Design Flaw or My Ignorance?

Confused about ship size and effectiveness

from GalCiv2 Forums
On this forum, I have posted some ideas hereWWW Link about GC2 shortcomings on a larger, analytical level. My question here pertains to mere instrumental logic.

I no longer understand the point of larger ship hull sizes. When I got the game first and played on difficulties under crippling, I found them neat, like most things in GC2, while they were new and shiny. Now, I no longer see the point, because of this:
In the late game, when both your ships and enemy ships all have incredibly high damage, I have noticed that most small-sized enemy ships (especially those of the more warlike nations) will have damage ranges around 100 or even more, depending on their resources and starbases.
By the time I can produce Huge ships well, there seems to be little point, since even though my huge ships can easily destroy small enemy ships, each small enemy ship gets in one shot, and one can easily do 50+ hp damage, even with decent armor; two shots accomplish this frequently.
In fact, I notice that the enemy chooses poor times to upgrade existing ships; if I am at war, it is advantageous to attack these ships, since they will only have 1 hp. But doing so makes for odd battles, since I easily wipe his fleet of 1hp ships out with mine, but each of his 1 hp ships can destroy my more robust ones.
In my last game, I found that researching some logistics is enough, since you can start the game capable of making tiny and small hulls. In the mid- to late game, defense seems to become less important anyhow, and in this game I researched none whatsoever; my fleets of tiny attackers were more than a match for all of the enemies.

I don't particularly like warmongering, but at some point, it seems I am forced into violence with at least one nation. Now either I am missing something I should be understanding, or there is some consensus here that larger hull sizes yield diminishing returns. If so, that seems to me to be a flaw that needs addressing.

Thank you for your input.
9,524 views 21 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm in total agreement.

It's pointless building mega starships withs costs spiralling into the 3-5 thousands BC mark. They take a long time to build and I find are picked off easily by smaller ships.

The only drawback of using smaller hulls is you tend to lose a lot of ships but if it only takes 1-2 turns to replace, you can replace them a lot faster than you lose them.

Its a good point that onomastikon makes here.

It turns every race into kamakazi nations.... anyone for Hari-Kari?
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You're not missing anything, unfortunately.

The problem you are seeing is the side effect of the new combat system introduced in version 1.2. Before that ships takes turn firing in combat (the attacker goes first, then the defender go if they survive), so larger ships is the primany means for survival. Now though, they are pretty much useless. Not only is it better to use smaller ships, due to research and costs for the bigger ships, each ship only fires on one target per round. So if you kill one fighter with your battleship using your first weapon, the rest of your massive arsenal of weaponry is wasted that round. In this sense, it is much better to go with a wolf pack tactic (a ton of small ships) just to maximize your weapon usage. Besides, in a fair logistic fight, a pack of 4 small ships actually have 4 turns to kill a battleship (the first all 4 fires, the second the 3 remaining fires, the third the 2 remaining, and the fourth is the last shot). No ammount of HP from a battleship is enough to take on 10 salvo of fire (4+3+2+1) from a small ship with decent weaponry. This is 10 times worse when you start taking into account military bases and how their bonus works. Overall, right now in the game, the biggest ship you want are mediums.

However, while I will admit that it does take some fun out of the game (takes the hull size part out almost completely), I think it is still better than before where a human player could position themselves to attack first and gain a huge advantage, and could beat the AI everytime.

I would support a rebalancing of the hulls, but frankly, I'm not sure how it could be done just on the existing system, and I don't want to yell "fix it!" when I can't come up with a decent workable solution myself.
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you're finding that your huge hulls are getting one hit kills all of the time, take off some weapons in return for more defenses.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree. Using lots of tiny hulls packed with weapons means more micromanagement, but is by far the most effective build strategy at the moment.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Except that would just make your ship cost twice as much. Why would you want to make a huge but expensive ship with not a lot of offense when you can make two small ships that have the same amount of offense, thus doubling your firepower. The small ships are much cheaper, and can be used enmass, and a group of them they will beat that huge ship of defense anyday. Even if all they have are lasers (Military bases are just evil like that).

It's understandable when small ships can't hurt your battleships, but this just isn't the case when you get to bigger stronger weapons (or when you use military bases). IMO, packing 50 missile defense to protect against small ships with 2 black hole erruptors has got to be the worse solution in history.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree. Using lots of tiny hulls packed with weapons means more micromanagement, but is by far the most effective build strategy at the moment.


i strongly disagree with this.

A large ship can have more defence on it making it a great deal stronger. If you can out defence there weapons then your going to win 10x battles like that. Expecialy since the enemy wont have much defence them selves most likely. I always use a med. size ship to defend my homeplanets but in the end i use huge to take over planets since I put so much more on them.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Two small ships with no defense? Easy one hit kills with very few weapons. Load up the Huge with mostly defense. Two small ships attack Huge, chances are that the attacks will cause little to no damage. Huge retaliates with insta-kill of one of the smalls. Remaining small ship attacks the Huge, low damage again, Huge blasts it into oblivion.

There IS a chance that the smalls can kill the Huge, but it would have to get unlucky.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Larger hulls = more weaponry, better defences, huge range and speed, amazing sensors.

