Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

I'm still in the process of playing my very first game. I'm at turn 130, with a small empire (51 planets), and only a couple of dozen ships. My problem is that, even though my empire is small, I have a hard time maintaining my overall strategy, ship movement, troop movement, population movement, and so on. I only get to play about 3 or 4 times a week, and when I get back to play, I can't remember what I had my fleets doing. What do you guys do to maintain your strategy? I read about some of you playing multiple games at one time, you must have some trick to keeping it all straight. Thanks for any help.

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

for moving population, there are a couple things. some people just dont do it. other people trust the AI minister for population transports and colonization. if you want to do it all your self (manage different races for breathing different atmospheres and such) then it helps to give long orders rather than changing the ships order on each leg of the trip. tell it to go somewhere, pickup, go somewhere else, dropoff. then, you can scroll through the ship list each turn and look for ships without orders, and give them somewhere to go.

for fleets, NAME them something meaningful, and only use a couple fleets per front. station the fleet at a training planet or at a rally point, and send new builds there as soon as they roll out of the factory. once a ship gets to the rally point, you know its supposed to be in the fleet. once the fleet is big enough, send it on its way.

if you want to manage production yards better without wondering which system is supposed to be supporting which front, try renaming your spaceyards and construction bases in a similar manner as your fleets. that way they will all sort out in the construction list and you can have them build whatever is needed on their front without wondering where they are and how close they are to the appropriate fleet.

i find the hardest part is keeping tract of other human players, and remembering who you had made which deals with. especially when two empires in different games use the same race picture and shipset. for this, there is no help that i have found.

back in the VGA Planets days, we used to keep wall-chart printouts of the galaxy map and stick pins in it here and there, as well as a notepad of friendly-codes for each game / empire / ally. you think SE4 is hard to keep track of!

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

When my plans start to get complicated, I keep written notes, with each game on a separate sheet of paper. I keep track of the sheets by labelling them with the same name as the save game file.

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

I have abotu 6 games i am activly involved with in addition to the homeworld and awakening scenarios. I have trouble remembering human relations sometimes, especially if it is the same player from game to game. I take notes on paper, and you can add notes to systems in the map window, not too useful though. Remember renaming your planet is not too great with humans, if they are ancient they will seee the rename and know where you are, and even if they aren't and can see the planet they willknow more about youempire. fleet renaming is good, ships names are seen, classes arn't. Also, use waypoints as much as possible for rallying forces, they are a lifesaver for organization...does anyone know if you can send all ships built at X planet to Y waypoint?

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Yes, you can. It's on the same screen you set things to be built at.

Phoenix-D

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

If you are worried about other human players figuring out what your ships and planets are being used for based on their names, then I'd suggest coming up with a naming system which is _personally_ meaningful but which would be somewhat cryptic to someone else. For example, in one particular game I've been giving my colony ship classes letter designations; the "Colonizer C" class is for ice planets (after "cryogenic"), the "Colonizer H" class is for gas giants (after "Hydrogen"), and the "Colonizer L" class is for rock ("Lithosphere"). The next time I upgraded my colonizer designs, however, I switched them all around; rock colonizers became "Colonizer G" class (for "ground").

You can even go beyond cryptic and actively mislead a human opponent with names. Give your colonies suffixes like "mil" or "sci" or "stor", but instead of having mil be military bases, sci be science worlds and stor be storage worlds, have sci be the storage worlds, mil be the science worlds, and stor be the military worlds. Of course you'd have to keep track of this; keep notes.

That's the number-one biggest thing. Keep notes. I've got one game which is on turn 120 where I've got a 500KB text file that contains every diplomatic message I've sent or recieved; it's easy to search for the names of systems to find out who promised you what and when. You can also keep notes on a system-by-system basis within the game itself by using the built-in map, but I haven't found that as useful; I keep forgetting to refer to it. Making a habit out of it would probably help, but I think it's just too hard to search them easily.

If one of your neighbors is the Crystal Mentality, don't start producing warships with a class named "Crystal Breaker." Alternately, go ahead and name them "Crystal Breaker" if your _real_ target is actually the Rhodon Network which lies right next to the Crystal Mentality's space (you might want to let the Crystal Mentality know about this ahead of time, though, or it might draw erroneous conclusions). The Rhodon Network's scouts will see them and perhaps start massing its forces along the Crystal Mentality's border in order to scoop up some territory because they think you're going to hit them instead, leaving their border with you wide open.

If you act dumb, a lot of players will assume you _are_ dumb. You can exploit this. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

But I digress. Keep notes.

