four fighters, but I was coming out of battles losing only 2-3 ships now... only rarely losing 4 fighters to their four fighters.

Because of increased cost and decreased effectiveness for their frigates, by trading the Korx the correct defensive technology against my weapons, their empire's military effectiveness dropped 60-70%!!! (Taking into account longer build times and fewer of my fighters killed)

Needless to say, I ground out a victory against them, even though their industry and economy should have been able to bury me. Their new military just couldn't keep up. I only won this game because I "tricked" the AI into trying to use defense against me!!!

As far as the AI goes, it would be simple to remove this exploit. Make it so that they never build defenses on their ships. But that doesn't address the larger issue of erosion of combat complexity due to weapon types.

Is there some way I can post a log of a game to you so you can see what I am seeing??

It is a real shame that under the new system defenses are meaningless. It takes out the rock/paper/scissors of matching weapons to defense. Under the current system, you just want to kick out the most damage per bc always, so the one that is highest up (any) of the three weapons tech trees has the advantage. Perhaps you intended to remove weapon types from being meaningful to make the game easier. I for one prefer a system where the different weapons matter - why add depth to other areas of the game (colonization) while stripping depth that already existed (weapons v. def in combat)?

Please know, I passionately love this game. You have done an incredible job and I have rarely had as much fun in any turn based strategy game. I am only trying to help make the game experience more deep and satisfying. I think repricing defense to make it cheaper now that it is less valuable is one fix. I'm sure you can think of other (better) ideas about how to address this issue. I just really wanted you to be aware of what can happen under the new system as it currently stands.

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Wow...that's totally absurd.

//Runs off to start "gifting" defense techs...

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Predictably, the Korx started to build ships with laser defense. This had two effects. First, the average time for them to build a Korx Frigate when from 4 weeks per world to 7 weeks per world.

Sounds like a manufacturing problem rather than a military choice issue. If the AI built enough factories and used near to if not 100% military spending while at war it would surely have a better chance.

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The weapons and defence techs do need to be looked at though. I don't think anything with them has been altered since DL 1.1 and Gal Civ2 has changed a lot since then. Perhaps defence cost should be less. Beam weapon techs are too cheap compared to drivers/missles. Missiles are def the weakest weapon line under the current combat rules. Also Evil weapons are not cost effective.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2411

I'll do some stastistical models on this and see what we can do in an update.

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The weapons and defence techs do need to be looked at though.

i'll agree to that.

Also Evil weapons are not cost effective

Good defenses have never been.

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I'll do some stastistical models on this and see what we can do in an update.

i'd be really intersted in seeing those analyses: not for the sake of criticism, but for understanding. plus i trained as a sociologist, so i'm pretty good with statistics. i'd be interested in seeing how you simplify the system.

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I'll do some stastistical models on this and see what we can do in an update.

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DivineWrath

Join Date 05/2006

+135

Hmm... thats odd. I ussually place a major focus on putting on lots of defense on my ships. My ships often have less weapons and attack power than the AI, but my ships almost always survive combat. Clearly, the AI isn't very good when it comes to designing ships with defense, or managing their industry well enough to compensate to your strategy.

Please note, I tend to use medium hulls, so they have enough hit points to make the defenses worth while.

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I kept on reading throughout these forums that defenses were useless . At the time I did not believed it, so I tried my own experiment to prove this wrong. I decided the best way to test which way was right was to design two different ships, one focusing on missiles only(A) and the other focusing on missile defense theory chain and missiles(

. I assigned 28,000 tech points on normal tech speed for each side to use for researching what they focused on. Both ships are using a haul with 144 spaces available for weapons and defenses(Huge).

