defending your empire's borders: what do you do?

[Silent Sorrow]

I play against the AI in TDM. I've traditionally followed a strategy of expanding as quickly as possible and then trying to defend the warp points along my "borders" as well as the planets in the border systems.

This usually works OK for a while until the end part of the mid-game where the enemy AIs have got some good ship strength up and are wearing down my defences. Often I end up walking a very fine line between having the enemy pour through my defences and successfully fending them off long enough to seal everything off so that I can't be touched, even in the end-game.

But that's "usually." My border planets are typically well defended but everything on the interior is almost completely undefended. So if the AI gets past my first ring of defence, it's curtains for me. So I was thinking I should perhaps play it more "realistically"--that is, have light defences on the border with defence getting increasingly stiffer as one reaches my home system. At least that way, a breach at my border doesn't mean near-certain defeat. But on the other hand I feel like I'll constantly be losing planets on my border and really hurting my empire.

Which approach do you take?

[Loser]

My best border defense is an advancing fleet. Just because you're not playing the Hare doesn't mean you hold still. Just because you're playing the Tortoise doesn't mean you can't push.

[Fyron]

I usually try to open a few WPs deep into enemy territory, send in ships, then close them off. Divide and conquer. Doesn't distract the AI as much because it is too stupid, but it works well against humans.

Generally, taking the fight to enemy territory is more effective. If planets must be lost, make them enemy planets instead of your own.

[Arkcon]

Against the AI, heavily defending the frontier is the best defense against an incoming fleet. A human would attack anywhere just to trip you up. Something to defend the interior is always a good idea. In just about every sci fi picture, the planets on the boarder are always screwed ... and that just doesn't seem right to me. You want these colonies - or you wouldn't have sent colonizers there.

I almost never use bases, either at warp points or in planet orbit. I build'em occasionally but they aren't often useful. A small mobile fleet to attack enemy ships that break the line are best. Have at least a sensor level 1, the AI will always cloak once it gets stealth armor.

But you gotta send an expeditionary fleet into enemy territory to snipe at colonies. No matter how well you defend.

[ July 08, 2003, 20:57: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[Rojero]

I usually gather a group of ships and they go on a suicide mission. My borders arent super strong, but what I do is i go on an incursion usually hitting enemy planets and destroying them. I dont stop to invade, just slaughter their economy so they would not be able to support a military

[Silent Sorrow]

Originally posted by Arkcon:
Against the AI, heavily defending the frontier is the best defense against an incoming fleet. A human would attack anywhere just to trip you up. Something to defend the interior is always a good idea. In just about every sci fi picture, the planets on the boarder are always screwed ... and that just doesn't seem right to me. You want these colonies - or you wouldn't have sent colonizers there.

I almost never use bases, either at warp points or in planet orbit. I build'em occasionally but they aren't often useful. A small mobile fleet to attack enemy ships that break the line are best. Have at least a sensor level 1, the AI will always cloak once it gets stealth armor.

But you gotta send an expeditionary fleet into enemy territory to snipe at colonies. No matter how well you defend.

Yeah, my issue with border defence is that, given the sheer size of the borders (I always play huge galaxies), it's not too difficult for the AI to pick a spot, mass forces and break through. And if one of you defence fleets happens not to be close by, you can be screwed as the AI can wipe out several sectors just in the time it takes you to get there.

So this is why I wonder if I should try a different strategy of heavily defending my core worlds, which would be a logistically much easier task for a variety of reasons including travel time and population growth and transport.

[Silent Sorrow]

Originally posted by Rojero:
I usually gather a group of ships and they go on a suicide mission. My borders arent super strong, but what I do is i go on an incursion usually hitting enemy planets and destroying them. I dont stop to invade, just slaughter their economy so they would not be able to support a military

This is a good idea. But those ships are expensive. Even a decent light cruiser is going to take 3 turns to build at a space yard III facility. Then you've got to marshall them, get minesweepers, supply ships ... yikes, even a suicide mission thus turns into a major operation and losing all those ships at the end of it seems like a poor pay-off.

[Fyron]

I have sent 120 BB fleets on suicide missions through WPs opened into the enemy's core systems before. Nothing wrong with that.

[Stone Mill]

--The AI never really figures out mines.

--Look to colonize areas of the map with logical chokepoints, and work to garrison each point. Resist colonizing what you can't defend.

--You cannot defend everything.

--Always stay on the offensive in some way. Give your foe something to worry about. Wage war at the economic level.

[Krsqk]

Natural chokepoints are the obvious choice--the problem is in quadrants such as grid which have few if any systems with fewer than 3 warp points. IMO, border defense in these situations becomes an economic issue--if you can outproduce the other guy, you can support fleets to defend larger borders. Larger borders, in turn, mean greater economic strength, which means larger fleets, which mean larger borders, etc... It feeds off itself, usually with diminishing returns as your borders grow geometrically.