Attacking AI's Resources

I usually put priority on galactic resources first, in fact I'll usually start the war by hitting them. Taking the Military ones out will have the most immediate effect on your war, but I go for all resources right away.
I'll usually go after any military SBs that are giving their ships a boost also. Just remember to wait a turn for the SB bonuses to lose effect before engaging the ships that are recieving them. I ignore the rest and non-combat ships for the most part. All that will disappear when the Civ is gone anyways.

I attack all the starbases I can so I can claim the resources.

I attack miners if the opportunity arises.

I leave asteroids alone, because they'll flip once I conquer the nearby planets.

An secondary use is to use the mine supply lines to trace enemy planets. It sounds trivial, but when you're trying to finish off an empire that had 100+ planets mixed in with other civs' planets, it's easy to lose track of where the rest of their planets are.

Yes, I go straight for freighters and starbases. I normally have some lightly armed, fast interceptors go after them. And I make sure I have constructors on the ready when I knock out their resources. I especially target military resources.

It definitly depends on the kind of war I'm fighting.

If I'm fighting an inferior opponent, I'm likely to just leave all that stuff alone and concentrate on invading his planets. All his stuff is either in my possession or is destroyed when he kicks the bucket, so why bother hunting down freighters?

If I'm fighting a fairly evenly matched war, I'll go for galactic resources, lightly defended starbases and trade routes in an attempt to gain an edge that I can use against them. Mostly, though, I'm trying to just get in there and deprive my opponent of planets, since I can direct my fleets a hell of a lot better than the AI can.

If I'm fighting against an opponent that outclasses me, nothing is sacred. Any soft target is going to be ripped apart, including all mining starbases. The primary focus is generally on beating him back at that point, and buying time to increase the tech level and fleet size of my civilisation. The key is to deny him every advantage you can and hit him in such a way that your inferior fleets never meet up with his superior ones unless the battle is critical.

My focus goes to military starbases & military resources. After that it's a rush to capure some planets.
If I happen to know that the AI is short on cash, economic resources make a good target as well. That's the only case where I attack AI freighters, except if they would just happen to be in my path.
Prior to invading a planet, I also take out any morale boosters since it helps when using information warfare.

Military Resources are top priority targets. Just one or two of those can needlessly hamper your conquest efforts, even when it seems like it's a foregone conclusion. Those things have to go first.

I usually stick to set of S.O.P.s

Primary Targets
anything that can contribute to their war effort and otherwise hurt me.
Military Units, Star Bases, Resources

Secondary Targets
Any Economic Structures
Star Bases, Traders, Mining Bases

Targets of Opportunity (Tertiary Targets)
Anything that wanders into my units path and doesn't detract too much time from my attack time line.



Otherwise, I try to prioritize targets on the fly which helps me assure that my attacks with be the most effective. I also try to position my forces before conflict in areas that will allow attacks to progress within five weeks of war being declared. However, it is advisable to remain flexible and carefully review each situation as it unfolds while adjusting your tactics accordingly, with one exception. Develop a fast response unit that is capable of responding to new threats as they appear insuring a small bit of tactical flexibility, This unit I usually develop as a fast one use "missile" or "interceptor" type unit that remains on standby on each of my worlds to deal with transports or other units that manage to make it past my mainline.

Yes I go for asteroid bases, I cut their trade routes, and I destroy their resource mining bases. I usually have a raider designed specifically for this purpose, but I make them strong enough - when in packs - to also destroy enemy warships trying to stop them. But if their opponent is too powerful I always make them fast enough to outrun anything. If I'm tactful about it I can all but neutralize a civ using these types of ships alone. Its a bit more time consuming but sometimes I just have bigger things in the works and can't devote too much to a war on the side.

Heres my current raider design, the "Wasp" (I hope its not against the rules to post this here):

In case you haven't gathered it yet, resources are definitely a priority. Same for me.

On a side note, I can't remember the last time I even saw a military starbase (not the resource). Do many of you fight opponents who use several military starbases?

Yes - I go the economy, mining, and resource bases ASAP. I have noticed that in some fights, evenly matched with the computer, destroying these targets will often rush a conclusion to the war -- the AI will surrender pretty fast, even with many planets and ships left. It's a good tactic when the enemy has a lot of planets left, but you don't want to spend a lot of time invading each one.

Amen, brothers. Those are generally the only things that I go out of my way to destroy before I begin my conquest in earnest. As Norticulus mentioned, taking out morale resources can be also be helpful, especially if you plan on taking a planet intact.

Here's a helpful hint: when you target a resource, bring along a fleet of constructors. After you destroy the enemy starbase, you and use them to your advantage in the conflict. Don't worry too much about the econ or research resource bases- the AI tends to go into 'panic mode' when it gets into a full-scale conflict, and will tank it's economy anyway, just trying to keep up. Research will slow to a crawl also, for the same reason, so there is no point in going out of your way to take them out until you are ready to claim them for your own.

That being said, more often than not I just kill everything I can, whenever I can, just for the fun of it.

Good luck. You ask the right questions; I have little doubt that soon you will be the 'sage', helping along the next generation of players.

This is the better way to look at it. First, remember its a game. If it is more fun for you to go romping around destroying soft targets... have at it.

But weakens the AI significantly? Only military resources are worth the effort. No other resource contributes enough to how the AI runs its empires to have any meaningful, noticeable effect on what you will face.

Focus (exclusively) on planets and you will win and you will be using your own resources the most efficiently. But it is a game, so do whatever you have fun doing. If you want to design, fast long range low attack ships to harass the AI and chuckle as you take down soft targets, thats your business. But no, all that work won't really hurt the AI at all.

It might make YOU feel better though.

~ Wyndstar

I never bother with freighters. I play DL so there are no asteriod mining bases however I would personally turn this statement entirely on its head. Instead of thinking it's a good idea to wipe out an AI's resource mining so as to weaken the AI so that its easier to take their planets, I generally view the point of most early wars as an attempt to take over all the resources in the galaxy before I'm sufficiently strong enough to actually take out any single AI in the game.

I specifically go to war where my only intent is to take all an AI's resources and then get peace. I do this very early in the game, mostly right before the end of the colony rush, usually before I even have researched planetary invasion. Usually I'll have built my Spin Control Center and have a few cargo hulls filled with the best weapon that I have. I also have a significant advantage in diplomancy and a few attack ships that require very little weaponry to take out starbase defenses at that point in the game. I basically capture all an opponents resource mining starbases and take them over and since my military might is sufficiently better than my opponents, they will always accept the peace that I then offer.

In the case of DA you are required to wait before you can offer peace but that hardly matters much since at that stage of the game the AI generally doesn't have planetary invasion either and as long as you keep your military might advantage the AI will accept your peace offer as soon as you get a chance to make it. Of course you probably do have to wait around to actually take over the resources until the turn you are able to offer peace but otherwise I see little difference using this in DA versus DL.

Then when it comes time for "real" war your question is moot because I already own all the resources in the galaxy. However if for some reason I hadn't done this or if this was before I made owning all galactic resources such a priority, the only reason I would take out an AI's resources would be to attack his military mining resources so that his ships did not have their bonus. Note that you have to wait a turn before they lose the bonus from military resource mining.