Intel Comms Mimic Question

[PvK]

Comm mimic is extremely powerful, and yours isn't the only game PBW it's decided.

It made a huge difference in the Paranoia game, and who could forget the tale of the alliance which was destroyed when Comm Mimic removed the trade between two partners, causing a maintenance chain-reaction. The afflicted partner tried the "fire on ship" order to eliminate many of their ships (I'm not sure if they were too far from shipyards to mothball, or if the player didn't think of it), which backfired and caused most of their planets to revolt (upset at all the lost ships!), which sent them into a real resource disaster.

PvK

[Fyron]

Anyone that does not sufficiently garrison their planets with police troops is just asking for trouble. 100 is sufficient in most circumstances, 120 in the most dire.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

what, exactly does comm mimic do?

[Cyrien]

Causes a declaration of war between two empires. So you can see how that could be bad if the allies don't have good communication or are counting on the trade income.

[Loser]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Anyone that does not sufficiently garrison their planets with police troops is just asking for trouble. 100 is sufficient in most circumstances, 120 in the most dire.

Yes, but you can't always afford that in non-FQM games. Space is needed for Weapon Platforms and Mine and Satellite staging as well.

Or do you, perhaps, regard Weapon Platforms as usless? At some point late in a game agaisnt humans their use becomes highly questionable, I am finding.

[Fyron]

You only need 1200 kT of cargo space for the troops. That leaves plenty of space on the breathable worlds (especially if you take Advanced Storage Techniques). Mines are small. You can fit tons of them on a planet. Also, build a storage base or two to hold them (and those satellites ). WPs and Satellites are useless against even moderately sized fleets. They might damage a couple ships, but that hardly means anything, as you should always have some repair ships along with your fleet. They are cheap. Especially when you get to higher speeds, the ships can usually do a lot of damage to the sats/WPs before they get a chance to fire. Their range advantage is not enough, esp. since WPs can be hit very easily from long ranges, due to the -200 ECM penalty for planets. I hardly build them past the early game. Better to spend resources on colony ships, and warships to take the fight to the enemy.

I have only been slowed down by WPs once past the early game, and that was when I attacked a planet that had been filled with temporal WPs with a fleet of about 50 primitive LCs and CRs (they had mostly DUCs, with some PPBs). But, that did not help them much, as I had plenty of state of the art BBs coming on-line at the same time, and they had already lost a lot of ground. Other than that, my fleets have always been able to overwhelm planets filled with WPs. They are really only a threat in the early game, and partially into the middle game.

[ October 14, 2003, 16:19: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Loser]

I'm not going to argue the WP issue, and I am glad to have your take on that.

I would like to say that Talisman WPs are still scary. They make that WP range advantage matter a little bit more. But then again, Talisman is scary most all the time.

But about the cargo space, those very worlds that need the additional cargo space from a Cargo Facility are the ones on which every Facility slot is precious. Unless you've got vacuum breathers, those tiny moons are better off with Ship and Fleet Training or Shipyard Facilities, and thus limited to only twenty or so Troops and four or so anger points per turn.

But sure, a wise player ought to be able to keep his breathers happy.