[Will]

Well, it's been about 7 weeks since I've touched SE4 (mainly because I was gone for five weeks, and my motherboard is fried so I'm sending in for a replacement)...

But, when I was playing, I would usually go for Large quandrant, max AI with high bonus, and using default files. I'd usually start with 3 or 5 planets with low tech, high cost. By turn 100 I'll usually have a ship count of 120 with 20 being a mix of transports, carriers, support ships, etc., and the remaining 100 being BBs (800kT) of the same design family, with a few generations of designs that haven't yet been retrofitted. Also by turn 100 about a third to a half of the AIs have been eliminated (some being 'absorbed' by me), and I'm just about to enter MEE.

I generally will have about 20% of my ships in attack fleets with the rest remaining home. Attack fleets are usually 15-30 ships strong, and include a troop transport and, depending on the enemy, a few retrofitted warships that have all PDCs as weapons. A fleet like this will usually be able to consume an AI home system in about 15 turns. I don't like glassing planets, and usually only do it when I want the fleet to move on and the other planets in a system took too many troops and the captured planets haven't been able to replace them.

--edit: Forgot to say, once it gets down to me and the largest few AIs, I generally have around 300 ships, and only use one or two of the attack fleets I mentioned above (rest are used to keep the captured systems happy). At that point I'll just capture their home systems, become ridiculously MEE, and split up those fleets to go pick off stray ships, and send the troop transports with minimal escort to mop up the remaining planets.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 16 August 2001).]