In GalCiv IV and III A.I. spends most of it's ships defending planets. This strategy isn't really that effective in my experience. It more often than not leads to me waiting until I build up a fleet large enough to take the planet, but really doesn't do the A.I. any favors. The A.I. could put pressure on me to put up some defense of my own colonies, shipyards and core worlds with those fleets but instead they're locked up defending a planet until I have the power to destroy them. In my current game against Incredible A.I. I'm just slowly taking over but it's less of a war and more of a wait until I can destroy the fleet defending the next core world. The A.I. doesn't have enough ships to support a defense of each colony world so I take those first leading to situations like this:
This sector started out all Drengin but I was able to take most colonies without a fight and now am slowly going after the core worlds.
Currently the A.I. runs a static defense strategy exclusively. They create strongholds around their most important resources, but it often leads to their slow but inevitable defeat.
In GalCiv III static defenses were a lot more viable strategy because each world was a core world with it's own shipyard and defended by fleets and legions. In GalCiv IV the inclusion of colonies has made this strategy much less effective and I think the A.I. needs to mostly move away from the static defense to a dynamic defense. Player made ships are also much less overpowered now so the A.I. should be in a better place to run a dynamic defense strategy.
I almost always run dynamic defense unless I'm playing tall with one or two core worlds producing 75% of my ships, credits, influence, ect. (I've only done this in GalCiv III and haven't tried it in GalCiv IV yet.) For my dynamic defense I'll maintain a full logistics fleet in a region of 3-5 systems that is tasked with defending core worlds and colonies in those systems. I leave a few ships at core worlds just to provide me time to get a defense fleet out. This strategy allows me to stop and sometimes prevent incursions into my territory as well as keeps the fleet free to move and attack. It also frees up more ships to run offensive strikes to force the player onto the defensive.
Just a few pros and cons of a dynamic defense that I can think of:
Pros:
- It adds a lot of interesting gameplay mechanics and has the potential to make the conflicts feel more like a war and less like a drawn out siege.
- I think if implemented right it would make the game a lot more fun. Scout ships, military star bases, and sensors become much for important to prevent the loss of an important core world or fleet.
- The player can't know for sure whether they can move important fleets into enemy systems unopposed and may have to do some scouting before committing or risk the loss of an important fleet. The fog of war serves more of a purpose.
- The player may need to hunt down enemy fleets rather that go to the planet they're stuck at making gameplay more exciting.
- Paired with a dynamic offense this could really put the player on defense a lot more and make wars less of a forgone conclusion.
- Incredible and Godlike A.I. with their boost in sensors and speed are much harder to defeat.
Cons:
- It is probably much more difficult to code and could take even more computer resources (Longer turn times)
- If implemented poorly the A.I. won't stand a chance as it will quickly lose core worlds.
- The A.I. needs to be taught a new strategy.
- The A.I. will be being more risky with it's ships and against superior fleets could have a lot more complete losses.
I do think that static defenses have a place in this game as well. I think it would be awesome to see a civilization that is given a bunch of techs that reward them for playing tall and give that A.I. incentive to play tall would be a perfect match for a static defense. This would allow the A.I. to focus on defending only one or two worlds per sector and free up the rest of their ships.
Just something I thought of while playing today.
