I learned a nice little lesson from the AI this weekend. Wouldn't you know, it happened when I thought *I* was being the clever one.
I had a fleet of LC/CR, a supply ship, repair ship, and troop transport (13 ships total) ready to jump into an Aquilaeian system. The previous turn I had executed a successful random "crew insurrection" Intel project, and by good luck (hah!) captured a cloaked (!) CR on the far side of the very warp point my fleet was about to transit. (I knew the Acks had Stealth armor and I had previously detected the occasional cloaked ship infiltrating my systems).
My new allies reported that the far side of the warp point was guarded only by 2 LC and 6 Sats. Haha! I had caught the poor dumb Acks napping! Gloating, I ordered my Ack CR to uncloak and engage its former comrades, and sent my fleet through the warp point. Victory would soon be mine! Muahahahaha!
In retrospect, of course I should have asked myself two questions:
(1) Why was my Ack CR cloaked when I captured it?
(2) Wasn't it an incredible coincidence that, out of the entire Aquilaeian Empire, my random Intel project captured a ship in
exactly the right place?
Well, I'm sure the Space Empires veterans reading this will know what happened next. The warp point was actually guarded by an additional BC and 22 CR, all cloaked. This fleet must have been a substantial part of the Ack navy, making a random crew insurrection more likely to strike it. Watching the turn's combat replays, I saw my liberated CR vaporized and figured my incoming fleet was doomed.
Fortunately my crews paid only a small price for their commander's stupidity. Both fleet and individual ships were generally trained to the max, all combat ships had ECM, Stealth/Scattering armor, and shields, and they were armed with deadly PPBs. After the initial close range volley, ships on both sides scattered and continued the battle at medium and long range. In the end the Aquilaeian fleet was annihilated, at the cost of two ships crippled and two lightly damaged, mostly in the first combat turn.
Taking the lesson to heart, I designed and crash-built a fast scout class with Hyper Optics and Stealth Armor. These ships will infiltrate enemy systems (only the Pyrochette have shown up with cloak detectors so far), or accompany my fleets into enemy territory. I've been slow to appreciate the potential of stealth technology in a game without mines, but I plan to make up for lost time.