A very simple idea: if you manage to destroy all of the enemies' shipyards, and prevent them from building new shipyards you've beaten the enemy and can demand anything you want. A small fighter in outer space can completely dominate a giant class 26 world if it has local space control because on the turn the class 26 world builds a shipyard, that fighter can shoot it down. And if the world doesn't happen to have ships on it, THAT WORLD CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT UNLESS REINFORCEMENTS COME ELSEWHERE.
In other words, you don't EVEN NEED TO INVADE THEIR WORLDS. IF YOU HAVE TOTAL SPACE CONTROL YOU'VE WON. Also, I might point out that there should be a planetary bombardment option where the goal ISN'T to invade a planet. Instead it's to bash it to rubble.
THIS IS SOMETHING YOU CAN ALSO PROGRAM THE AI TO TRY AND DO, AND TO RECOGNIZE.
Another interesting idea at the beginning of the game:
If you blow up ALL of the AI's shipyards, and keep a SMALL fighter stationed over EACH of their worlds, they're f-ed, right???
RIGHT??????????
(This idea should make multiplayer a lot more fun. Think about it).
doesn't work so easily. shipyards have about 8/8/8 attack, 10/10/10 defense and 150 HP. you need more than just a small fighter to destroy a shipyard,
Ohhhhhh. Huh. I actually haven't fought a real war yet in several dozen hours of play. There was never any need.
So... you've never attacked a shipyard? Ever? With all of your master-class posts, I would have thought that you would have actually played a game by now. Huh.
Maybe, instead of trying to break the code, try actually playing it? I mean, I get it if you gain all of your enjoyment from theory instead of practical experience. That's totally cool. Just not all that useful to those who gain enjoyment from playing it.
The point is you don't actually need to even go to war to win the game on the larger maps.
That's how broken the mechanics currently are.
And did I manage to hit a nerve? Oh I'm so sorry. I apologize for hurting your feelings.
... Would you want... a snuggler colony?
Does someone have a thing for offering snuggler colonies?
Makes a change from socks, I guess.
So, either with a small ship or bigger ship, what you're suggesting is you just kill a planet's shipyard and if you keep at least one ship near that planet to kill any newly minted shipyard, that planet's borked...
And the reasons for that are the AI can't sceam like a girl for help once it's shipyard's destroyed and it can't build a bigger, better, stronger shipyard so you have to send more/bigger ships to destroy the upgraded shipyard.
Unless it surrounds it's shipyards with starbases (which given how vital shipyards are in the scheme of things, it should probably be doing)...
On a related note: how hard is it to mod the AI for this game? Skyrim was EXTREMELY well designed. I'd rate it as the gold standard for mod friendliness. Where is this game in relation to that?
I don't know myself as I'm not a programmer.
By the way, I think snuggler colonies are awesome and I would love to have one. The problem is the Yor SHOULDN'T THINK THEY'RE AWESOME BECAUSE THE YOR DON'T SNUGGLE (when's the last time you've seen a snuggling Yor?). I believe this is a valid (albeit minor) point.
I don't believe that you can destroy a faction's shipyard without going to war. Once a war is declared, all the other planets of the faction can attack you at will.
They can also try to turn other races against you. You will find your freighters attacked, your constructors attacked, your survey ships attacked, your starports attacked, and you will find new enemies at your doorstep. You will have to cut back on research to build still more war ships. Your finances will suffer, and your exploration will probably suffer also.
This is somewhat true if you have a powerful enough ship, but you can't do it early on, the star base has too many defenses. Once your ships are powerful enough, it is likely theirs are powered up a bit and starbases are pretty easy to power up as well. If you are able to just walk through their territory destroying all of their bases then you should probably be playing on a hard difficulty level. It is a good theorycraft though and I do enjoy that, so keep it up.
I don;t think you hit his nerve, I think he was just pointing out that the idea was dumb, on the basis of it not being feasible. Which, I have to agree with him, you'd know if you tried (and then posted).
Actually in some ways it's quite feasible.
With the Malevolence level III, you can pick off 5 enemy worlds in the very early game.
THE WORLDS YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON ARE THE ONES NEXT TO THE AI SHIPYARDS. Put your transports next to their undefended world, and then attack.
The shipyards at this point become mostly useless.
Also, another funny idea: Synthetic have trouble early on with low population, right? Guess what! Malevolence level 3 GIVES you 30 pop in 5 transport ships. THINK ABOUT THAT.
Actually in some ways it's quite feasible. With the Malevolence level III, you can pick off 5 enemy worlds in the very early game. THE WORLDS YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON ARE THE ONES NEXT TO AI SHIPYARDS. Put your transports next to their undefended world, and then attack. The shipyards at this point become mostly useless. Think about that.
Uh ... yes. Of course, if you invade and conquer an enemy planet which feeds into a shipyard, the shipyards production in diminished. And if you conquer all planets that do so, the shipyard is destroyed.
