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Battlehammer just too powertul!!

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Battlehammer just too powertul!!

from Stardock Forums
I have noticed that the battlehammer and the Frigate has
about the same attack/defense ratio while battlehammer
is considerabely cheaper to construct, has several times more hitpoints and requires considerably less upkeep cost.

I understand battlehammers are primarily designed for a defensive role, hence they are a bit slower, but as long as they move reasonably quickly and always far enough to be able to attack enemy planets and sectors (witchalready relatively early in the game always is the case) there simply is no purpose in building those expensive attacking ships like frigates or battlecruisers.

Add to this the +2 movement to ALL ships! (not 20% as stated) provided by the gravity accelerators and the result is that theese so-called almost immobile defenders becomes such offensive killermachines there is nothing to stop them.

To make things even worse, the A.I still considers overexpensive, yet weak, frigates and battlecruisers a
better choise to build even if I takes roughly 10 battlecruisers to fend of even one intruding battlehammer. (not to mention the upkeepcost of those
10 battlecruisers that is almost 10 times more than
the upkeepcost of one battlehammer that will ruin the A.I player compleatly.

I think something should seriously be done to actually make a defending ship a defending ship and not something that can be used mindlessly in offensive combat. Small tweaks are not enough. Cutting HP:s for theese overpowered ships in half is not enough. Something radigal must be done in order to fix the imbalance.

Some solutions

1) Ships of defensive nature (defender, battleaxe, battlehammers etc....should always have attacking value of 1!)

2) Ships of defensive nature (defender, battleaxe, battlehammer etc...should newer be allowed to leave the
sector they were built in)

3) Ships of defensive nature (defender, battleaxe, battlehammer etc...shuold ALWAYS have movement of 1 or
even ZERO, beeing immobile. Stuck were they are.

4) (the worst solution)
If nothing else, then at least make the A.I undestand to discard those useless battlecruisers and frigates in favor of the battlehammer witch won't destroy their economy but will improve their armys strenght big time.

1,553 views 33 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top
hey if you dont like the way there to storng go into the data files and change it your self i'd do that but i made a mod unit to cunter it when they ai's use them like that anyway btw my games never last to the capital ship era i always dominate in the few 6-9 years and the ai never recovers enuf to have a standing fleet unless its set to +normal and even then when they do use battle axes like crazy i build lots of Interdictor(mod) 15hp 9/1 att/def 5 movment to stop them and even though that stants look good for early game they arnt i still need 4 to even try to attack a battleaxe and not have the whole battlegroup destroyed.

btw i like the ship discription i made for the interdictor so i'll post it here

"Interdictors, the best way to defend a world is to Blast anything that gets with in a secter of it. Brought to you by the same people who gave you the Akira, AkiraII and the Taransa warapu Conduet, Ichi na Ecchi corp. Makeing tommorow look more like Japan."
Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, as far as adjusting things go... it depends on what you see a Battle Hammer should be able to beat, and what should be able to beat it. Then modding the stats until that happens on average.

Should a frigate be able to beat it? Or a battleship? How many of what kinds of ships should it take to beat a Battle Hammer?

The AI uses Battle Axes plenty in the games I've played.
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Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmmm ... too bad there isn't an edit feature on this board, I really think that the 2nd chart I posted doesn't really help in any analysis. But the 1st chart is pretty good.

Just did another one. Not really sure if it makes total sense. The formula is to take the computed value of the ship as per the formula above (ie: (att+def)^2*HP / maintain), and the divide it by the square root of the total tech points.

Why square root? Well to be honest, just using stright tech points did not seem to work out :) ... not too scientific, I'll agree.

Anyway here's the chart:

starfighter 2.60
Battlecruiser 3.94
Frigate 7.49
battleship 8.13
avatar 10.32
Corvette 10.48
dreadnought 14.26
overlord 14.79
defender 20.24
battleaxe 23.84
battlehammer 28.48
exclabur 116.46

I guess what this shows is how effective for a given level of tech is the given ship. Looks like anything above a 10 is pretty cost effective at it's tech level, anything below 10 is of lesser cost effectiveness.

Seems to say that at the time that you get battleaxes, they fricking rule the galaxy. I can agree with that.

Same can be said for the exclabur, if you can build it I guess :)

Same with the defender, which seems right to me. They are very hard to destroy at their tech level. And our friend the battlehammer is right up there.

