[Jmenschenfresser]

You listed a quite a lot askan. Especially given the fact that you stated real combat starts by turn 30.

I agree that the SE4 model lends itself to one ideal ship type which dominates over the others, but if combat starts around turn 30, no one can possibly research everything you mentioned before one's empire comes under attack.

Harken back to our game where I got my *** handed to me because I failed to develop and implement two things in time...mines and some kind of sensor to pick up ships with stealth armor. You were able to slip by and glass my home worlds.

In all actuality, when you did attack, I had already developed mines, and was in the process of building mine layers and mines. As far as the sensors go, when I got hit, they were the next thing in queue. Little too late though.

However, at the same time, I had spent much more time researching offensive tech, ship construction, ecm, combat sensors, weapons, etc. I am pretty sure I had slightly better fleets and a larger economic base.

I guess my whole point is...if combat starts by turn 30 on average, it's not the fact that there is an ideal game plan that matters, it's what you research and implement first which can win or lose the game.

So the answer is....

Intuition...

If you get out of the first 100 turns in a strong position, then it becomes a science.