Ship A
Weapon Choice: Quantum Torp II 27,600 research points
Size:9
144/9=16 \Quantum Torp II
Damage:10
Total Attack16*10=160
Cost: 70
Total cost : 70*16=1,120+320=1,440

Ship B
Weapon Choice:Anti-Matter Torp III 15,600 research points
Size:8
12 Weapons (96 total space)
Damage:8
Total Attack8*12=96
Cost=66
Total Weapon Cost=66*8=792
Defense: Aeron Missile Theory 12,130 research points
Size:4
12 defense (48 total space)
Defense=10
Total Defense=120
Cost=140
Total defense cost=1,680
Total cost(weapons, defenses, hull) =2,792

Ship B
Total attack 72
Total Defense 120
84 hit points
Total cost:2,792

VS.

Ship A
Total attack 160
84 hit points
Cost:1,440

Ship A and ship B are almost equal. But ship B cost about twice as much as ship A. You can almost buy 2 ship As for the price of one ship B. And ship B is about equal with ability as ship A.

Two Ship As
160 attack 84 hit points
160 attack 84 hit points

vs.

Ship B
72 attack 84 hit points
120 defense

If you look above it is rather obvious which side has the advantage. Now ship B is only effective against a ship that uses missel attacks, while ship A is effective against everything. I use to like to use the Krynn Consulate with the ability of 80% defense. Even with this ship A is better then ship B. Also attack helps your military rating which helps you avoid getting war declared on you.

Two ship As
160 A 84 hit points
160 A 84 hit points

vs.

Ship B +80% defense
72 attack 84 hit points
216 defense

I still believe ship A is still so much better against ship B and especially against more diverse forces. Now I will not even consider adding defense until it gets a major overhaul of over 100% at the very least.

I have to do some homework now, so I am sorry if some of the above seems confusing I ran out of time to try to make things clearer. Also I would not have wrote this much if I didn't like this game.

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Ship A and B vs. different forces.

ship A
Attack 160

vs ship C (lazer ship similar to ship A)
Attack 160

They are even and most likely similar in cost

Ship B
attack 72
defense 14

vs.

Ship C
attack 160

Huge advantage ship C and they cost around half as much as ship B.

Ok now I will do my homework.

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Frogboy: thanks for listening and taking a look. I love that you guys take the time to listen to players.

To the other responses:
I think the value vs. cost of defense has been argued plenty on these forums already. But when you can use it to crash the AI, it has gone too far (in my opinion). The value of defense changed a LOT under the new combat system, but the prices to build did not.

I have heard a couple different versions of the new combat formula. In either case, defense ceases to matter when:
a) defense + hitpoints <= total attack power/2 (of an entire fleet) OR

defense*2 + hitpoints <= total attack power/2 of an entire fleet.

Depending on if defense is reduced when it rolls a 0. If it is then use formula a, if defense is only reduced when it blocks damage then use formula b assuming the defenders have the right defense vs. the weapons they are fighting.
So, say 4 medium fighters (20 hp) that had a def of 5 each would not gain any advantage from the defense if they go against a FLEET that has an attack power of >240, using the most generous formula. Under the new system everyone has become a dread lord.

Under the old system if you had a 30 laser defense and went against two ships with 20 laser offense, you might not take damage (I know, I know, sometimes the old def would roll a 0). Under the new system, same scenario, you will probably take 5 pts of damage. This means the value of defense has decreased. The cost does not reflect that, and remained the same as the cost under the old system. All I did was get the AI to purchase ships that were a "bad deal". But when you are counting every penny to try and overcome the industry of another civ, a bad deal for one side spells doom.

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The effect of defense is very nonlinear. Putting some defense on your ships is bad, like in your example in the first post, Wyndstar. But putting a lot of defense on a ship is very good.

If you can build a ship such that its defense is greater than 1/2 the enemy fleet's attack, it is close to invincible. This ship will survive to the end of a round of combat and still have defense points left over, so it almost never takes damage. I just ended a suicidal game by building large-hulled ships that had about 3 times more defense than attack. These ships were expensive, but they could solo enemy fleets and come away unscathed.

The problem is that defense is useless if your fleets are weaker or about on par with your enemy's fleets.

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I used this same trick again, this time as the Terrans. I researched doom ray, then gave invulnerability field to all the civs that were still alive. Then I went around mopping up their newly weakened militaries (on suicidal).

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