The really only weird ones to me are the battleship, which seems low. But when you think of it, considering how expensive it is to get to battleships do you ever build them in bulk or do you just wait for the much more cost effective dreadnought? I usually wait for the dreadnought.

The other weird one is the Corvette, what's up with that? Ahh I see. It's really early on the tech chart. I guess they are, probably, the best offensive ship at the start of the game.
Reply #29 from Stardock Forums Top
I am glad somebody started this thread it is one of my biggest objections to this game I find that battle hammers + grav accelator and diplomatic translator is a pretty easy victory. Even at genius level.

I think the speed is the big problem, couple with the AI not really doing a good job in massing its force for an attack.

Here is one solution. Create 3 classes of ships and have them gain movement at different rates.
For example.

Speed 0 ships gain .5 speed/engine technology
Speed 1 ships no change
Speed 2,3 ships get 1.5 speed/engine technology

So with a +40% speed A Battle hammer would go 2 moves, a Constructor would go 5, and a battle cruiser would go 8. It is true that you could still use a battle hammer offensively but at least this way the attack would be much slower. Some ships like battleships should be reclassified as speed 1 or even 2 ships.

Along with this change, I would also like to see some techs that increase a sensor range. The ship speed really outclasses the sensor range. The eyes of the Universe is a very nice wonder but if you missed out on it you shouldn't be completely blind.

~SDC~
Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top
This is largely an opinion-based issue. Some of you may think the game is unbalanced, others think it's not, and it's fine the way it is. Especially considering the enemy AI *DOES* use BattleHammers. You're blind (or not playing GalCiv) if you think otherwise.

Personally, I think Battle Hammer is fine the way it is but perhaps Battle Cruiser can use a bit of upgrading.
Reply #31 from Stardock Forums Top
Part of the problem here is the way the AIs were programmed to climb the tech tree. To put it bluntly, the AIs performance in picking the right technology to research is just pathetic. From my experience, the only reason AIs will get Defensive Phasers is because they need it as a prerequisite for Ranger Technology and a move towards Avatar and Overlords. Even then, the AI will choose to waste 4,000 research points on a tech like Advanced Battle Armor before commiting one penny to Defensive Phasers. There are many examples of such mind boggling research choices, one I just noticed in my current game is the AI's desire to throw 4,500 research points towards Umambiguous Communications when it could obtain the same bonuses from Advanced Diplomacy at the cost of 800 research points instead.
Reply #32 from Stardock Forums Top
"KiloOhm, Combat transports don't invade defended systems. They still have 0 att (Unless that increased Transport attack UP issue comes up). If you want to take out the transport, use high attack ships."

I realize that, what I was trying to say is that I don't want to have a combat transport having free run of my system until I'm able to bring in attack ships. I think defensive type ships should have a shot at intercepting ships that are in your system. Any combat orientated ship should have a decent shot at any transport IMHO, especially in your home systems.

~SDC~
Reply #33 from Stardock Forums Top
dear konfuzed667 (and maybe some others as well),

Excuse me for my rudeness but I cannot help but wonder about people who fill all possible forums with opinnions like "this is a opinnion-based issue".

This is NOT an opinnion-based issue.
The fact for sure is that the battlehammer IS overpowered compared to the battlecruisers and that's just as simple as that.
I will argue about this no more since there is nothing
in this statement that leaves room for arguing - nor have I seen any overruling statements.
Therefore, if someone desperately wants to start a thread defending the "glorious battlecruiser" then do it someplace else.

I understand some people take great joy in endless arguing no matter what is beeing discussed, but by endlessly filling up forums with "arguments" based on nothing but the lust for arguing, gives the designers of the game a valid pretext not to do anything about the problem - Hey, look there are somebody disagreeing so feelings are mixed and no problem exists! Just opinions!

So A.I uses battlehammers? That's cool!
Now to what extent does that happen? Have they
dismissed battlecruisers and started buildind armies
of invincible battlehammers instead? Of course not!

So in short, what I am trying to tell you is that I was trying to MAKE A POINT!
Is my skirt yellow or orange? Who cares when the issue beeing discussed is my skirt beeing inside-out ;)

Now go play the game and experience this for yourself, look, compare stats of ships and learn instead of just petty squabbling.