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

More screw-with-people's-heads:

Every ship built has a default name of ShipClass #ofshipsbuilt

Try renaming the fleet you send into enemy territory upwards. If, say, your attack class was named Bat, and your ships were:
Bat 003
Bat 004
Bat 005

rename them

Bat 020
Bat 021
Bat 022

Also remember that you can make colony ships out of ANY ship class. Do that, and then rename them to look like an attack ship; rename a *real* attack ship to look like a colony ship. Your opponent can't see fleet names, and in order to see ship classes he has to click on the ship itself and check it out.

Phoenix-D

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Ahh, the "Art of Misdirection" and "If you want to hide something, leave it in the open". I call it Physc Warfare.

For notes I use "Notepad". You can put each game in a separate folder and keep multible notepad files there.

I'd mention my method of misdirection but Growltigga migh read this. Er: then again, this might be misdirection. < bemused grin >

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Right now I am only playing against AI, but these suggestions sound great for when I do start to play against humans. Thanks. I've seen a couple of people mention keeping notes, either electronically or on paper, and was wondering how you organized them so they were useful? Do you organize by system or fleet or date? Could anyone post a sample (Unclassified of course), that showed an example?

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Growtigga: Heads up!
The key to most strategic victories are:
Concentration of Effort, Ecconmy of Force, Mobility, and Flexibilty. (Addapted and modified ro game terms from Zun Sue The Art of War and a US Army Training Manuel)

Like you, at the moment I only play against the AI, but sometime soon, Growltigga and I hope to have a trans Atlantic game going, (PBEM).

My notes are mostly kept in separate files:
Specific to the current game
Apply to SE IV game mechanics.
Possible Strategies
Possible Tactics
Surprises
AI Behavior

Within the "Current Game"
It has always been my experiance that changing strategies part way though any endevor can be a big mistake are requires signifigant analasys before doing so. This does not mean you should not take the time to develop Point Defence Cannons if you run into a race using fighters or Cap Shp Mis,
Selected Global Strategy, IE: How I intend to "$X" the game as well as any details such as Facillities, Tech Trees I intend to complete in what order.
I tend to organize by "Front"
Then Solar Systems within the Front
Notes specific to AI actions and my intentions.

There is much more, but over all, it will be determined by your developping "Play Style".
Enjoy

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Oh, while I'm on the subject, another diVersionary naming tactic I use is to make sure each of my various stellar manipulation ships is a different class even if they have identical components. I don't do that for ship types with much more numerous members, since it makes for a _lot_ more work, but stellar manip ships are rare an expensive. I don't want one unlucky combat to let my enemies know which of my ships have sunbusters or warp-openers and which are just storm-clearers.

Alternately (there's _always_ an alternately), the ship classes "Nova1", "Nova3" and "Nova6" could have actual sun-destroying components whereas the classes "Nova2", "Nova4" and "Nova5" are actually just repair-and-resupply ships. Try to avoid having them get into combat, to keep your enemy from discovering that you're using this tactic. After the first system-bombing, he won't know which task forces are major kamikaze threats and which aren't - hopefully, he'll think they _all_ are. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

One can always rename a ship, but one can't always easily change their class designation.

Confusion to the enemy!

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

These namign strategies are great, i used the remnaming of the ships to great effect in tricking an enemy into thinking i had a plauge ship heading his way (bubonic) and had at least 3 more wiating (0004) and have done similar with my fleets, it doesn't hurt to change the numbers alittle to confuse them. but what happens when your queue runs into that number along the way? i guess it would just skip it. The note taking is smart, i have started that for all my PBW games, (AI isn't enough of a challenge that i need it, i can afford to screw up a little). and BeeDee10, does the enemy get to see your class designation? Going through neutral humans to spread disinformation is also a great tactic. another great trick is to make transport/colonizers with deeper purposes, means a lot of wasted effort on storage components but few will trouble with what appears to be a simple pop transport (can even back that up with a name...) and then their system goes up in smoke as the start of an intergalactic war. (was a pop deal previously).

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

You guys should try Interspector to take your notes. You can arrange your text in a tree. It's a great organizer.

http://www.popupsolutions.com/interspector

it's not free, but the demo is quite good.

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Skulky:
These namign strategies are great, i used the remnaming of the ships to great effect in tricking an enemy into thinking i had a plauge ship heading his way (bubonic) and had at least 3 more wiating (0004) and have done similar with my fleets, it doesn't hurt to change the numbers alittle to confuse them. but what happens when your queue runs into that number along the way? i guess it would just skip it.
&lt;snip&gt;
<hr></blockquote>

Actually, the computer will just start numbering from whatever number you forced onto the ship name. I.e., if you build another "bubonic" class ship, it's number would be 0005. I figured this out a while ago, when I tried tracking refitted ships by incrementing the 1000's digit ("Lion 0001" refitted to "Lion II 1001"; the next Lion II to roll off the construction queue was then called "Lion 1002" by the computer).

