peteincary2

Join Date 03/2015

+15

attacking stacks of ships/fleets

This question came up on the 6/12/2015 dev live stream. I wanted to give some feedback since it was not clear how this worked.

If I attack a hex that has a stack of ships/fleets on the galaxy map, it seems to automatically attack the strongest ship/fleet in that stack. There is no way to attack a weaker ship/fleet if I want to. Cycling through the enemy fleets and placing another on the top of the stack does not effect this. The only option I have is to attack the strongest ship/fleet.

The AI on the other hand can attack whatever ship/fleet it wants in a stack. This has frequently happened to me where I have a fleet on transports and a fleet of capital ships in the same hex, and the AI just comes in and wipes out my transports with a tiny fighter.

IMO, this needs to be fixed. Either everyone can select which ship/fleet in a stack it wants to attack, or the AI should have this ability taken away. Probably the easiest thing to do is to allow a player who attacks a stacked hex to automatically attack whichever fleet is showing on the game map. (ie you can click on the stack until the fleet/ship you want to attack is on top of the stack.) This way the AI programming does not have to be changed with how it already works.

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And before you say just put the transports in a fleet with other ships to protect it, this will not work well. If the enemy fleet is 6 attack ships, and I have 6 defense ships of roughly equivalent strength, and 6 transports, I am not going to split the defense ships between 2 fleets.

The issue I see is that the AI can select which ship/fleet it wants to attack and the players cannot.

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Suomi Sotilashenkilo

Both sides should just attack the strongest fleet in the hex imo. That's fair, and also means that escorting weak fleets is a thing.

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I think you should be able to select targets, although tactically, taking out the largest fleet in a stack is better since loses you take against the smaller fleets could keep you from having superiority over the big one.

As to the situation above, where you lost your transport fleet: sorry, but sending undefended transports into uncleared enemy space is just bad tactics. I clear the area of my advance with battle fleets, then move my transports in under escort by medium and small ships. Forcing the AI not to attack week targets makes the logistics system worthless since you can circumvent the limits simply by stacking a second fleet.

Allowing choice would be my choice.

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Quoting AChallenge,

reply 2

This was not an undefended transport fleet. Did you read the post? I thought it was protected by the other fleet on top of it, but AI does not have the same limitation as player and can attack whichever fleet in a stack in wants.

I don't care whether they allow player (and AI) to choose which fleet to attack, or whether they allow player (and AI) both to have to attack the strongest fleet in the stack. I just think it needs to be consistent.

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/signed

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Quoting peteincary2,

reply 3

I just think it needs to be consistent.

Agreed on that entirely. I'd still rather see the choice removed, since I'd certainly expect my powerful fleet to move to protect the weak one in the attack. Allowing the other side to pick also encourages making mega-fast transports and just running them in from way outside the AI's range.

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I also agree it needs to be consistent, which is why I said we should have the choice. The AI not having the choice would work as well, but since I'm already beating the crap out of the AI militarily, I suppose the difference wouldn't matter much to me.

I don't think interstellar distances would necessarily allow one fleet to support another in the manner suggested. These hexes are quite large out in the deep. Allowing them to do so would mean that logistics determining fleet size become meaningless. In GalCiv (at least II and III) the fleet is the operational unit for ships. If I choose not to put defensive ships into a fleet of transports there should be risks involved. Allowing fleets to mutually support each other (which is what making the AI attack the largest fleet would be) sort off breaks the logistic system.

@Peteincary2

You added that you had 6 transports - that's 30 logistics points. That is a pretty heavy fleet, matched by 6 medium ships or by 3 medium and 5 small ships. Since logistic points are what determines fleet size, and not firepower, one less small ship and the battle fleet is smaller than the transport fleet. You said this happens "frequently". After a few times I would think a reassessment of tactics would be in order.

I had the AI do that to me in GC II in my first game. I still get surprised occasionally, but never with transports; the population makes them way too valuable to just let travel unescorted. I understand you considered them escorted, and I feel your frustration. The best solution is to carefully sweep the area of your advance of enemy ships. Then your escorts won't be necessary as they will have nothing to shoot at. Alternatively, just don't follow so close.

Personally, I would like the choice so that I could do just what the AI did to another human player when I start into MP.

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Quoting AChallenge,

reply 6

@Peteincary2

You added that you had 6 transports - that's 30 logistics points. That is a pretty heavy fleet, matched by 6 medium ships or by 3 medium and 5 small ships. Since logistic points are what determines fleet size, and not firepower, one less small ship and the battle fleet is smaller than the transport fleet. You said this happens "frequently". After a few times I would think a reassessment of tactics would be in order.

Frequently in this case means more than once This usually happens when I don't realize my transports/colony ships have run out of movement points in the middle of open enemy territory, and I try to cover them up with a fleet. That doesn't work, and I'm glad it doesn't since otherwise you end up with "stacks of doom" which I have not liked in other games in the past.

The AI already has the ability to attack individual fleets. I would also prefer that players have that same option. Should be fairly simple that you just attack the fleet that is showing on the galaxy map, and you can just click on the stack until the fleet you want to attack is on top.

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Quoting peteincary2,

reply 7

That doesn't work, and I'm glad it doesn't since otherwise you end up with "stacks of doom" which I have not liked in other games in the past.

Well, fleets do go some way to preventing the 'stack of doom' phenomenon, since you need to spend half a dozen turns producing each fleet. That makes stacking them up much beyond 5 extremely expensive. And I do think that, no matter how big we want to claim the hexes are, if a war fleet is travelling in the same sector as a transport fleet, it's likely to provide some cover against attacks.

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