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Battlehammers...
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Now, is it just me, or do Battlehammers seem to be about the best bargain for ships in the midgame. Cheap to maintain, massive hitpoints - 2x more than a battleship, solid defense and attack, cheap to build. Once these guys start leveling up, they are really tough to beat.
Only drawbacks seem to be range and speed. If you select a small speed boost at the start of the game though, this seems to get nullified pretty quickly. I had hammers at one point that were moving about 6 squares a turn - without starbase bonuses. Basically, by cranking these suckers out, it's almost impossible to lose a war. You'll at bare minimum be controlling the space around your planets, but hey, you need to invade that nearby neighbor defend by battle axes... no problem. And since they are so much cheaper than the capital ships, you can get a 3 to 1 numerical superiority.
Now, I don't know if they are necessarily unbalanced or not, or whether they are just really great ships in the middle game, but I notice the computer doesn't use them.
So am I missing something, or are these ships about the greatest things you can build?
     
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You're not missing anything. Many people use them for offense in the mid game if they can get them a speed/range bonus or two. Many people think that they are possibly too good when compared to Frigates/Battlecruisers in the same era.
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At my end game now, my BHs have 8 speed and 5 range so they are an effective offensive weapon as well.
The AI should be building these much more especially for defense. Still have not seen AI BHs so far in my games.
       
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this maybe an obvious question: Do ships in orbit get attack/defense bonuses provided by nearby starbases?
Follow-up question: Are the bonuses cumulative? If you have more than one starbase in a sector and they have identical module enhancements (e.g. micro fighters attack +2)does my ship now have a +4 attack in that sector?
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Yes, and yes, ad infinitum.
I've actually sat in one sector (admittedly a great one) on a maso/gigantic map and held off dreadnoughts with starfighters  just to test that question.
  
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Standard military usage, for example:
DD = Destroyer
CA = Cruiser
BC = Battlecruiser
CV = Carrier (aircraft, spacecraft etc..)
There are others, in fact, dozens of others, but no point in getting too crazy with a list here.
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#10
by Citizen Efthimios - 7/19/2003 7:25:57 PM
Modified or not they are still my favourite ships. Even when I can and afford to build larger ships they are just too damn good! With a few bonuses they are my favourite all around ship in terms of battles. I also like Frigates for fast interdiction. Battleaxes are good for defense if you are not a very attacking civ. At least thats how I see things.
 
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So why wouldn't they call them BS.....ah, just answered my own question. 
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Here's the real answer:
 Link
  
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Cool site Theoden! Thanks
As far as Battle Hammers go. I still use them more than anything else until I get dreads and rangers. Everyone talks about frigates. Well, frigates are nice for quick long distance strikes and chasing down colony ships and freighters. Other than that, I dont like them. Mind you, I still build one or 2 for each designated area of coverage for exactly the afore mentioned reasons but thats it. Why? Maintenance cost and battle stats (oh and looks).
To explain maintence, having 8 frigates costs me 80bc a turn. Having 8 BH's costs me 64. Not much I know but over a year thats a 16 * 12 = 192bc cost savings!! In most cases, I need every penny.
The other part is battle stats. The frig has 5 more HP but one less ATT and DEF. Ive found that the small amount of HP diff means little while the other means a lot. Having a difference of just one more att and def seems to mean a lot in this game. Were this is really bared out is with mil bonuses. WIth a 100% mil bonus (not just real hard to achieve, esp with a resource), a frig becomes 10,8 and BH becomes 12,10. Now we have a diff of 2. At the level Im currently playing My BH's are in the range of 22,18 while my frigs are 18,14. This is because mil bonus (which everybody eventually gets some of) are applied to the base and so the more the starting figure is, the more valuable mil bonus becomes. And since you always end up with some mil bonus, the base att and def becomes more and more important the more MIL (or starship bonus too I might add) bonus you get. As is, my BH's take on enemy BB's that have few upgrades (they are like 15,9 or something) and lose anywhere from 3-9 HP. My frigs will take on the same ship and sometimes lose over half their HP.
Sure the speed loss on BH's is annoying but it hasnt been that big of a deal to me in my games so far. When I attack, i have it well planned out in advance and so speed isnt a concern. When defending, i have sooped up battle-axes on every planet and they are coming to ME, so bringing in support ships is typically very easy.
Oh and looks! Frigates just look wimpy. Ruthless dominant Overlord with itty bitty little ship trapsing around the galaxy? Just doesnt work for me. Ruthless dominant Overlord traveling around in the much bigger, better drawn, and cooler named Battle Hammer? That makes all kinds of sense . My opinion of course.
To summarize, BH's become better and better when compared to frigates as your military and starship bonus increases. They also save you money. However some frigates are always nice to have for clean up duty and catching transports, colony ships, and frieghters. They can also be better for immediate defense at times too since they take less to build. But if this is your problem, your either screwed already or you didnt plan well enough. You didnt want to build all one ship anyway now did you? How boring would that be!
P.S. If you just avoid the combat ships and go straight for planets then frigates become more valuable. However, I consider this cheese and cant bring myself to do it.
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A lot depends on the map size and difficulty you are playing at. At Maso, I like frigates for their speed and their range. Battlehammers are 40% more expensive than frigates and that's a lot for slightly better att/def but slower speed and range. And you can't go head to head in space most of the time in Maso. When you can churn out BHs, the AI will have Dreads and Rangers.
At other levels, I like having battlehammers as well. But nowadays I build Death Knights for a bigger punch.
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