Shipyards to build ships make civilizations more vulnerable than planets

Having tried Galactic Civ III and played Galactic Civ II, it seems to me that in a war situation shipyards make a civilization a whole lot more vulnerable than with a planet building ships.

A warring civilization need only play wack-a-mole on shipyards being built by a civilization to prevent it from constructing any more ships. It does not appear possible to defend shipyards other then having a ralley point with ships programmed to attack visitors. On the other hand, in Galactic Civ II, to stop a civ from building ships, you had to take out the planet building it which required Troop Transport or spore ships.

Now most of my tests on Galactic Civ III have been with civilization building, (The AI races are much friendlier as none have ever declared war on me). I will have to try out conflict with them to test this.

Also I noticed that civilizations will not trade for Shipyards. I wanted to purchase a non-sponsored shipyard belonging to another civilization but found that I could not.

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

I wouldn't want to trade for shipyards unless they really didn't wan't it. I hope the ai will be able to defend it's shipyards, but it may be a good idea to let you arm shipyards like you can arm star bases.

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kestlstw

Join Date 06/2011

+15

You can always protect it with a fleet startioned at the shipyard.

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^ And I've had to. It seemed as direct and simple a solution as you might suspect!

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Franco fx

Join Date 04/2003

+59

At some point they could add on-planet shipyards to build tiny and small ships only. I like the orbital shipyards for the realism. No way do you build capital ships on-planet and no reasonable orbital shipyard design would allow much weaponizing or defense. A defending fleet is the only apparent answer.

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It wasn't done for realism though. Early in founders development it was mentioned it was done specifically for balance. Now you can shut down and siege an enemy if they don't protect that shipyard. (nothing preventing them from having multiple shipyards out there anyways)

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As much as I don't like not being able to build ships directly from a planet, it should be noted that you would still be fighting an up hill battle even if that was allowed. In GalCiv 2, you needed to make fleets. A lone ship would not fare well against a fleet of ships. A fleet of ships could quickly kill a lone ship and would give the lone ship little time to fire back. The ability to win battles quickly is arguably just as important as bringing plenty of firepower and defenses. If you could build whole fleets in one turn from a planet, then I would definitely see a problem.

The pirate mega event is a good example of what I mean. They show up with enough of everything to wipe out every ship and starbase on the map, and have more than enough forces left over to make it difficult for anyone to build their forces backup (as the pirates will quickly show up and kill it).

Mind you there are ways to survive being out numbered, out gunned, with enemies breathing down your neck, but they're the equivalent of trying to treat symptoms than curing diseases. The best medicine is preventative... never lose your shipyards.

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