[raynor]

A large component of the domino surrender is the ease with which you can 'blockade' the AI homeworld. If you send an escort (which *might* not even be armed) to their homeworld and press 'End Turn' 30 times without ever engaging the planetary defenses, then the game considers you to be blockading their homeworld. This costs the AI about half their score without much trouble and just about doubles how quickly you can make the AI's surrender to you.

I didn't try it with an unarmed ship. If you can blockade with an unarmed ship, I would like to see that changed. I *guess* it makes sense that you can blockade without engaging the planetary defenses. That would make sense from the naval perspective where the enemy might be able to utterly destroy your warships if they came into range of gun emplacements in a city. But if you waited just outside the range of those gun emplacements, any ship trying to get out of or into the harbor could be harassed by your fleet.

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 17 February 2001).]