How does a battle work when ships are stacked on a square?

from GalCiv2 Forums
Suppose a DA player has two fleets of warships, one strong and the other weak, and some individuasl unarmed troop transports all stacked on the same square. A Krynns fleet of warships attacks that square. What happens? Do all of the ships on the square appear in the battle movie and get destroyed if the Krynns win? If not, how is it decided which ones are attacked first by the Krynns... by a rule of the game, or by AI choice? Can I assume it would work the same way if the player was the attacker and the Krynns had the assortment of ships on a square?

Thanks for your replies.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I assume it's the same in DA as in DL where the most powerful fleet and/or ship is the first to be attacked. Just as when you attack a planet with a number of ships in orbit and no orbital fleet manager, you first face the most powerful ship followed by the next and so on.

However, I'm not totally sure what criteria is used to determine the most powerful fleet/ship. I assume it's simply raw attack and defense numbers which probably doesn't take into account the match ups between your defense and their offense and vice versa.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You can use this to better protect your starbases too. Since starbases are not capable of defending themselves in the long term, you can place a fleet of ships to defend a station. Just avoid adding defensive modules to your starbase, and it should always work.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Interesting point.
Thanks for your replies, guys.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I had understood it to be the ship with the most Attack is attacked first. This stops you building 'tanks' with massive defence and no attack to take the pounding.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I had understood it to be the ship with the most Attack is attacked first. This stops you building 'tanks' with massive defence and no attack to take the pounding.
End of quote

Certainly could be. You're essentially describing the algorithm that's used in selecting which ship of a fleet to attack first which is the one with the highest attack/defense ratio (technically I think it's the ship with the highest [attack/(defense+HP)] ratio). Seems reasonable to use the same algorithm for deciding which fleet to attack.

Actually this could probably be determined resonably easily "in game". Sounds like a job for Iztok. :)
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Seems like picking the strongest would be a difficult algorithm. With three different sets of attack and defense, would you be able to consider the matchups? A ship with 0-0-40 attack and 0-0-40-defense, and one with 0-40-0 and 0-0-40 are equal... until they fight each other, then the second one has an easy win.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Stacked ships are picked by the same rating as ships are targeted in fleet combat AFAIK.

Total Attack / (Total Defense+HP)
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It also means btw, that the Krynn will need to attack the same square three times in order to destroy your transport (assuming they win each battle).
That's why it's a bad idea to fleet transports when in hostile space, you don't want an enemy ship to sneak through your escort fleets and destroy one fleet of 5 transports... ;) (Having all 5 of them in the same square takes 5 moves to destroy, instead of one, enemy may simply run out of moves to finish them off!)
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Got it, thanks.