That is a very astonishing statement. Stardock has said it doesn't want thousands of ships, and long time consuming battles that aren't fun. And you say all stardock games are like just like that! I think you might be the first. Of course I didn't know what settings you play on. That may mean something.

Combat will likely be prettier  this time and more complex. The AI can't even build ships! That's how good it's going to be.

 

DARCA

Well here's an idea the Ai could make ships based on your ship stats. When you change stats the Ai will change its stats to fit. One way the Ai can fix this if they can afford this they can upgrade their ships to fit this. The Korath was fitted for this in Dark avatar. Some reason they took this out for Twilight of the Arnor. Something I would like to see them bring back is the Krynn and Iconians actually being good at sabotage. I would like to see the Ai make better ships to. Not just ships, but ships that could actually counter my ships. Not less ships, but better ships.

The battleships, battlecruisers and cruiser class ships are almost extinct nowadays (only Russia has battlecruisers), while planes are pretty much the keystone of combat. In other words, it essentially depend on a lot of factors...

Really? In today's world there are many ways to sink a carrier, or a carrier fleet. While air superiority is a must, anyone that ignores other threats is not certain of survival. Isn't that is what screening ships are for?

Those ships tend to be smaller ships like destroyers, or subs, or other utility ships. Big hulking battleships aren't being made anymore, and haven't been for a while. They're sitting ducks against too many things to be particularly useful.

True about battleships. And with the way wars are fought these days, perhaps a carrier can survive well without much of a screen, but what if that changes again. After all, the old style massive war drums are beating again.

I guess game wise as long as carriers are useful, but lets not forget we have only 15 carriers, and they need at least 7 or 8 escorts for carriers to be effective in combat. Not to mention mid air refuelers make it possible to obsolete carriers.

 

Those are two completely different types of combatants that operate in different mediums haha, to use your example correctly would be to say that RIB's are capable of taking down battleships and carriers, which is simply not true. A surface combatant has to worry about it's weight and therefore can't pack on as much of the all around armour that a spaceship could, or have a 360-360 sphere of weapons coverage like is possible in space. The only advantage that tiny and small hulls have on a big ship in GC2 is that the big ship can only destroy one of them per turn.

 

Fate,:beer:

That was fixed in TA, possibly even in DA. Weapons fire independently now, which means you can get multiple kills per round if they are weak enough and you have enough firepower for a single weapon to kill them.

The invention of the aircraft carrier pretty much killed large ships overnight (although it took a couple years for people to understand this fact). So I rest my case: air power dominates the naval battlefield, and even though they're different in nature, it's still a case of a handful of small crafts taking down a much bigger one*. It doesn't make ground and naval forces obsolete, but it pretty much strongly influenced the way they work. Even if it didn't, the fact that weapons technology has outpaced passive defenses by a tremendous amount means that large ships are no longer interesting, because they're not that much harder to sink than small ships. Also, tactical nuclear weapons mean that WWI-style fleets are too easy to get rid of. Put too many expensive large ships in one area and they'll be taken care of with one low-yield nuclear weapon (even low-yield nukes still *vaporize* things too close to the detonation point, and there aren't many defenses against phase transitions :p)

And rather than RIB taking down large ships, I'd have said monitors/patrol boats, or even corvettes/frigates. And you know what? They can. An Exocet or two will sink any Battlecruiser as easily as a corvette.

 

So yeah, I'd rather not see "bigger is better". Bigger should give more tactical options, but combined arms, consistency of strategy, and adaptation to the situation should be the key elements.

 

*Fictionnal space battles usually borrow from both naval and air battles. Small spacecrafts are akin to planes, large spacecrafts are more like ships.

 

Of course strategy should be at the forefront of the thinking, but in a space environment a fleet of purely small hulls at the same tech level and logistics size as a fleet of purely larger hulls should never win an engagement.

 

Fate,:beer:

Please read again what Frogboy actually said:

Why not just design a ship that's even tougher?   That would work, right? Right?

Let's be careful in defining the ship spam problem.  You are describing a software issue in managing the game play and that is the issue that should be addressed.  It has been stated many times that Galactic Civilizations II, as well as Galactic Civilization III, is a strategic game.  With that in mind, a sound strategy will include producing tons of low tech ships.  Through our world history, a higher technology military force has been defeated by a lesser foe.  If you have planets that aren't developed as your other civilization and can't produce large ships, the strategy to overwhelm the other civilizations will work even with not to achieving advanced logistic technology.  It is the strategy of attrition warfare and has worked for me in achieving victory.  Let's address how the game play works and not take this strategic option off the table, especially for the AI. 

