Fleet attack bug?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I'm playing the ToA campaign for a while and has noticed some problems with the fleets.

My fleet has 2 large hulled Overlords with 225 mass driver and around 20 armor for each, 1 AWACS with 60 armor + 30% fleet armor bonus, 1 Eagle with 40 armor + 25% fleet attack.

I went against a fleet of 2xDread Lords frigates with around 350+ mass driver and 30 shield for each.
During the battle, I noticed that my Overlords only shot 2 times to finish the Dread Lords, which means their frigates are dead at the beginning. However, the Dread Lords continued to shoot at all of my ship until their frigate blow up and killed 1 Overlord and the 2 support ships. I counted that they shot 5 or 6 times.

After that, I reloaded the game and use only 1 Overlord to kill the Dread Lords fleet and it ended up with my Overlord still have 8/62 hp.

So, what is the point of forming fleet when a single ship can shoot all ships of the opposed fleet at a time?

And this is not an coincidence, I have tried this several times with other races as well.

6,703 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm pretty sure it's because 1)They're hitting your weaker ships first since the AI prioritizes attacking ships with fleet bonuses, and 2) they have a 350+ friggin attack!! That means they probably have a lot of guns, which means they have a lot of shots after your weak units go down (left over guns can still shoot if they haven't shot already -- I'm assuming your AWACS are mounted on cargo hulls).

Fleets are good to bring a large amount of firepower to bare in a single attack. If you want to have AWACS and fleet support modules, you're gonna have to put them on your strongest hulls with as much armor as you can fit.

It also sounds like you were much more lucky (luckier?) in your 1 ship vs. dreadlords attack compared to your fleet vs. dreadlords attack.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
However, the Dread Lords continued to shoot at all of my ship until their frigate blow up and killed 1 Overlord and the 2 support ships. I counted that they shot 5 or 6 times.
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Internally, each round of combat is resolved instantly, then ships with 0 HP left are removed at the close of each round (after all weapons have been fired). As the combat viewer shows the shots spread out over some short span of time rather than being simultaneous, this can cause odd appearances.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I call that the bigger hammer strategy of killing Dread Lords. All you really need is a ship with more attack power than any one DL ship, assuming you can kill the DL ship/fleet in the first round.

Battles that would result in both sides being destroyed are instead resolved by the tie rule. The last surviving ship of each side is compared, and the stronger ship survived. The result of this is that a single huge-hulled ship loaded with weapons but no defenses is still nearly unkillable. Two of these ships attacking in a fleet will almost invariable lose one of the two ships.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm pretty sure it's because 1)They're hitting your weaker ships first since the AI prioritizes attacking ships with fleet bonuses
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Nope, They always hit my Overlords first. Then after killing 1 of my Overlord, they started the "massacre".

2) they have a 350+ friggin attack!! That means they probably have a lot of guns, which means they have a lot of shots after your weak units go down (left over guns can still shoot if they haven't shot already
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I don't think the game calculate combat by "guns", each ship should be able to fire only once each turn during the combat.

I'm assuming your AWACS are mounted on cargo hulls).Fleets are good to bring a large amount of firepower to bare in a single attack. If you want to have AWACS and fleet support modules, you're gonna have to put them on your strongest hulls with as much armor as you can fit.
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Yes, my AWACS has medium hull and 60 armor.

It also sounds like you were much more lucky (luckier?) in your 1 ship vs. dreadlords attack compared to your fleet vs. dreadlords attack.
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I'm not lucky, I've been using my lone Overlords and Rangers (huge hulled, 550+ gun, 80+ armor) with only 1 hp
 to kill 2 to 3 Dread Lords fleets with 3 ships at a time. Not kidding, it's just yesterday.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
However, the Dread Lords continued to shoot at all of my ship until their frigate blow up and killed 1 Overlord and the 2 support ships. I counted that they shot 5 or 6 times.Internally, each round of combat is resolved instantly, then ships with 0 HP left are removed at the close of each round (after all weapons have been fired). As the combat viewer shows the shots spread out over some short span of time rather than being simultaneous, this can cause odd appearances.
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Yeah, I think the game would calculate like that. However, I did not count the shots on the animation, it's based on the combat details below it.

But the ultimate question is why do we need to form fleet when a lone ship can destroy a whole fleet AND still survive? Even sometimes that ship hp was only 1?

I think this should be a bug.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I call that the bigger hammer strategy of killing Dread Lords. All you really need is a ship with more attack power than any one DL ship, assuming you can kill the DL ship/fleet in the first round.Battles that would result in both sides being destroyed are instead resolved by the tie rule. The last surviving ship of each side is compared, and the stronger ship survived. The result of this is that a single huge-hulled ship loaded with weapons but no defenses is still nearly unkillable. Two of these ships attacking in a fleet will almost invariable lose one of the two ships.
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Actually we don't need much attack power, just enough attack to kill the Dread Lords ship in 1 shot. For example, the Dread Lords frigates only have 32hp, so we only needs around 32 attack (although I usually double that amount just for sure :D) and a lot of armor.

I've been pumping my Dragon (huge hulled, 64+ gun, 350+ armor) and they sure did a good job on the Dread Lords, killing several of their fleets at a time and still survive.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't think the game calculate combat by "guns", each ship should be able to fire only once each turn during the combat.
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This was true in Dread Lords, but changed in Dark Avatar and Twilight. The Dread Lords (or anyone with large ships) were simply too easy to kill with a swarm.