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

I always just use the age old expedient of giving my ships regular ship names, e.g., the TCS Victory or the HMS Repulse (depending on what kind of empire we're talking). Same for the classes. Obviously I can see at a glance what components a ship has, but to my opponents "HMS Coral Sea, Gloucester Class" doesn't mean squat. Plus, it just makes your navy seem more organized and professional (not to mention cool http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Thanks to KDC for the good idea. After looking at the program you suggested, I found a shareware program that I think is great for this kind of note taking. It will keep notes and pictures in a tree structure. The address is below.

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail.php3?fid=974700247

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

I just took a sneak peak and it looks cool. Still how many functions do you need in something for keepign notes? i guess if your really dedicated you could take down everything.

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Praetor:
I always just use the age old expedient of giving my ships regular ship names, e.g., the TCS Victory or the HMS Repulse (depending on what kind of empire we're talking). Same for the classes. Obviously I can see at a glance what components a ship has, but to my opponents "HMS Coral Sea, Gloucester Class" doesn't mean squat. Plus, it just makes your navy seem more organized and professional (not to mention cool http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )<hr></blockquote>

Praetor, you join myself and Tampa Gamer as the archetypal military history nuts - I do exactly the same as yourself. I havn't played against humans yet but really dont see how sight of something called "FNS Agamemnon - BC nike class" is really going to help them much. Actually, I do designate my vessels with code if they are specialised eg CLE escort cruiser, CLX heavy weapons cruiser CLA assault cruiser (ie beam heavy) that sort of thing - I may have to stop doing that

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Hmm, Making a note, wondering if Growltigga is disseminating misinformation for my sake. Disseminating some of my own: While I am still learning I tend to name my designs using the abriviations of the Hull, Speed, and equipment on board. A ship of mine might look like this: FF PDC 6. Frigate with Point Defence Cannons and Speed 6, (not that I would ever build such a usless thing).

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

When I see military ship names, and I want to know what they are, I'll search the net. One player I played with, named his ships in French. A simple internet translator was all that was needed to bust this code wide-open. I agree with just naming things out-of-the-blue, for no reason. I use the empire name "The Pootopians", and prefer to name my ships in a similar fashion.

I use "Green Poo", "Brown Poo", "Poo on you", etc. etc. Hell, half the time, I don't even know what they mean. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

--Ed

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

bringing this badboy back from the graveyard, I love it when people name their ships in (Italian for example) and i just head on over to altavista and figure out what he lays his mines with and what he carries his fighters in, however he has several transports that are "somthing translator can't figure out" carrier and haven't done anything yet, they arn't troops because he has only glassed so far, and this is a non-gold so its not drones. but its fine, i really don't care, im about to kick his booty.

Any more notetaking suggetsions?

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Note-taking? You guys are crazy! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif j/k

I name all my ships individually, with completely random names. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I've seen one player name ships like this:

Killer VII - is a warship
Killer VIl - minesweeper
Killer VlI - supply ship

All of these names (unfortunately) look identical in the list where the ships in a sector are displayed, so you cannot tell at a glance how many warships and support ships are in a fleet. If you click on a ship, the font used for the design name is different, so you can tell what the actual name is that way, but it is longer and more complicated than simply looking at all the ships in 1 sector at a time.

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Why do you say that this is useless?

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Because it has no weapons, so it will run to the corner in strategic combat.

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">So - give it a bean shooter and set strat.

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Yeah, and then it is not the ship Gryphin had described. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif That type of ship is useful; the one with all PDCs is not.

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmmm - bummer because a heavily PDC'ed ship would be useful vs missiles and fighters - or so I thought. It would seem that this is not correct.

So - I'm back to my original plan to add PDC and even a cannon or two to my missile ships. With a cannon on a MS - it can 1) fight back whilst re-loading missiles, 2) not run away whilst doing same. But since I hardly ever fight using Strategic ...

Beware the 'wandering cow' when setting traps for the unwary. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ September 15, 2002, 15:41: Message edited by: Elowan ]

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Elowan,
The key to an "Aegis" design is a hull with:
Max speed,
Armor and Sheilds to fit your style
1 Beam weapon with a range no longer than that of the PDC
Fill in the rest with PDC.
With the Beam weapon it will stay in the fight.
I don't know what happens if that weapon gets knocked out.

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's how I design by screening ships.

The Aegis is a missile cruiser so where do missiles fit into the design of which you speak?

[ September 15, 2002, 17:44: Message edited by: Elowan ]

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Could be wrong name. I thought the Aegis crUsers were designed to cordinate Point defence through out the fleet as well as Guied Missles.
Call it an AA Ship

Re: Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion
 

Elowan,
Fyron is correct about why my FF PDC 6 is useless. I have to admit at the time I did not know that. It was an attempt to feed GT miss information.