Again, I don't see why since we observe the exact opposite today (at similar "logistic size", a fleet of corvettes and frigates would win against a battlecruiser fleet; 80 years ago it was the opposite). Not only that, but it would make for a poorer game overall if it is true - it should be entirely circumstancial, with the all-big-ships winning sometimes and losing sometimes. And combined arms being superior to both most (but not all) of the time.

 

Make construction supplies a counter that builds up like money does.   

Link ships to a quantity of construction supplies and ...wha la .... you can only build the number and size of ships based on your supplies. 

Now higher manufacturing means that supplies build up faster but you need to have a source.  

So planets with raw materials and asteroid mining would be important to the number of ships and the size that you can build.  

Simply building up a mega economy so you can buy any ship any time every turn is the root of the ship spam problem.  

Also, higher tech materials would require specific supplies, have a separate counter for certain things, like titanium or dura lithium ect. need to be built up in quantity before you can build ships that use those goods. 

??? good idea bad idea ???  

Damn it Gaunathor! I know what they said. You've used it enough I could read it backwards. The dude claims to have the same problem the devs don't want. Hundreds of fleets and battles that aren't fun.

Then I said "Stardock has said it doesn't want thousands of ships, and long time consuming battles that aren't fun."

and Frogboy said..

 

We don’t want to turn it into something like Masters of Orion, where you have like fleets of thousands of ships and you have to command every ship in the fleet and tell them what to do every turn." the same thing I said!

And you paraphrased MY paraphrase!?!?!?

Lol

 

DARCA

To me that doesn't say they don't want thousands of ships. It says they don't want thousands of ships you have to micromanage individually.

It is possible to have one without the other.

 

It's not the same thing. Frogboy didn't say, that they are against having thousands of ships. He said, that they are against having to individually control thousands of ships during combat.

Edit: ...and ninja'd.

It all irony. The same effect happened regardless for intentions. Thousands of ships in battle or the main map it still sucks. And that's why Alfandtot made this post and it surprises me that not many people are trying to help him. Instead two other topics sprung up from this very page.

 

"It is possible to have one without the other."  that's the irony! Devs don't want that type of game "where you have like fleets of thousands of ships and you have to command every ship in the fleet and tell them what to do every turn" Alfandtot's had that but in reverse. on the main map with hundreds of fleets he has to navigate EVERY turn slowing down the game until it's repetitive boring micromanagement.

 

I am having trouble understanding your post? I know frogboy never said he hates thousands of ships directly. Again how can you not correlate the irony in my post to frogboys. That was why I called it a " astonishing statement." it's ironic!

 

and what compelled you into even care about something so petiy? friend?

 

DARCA

Yeah, sure, tanks do not need infantry support, battleships and carriers need no escort of destroyers, frigates and corvettes, or cover from aircrafts, missiles, submarines.

WE ARE EACH A NATION — INDEPENDENT, FREE OF ALL WEAKNESS. YOU  CANNOT EVEN...BEGIN TO COMPREHEND OUR EXISTENCE! (mass effect 1, Sovereigns speech)

my Dreadnoughts are perfect and a gun is a gun. If I make a fleet they all go the same speed and the have the same hull. And they are deadlier because of it.

 

DARCA

The issue of ship spam really boils down to two issues:

1. Low production capability means longer construction time for larger, more expensive ships.   So smaller, cheaper ships are sometimes preferred by both the AI and the human player.  Not often for the AI, so far as I've seen, but it does happen.

2. High production capabilty means less time to produce the small cheap ships. Also, Super Dominator ability.   So in no time at all you have hundreds of the things buzzing about.  And if they aren't destroyed, they stick around forever and ever until the 'mop-up' phase or until their empire starts to go bankrupt from the maintenance.

Here's a solution for you.  When combat ships are deemed by the AI (or the player) to be obsolete, and are scrapped in friendly space, the scrap value does not go into the treasury (unless the treasury is in the red).  It instead creates a temporary bonus to military production (funded at the same rate as bonus production, unless the economics of GC3 are way different in which case it just doesa part-way rush of production) that turn at starports building new combat ships, as the materials are recycled into new ships.  In addition, the experience gained by the ship crews is pooled and applied to new combat ships coming off the production line.

There you go.  Less pew-pew, more 'you may fire when ready.'

 

I am concerned that less ships mean a less challenging of a game. If we got a better fight with fewer ships then that would be fine. If we get less of a fight with fewer ships then why do you want that.

 

 

I do not see a particular problem with the AI spamming ships in GalCiv2.  When he is inferior technologically you cannot blame him of having hordes of ship to try to 'compensate'.  However AI is not big on upgrading and keeps his dinosaurs around, which is not the best strategy.

When I play GalCiv2 I normally have fewer  but higher quality fleets. I try to keep everything upgraded to the max or close enough.