Military Power = Sum of Attack Points (Defense is Irrelevant, Cheese For Everyone)

from Stardock Forums
I have been carefully observing the fleets of my empire and several minor races lately and arrived at this conclusion. The numerical value of military power is equal to the sum of attack points; defense is completely irrelevant. The result of this is that Corvettes are the best military power inflator in the early game, with Anti-Matter Missiles taking over in the later eras. This method of calculating military power makes it very easy for human players to exploit the AIs weakness in evaluating military threat. Not only can a store of Anti-Matter Missiles deter the AI from attacking, you can also use them to enforce peace in the galaxy by trading them to weaker races and balancing military power. I don't know if this is a bug or feature, but I hope it is corrected soon.
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I should add that even returning military power calculation to a sum of attack and defense points as claimed would still favor Anti-Matter Missiles too much. We will probably need a more complicated formula to account for attack, defense, and hit points simultaneously. A military power multiplier for each ship type on top of the new results may be helpful too (e.g. missiles x0.1, Excaliburs x5).
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
It certainly does, as far as I can tell.

~SDC~
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks for figuring this formula out. I now understand why my Battle Axes did nothing to prevent war from coming, while my Battle Hammers acted as a far better deterrent.

I agree this needs to be addressed...building multiple missles can seriously scare off the AI from daring to declare war on you and allow you to extort them repeatedly I'm guessing.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Well now I know why nobody ever picked on me
:notsure:
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I personally use missiles for a few reasons. They're cheap to build, low maintenance costs, and one of them can take out almost any ship the AI has. When you build these you do get quite a bit of military power but it can be deceiving. And I personally would think twice about messing with someone who could lay waste to my nice capital ship fleet.

Once you actually get into a war, if you're not careful you can watch your military power drop significantly due to expenditure of missiles.

Of course, if you're using all those missiles just imagine what state the AI's fleet is in. :D

~SDC~
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
@Dr. No Chance:
i know EXACTLY what you mean, i had tons of those things didn't mean anything to the drengin though

this whole thing contradicts what frogboy has said in other threads :/
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
mass scouts keep attacking an ennemy escalibur until it's in the state of destruction. then buy the mass leveled ship for a planet repair it culturally invade the planet u exchanged ( put like a thousand of cultural star base around it ) make 2 death stars beg money, until they run out of budget, kill em all using ur fleet to excort ur ULTIMATE WEAPONRY and win the fucking game using the unused Anti Matter Missile u left on ur planets.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
The point I was making about Military bonus is that it is not taken into account separately so if you have a very small standing fleet the AI will underestimate your military potential.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
If hit points are not factored in, this would also seriously underestimate a civ using War Party.

Hopefully this is just a bug that will be fixed.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Alf:

Military bonuses are fully accounted for in the calculation of military power. It's just that only weapons bonuses have any effect since attack points are the only factor. Hit F3 and sort your fleet by attack points. What you see is what you get. Even the attack bonus for ships in orbit is applied.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
how about the square root of (attack * defense)? That way at least a dreadnought counts as more than an AM missle, but everything still gets counted. It still keeps anything with an attack of 0 out of the equation.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Missles still should count as somewhat powerful... do you want to attack a civilization that may have a bunch of 'em loaded up and ready to go?
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
Indeed. A few dozen missiles can ruin any civ's navy fairly quickly.

~SDC~
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
A correction regarding the military value of Anti-Matter Missiles will have to be made as I think there may in fact be a modifier to reduce their importance in game right now. I'll have to check back on this a bit later as it is a bit difficult to find out when the military power graph is stable during a multi front war. The full attack value of other ships seems to be applied normally however.
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
I think it has to do with where the ships are. My military power graph took a big hit when I took alot of ships out of various systems to guard a new starbase. The graph went back up when they arrived at the starbase.

~SDC~
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
I hardly see how this is unrealistic. Stockpiles of offensive weapons make for very powerful deterrants to war.
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Does anyone know if a ship's +attack bonuses from starbases get counted towards the military might? That would invite some mind-boggling cheese (sector with +12 starbase and hundreds of zero maintenance scouts, for example).
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree with Statement #1 with one caveat - no multipliers. Offensive capabilities plus defensive capabilities plus hit points are factors I look for before an engagement. But the comments about the deterent effect of the missiles are valid. Why spend the bucks and T&E if it doesn't count?

I'm thinking missiles are good to take out heavily defensed SBs.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
Missiles are good because the AI doesn't know how to handle them. If i was playing against an AI who had a ton of missiles (which i haven't seen yet) i'd want a screen of small cheap ships to take care of the missiles. You could completly block off your capital ships by surrounding them with scouts. In order to get to the expensive ships, the AI would have to waste several missiles getting through the screen first.

It seems you could also negate a large part of the advantage by making sure to strike first, however I'm having difficulty figuring out how it's decided which ship in a defensive stack will meet the attack.
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
To think of it, I don't recall ever being attacked by an enemy AMM in my 9 games. AIs seem to prefer dreads a whole lot more.

I doubt any race would field a complete AMM force. A screen of scouts could be taken out easily by any other warship before they send the AMMs in at your capitals. If the AI could do that, it would really be cool.
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
So does everybody agree that only Attack matters?

Sigh, so much for my Defender/Battlehammer approach of a strong defense.
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
Only attack matters, but some of the high attack units such as Anti-Matter Missiles seem to have a multiplier that reduces their rating somewhat. Perhaps the formula starts out linearily then drops off with diminishing returns to keep things in check. Regardless, one AMM is still worth several Dreadnoughts in terms of military power I think.
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
I've had the AI use one AM Missile against me... to destroy one of my AM Missiles. :notsure: Seeing as he had a dreadnought right next to it, he could have toasted it anyway and kept the missle.
Reply #25 from Stardock Forums Top
Trying to figure out a good formula for military might would be very difficult.
An AM missile can possibly take out a pretty powerful ship, so it should be considered pretty powerful.

And only looking at the attack values makes sense when the AI is trying to decide whether to declare war - you may have a strong defense, but why should the AI not declare war if you can't do it any harm?

Unfortunately, the way the AI tends to throw ships against strong defensive units negates this idea a bit.