Attriting the AI?

[RCIX]

That said, a war of attrition is actually an extremely popular tactic on individual planets.  Force fields and other big defenses (superfortresses, etc) cannot be repaired by the AI, but have a very slow regen, for exactly this sort of purpose -- so that you can hit them repeatedly with forces and wear them down over time, if you want/have to.  So while I do somewhat question the premise of attrition on a galactic scale because of how the AI functions, when you simply look at a portion of the galaxy, or even an individual planet, I think that tactic is highly effective and actually used by a lot of players (myself included).

Who needs attrition when you've got 6 raid starships ready and willing to crush anything on a planet?

[Haagenti]

If you can't kill something with overwhelming power and kill it relatively quickly, you shouldn't be attacking it. A scenario where you attack a superfortress and your entire attack force gets killed, but you damage it to 50%, and then you send in a 2nd force to finish the job is a very inefficient use of resources.

You should attack with more troops and kill it the first time. If you can't do this (lack of force cap), you have probably already lost the game, as while you are clearing this chokepoint, the AI is preparing a new and even bigger one somewhere else.

[x4000]

If you can't kill something with overwhelming power and kill it relatively quickly, you shouldn't be attacking it. A scenario where you attack a superfortress and your entire attack force gets killed, but you damage it to 50%, and then you send in a 2nd force to finish the job is a very inefficient use of resources.

You should attack with more troops and kill it the first time. If you can't do this (lack of force cap), you have probably already lost the game, as while you are clearing this chokepoint, the AI is preparing a new and even bigger one somewhere else.

If find this not to be true at difficulty 7ish and down.  Perhaps at the difficulty 8 and up, but at difficulty 7 it is quite reasonable (and often necessary because of ship caps, the position of your fleet for defense, etc), to take down a superfortress or similar in multiple waves, rebuilding in between.

This also comes back a bit to larger strategic choices in general -- I tend to have Mark II Command Stations and focus on high-yield resource planets, etc, so I tend to be quite rich in resources, with ship cap (usually) being the greater limiter if I play too conservatively.  So in those cases, there is an impetus to get things done quickly while still maintaining defenses around my wide perimeter of resource-valuable planets.  I tend not to be holed up in a sector of the galaxy, but rather strung out as needed to get what I want, so massing my entire fleet at one point is almost never possible.  Meaning that I have no choice but to assault a Mark IV planet with a superfortress with just a third or less of my forces, for instance.

I'm not saying you are wrong -- in your style of play, and at the difficulty level you play at, I am sure what you are saying is spot on.  I'd just caution against blanket advice of that sort, since the playstyle of an individual player (and difficulty level, to another extent) can really have a huge impact on the strategic imperatives in general.  In my games, perimeter defense is challenging and and ever-present threat, but resource efficiency is vastly less of a concern than it is for you.  So the smartest choices in how to assault an entrenched target necessarily vary, then.

When I'm at cap with a ton of resources pouring in, and I can't move big parts of my fleet for risk of losing valuable territory, it only makes sense to hit a superfortress with a third of my fleet, quickly rebuild that, hit it again, and repeat as needed.  In a temporal sense, it's extending my ship cap based on my greater resource income, which I require a greater (temporal) ship cap in order to defend.

Anyway, so I think that's where the differences lie, is in fundamentally different playstyles (which I think is too cool, incidentally).

[Haagenti]

Have you tried using turrets supported by mercenaries for defense? Mercenaries are an ideal sink for resources (due to mercs I never have too many resources and I'm never at cap), and when used judiciously on defense in support of turrets have low losses (not to mention that they can be set to low power when there is no threat).

This frees up the cheap mobile elements, leads to less losses in those mobile elements as you outnumber the enemy, leading to more resources, leading to more mercs etc.etc.

But, you are right, your mileage may vary.

[x4000]

Have you tried using turrets supported by mercenaries for defense? Mercenaries are an ideal sink for resources (due to mercs I never have too many resources and I'm never at cap), and when used judiciously on defense in support of turrets have low losses (not to mention that they can be set to low power when there is no threat).

This frees up the cheap mobile elements, leads to less losses in those mobile elements as you outnumber the enemy, leading to more resources, leading to more mercs etc.etc.

But, you are right, your mileage may vary.

To be honest, I never use mercenaries.  I feel it is much more resource-efficient over time to just build to your caps, then expend part of those ships in whatever the offensive of the moment is, and then quickly rebuild to your caps and launch a new offensive (or continue the old).  This also keeps me from ever getting remotely near my resource caps, and the cost-to-benefit ratio is quite good compared to many alternatives.

In the grand scheme, this means I probably lost more ships (my KTL ratio is generally 1:1 to 3:1 in my favor, whereas I've seen you at 5:1 or more), but it gives me a good deal of flexibility.  Mainly, this was the strategy I was already using before mercs were ever added, and I didn't see a compelling reason to switch to mercs when I added them (they were mostly added to support other playstyles than my own).

All that said, I see your points, and that certainly leads to efficient use of your ships (not throwing ships away ever, if you can help it).  I view the ships as robotic avatars, by the way, not human lives, so I'm not needlessly killing my men.

I like the sound of your strategy, though -- I probably won't use it much myself, although I might dabble at some point, but it's cool to see the mercs put to such good use as that.

[Haagenti II]

All that said, I see your points, and that certainly leads to efficient use of your ships (not throwing ships away ever, if you can help it).  I view the ships as robotic avatars, by the way, not human lives, so I'm not needlessly killing my men.

A good deal of my real-life revolves around balance sheets and income statements, so I tend to see ships as money. And therefore translate my strategies in terms of return-on-investment, debt, spending, growth-rate.

