Oh my GOD

from GalCiv2 Forums
I was playing a game in God mode with eight opponents set to difficult. I found it quite easy to win, even though I was just about filled off early in the game. But that was mainly because of what I discovered.

I had "Doom ships" using medium hulls with 220 of doom ray in each and no defensive capabilities. At first I created fleets of 7 Doom ships. When attacking the ennemy that had large hulls, 30 shield and 160 of black hole drivers. The single enemy ship was always able to destroy all 7 ships of my fleets even if I had the first strike. Then I tried using a single "Doom ship" fighter to attack it, and guess what? I won the battles every time. I wiped out the entire enemy empire with one single ship!

What ever was chnged in the new DA Beta software sure has screwed things up in battles.

When atacking a single enemy with my fleet of seven Doom ships, only one of my ships would fire all its ray weapons at once on the enemy. This would almost kill the enemy but never completely, it always had enough hit poits left somehow to destroy all seven of my fighters. Now I don't know why my other six fighters did not fire their weapons to finish them off before they go kill them all.

When using a single Doom ship fighter, against the very same enemy ship, my ship again fired all its weapons at once, and again it would almost destroy the enemy although the math tells me it should be destroyed. The enemy ship then fired all of its weapons on my ship, but it did not destroy it. Instead, the enemy ship was destroyed without me firing an other shot. When the battle was over, I still had all of my hit points. So I sent in my transports, conquered the planet and moved on to the next one. It was so easy that it got quite boring in fact.

Why is this happening?
8,841 views 22 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Why is this happening?



Single ship combat or fleet verses single ship combat is cheese, always has been, every version of the game, every patch ever released.... except galciv1 which only has single ship combat!

Try to avoid single ship combat in order to avoid the cheese, but if you have to engage in single ship combat, leave your fleet at home and use a single ship.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sorry... what? I'm not sure I get it. So, the enemy ship can kill 7 of yours, but if you go 1 on 1, then you win?

Why don't the other ships fire their weapons?

Is that a bug?
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I am new to the game and would also like to know if it is bugged so I dont exploit it. Sorry my first language isnt english so I dont understand the "being cheese" expression (but will sure add it to my vocabulary once explained!) ?

Thanks

Ducky
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I had "Doom ships" using medium hulls with 220 of doom ray in each and no defensive capabilities. At first I created fleets of 7 Doom ships. When attacking the enemy that had large hulls, 30 shield and 160 of black hole drivers. The single enemy ship was always able to destroy all 7 ships of my fleets even if I had the first strike. Then I tried using a single "Doom ship" fighter to attack it, and guess what? I won the battles every time. I wiped out the entire enemy empire with one single ship!


Ok, first off, when you see the combat what you are actually watching is a animated version of the dice rolls for damage. So, visually, it will be different than what you might think of as "normal". When you watch the combat you are seeing your ships roll for damage first and then the enemy roll for damage. Since the combat is supposed to be simultaneous the enemy does not blow up until his shots are displayed.

So, lets look at the fight. You had 7 medium hull ships each capable of 220 points of damage against one large hull ship capable of 160 points of damage. Any one of your ships is capable of putting out more damage than the enemy has hit points. So, only one of your ships fires because once you do enough damage to destroy the enemy ship there is no reason to make the other damage rolls. Your opponent has enough weapons on his ship to make a damage roll for each of your ships and since each weapon he has is strong enough to kill a ship outright that is exactly what happens.

Think of it in terms of a tank (opponent) vs. infantry (you). Say each of your guys has an anti-tank missle. They all jump out and aim at the tank but only one guy fires. The others do not since they know the one missle will do it in. Meanwhile the tank, with it's machine gun, gets to shoot at all the exposed infantry. The machine gun is more than capable of killing all your guys and it does. So, solution is, send one anti-tank missle guy against one tank.

As for "being cheese", that can mean a lot of things. In this case it would refer to tactics used by a player or AI that, while following the mechanics of the game, violate the spirit. For instance, when a ship on ship battle occurs if both attacker and oppoent do enough damage to kill each other the attacker gets to survive with one hit point left. There is currently a glitch where instead of surviving with one HP the attacking ship is restored to full HP. A "cheesy" tactic would be to take a almost dead ship and attack a full HP opponent knowing your ship would come out of the fight with full HP.


Hope this helps.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
(thanks for the english lesson, even after all these years I still learn some which is great)

I think I see...and I think you never want to have me as a general hehe. I would probably send 10 guys against the "tank" and get them all killed hehe. This is one of my first strategy games and I have a lot to learn I guess, but I love the game so far.
I had 4 days of double-shifts coming up last weekend and bought it for the occasion. It did its job of keeping me busy so I didnt go crazy and shout at the customers

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

LightVader,

What version of Dark Avatar are you using?  The 1.6 beta 5 version has a modified combat system. 

Under the new beta 5 system, I have set up the scenario you describe above.

When I have a single doom ship vs. single defending ship, both do enough damage to kill each other, but the defending ship is stronger so it survives with 1 hp.

When I take a fleet of 7 doom ships against the single defending ship, the fleet destroys the defending ship and loses 2 ships in the battle.


