is defense really worth it?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I am hoping someone can shed some light on this subject for me...

I've won militarily in all my games and defense just doesn't seem worth it to me...

Am I smoking crack or are the defense techs just as expensive technology wise as their comperable weapon cousins?

And on top of that the defense components seem to be more expensive to put on the ships!

Factor in they are almost completely worthless if it's not the right kind of defense vs the chosen weapon tech your adversary has tech'd up, they just don't seem worth it to me.

Am I missing something or is defense pretty much a non issue?
9,723 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What version of the game are you running? There have been various changes and bugs that have affected the balance between weapons and defense.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Defence is good in DL, but in DA you can simply play Arcean and you won't need one iota of useless defence.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Defence is good in DL, but in DA you can simply play Arcean and you won't need one iota of useless defence.


That's one option, but by doing that you have to forgo some of the very powerful economic abilities that the other races have. (I find my ships to be sufficiently indestructible with Krynn and a moderate amount of on-type defense research.)
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Defense was useful in DL???
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Defense was useful in DL???


Yeah, it was pretty worthless there, heh. It was one of the early DA patches, decreasing all the defense component costs, etc., that made defense viable (ignoring the off-type defense bug for now).
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Defense was useful in DL???



Sure it was. Of course it depends on which build you're talking about, but I used it to great effect in DL. More so than in DA. I hope they give defense its due again in DA, and not just off-type, which really sucks! Defense is one way that you can catch up against an opponent who has vastly superior weapons. I've seen the AI do this to me a couple of times, and I've loved it when they did so.


Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That's one option, but by doing that you have to forgo some of the very powerful economic abilities that the other races have. (I find my ships to be sufficiently indestructible with Krynn and a moderate amount of on-type defense research.)


good point,

here's a question, regarding DA, if there was a multiplayer and you had to go up against expert human players, what race would you choose? I would imagine everyone would be clammering to be Arcean and no one would be using defence?
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just as the Arceans can outmanuver faster opponents in order to maintain first strike, races without the super ability can deny them that bonus with careful manuvering, even if they lack the speed.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
I am hoping someone can shed some light on this subject for me...

At higher levels, where AIs have significant bonuses, proper use of defenses helps leveling the playing field.

In DL defenses were usefull through the whole game, but lost a bit of importance with late game weaponry. In DA they're game-breaking usefull until you can mount on a single ship enough of them to block ~75%+ of the firepower of opponent's whole fleet. In early and mid game that's quite easy. But in late game, when firepower of fleets goes in thousands, defenses abruptly become completely obsolete.

BR, Iztok
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Its only worth it when you have a PQ26+ next to the Drengin homeworld. (16bn people, 150% defence) giggity.  
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I will say this much for sure: if you're using military starbases, getting one point of defense on your ships has ALWAYS been useful. I beat the Dread Lord campaign with that.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In DL, defense is worth it if your ships are large and the enemy's ships are small. Fleets of huge ships with heavy defense do very well against the fleets of tiny, small, and medium ships that that AI favors. When your huge ship has 100 defense, and their 4 tiny ships each have 30 attack, they'll roll 1-30 four times, and you'll roll 0-100 four times.

In DA, you can make a ship nearly invincible with enough defense if the ship has defense greater than 1/2 the enemy fleet's attack. Say a ship with 100 defense fights a fleet with 200 attack that armed with guns that do 1-5 damage each. The first attack will roll 0-5 against a roll of 0-100 defense, and reduce the maximum defense by the attack roll. So on average, it will take the whole 200 attack to reduce the 100 defense to 0, and there will only be a decent change of doing hp damage on the last few shots of each round. The defense returns to the full 100 at the end of each round, so a ship with lots of defense can last a very long time.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"I will say this much for sure: if you're using military starbases, getting one point of defense on your ships has ALWAYS been useful. I beat the Dread Lord campaign with that."

Could you explain that a bit more? Is it because you only get the ship defense boost if you already have some defense on the ship? That was confusing me in the DA campaign...
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Couldn't this be made somewhat easier by Stardock? Your thoughts on this?
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Could you explain that a bit more? Is it because you only get the ship defense boost if you already have some defense on the ship? That was confusing me in the DA campaign...


That's exactly what it is. There's an early upgrade to the Military Starbase that boosts all your ships' defenses by 1 in EACH category (3 total), but only if you have 1 defense on your ship to begin with. That turns your 0-0-1 defense ships into 1-1-2's. VERY helpful.