So yes. The conquest of enemy planets is feasable. What are you trying to say here?
Aim for the shipyards in a war. Or aim for the planets next to shipyards in a war.
Smack them down and suddenly the AI you're at war with won't be producing anything useful anymore.
In other words, arrange your invasion fleets in position such that on turn 1 or turn 2, you can wipe out all of the AI shipyards or all of the worlds near the AI shipyards in one fell swoop forcing them to produce at a distance penalty. With this you can effectively win the war on turn 1. After all, if you can wipe out their fleet production, the rest is just mop up. AI PRODUCTION BONUSES DON'T MATTER IF THEY DON'T HAVE SHIPYARDS. AND THE AI IS GENERALLY NOT SMART ENOUGH TO QUICKLY REPLACE THE SHIPYARDS THAT THEY LOSE.
Also, if the planet is heavily defended, just attack the nearby shipyard and avoid the planet itself.
Also, imagine doing this in multiplayer....
AIM FOR THE JUGULAR!!!!! IGNORE EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE EARLY PHASES OF A WAR!!!!!
Instead of attacking a heavily defended planet, WIPE OUT THEIR SHIPYARDS and instead focus on the weakly defended planets. Force their fleet to come out and fight on your terms.
Well to be honest, that all isnt really needed.
When playing on a small(ish) map, you can focus all your research to reach Planetary Invasion as fast as possible (and colonize as usual until you reach it).
By doing that, the enemy has pretty much no defenses and you can send your transport right next to their homeworld, declare war, and conquer it.
I dont really get why people in a transport module seem to have magical powers and suddenly 1 million people can kill 10 million when invading. But I guess that's the way invasions work in the future.
Attack two annoying AIs at once in the early game. Wipe out both of their shipyards production. Then finish them off at leisure.
If they don't have shipyard production, they're literally sitting ducks.
Instead of focusing your transports at one AI, split them and focus on the shipyard related worlds. Your future transports can finish off the rest in due time. Also, in late game instead of fighting a powerful AI head on, build a fast counter attacking fleet that swoops in and wipes out the enemy shipyards before their slow moving main fleet can respond.
When you destroy an enemy's capacity to proscute war then that enemy is beaten. This is standard military doctrine. The problem in GC3 is that the AI doesn't seem to be able to identify valuable shipyards that are at risk of attack, and properly defend them; however, if you have a superior force and you can push your way through AI defences to destroy their shipyards -- or if you're playing the late game where fleets have hundreds of moves and you can just weave through everything that the AI has without a care in the galaxy* -- then yes, the war is effectively won.
* Which is super, super, super dumb for the game to allow BTW.
marigoldan if you actually once played the game, you would know that your first combat ships will get heavy losses when attacking a shipyard and probably won't even destroy it. Also the AI can just rush another one next turn.
Also stop opening new threads every 5 seconds. You seriously start annoying the crap out of me.
You don't wipe out the shipyards in the early game. You focus on wiping out the PLANETS NEXT TO THE SHIPYARDS.
Same difference.
And hey, it's a free world. As long as I come up with good/interesting ideas, it's all good. Clearly you need to take a deep breath.
Chill, man. Chill. It's just a game.
There is one problem with this; if you kill the AI's shipyards and ships, it may end up surrendering all it's assets to another AI, who you will have to deal with later. It may do this soon after losing everything, or once you start eventually invading it's planets. Either way the result is the same; you're just putting off the problem for later.
I have read some of your posts, mostly just for a strange type of amusement. Theorycrafting is spiffy. I would recommend that you actually win a game though, at least just once. Not get into it 20 turns and declare yourself the victor because your theorycrafting says you must have won by now. But actually finish a game and have it registered on the metaverse. Sure the game can be exploited and broken and won. A lot of people take advantage of your amazing exploits already, they just don't think it is an awe inspiring discovery to brag about on the boards. And until you actually play and win a game, so you don't say silly things like "just have a small fighter blow up all their shipyards on the first turn", all of your theorycrafting really only amounts to a stale breeze in the face of a hurricane. You are somewhat amusing though, I will give you that.
I don't think it's ok to talk bad about snuggler colonies. They are the cutest pets in the galaxy.
BUT THE YOR SHOULDN'T LIKE THEM. THAT'S WRONG!!!!!
I WOULD LOVE A SNUGGLER COLONY.
...
Ahem.
I mean, I would love to take all your snuggler colonies from you.
The AI does try to build new shipyards as soon as you destroy one. If more than one planet was connected then it might build more than one shipyard. Currently the AI does a very poor job a protecting its assets. But early game fighters are no real match for several shipyards so...
Anyway, this does raise an interesting option: should it be possible to build a fortified shipyard? it will cost more manufacturing but would have superior attack/defense capabilities.
This would allow a planet to effectively "rescue" itself.
So wait-- now we DO need transports? This was just a troll post wasn't it?
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