How Big Does Your Navy Get?

[Antonin]

I don't mean throughout the game, but when the AI races at some point refuse to be reasonable and force you to take up the sword and *seriously* go to war, how large is your navy at that point?

In my current game I'm playing using the so-cool Klingon shipset. My empire covers the entire "western" end of the map, with a strange buffer of asteroid and blackhole systems between me and most everybody else. I've been warring with the Cue Cappa and the Abbingdon (spelling?), but am now at peace with both. I think pressure from my Klingons and the Federation (TOS) made them see that 2-front wars are not a good idea.

Now I'm at war with the Federation (TOS), which seems to emerge as the 800 lb gorilla in every game they show up in. This war has been going on and on for many years. I've got my resource converter going, have researched quantum reactors and seem to be doing OK, economy and intel-wise

I've only got 59 ships total, including just two battle cruisers. The Feds, meanwhile, have *lots* of DNs. I don't know how many ships they've got total; I usually keep the score viewing option off to make things tense.

Is just 59 ships normal at this stage of the game? The AI seems to come at me with waves and waves of ships, which I've so far been able to chop down with mines and fighters. I've got 4200+ "units."

[Fyron]

What did you start the game with? I started with low tech and 1 planet. I'm on turn 169 and I have 223 ships. 38 of them are enemy ships I converted in the Last two turns with my allegiance subverters. I've got 51 cruisers, 15 battle cruisers with damaging weapons, 66 battle cruisers with allegiance subverters, and a whopping 2 light carriers. I'm only about 6 or 7 turns away from having 3 battle moons (10000kt ships).
In conclusion, my navy tends to get rather large (especially with enemy ships ).

[Suicide Junkie]

P&N 2.1 (tweaked, unreleased)
Date: 2411.5
Small galaxy, mid life.

Currently at a general peace, launching hit & run raids on my one neighbour for ships & tech while I research racials. Using 30% of my forces there. The rest are collected on two other warppoints, and stashed at my homeworld (which is protected by black holes & dead systems)

My dad is currently MEE, having built too many ships, and is now bleeding 35K redioactives per turn.
Cut back on the nukes, I said.
I need them to fight the krill, he said.


17 ES (Missile assisters & boarding ships)
2 FG (Low-cost Anti-Krill ships that I'm selling to my dad - they can hold off one krill LC each, but don't do a lot of damage)
4 DS (Torpedo destroyers, left over from low tech times. Seem to be more effective that they really are, probably 'cause the enemies ignore them and attack my LCs instead)
24 LC (mostly warships, one or two repair ships)
3 CR (spaceyard ships with 3 MP, used to retrofit Warppoint defenders)
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50 ships (32% mothballed)


BC construction is beginning, but no ships are in service yet.

Producing 34K, 23K, 26K resources.
Maintenance 10K, 6K, 9K.
Currently running a deficit for no apparent reason (construction on planets of troops & facilities which look cheap, but are built in bulk)

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Back in my Story game, (if you recall that far back), I had 2 systems, fully colonized and terraformed. After a peak of 22 low tech ships, I entered a steady-state situation of 6 BCs defending my two warppoints against all of the AIs. I was acutally at war with everybody, but only the phong and jreanar were bordering me. They would regularily send fleets of 5-7 dreadnaughts into my system and would be repulsed by the pair of "Ubernaught" BCs waiting on the blind side of the wormhole. I would then swap out the damaged one for repairs if nessesary with one of my two spares.
This Lasted for a couple of years before my dreadnaughts were built.

A six battlecruiser army fending off two AI empires. Not bad, eh?

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 16 August 2001).]

[Dracus]

By 150 turns I run about 200-220 ships total
6 pop transports, 4 troop transports, about 30 ships of odd designs and the rest are from capture or trading with allies.
Since I never scrap any ships, I get some very old designs running around. Captuered ships that I can not repair, I use as ram ships for finding mine fields. Older ships either are used as scout ships or stationed to prevent rioting on captured planets.
The AI's run about 150 ships themselves in my games. I tend to see fleets of 75 or more ships.
In my current game, there are 200 systems, 10 Ai's and me. We all have large fleets of ships made up of ships we have traded or captured from each other.

[Antonin]

quote:

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Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
[b]What did you start the game with? I started with low tech and 1 planet. I'm on turn 169 and I have 223 ships...

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200+ ships!!! Geez! I guess it'll be a long time before I dare to play against any of you guys.

I also started with 1 planet and low tech. Large galaxy.

For me it's now game date 2430.7. I've got 11 systems, 69 planets, and 27.8 bil proud Klingon citizens.

I've got 66 ships as of right now (mostly frigates), 4398 units and 3 bases. I've got 33.3k intel points, 53.6k research points and 164.8k resources total. My score is 551k.

At this point I'm still rather new to the game; I have trouble getting the resources/maintenance costs/need to mothball equation right.

The learning curve is a little steep, but it sure is fun climbing it!


[This message has been edited by Natsef-Amun (edited 16 August 2001).]

[Baron Munchausen]

I tend to start slow because I build as many colonizers as possible and they are "destroyed" by colonization. Many AIs will be ahead of my total score before I've contacted any of them. (Yes, I always play with scores visible so I can see what's going on. ) Once I contact some AI empires I shift into military build-up and generally exceed 100 ships in any game. If I'm "dominating" the game I'll get close to the 300 limit that I've generally played under. Many of the AIs will reach or exceed 100 themselves but few have been able to build up to 200 or more. This despite the fact that I play in a huge galaxy with a low AI bonus. I think the AI has trouble balancing its resources properly to maintain a fleet so it falls short of the potential it seems to have just looking at the raw resources score.

