[Mordante]

Hi everyone,

The pbem game I am playing in has reached turn 80 and from the initial 16 players, only five are left. All empires are pretty well developed (150-210) tech levels - and the techs of baseship, nullspace, propulsion, phased shields and other bits and pieces are in common ownership. Stella-manipulation is also being widely used.

My problem, - how to even think about winning a decisive space war against an empire with similar technology and simular economic capabilities.

It's a fair guess that an offensive would meet a fleet of around 50-100 dreadnaughts and baseships equipped with massive or heavy nullspace/phased polaron and phase shields.

Win conditions for the game are to have 200% of the closest rivals score so bloodshed is going to be absolutely neccessary.

Options considered;

1. Straight Military - how would everyone fight those baseships most effectively in a war of attrition.

2. Stellor Manipulation Assault - Novas and Black Holes - best strategies for genocidal mania ?

3. Intelligence War - It seems impossible to beat 100,000 pts of intel defence split into 4-5 counterintel 3 projects.

4. Deep Strike via warp openers and fast fleets?

5. Ground Wat?

Basically the problem is in finding a decisive advantage in a tech equal environent.

Of the Last 5 players; Two have organic tech, Two (including me) have crystal tech - and one is playing a zero ship maintenance monstrosity for those limitless build kicks.

My race has + to attack dice, - to defence dice, extra movement and crystalline tech - how would you build ships to take out normal tech baseships from a no-maintenance power?

Big question I realise and probably not a situation which happens against the computer - but it is a top challenge and I would like to hear alternative opinions.

Regards