Oh, this is fun!

[Atrocities]

All I have to say is; bring your fleet into one of my controlled systems late in the game and watch what happens to them. Muwahahahahahaaaha

[dbt1949]

I know what you mean.Sometimes the planets will be armed to the gills with large weapons platforms and with the latest tech they'll take out a fleet of 30 ships in no time.
Then I have to redesign my ships and increase the fleet sizes.
Unless they don't have any system wide defenses.Then it's poof! rubble!

[Will]

Originally posted by dbt1949:
they'll take out a fleet of 30 ships in no time.

Which is why people opt for fleets more on the 100-ship range for planets like that

[minipol]

30 ship fleets is what i call a backup system defense fleet. For catching small enemy fleets.
In the endgame I usually have some 100-200 spare DB's lying around mothballed. I have 2 100+ fleets. So when a war is coming my way, i can bump the fleet up to 200 with the mothballed onces and still have some smaller fleets in the backsystems.

Once i have installed system shields, i can bring those smaller fleets to the front also. Anway, then the real fun is going to start: in my recent game against TDM AI, i have 2 ringworlds, 2 almost finised and another 4 will be finished within 8 turns. Yummy.
I cut down my fleet size down by mothballing ships
so the AI doesn't immediately attack me. That would slow things down because of the heavy cost of constructing 6 ringworlds at the same time. If they would do it now, i'm ready. Only 1 system has an open waypoint to another system of the AI (so i can jump in and toy with their planets). I already began concentrating forces there since the AI will probably start an attack soon as i am completing the ringworlds.

On of my gripes with SEIV is that while you are at peace with a race, they send in smaller fleets (+-8 to 10 ships) into your space and once they are at war, these little fleets can cause problems so you always have to keep some smaller fleets around yourself. I use the smaller fleets and large WP for that. Not sure what's best for this kind of defense. Maybe fighters are better, i don't know. I do know that building WP on all your planets ( what i did ) is very costly.

Anyway, that's why i like war, you always can keep your systems clean from those little enemy fleets and once you have system shields, nobody can come in through the back door so you know when and where they are going to come
Makes for a "cleaner" less chaotic game

[mottlee]

Dang 100+ ships in a fleet....I see I need to re-think my games

[ June 13, 2003, 14:01: Message edited by: mottlee ]

[QBrigid]

Wow, so many hundreds of ships, this seems like so much work to control and keep track of.

Plus you have Ring Worlds, dbt1949.
I have yet to be able to do this in se4. Can somebody help me on how this is done

[ June 13, 2003, 14:35: Message edited by: QBrigid ]

[Loser]

Originally posted by minipol:
On of my gripes with SEIV is that while you are at peace with a race, they send in smaller fleets (+-8 to 10 ships) into your space and once they are at war, these little fleets can cause problems so you always have to keep some smaller fleets around yourself.

I almost like this. Makes the little buggers more troublesome.

Originally posted by minipol:
Not sure what's best for this kind of defense.

I like mining the planet sectors.

Mines are cheap and any planet can build them. Only one hundred per sector, but by late game you've had time, and it ought to be able to seriously dent a little ten-ship fleet.

Do TDM AIs always keep Sweepers with their fleets?

I was under the impression that they only sent Sweepers to known fields. Since this will be a known field behind your lines, any Sweeper attempting to get there will be hard pressed to make it.

If I recall correctly, the AI will not warp-tunnel into a system that it knows. Give them the star charts and they shouldn't even knock a hole in your wall.