Military strength calculation?

from Stardock Forums
After seeing myself being repeatedly extorted, and after seeing the Drengin extort their way to financial superiority many times, I've been wondering....

What exactly contributes to your Military rating?

I know this much..Battle Axes don't seem to boost this much, despite being quite effective in stopping attacks until the capital ship era. Many of my games I get extorted repeatedly despite having a pretty adequate defense...so I flip the AI the bird instead of paying tribute....eventually we go to war. I survive, because Battle Axes are tough to break through before Battleships come along. But I'm a little ticked that those Battle Axes didn't do a better job of PREVENTING war in the first place.

So what factors add up to give you your military rating?

Do HP of ships matter? If so, the War Party just became a whole lot more useful in my eyes. (As it stands now, I never use them)

Does Attack of ships count for more than Defense? (Would explain why Battle Axes seem to lack as a war deterrent)

Do bonuses to Attack/Defense count (Tech/Abilities) or does it just count the base stats of the ships?

All I know is, I'm considered a military afterthought by the AI until I build Dreadnaughts and such. Since I usually don't pursue military techs (I just buy Shields/Dreads or Battleship) this makes me a target for extortion the whole damn early-mid game. My Battle Axes can hold up to war, but my trade convoys can't. Why doesn't the AI pick on somebody else? :p

Seriously though, any feedback here would be great :)
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Makes you wonder if they just look at the maintenance costs? The Battle Axes and Battle Hammers (the best ship imho) don't have as much maintenance cost as Frigates and Dreadnaughts.

Battle Hammers in a sector with a decent military starbase have no problems taking down enemy Dreadnaughts.

Yet the AI seems to really value Frigates and Dreadnaughts. They will want an arm and a leg to trade you the technologies that enable those two ships.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Speaking of Battle Hammers....is there something about them I'm overlooking? I would think they would be inferior to Axes for defense. Axes have a higher base defense than attack, and therefore get a bonus to their attack rating when attacked. Hammers have a higher attack then defense (5/4) I believe?? :notsure: Despite their higher HP, wouldn't the fact that they don't get the attack bonus when attacked thing make them inferior to Axes on defense?
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I believe attack ratings increase your military rating, so if you have plenty of defenders, battle axes, or battle hammers, you're actually stronger (defensively) than the graph would indicate.

~SDC~
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I have subscribed to the idea that the military strength is a simple sum of attack and defense for some time, but now I am shifting over to the idea that each ship type every starbase simply adds a fixed amount to your military power regardless of any weapons, defense, or hitpoint bonuses. You can look at your military power graph in detail through the F4 menu and actually get a numerical number that represensts your peak military strength. Maybe someone can test this in detail sometime and figure out exactly how much each ship type is worth.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmm. According to Frogboy,

"No, the military graph measures it by the strength of your ships. Not the
number. It doesn't care how many ships you have."

(posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic)

Anyway, even if it measures by attack and defense both (which it may), battle axes, defenders, and battle hammers will be undervalued unless it also takes into account how they behave on defense.

~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I like the Battle Hammer because it has so many hitpoints.

If the military strenght algorithm is just looking at attack and defense values, and ignoring hit points, then the Battle Hammer is going to be undervalued.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
"Speaking of Battle Hammers....is there something about them I'm overlooking? I would think they would be inferior to Axes for defense."

No, Battle Hammers better. There's only a 1 point difference in defensive strength between them and BattleAxes, but the Hammers have over twice the hitpoints. Use the combat simulator tool on the GalCiv website to run a few examples... against ships of the same era, the Battle Hammer is consistently the better defender.

- Ash

~SDC~
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
I now believe Hammers are better...because I overlooked the fact that ships in orbit get a +% to Attack rather than a set +X bonus. So the fact that the Hammer gets a bigger bonus on Attack while in orbit than the Axe outweighs the fact that the Axe gets a bonus to it's Attack value when attacked because it has a higher base Defense value than attack value. Catch all that? ;p

The HP thing is a factor, but no so much of one when you compensate for maintenance costs and building cost.

But in summary, yes...I see now that Hammers are better.