Re: Worst place to start a combat...
 

well, the following happened in a PBW game to me. I warped with an attack fleet of mine through a warpgate which's other side was guarded by three different allied races trying to defend the gate against me (se5a was one of these opponents, I bet he remembers the battle)
now I expected all of their fleets to be located right around the warpgate to get a free first hit at my ships, well, wrong.
what happened was: all my ships started in the middle right next to the warpgate while their three fleets were parted and were sitting in three corners of the map. (the fourth corner was were my minesweepers were heading too)
well, guess what happened, my fleet killed there three small fleets with ease, while I would have lost if I 'd have had to fight them together at once.

Re: Worst place to start a combat...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yep yep, and your opponents learned a hard and valuable lesson that day. Don't try to guard a warp point with ships from an ally. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

In fact if it's an important warp point, I'll insist my allies not even travel through it if they can avoid it because of the off chance an enemy fleet could come popping through at the same time as them, totally screwing up my defensive advantage.

Re: Worst place to start a combat...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Erk!! I'll have to remember that, glad I found it before it was too late! Does it also apply to units? ie, two allied empires both dropping sats on a warp point?