Quoting Lucky Jack, reply 1Please explain more. I don't see what it is with this that you see as unbalanced.
Seconding.
For example.
If I have a vessel with 5 in beam, 5 in shields and 30 health against 10 ships with 4 in beam, 4 in shields and 20 health, my ship will win.
If I have a vessel with 2 in beam, 10 in shields and 30 health against 10 ships with 8 in beam, 1 in shields, and 20 health, my ship still wins.
My ship costs much less than the sum of the enemy fleet, the stats of ships individually speaking are quite similar, however they out number me by a significant amount. I would expect to lose this fight while taking a few of them with me, but with the system of the perfect Defenses GalCiv II has, my ship takes zero damage while eventually destroying all of theirs.
It is a balance issue because it encourages only one style of fleet construction. To maximize the quality of your ships, and ignore numbers.
TLDR I just want the idea that a swarm of ships would end up being viable against a single high quality ship. Otherwise, the larger hull size will gain an unbeatable advantage over the smaller hulls with the same tech. It encourages rushing of hull sizes too much.
it really is just simple math. Given the same tech in miniaturization, weaponry and defense, a larger hull, even if its just by a small amount, would have say X amount of extra space.
Assuming the smaller hull's stats are Y and Z, for offense and defense, just make a ship match your larger ships Defense for Y + X/2 and offense for Z+X/2. And voila, your ship just gained an almost unbeatable advantage by simply going up one tech in the tech tree (hulls).
Even if I am 10 techs ahead in production and is far ahead in economy, regardless of how many ships I send, your ships will be at too great an advantage for me to overcome. Especially given the idea that fleet size is limited initially so I cannot actually cram 10+ ships into one fleet in the early game, and that multiple fleets at the same location cannot provide any assistance, your comparably small fleet of slightly higher quality ships will just bulldoze my entire armada until I can match you in hull tech.