So the very concept of attrition is heresy to me. Akin to borrowing money on your credit card against 30% while having plenty of savings in a money market fund at 1%

Heresy, I tell you

[Nibelung44]

Attrition Strategy is attriting the enemy, not your fleet  i.e slowly inflicting losses to him, without suffering much if any on your side. This is the idea here, although 'attrition on the Russian Front' is indeed a mutual attrition where the one with more resources (Russia) win in the end... 

[Haagenti]

/begin{pedantic}
This is IMO a non-standard use of the term attrition, as attrition usually implies that both sides are suffering casualties and the one with the most resources wins. See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attrition_warfare
/end{pedantic}

Slowly inflicting casualties with low casualties return is in general a worthy goal: however, recent experiences in Afghanistan and Vietnam show that if the enemy is able to accept high casualties while you are unable to accept low casualties, you will still lose.

[Nibelung44]

I don't mind your pedantic style 

Well, it is safe to assume that what we want, with this strategy, is to drain enemy resources slowly without suffering much losses. That why I called that attrition (the slow process). Perhaps 'Erosion strategy' would fit better indeed.

I have yet to try what I envision. There is a nice mark II system with 1800 ships at my southern border. Operation 'Black Hole' will soon be mounted against the forces there, and I'll keep a tally of what I lose in the end (let's add a muhahaha to that) 

[x4000]

Treating the ships like finances is very interesting, and I can see why you would play that way if you look at them from that angle.  I think that's very valid!

My way of thinking about this is more like... hmm, I guess like of like muscular endurance or gas in a tank, or something like that.  With a resource flow system, I tend to treat the "rate of flow" as my actual income, and my goal is to maximize inflow while also maximizing outflow to useful purposes.  Accumulating wealth (in terms of a mass of ships or literal metal/crystal reserves) is less of a concern for me.  But, that's all related into my other larger strategies that I prefer, of course, so that sort of "endurance race" would not work well given various other goals of differing strategies.

I just think it's cool that the mechanics are robust enough that people can apply such wildly different models and strategies to it, honestly.

[Haagenti]

Treating the ships like finances is very interesting, and I can see why you would play that way if you look at them from that angle.  I think that's very valid!

My strategies have completely changed over the past few months due to this viewpoint. I almost completely ignore micromanagement, tactics, unit match-ups etc. (apart in the first hour or two) and concentrate only on the economic/strategic side. The theory being that if you outnumber the enemy enough, it does not matter what ships he has or how he deploys them or what he does in combat: he will get killed with few losses on my side.

"Getting there the firstest with the mostest, kill 'em all and let God sort them out" is the general idea.

My way of thinking about this is more like... hmm, I guess like of like muscular endurance or gas in a tank, or something like that.  With a resource flow system, I tend to treat the "rate of flow" as my actual income, and my goal is to maximize inflow while also maximizing outflow to useful purposes.  Accumulating wealth (in terms of a mass of ships or literal metal/crystal reserves) is less of a concern for me.  But, that's all related into my other larger strategies that I prefer, of course, so that sort of "endurance race" would not work well given various other goals of differing strategies.

Undoubtably it works well for you, as your high-level strategy also differs from mine.

From my viewpoint it seems almost like our (Dutch) government: "If I take the most taxes (inflow) I can, and  spend (outflow) all of it at the end of the year, it must be good, regardless what I have spent it on"

I just think it's cool that the mechanics are robust enough that people can apply such wildly different models and strategies to it, honestly.

It's cool indeed. Must be one of the effects of the high configurability of the game. And that there is no "campaign", so you are in the end never forced to fight against such impossible odds that there is only one efficient strategy left.

[x4000]

From my viewpoint it seems almost like our (Dutch) government: "If I take the most taxes (inflow) I can, and  spend (outflow) all of it at the end of the year, it must be good, regardless what I have spent it on"

Yeah, I see what you mean.  I think it's mainly a matter of kind of trying to pace myself over a long marathon run, where I'm running as fast as I can (producing ships and fasting) to win the race, but I'm staying below a certain threshold of energy exertion so that I don't have to periodically stop or burn out before the end.  If resources were finite in AI War, my strategy would be completely invalid, and I think that's the thing the Dutch government would be overlooking (not that I know anything about the Dutch government).  But taxes are more of a finite resource, anyway.

[nullspace]

Slowly inflicting casualties with low casualties return is in general a worthy goal: however, recent experiences in Afghanistan and Vietnam show that if the enemy is able to accept high casualties while you are unable to accept low casualties, you will still lose.

I think this will be a difficulty for Nibelung's attrition/erosion strategy.  Not only do you need a good kill ratio, but you need to destroy the AI's ships faster than it creates new ones globally.  Otherwise, you're making no net gain. 

On the other hand, I kind of do this while I'm research raiding.  In the process of protecting my science ships, my fleet roams the planet destroying guard posts, train stations, special forces posts, and plenty of ships of course.  My hope is that that this will delay an eventual cross-planet attack, or weaken its strength.  And like x4000, I think that if my ship caps and resource reserves are nearly full, that means I'm not using my fleet enough. 

[Kjara]

You don't actually need to kill them faster than it builds them elsewhere, you just need to be able to kill them while doing something else(even if its just building up your own army for a strike somewhere), and have better than proportional losses, but yeah, non-trivial.

If your ship caps and resources are mainly full, it may mean that you have too many planets(but I tend to play the other extreme .

[x4000]

And or/you need to attrit the AI in the places you want to go, while causing him to reinforce uselessly in places you have no interest in.  Misdirection is definitely worthwhile!