How can you make a small hull ship which is 'better' ???

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like either huge or gigantic maps and suicidal difficulty. I've always liked larger hulls and usually start with medium hulls and work up to large and huge hulls as I can. Partially cause I like missiles.

But there is another really big advantage with larger hulls -- speed -- I can always get more speed with a larger hull and I usually sacrifice a lot of offense for more speed.

I just tried designing some small and tiny hulled ships and I didn't see how I could make a good ship with the speed I like ( currently designing my ships with 31pc/turn speed.

However I will say that I really hate it when the AI has a bunch of small and tiny ships and they really hurt one of my good fleets. But I've chalked that up to their suicidal difficulty level miniaturization bonus that they get -- no way can I make a small ship with the kind of firepower they put on it.

I could see using tiny and small hulls with say just 1 engine on them for defense. But I haven't had to play defense since my first 2 games.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1. We are talking about end game scenarios with small ships having well over 50 offense. There's no immunity to this unless you plan to spend a few years building a battleship jam packed with defense. Sure, it'll survive, but by the time you build one, the rest of your empire has been taken over.

2. Military bases... have you guys used these, like, at all? They boost attack power of everyship. That means the more ship you have, the more useful they are. Combine these with strong weapons and your small ships will easily kill that battleship in one or two hit. It won't be a scrape, it will be a headshot. Battleships gets the bonus too, but the logistic cost of it means that it isn't as useful, add to that the fact that you can only kill one ship at a time means you're ultimately doomed.

Larger hulls = more weaponry, better defences, huge range and speed, amazing sensors.

Weaponry = not as good as you think, you want just ENOUGH weapon just to kill, any more is a complete waste.
Defenses = expensive, and only useful very early on when weapons are only doing 1-2 damages. Once someone turns evil and pulls out psionic weapons, throw these away, it's a waste of money.
Range = you don't really need hull space for range, build some starbases and do some basic research.
Speed = this is the only reason to make a larger ship, and the reason why mediums are the ideal hull, but this alone doesn't justify their significant logistic and financial cost.
Sensors = er... everheard of a scout ship? (or Eye of the Universe?)

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree with Kblore here totally. Even with the massive AI miniaturisation bonuses that they get at Suicidal (meaning small hull defenders having 200+ attack rating), I can still design fast huge ships with enough defenses to survive prolonged military campaigns - losing about 1 ship for every 20 killed on average.

Yes, I can build small ships to do the same job at a tenth of the cost, but seeing as they will be lost in a one to one ratio this is a false economy.

They key to this is of course making sure that your enemy has no military resource starbases to further boost their attack ratings - so always take and hold these as a priority in any conflict.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just thought of another big advantage with huge hulls -- repairing HPs by upgrading.

I can attack, take damage, and upgrade which repairs all HPs on the same turn and be ready to go the next turn and do the same.

With the smaller hulls you have to make new ships and then move them to the front lines. Of course I guess you can just have a steady flow of reinforcements.

I just like big ships and since I've been successful with them .... no reason to change till I get bored which hasn't happened yet.

Actually from the posts here, looks like the devs might just have it play balanced pretty darn well.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I can attack, take damage, and upgrade which repairs all HPs on the same turn and be ready to go the next turn and do the same.

That's what people call an exploit. We don't want to make it a viable strategy, do we?

I'm not saying one cannot win with big ships. But I know from my playing experience up to Suicidal that you can win wars with large fleets of tiny ships. Putting 21 tiny hulls with some engines and the best weapons available together in a fleet means that you'll destroy most enemy fleets in the first round of combat. Yes, you loose about one ship for each killed enemy, but they can be replaced easily (not hard to produce in large numbers per turn). In case enemy defenses are too high, simply change the weapon system you use.
It even works best against large enemy ships, because the cost ratio is most extreme then. It is better to counter weaker ships with large ships on your side because you won't lose your tiny ships then.

The problem lies in the defense rolls: Just like the attacker, they use the uniform distribution, meaning that they will have a low roll sooner or later. When your 21 ships go against 5-6 huge hulls, you'll have plenty of opportunity to kill them (having more shots). In case it doesn't work out in the first round, it will in the second.

Having military resources and not the enemy helps in both cases, of course.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I see e-stabs points here, but I agree more with magnumaniac. It also comes down to how the AI is building its ships. If everyone is topped out technologically, it is true that large hulls become vurnable to hords of small hulls loaded with guns.

But I generally don't allow that to happen... I suppose if you play fast tech it is more likely to happen.

The reality is that large hulls with mostly engines/defence and a little firepower will generally wipe out the Ais ships. Over time you get more and more of them and just keep upgrading them. Attrition no longer applies to you. It becomes very easy to manage compared to managing hords of smaller fighters that you need to constantly replace. Further they get to be monsterous (crazy hps) since they don't die.

If the AI was smart enough to start building hords of small fighters (loaded with weapons), then I'd say that the large hulls usefullness would diminish. Another strategy is to have 3-4 small hulls in with your large hulls to act as cannon fodder. As it stands, I use small hulls as defenders, and go entirely with large hulls on attack fleets.

Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Kalin:
The problem you are seeing is the side effect of the new combat system introduced in version 1.2. Before that ships takes turn firing in combat (the attacker goes first, then the defender go if they survive), so larger ships is the primary means for survival. Now though, they are pretty much useless.

Large hull ships were less useful prior to v1.2! Prior to v1.2, the key to winning a battle was to attack with a fleet with as many or more ships than the enemy fleet, and have each ship have high attack and no defense. Your fleet would usually destroy all the enemy ships before they could return fire; the few times they could fire back, your hit points could absorb the damage because by then they were level +10 ships!

Magnumaniac:
I agree with Kblore here totally. Even with the massive AI miniaturization bonuses that they get at Suicidal (meaning small hull defenders having 200+ attack rating), I can still design fast huge ships with enough defenses to survive prolonged military campaigns - losing about 1 ship for every 20 killed on average.

You must be talking about 1 on 1 ship battles (say taking out planetary defenders). A fleet of 5 small hull ships with very high attack will usually take out a huge ship with massive optimal defenses because odds are one or two of their ships will score a high attack roll against a low attack roll from you.

Gallagher118:
I suppose if you play fast tech it is more likely to happen.

I play against 9 genius races (plus minors), on gigantic maps, everything abundant, with very fast research, so weapons advancement progresses quickly!

The solution, I think is to make defenses cheaper so that a huge hull ship with massive defenses (to take on fleets of tiny/small hull ships) is cost effective. As you progress down the weapons/defenses tech branches, in late game weapons overpower defenses.

My preferred ship hull is medium and thanks to the fix to miniaturization, it has plenty of space for engines. I don't need room for sensors thanks to EotU, and even without EotU I would just escort my fleets with sensor ships (not in the fleet so it does not use of logistics).
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I should mention that most of my experience leading to the usage of fleets of tiny ships comes from playing in large/huge galaxies on Suicidal in 1.2. Usually that meant that the tech tree was finished relatively early, giving the opportunity to outfit tiny hulls with at least two of the best engines and two of the best weapons, magnified by military resources. The strategy might be less effective under other circumstances.

However, this discussion made me think of it anew: Actually I like using the large ship types, it's just that the tiny ones seemed more effective in difficult times. I will try to design larger ships again, using the aforementioned tiny hulls more as ship killers for the toughest enemies (like the Antimatter-Missile in GalCiv 1). I wouldn't mind to get rid of some micromanagement anyway.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I can attack, take damage, and upgrade which repairs all HPs on the same turn and be ready to go the next turn and do the same.

That's what people call an exploit. We don't want to make it a viable strategy, do we?


Exploit???? -- come on it is a gameplay element -- most games do not allow upgrading on turns when a unit has moved -- GC2 does -- I started a post saying that that particular game element was too powerful -- both the upgrading on same turn a unit has moved and repairing all HPs with upgrading -- I don't remember anyone else chimming in that they agreed -- matter of fact -- others disagreed with me -- so I play on to the best of my ability trusting the Devs know best for the most part -- after all the HPs do get reduced to 1 while upgrading

VIABLE STRATEGY -- You bet!!!!!

I play with normal research rate and have always finished well before the tech tree is all done -- haven't ever used a Black Hole Eruptor equipped ship in battle yet.

Of course after I have controll of about half the map, I usually just do a tech victory to finish the game.

Still looks to me like the devs probably have the hulls pretty well play balanced from the posts here. But of course I thought they had the farms pretty good with 1.2 and they changed that.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You must be talking about 1 on 1 ship battles (say taking out planetary defenders).


No, the 20:1 ratio I described is using fleets of 7 huge hull ships (now possible with 1.3 logistics changes) to attack fully defended planets (up to 10 ships with orbital fleet improvement), or fleets of 20+ AI small ships in free space. The AI in question has max weapon / defense techs available and have 200+ in both attack and defense on most of their ships. When they get to this level, small hulls can't mount enough firepower to be guaranteed kills anyway.

Pull out damaged ships between battles and replenish from a reserve. It only takes a few battles to see ship level and hit points going up - which further reduces the attrition rate.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm pretty sure it simply is an oversight by the developers and not intended to be used this way (about "upgrading" to "repair").
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When they get to this level, small hulls can't mount enough firepower to be guaranteed kills anyway.

Not guaranteed, but because of the mechanics "lucky" hits are probable enough in my experience.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I remember playing one game where a Minor Race (The Snathi - those damned evil space squirrels!!!) kept producing insanely tough Dreadnoughts as the game went on. At least 100 defense in each area (with a focus in one or two types of defence, and a weak point for the last), and about 1000 ballistic damage capacity, I think?

I felt that such power was impossible to replicate in a single ship, and figured they had boosted stats. They even traded a dreadnought to the Drengin and Yor every now and then, and it was still a vicious ship. If I wasn't already nearing the top of the tech tree with my hyper-advanced researching, things may have gone sour. It took a full fleet of my own dreads to take each down, and tended to lose one ship. Ended up with my flagship (which had been upgraded to a warcruiser) being level 17 by tagging along with my new line of dreads.