One thing I'm always waaay ahead of the AI in is population. The AI seems to be AWFUL at managing it's populations. It's a very rare game that I am not first in population through the whole thing. Since I've altered the production bonuses to give some more advantages for population that may be one major reason that I seem to win against otherwise superior forces almost all the time. That and the AIs' utter cluelessness about tactical combat.

It might be interesting to see how things would go in a smaller map where I had less time to build up before contact. I just enjoy the 'epic' feel of a large game too much to try it that way.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 16 August 2001).]

[disabled]

Normally, in peace time with the AI, I have a standing fleet of 2-20 active ships. During war time, I expand my fleet by 200 times that by unmothballing and retrofitting ships into combat modes.

I tend to follow FDR military style that says a greater number of small ships can overwhelm a smaller number of larger capital ships.

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HADRIAN AVENTINE
pacea@solar-outpost.com
http://www.hyperionbase.com

[Will]

Well, it's been about 7 weeks since I've touched SE4 (mainly because I was gone for five weeks, and my motherboard is fried so I'm sending in for a replacement)...

But, when I was playing, I would usually go for Large quandrant, max AI with high bonus, and using default files. I'd usually start with 3 or 5 planets with low tech, high cost. By turn 100 I'll usually have a ship count of 120 with 20 being a mix of transports, carriers, support ships, etc., and the remaining 100 being BBs (800kT) of the same design family, with a few generations of designs that haven't yet been retrofitted. Also by turn 100 about a third to a half of the AIs have been eliminated (some being 'absorbed' by me), and I'm just about to enter MEE.

I generally will have about 20% of my ships in attack fleets with the rest remaining home. Attack fleets are usually 15-30 ships strong, and include a troop transport and, depending on the enemy, a few retrofitted warships that have all PDCs as weapons. A fleet like this will usually be able to consume an AI home system in about 15 turns. I don't like glassing planets, and usually only do it when I want the fleet to move on and the other planets in a system took too many troops and the captured planets haven't been able to replace them.

--edit: Forgot to say, once it gets down to me and the largest few AIs, I generally have around 300 ships, and only use one or two of the attack fleets I mentioned above (rest are used to keep the captured systems happy). At that point I'll just capture their home systems, become ridiculously MEE, and split up those fleets to go pick off stray ships, and send the troop transports with minimal escort to mop up the remaining planets.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 16 August 2001).]

[Taqwus]

When playing as a Ruthless Back-stabbin' Warrior Technologist, I tend to

a) strike first, and
b) use ships with range advantages due to solar cells

If you can fight enemies entirely in their space, because they can't reach yours and have any supply left, then you need very few ships -- I've won with 70 warships in a 255-system galaxy, especially in a Cluster system. This might not be as feasible now, because the ModPack AIs have improved AI ship design... but even still, I rarely put more than 20 ships in a single fleet.

(* Note -- you can get away with having fewer ships if you have a very large intelligence network. If you have enough points, you can subvert 10-12 ships instantly... quite useful for a quick defense. *)

At the other ridiculous end of the scale, in my "Mr. Nice Superpower" game (no Mega-Evil... but also, trying to avoid wars without an excuse, such as persistent attacks on an ally, or incursions into my space, and then preferably short wars that DON'T result in a surrender), I've got over 800 ships (many, if not most, *not* warships -- think colony ships, warp ships, repair, shipyard, scanner, minesweeper, plague/medical, troop transports, planet makers, etc) to go along with maybe 890 worlds. It's slow trying to convince AIs to make peace with each other, without simply demanding their surrender and instantly absorbing them.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[tesco samoa]

i am a firm believer in keep all ships. mothballing and retro are the keys to the game. Also placing construction ques on hold with one turn left to build.

For the first 100 turns I like to have a ratio of 4 defence ships a system on patrol. 10 scouts ,2 mine layers per 4 systems, 2 cargo ships per 2 systems. 2 to 6 bases above homeworlds and 1 to 2 bases(ss with yard) above planets with space yards and resupply ports.

Mothballed I will have 4 scouts. 3 to 5 bases (ss with yard) above homeworlds and planets with space yards and respupply ports. 1 base above each planet with space yards. Also will have 4 more defence ships per system mothballed.

Now turn 100 to 200 All this will increase 2x to 4x and I will start to build assault fleets ( using the on hold build method )and I will mothball 2 to 3 fleets ( Strike Wings of 10 to 12 ships ) located evenly around my systems. I will also keep upgrading and motheballing ships.

IF I get in any fights I just unmothball the defence ships in those sectors and the assault fleets. Then the onhold units get built and upgraded while new ones get placed on the que. And I decide if the space yard basaes need to come in production.

I follow this system until the end of the game. Making adjustments along the way.

After turn 100 I am a firm believer in that you should have a ratio of the following
number of turns = x
number of ships = y
total number of ships = z
x*y=z
For peace y = 0.8 to 1
For forced peace and expansion y = 1 to 1.5
For threats scare tatics etc... y = 1.5 to 2
For war y = >2

To follow this system storage research must be maxed out and lots of storage facilities need to be built.

I always like to have enough reserve resources to keep all ships and build ques going for 10 turns. I hope buy then that problems are resolved.

But the only way to do that is to constantly build and mothball.

And max out units in space and stored on planets which do not build ships.

Or something along those lines... HA HA

Now if I could only get everygame to play out the same then I would be ok.