 There is currently a glitch where instead of surviving with one HP the attacking ship is restored to full HP.

I have found the cause of this and fixed it for the next update. 

 

 

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Edit: Wait, I see - because of the glitch. NVM
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"There is currently a glitch where instead of surviving with one HP the attacking ship is restored to full HP."
I have found the cause of this and fixed it for the next update.

Even with this bug fixed the 1HP rule means once your ships have enough attack to take out the enemy with a single shot it is better to attack a single ship with one ship rather than a fleet. I think the 1HP rule should be eliminated; why can't a battle end with mutual destruction!?
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
LightVader,
What version of Dark Avatar are you using? The 1.6 beta 5 version has a modified combat system.
Under the new beta 5 system, I have set up the scenario you describe above.
When I have a single doom ship vs. single defending ship, both do enough damage to kill each other, but the defending ship is stronger so it survives with 1 hp.
When I take a fleet of 7 doom ships against the single defending ship, the fleet destroys the defending ship and loses 2 ships in the battle.

There is currently a glitch where instead of surviving with one HP the attacking ship is restored to full HP.
I have found the cause of this and fixed it for the next update.



I used the last one upgraded on stardock.

The defending ship did kill all seven ships! But when using a single ship I got all my hit poits back at the end of the fight,hence, I used the same ship over and over again to kill all my opponents since the AI put only one ship on each planet.

But one of the main issue to me here is that if I have the first shot advantage, why does the defender always destroy my ships? The seconds ship should fire and pulverize the defending ship before it can fire back. Even then, if the first ship did enough manage to destroy the defender, why does it not get destroyed before it can fire back? If the ray was powerfull enough to destroy the ship, it certainly destroyed the missiles as well.

I will concede that the odd time, a single shot may be fired, but not all the time and not all guns should fire. Why not make this a random function as well. If the ship was hit with enough power to destroy it, a X out of 100 chance that they got X out of max shots off before they exploded.

It should also be possible for both ships to be destroyed.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Beta's are pre-release versions. To get the 1.6 beta 5 check the show pre-release versions box in stardock and you will get the version he's talking about. It will say 1.59(b).097 but I swear its 1.6 beta 5. Hope that helps you.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

But one of the main issue to me here is that if I have the first shot advantage, why does the defender always destroy my ships?

What race were you playing? Unless you have the super warrior ability both sides go simultaneously in combat.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What race were you playing? Unless you have the super warrior ability both sides go simultaneously in combat.


I was playing the Terran alliance. But if you are the attacker, you still get the first shot advantage!
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I was playing the Terran alliance. But if you are the attacker, you still get the first shot advantage!

No you dont.. only super warrior gets a first shot ability..
You may be thinking of, if you have faster engines and both ships fire and can destroy each other with one round, the one with the fastest engine speed wins and escapes with 1hp, and since Humans nearly always have faster engines.. people assume
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
But if you are the attacker, you still get the first shot advantage!


that hasn't been the case since early versions of dread lords. now both fleets fire at the same time, unless you're playing as the Arceans or a custom race with the Super Warrior ability.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
that hasn't been the case since early versions of dread lords. now both fleets fire at the same time, unless you're playing as the Arceans or a custom race with the Super Warrior ability.


Where is this documented? I read that if you attack a ship in orbit, you get first strike.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Where is this documented? I read that if you attack a ship in orbit, you get first strike.


it should be documented in the dev journals where all changes are documented, but i have no idea how far back you'd have to go. 1.2, maybe? if you're reading the manual, you're going off way out-dated info. i think the manual was out of date when the game shipped.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
it should be documented in the dev journals where all changes are documented, but i have no idea how far back you'd have to go. 1.2, maybe? if you're reading the manual, you're going off way out-dated info. i think the manual was out of date when the game shipped.



Its bad that information on this game is hard to find, but what's worst is that the information that is available is all out of date.

Thanks for the info.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Its bad that information on this game is hard to find, but what's worst is that the information that is available is all out of date.

Thanks for the info.


The information being out of date is a bad and a good thing.... bad because, well, it's wrong, good because it is a sign that Stardock are quick to fix problems
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Use the manual you can download through Stardock Central. As far as I know that's kept up do date.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The information being out of date is a bad and a good thing.... bad because, well, it's wrong, good because it is a sign that Stardock are quick to fix problems


There is a line of silver in every cloud! But the job is not done until the paperwork is finished.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There is a line of silver in every cloud! But the job is not done until the paperwork is finished.


In this case it is the silver that causes the cloud! In other words, improvements to the game cause the manual to be out of date.... so unless you think that improvements should not have been made just to keep the manual up to date,,,?
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In this case it is the silver that causes the cloud! In other words, improvements to the game cause the manual to be out of date.... so unless you think that improvements should not have been made just to keep the manual up to date,,,?


The job is not finished until the paperwork is done, is a saying used in engineering project management that simply means that, until you have done the paperwork, you have not finished the work. This saying is very significant in software design because most code writers would rather cut off an arm than actually do any design documentation. Code writers just want to write code. Things get even worst when a code writer has to be a manager.