[geoschmo]

Do I have this correct: Both of you were in the same system. You warp and he follows you through the same warp point and he fires first in the combat?

The way it's supposed to work is the defender is supposed to fire first in combat. It may be that since your fleet was moving that turn the game didn't consider you to be defending the warp point, even though you had finished moving by the time he got through it. If the game decided neither of you was defender it's supposed to be random which goes first. At least that's the way I read the history file. Probably if you had got through the warp point and been able to sit for a turn before he came through you would have got first shot guaranteed.

It used to be always the player with the higher player position going into the game got to shoot first on all the combats. It's never been faster player or anything like that, although that would make some sense.

Geoschmo