Defending Starbases

starbases are a priority target. This worked against the AI in DL because you could block the path of an enemy ship with crappy ships. So long as you left a path to the starbase open, the enemy fleet will always try to go around your crappy ships. You could then manouvre your crapy ships each turn to cause the enemy fleet to continually keep trying to go around them.

I do not know if this trick still works in DA?

I used this tactic in the DL campaign to neutralise Dreadlord ships while i slowly build up my forces.

Hi!

You need to prevent AI(s) going to war with you. If they are already militarized, pay them to go to war with someone else, or pay someone else to go to war with them.

In DA is arming your starbases feasible only in early game, when fleet attack is low (below 20). After that starbase defences simply can't compete with the firepower of fleets, so you defend them with your fleets. If you can't build fleets, then you've probably lost the game.

BR, Iztok

Same with DL. I never even bother with starbase defences to begin with when they are viable, because your much better off building warships. Also why would anyone want to invest in starbase defences that will soon be a total waste of space sitting there looking stupid when your fleets arrive to provide a viable defence for the starbase??

Thank you, I will have to try the blockade with my left over ships from the previous war. I do play in DA.

It's not that I can't build ships, it's that I rarely have enough high manufacturing worlds to build a fleet all at once, so I have to run and hide and stall while building a fleet, and once I do have a fleet, there's usually something more important for it to be doing than sitting on top of a starbase, especially with how quickly the starships become obsolete. (I have been playing with normal tech rate and the AI seems to blow through the military techs very quickly, it's not uncommon for me to be a ship size or two behind the AI.)

I agree. In general I believe that defense is a distraction from the true task at hand. Clearly it is annoying when an AI takes out your mining SB's. It's even more annoying when promptly after your opponent takes out your SB an "ally" comes along and plops down their own SB on top of "your" resource.

However, regardless of how important mining resources are, they are not as important as your planets which are the source of your production of attack ships and transports. My opinion is that when you get into a war your prime concern is to win the war as quickly as possible. Spending resources on defending SB's is not how you end the war as quickly as possible. You end the war as quickly as possible by taking your opponents planets. Once you wipe out your opponent, or better yet reduce him to a single planet and then offer him peace so you aren't labelled with genocide, then you can take his resources and recover as many of your own that your "friends" haven't already absconded with.

Actually I feel the same way about defending planets. I'm not concerned if an AI takes an occasional planet of mine. If they do I do not let it distract me, I just keep taking their planets faster than they take mine. Once my opponent is sufficiently reduced then it's easy enough to come back and "clean up" any mess they may have made.

I don't put weapons and defenses on econ or influence bases, but because I tend to gain and maintain serious tech superiority by virtue of my play style, I've found that keeping mining bases maxed out has value.

Even when enemy fleets are finally getting strong enough to have a chance of blowing away a mining base, it costs them a lot, and in cases were I managed to have a defending fleet nearby, having a topped-off base means it can survive the fight against the battered enemy that just killed my defending fleet. This is especially true when I have at least one more military resource than the attacker.

I do agree with the folks who think fleets in planetary orbit are a waste. The only time I leave ships in orbit is when I'm very interested in keeping a new world that's far from my core territories and have seen transport activity in the region. Even then, I tend to leave only a token ship or two and work hard to get a fleet in the quadrant ASAP.

Another good trick i use to defend starbases (DL) is to surround the starbase with crappy ships and then give the ships to a minor race i made powerful. A minor race not at war with anyone will kindly not move any ships you give it!

The best thing is kind of like what you're doing, use old ships to park on your starbases. Generally I build small hulls in the beginning just to show milatary power. These form my primary starbase defenses.

Later on if a starbase is having pressure put on it, I'll either send a strong fleet there to handle things, or just a few large hulls to sit on the starbase.

The key is not to plunk down a valable fleet. Just a few ships is the way to go. If they come under pressure, just start upgrading them. As the game goes, I'll add some of my aging larger hulls to protect my starbases.

To me, resource bases must be held. A +30% bonus to anything but influence, is huge. If the AIs are stronger than me, I generally find it usefull to use the starbases as a focus point, since I know that's where they're headed. So I generally agree with mumble, except I don't take chances. (especially with the assassination event)

That depends on a few factors.... if you have been at war allot then older ships will have experience making them more valuable on the front lines once upgraded. Also i will often not have the funds for upgrading. In DL there is usually an inexplicable and dramatic currency loss when war is declared, even when no trade routes are lost!

An example - I once had 2000bc dissapear from my net income of 5000bc just for war being declared and i had not lost any trade routes.

I've noticed that, too.

Last night, I had a game where I was running +2500bc economy. The minute I was driven to get into a war with 3 civs at once, I went almost immediately to -550bc once the fighting started. I had to temporarily slide the overall production slider to 0 just to boost my income into the green again as I'd run out of cash to build ships... I ran around with my 4 solid fleets and destroyed as many of the AI civs' resource bases as possible and sent already constructed constructors in to take them over, then split up my fleets to set up guard on them. Afterwards, I went into negotiaions with all the civs I was at war with and negotiated peacy treaties. After I gave up a fortue in techs and trade goods, I got them all to agree, then shoved production back up to max to rebuild my fleets.

War is a costly, for sure. I'm nowhere near the skill of many of the other people who play the game, but I've found my own way to compensate for such issues that work within my playstyle, such as the above.

Thank you for all the advice.

I believe that loss is from tourism. Also if you have a mining starbase on the border of your enemy it is a good way to kill off their fleet. The AI will send multiple fleets at it and if you are prepared by having a couple fleets near by, you can pick them off like a turkey shoot.

Tourism is nothing.

Even if your ships are superior, they cannot defent the starbase while repairing in orbit around your planets! Because that is inevitably where they will end up after a period of time defending the starbase.

As others have mentioned, prevention is the best defense. Give the AI something else to do, rather than attack you and your bases...sponsor wars. Trade isn’t worth it so much for the revenue in most cases, but early game it can be used to suppress aggression (for a time). Finally, pick the two races that scare you the most, and give them each a tech or an econ treaty...you can pick up a boatload of tech and almost infallibly keep them from attacking you until you’re ready to screw them. Your mining bases will be safe as houses even smack in the middle of their territory. It's quite cheesy.


When it finally comes to *actually* defending the bases if you feel the need, don't bother with starbase defenses or starbase defense tech...it's almost completely worthless compared to fleet tech. Youre better off just stationing a couple ships there, and keep an eye on enemy fleet movements with scanner ships.

I think starbase defences are leftovers from galciv1, in that game they were quite potent since no fleets exist. And the games were usually over well before the AI started producing any 'excalubur' class vessels - the only ship capable of taking out a maxed out starbase in galciv1.

Also, for the benefit of new players, I'll just relate the well known exploit of using the AI's fondness for killing starbases against them. If your opponent has a mining starbase you covet, but you dont want to dirty your hands...

Just drive some old attack ship you dont need anymore , along with a constructor, to the starbase you want and park them right next to it. Gift or sell the attack ship to another AI, and pay them to go to war with that civ. They'll likely kill that starbase the next turn or so for you with your ex-ship, and you can swoop in and Cap it with your constructor. And the AI you just took it from will probably be too busy at war to do anythign to you for taking it for some time, giving you plenty of time to fortify it and build it up. Rinse and repeat.

"All your base are belong to us", indeed.

I do not see this working much at all. Typically the AI will stupidly rush the gifted ship off somewhare else instead of killing the starbase.

Starbases are only a priority target when the human player owns them!

Ive done it frequently. Of course the the base has to be largely defenseless for it to work, and the ship has to have enough life support to operate within its new range releative to the new owner, or it does have to plot a course back to its new territory, same as a player would have to.

Life support aside, You must be luckier than me then, i have never been able to get a gifted ship to attack a starbase! Oh sorry, once i had a gifted ship actually attack a starbase, when it returned an hour later!!

In galciv1 i used to send a fleet of constructors and a warship to an AI starbase, then i would surround the warship with the constructors and gift the warship to an AI at war with the starbase owner. The warship could then only escape by going through the starbase. This worked even for ships out of range!!! This does not work in DL, the ship will just sit there looking stupid, even if in supply range.

I'm afraid I can't let this slight to my knowledge of dodgy exploits go unchallenged. I just did this in one of my current games, with no real effort or setup, so I dont think luck has much to do with it. Of course, you can screw it up, by doing it when there's enemy ships close by that can kill the ship, or if it's too far out of range.

Here we go, playing as The Hive, I just parked one of my aging Mantis Cruisers next to a tasty terran econ mining base. Im just demonstrating the concept, so for now, imagine I parked a constructor there as well.





Now to talk to the Altarans. " Hey babe, what's up? Aww, don't be like that. Here's a ship for you, baby. By the way, I heard the terrans called you frigid. Now, it's not up to me, but I wouldn't take that if I were you..."







1 Turn later... "Oopsie!" Hey, look at the big fat economy resource just sitting there for my imaginary constructor to gobble up. Aww, too bad Terrans, but don't blame me. It was those filthy Altarians that did it. BTW, there are a bunch of altarian warships heading your way through my space, so i think you have more important things to be worrying about right now..."





Like I said, Ive done it often.

Hey, no slight intended, I never said you were wrong, i am just reporting my observations and it is interesting to see the different results. Perhaps gifted ships behave differently in DL from DA i don't know?

All i know is that playing DL, the gifted ships never attack the nearby starbase, they just piss off as if in a hurry to go and defend the homeworld!