Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This WILL work ONLY IF you are bigger than they are! if not YOU still be DEAD!

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not at all. Well, you will be dead, but if you have an unarmed ship cornered by an armed attacker, you're dead anyway so you might as well ram anyway. Even if your ship is the smaller one, it might still damage them.

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

hmmmm. I have tried this with limited sucess. You can avoid the enemy if you have them beat on movement. I have had sucess using two tactics. I don't usually have to use them, so my testing is limited. First off, don't always do a corner run. You will get killed being a chicken (that crossed the road). Two examples.

I had a combat movement of 4, the AI only had 3. So I played "squirrel" using the planet as my tree. Every time he tried to go around one way, I would move to the opposite side, and kept out of his range. This went on until about turn 12 or 13. the AI for the next two rounds did not move at all. I found that boring and was enjoying the chase, so i moved on tile over, and it began again. So there is a way to stagmante the AI movement, but exactly how is still a curious factor. he eventualy got to a position that he could chase me in circles, and it was hard to keep out of range. this continued until about the 22nd turn, at which point I then made my corner run, and he could not get there in time to destroy my ship. iirc, he did get one shot off tho.

Second one: little different situation here. the AI had 3 big ole bullies, with a decent range. given the ship movement of 3, and a weapon range of 7, I had to stay 11 tiles away at all times. One miss-click movement and my ship would not have survived the first volley. I made an agressive corner move, but in the same direction as the AI fleet. (kinda like a reverse feint). with their range, the planet trick obviously would not work, so i used the same kind of tactic, but was running fairly close to the edge of the map. I wanted to keep the AI on that side as much as possible, so my arch in my squirrel turns was very wide. Straight up 4, diagonal 1 (I have 5 moves in combat). sometimes to make the turn i would have to diagonal 2 or 3, but doing so lost the running lead. After about 4 laps around the combat screen, doing this, the combat ended with his 3 dreads never getting off a shot, and my antique PDC lt cruiser left hastily for the nearest safe haven asap.

Superior speed can flee the bigger ships, even when they have a death range of 10. You really need a +2 combat movement over the AI to pull it off. 3 would be easier. and AI position is every thing. you may not need to use all your movement point every round. just stay 1 or 2 tiles out of range and run in a circle...... and pray you ship don't pull a mulligan move and end it's round in the wrong tile.

Edit in:
oh yea, my sucess rate in the few times I have tried this has been about 60% survial, and 20% no damage flawless vic....stalemate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ January 30, 2003, 22:27: Message edited by: couslee ]

Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

If I have the speed advantage, how the heck do I flee from a battlefield once a tactical battle has started?

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

You can't. The best you can do is try to stay out of the enemy's weapons range for 30 combat turns.

If they do catch you in a corner and you have no guns: Ram them!

[ January 30, 2003, 12:17: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

Hey, that's a fabulous idea. I'll switch the default strategy of all my unarmed explorers to "ram" and run through their battle in the strategic mode. Thanks.

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

Ok, so the next question is, what's the best way to flee when playing a simultaneous game, when you don't have direct control over your units in combat?

To ram or not to ram, that is the question...

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">you can't really "flee combat" in either. you have to go the whole 30 days. That aside, you can't dodge weapons ranges in Simultaneous games. Of that matter, there are a lot of things you can't do in that set-up, that you can do in tactical. I am still trying to figure out if there is an easy way to blockade planets, without haveing to design special ships soley for that purpose.

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There really isn’t a right answer to this one. Whatever you chose, a lot of times you will whish you had taken the other option.

Here is how I use to do it against the AI (I play all battles on strategic since tactical gives the human player to much of an advantage, and makes the game to damn easy). Against humans it is probably better to vary.

First 20-30 turns:
Unarmed scouts and transports I set to don’t get hurt. If they meet an opponent with the same tactics they will survive, and they don’t have enough bulk to do any damage ramming.
Colonizers I set to Ram. They can often survive relatively unharmed against the AI’s scouts, usually escorts or frigates with a couple of DUC’s. If the AI uses missiles you are dead anyway. The disadvantage is of course when you meet another colonizer, then both players usually ends up with empty hulls they still need to pay maintenance for.

Later in the game I just don’t care, as any unarmed ship is a dead duck.

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

I only run in tactical if I have a decent speed advantage against an AI.

Otherwise, RAMMING SPEED!!!

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I am playing my first simultaneous game in SP mode to leard the quirks, to see if I might be interested in PBW. I am trying to set up a surrender with one of the AIs. I have been able to blockade one of his planets, but it also has WPs on the surface. these will have have to be destroyed before I can make the demand. i have tried numerous things, and all have proved difficult to implement, and a majority of the time the planet gets glassed. I am thinking the "easiest" way is going to be to design a specific ship only for blockading, and a specific ship for planet capture/defense destruction.

I know some of the players here love it, but personally, I can't stand simultaneous games. Not yet anyway. I really miss the tactical combat. IMO, that is half the fun of the game. However, that rant is for another thread. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

"I am trying to set up a surrender with one of the AIs. I have been able to blockade one of his planets, but it also has WPs on the surface. these will have have to be destroyed before I can make the demand."

Err..not exactly. AI's don't care if their planets are armed to the teeth or utterly defenseless when considering a surrender. All that matters is your score vs their score, and weapon platforms, like all units, don't count for score.

And you can't force a single planet to surrender. Only entire empires. Though you could ask the AI to tribute you the planet..

Phoenix-D

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

PD. Most of the details of this are in my Simultaneous game thread, so I will be brief.

I know only complete empires will surrender. It was my experience in TB that the Ai had to be pretty much defenseless. All planets have to be blockaded, and no SATs or combat ships left. I don't think score is the only factor. WP may not be considered, will have to try that some in this current game. It's not really a playing game either, I am trying to works any major bugs out of a simultaneous strategy, so I am trying a number of different things. If I have to do a reload to try something else, I will.
This is a learning game, not a playing game. it is my first time trying a s.m. game. (so no flaming peeps).

[ January 31, 2003, 21:08: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

"It was my experience in TB that the Ai had to be pretty much defenseless. All planets have to be blockaded, and no SATs or combat ships left. I don't think score is the only factor."

First just FYI surrender and all other AI actions work the same in either mode. Second, I've had an AI surrender without doing that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Third, from the AI files:
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">These control how the AI handles surrender. Blocking does help, since by blocking their planets you remove any production from that planet. That lowers their score IIRC.

Phoenix-D

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

If the planet does not have any ships in orbit you can change the fleet strategy to Don't get hurt. This will blockade a planet because when combat occurs when you move into the sector you ships will run for the corners. They will not get in range of planetary defenses. After that first battle the planet will be blockaded.

This has worked for me in PBW.

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

Well, in developing my mod, which will be PBEM only, and not use any AI's, it would be helpful to find effective ways of giving unarmed ships a chance to flee. One thing I've been doing is modding the ships so that the number of engines you need for a movement point is directly related to the ship's mass. So, the bigger ships would tend to move slower than the smaller ships, and unarmed transports are usually just engines and cargo pods anyway, so in theory they could mount more engines and thus move faster than a warship that needs the space for weapons. Just have to teach them not to get cornered...

Re: Fleeing from battle -- how?
 

PD, "Blocking does help, since by blocking their planets you remove any production from that planet. That lowers their score" that would explain it. thx. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif