Fight Dirty?

[Gwaihir]

Well, although he's got issues with the finer details and micromanagement, it sounds like he understands the fundamentals of play very well. He got lotsa colonies, and exploited other players effectively. Are you sure he hasn't practiced on the side, say vs the AI? I didn't play SE3 Online until I could beat 9 hard AIs on computer vs. humans team play, and I never lost a game (although I was accused on one occasion of being a second ID for a known player, which seems less of a possiblity if you know this guy).

If he gloats, set him up in a game with an expert. That'll "put him in his place." If he doesn't bite, then he's got less justification to gloat. Newbies that think too highly of themselves tend to get smacked.

If he has no system defense, can you get to him with stellar manip?

Not many people are going to give you their dirty fighting tricks, cause those are majorly important strategy secrets, brought out only when necessary.

[Hotfoot]

Work up to communications mimic, then screw over all of his alliances. If he is an uber-newb, he's going to be ultra-reliant on trade with his allies. You would seriously hamper his economy, and thus buy yourself some vital breathing room.

Also, once you can get into his space, consider sending some plague bomb ships (with as much ECM/stealth&scattering armor/ship&fleet experience as you can muster) in to his colony worlds. Go for the ones least likely to be defended and pick them off one at a time. After that, try to plague his major colonies. Then follow up with your primary invasion force.

That should be enough to get you started.

[Pooka]

Originally posted by Hotfoot:
Work up to communications mimic, then screw over all of his alliances. If he is an uber-newb, he's going to be ultra-reliant on trade with his allies. You would seriously hamper his economy, and thus buy yourself some vital breathing room.

The problem here is that he's not reliant on trade, and someone allready botched a comm mimic on him so he'll be wary of that. On the other hand, I'm trying to covert-recon his spaceports and set them up as targets so I can move in and cripple his economy without having to extract him from every single planet in the system.

Also, once you can get into his space, consider sending some plague bomb ships (with as much ECM/stealth&scattering armor/ship&fleet experience as you can muster) in to his colony worlds. Go for the ones least likely to be defended and pick them off one at a time. After that, try to plague his major colonies. Then follow up with your primary invasion force.

This is good stuff, but the entire player group 'cept for 3 of the 8 (myself included) have almost no experience with SEIV personally. I also know the people on the other side of him will rally to his cause if I use plague bombs. (They're hardcore RPers) I've been racing up Intel and ECM as fast as I can, in an attempt to make my frigates more competitive with his dreads. I've also started leaning on fighters and sats and mines since they don't require maintenance costs. I'm close to taxing my available resources (including my current trade income) just keeping a comparable fleet to his going. I'm probably just screwed but I'm hoping to at the very least make the war something worth remembering. Next game I won't be so foolish as to mess with tech I've never used before. I hadn't played with Psychic until this game and expected it to have intelligence bonuses. Boy was I dissapointed.

Thanks for the advice though. I do appreciate it.

[Ragnarok]

Here is a tip I don't know if you thought of it yet.
When you capture his high tech ships with your intel projects, take those ships back home and analyze them. You will gain a level in ship construction for free basically this way. If you do this 2 or 3 times, you will have Dreads as well floating around.

[Gwaihir]

Sounds like the only WPS in and out are guarded pretty heavily, so that probably won't work too well. Unless he can get one of the blockading ships, and newly acquired ships don't engage on the first turn.

[Karibu]

If he is inexperienced, he might neglete using point defence. If so, then your cruisers with missiles will shatter his ships out of existence before he has a chance to shoot.

Oh, I forgot to mention that with cloacking you can get past his ships in the warp point if he uses no scanners.

[ May 05, 2003, 07:27: Message edited by: Karibu ]

[Gwaihir]

ooh, cloaking, good point. But if he has a lot of tech, he prob. has sensors

[ May 05, 2003, 07:39: Message edited by: Gwaihir ]