Overall Strategy and Massive Confusion

[MikeRMcCartney]

Right now I am only playing against AI, but these suggestions sound great for when I do start to play against humans. Thanks. I've seen a couple of people mention keeping notes, either electronically or on paper, and was wondering how you organized them so they were useful? Do you organize by system or fleet or date? Could anyone post a sample (Unclassified of course), that showed an example?

[Gryphin]

Growtigga: Heads up!
The key to most strategic victories are:
Concentration of Effort, Ecconmy of Force, Mobility, and Flexibilty. (Addapted and modified ro game terms from Zun Sue The Art of War and a US Army Training Manuel)

Like you, at the moment I only play against the AI, but sometime soon, Growltigga and I hope to have a trans Atlantic game going, (PBEM).

My notes are mostly kept in separate files:
Specific to the current game
Apply to SE IV game mechanics.
Possible Strategies
Possible Tactics
Surprises
AI Behavior

Within the "Current Game"
It has always been my experiance that changing strategies part way though any endevor can be a big mistake are requires signifigant analasys before doing so. This does not mean you should not take the time to develop Point Defence Cannons if you run into a race using fighters or Cap Shp Mis,
Selected Global Strategy, IE: How I intend to "$X" the game as well as any details such as Facillities, Tech Trees I intend to complete in what order.
I tend to organize by "Front"
Then Solar Systems within the Front
Notes specific to AI actions and my intentions.

There is much more, but over all, it will be determined by your developping "Play Style".
Enjoy

[BeeDee10]

Oh, while I'm on the subject, another diVersionary naming tactic I use is to make sure each of my various stellar manipulation ships is a different class even if they have identical components. I don't do that for ship types with much more numerous members, since it makes for a _lot_ more work, but stellar manip ships are rare an expensive. I don't want one unlucky combat to let my enemies know which of my ships have sunbusters or warp-openers and which are just storm-clearers.

Alternately (there's _always_ an alternately), the ship classes "Nova1", "Nova3" and "Nova6" could have actual sun-destroying components whereas the classes "Nova2", "Nova4" and "Nova5" are actually just repair-and-resupply ships. Try to avoid having them get into combat, to keep your enemy from discovering that you're using this tactic. After the first system-bombing, he won't know which task forces are major kamikaze threats and which aren't - hopefully, he'll think they _all_ are.

One can always rename a ship, but one can't always easily change their class designation.

Confusion to the enemy!

[Skulky]

These namign strategies are great, i used the remnaming of the ships to great effect in tricking an enemy into thinking i had a plauge ship heading his way (bubonic) and had at least 3 more wiating (0004) and have done similar with my fleets, it doesn't hurt to change the numbers alittle to confuse them. but what happens when your queue runs into that number along the way? i guess it would just skip it. The note taking is smart, i have started that for all my PBW games, (AI isn't enough of a challenge that i need it, i can afford to screw up a little). and BeeDee10, does the enemy get to see your class designation? Going through neutral humans to spread disinformation is also a great tactic. another great trick is to make transport/colonizers with deeper purposes, means a lot of wasted effort on storage components but few will trouble with what appears to be a simple pop transport (can even back that up with a name...) and then their system goes up in smoke as the start of an intergalactic war. (was a pop deal previously).

[KDC]

You guys should try Interspector to take your notes. You can arrange your text in a tree. It's a great organizer.

http://www.popupsolutions.com/interspector

it's not free, but the demo is quite good.

[DirectorTsaarx]

quote:

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Originally posted by Skulky:
These namign strategies are great, i used the remnaming of the ships to great effect in tricking an enemy into thinking i had a plauge ship heading his way (bubonic) and had at least 3 more wiating (0004) and have done similar with my fleets, it doesn't hurt to change the numbers alittle to confuse them. but what happens when your queue runs into that number along the way? i guess it would just skip it.
<snip>

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Actually, the computer will just start numbering from whatever number you forced onto the ship name. I.e., if you build another "bubonic" class ship, it's number would be 0005. I figured this out a while ago, when I tried tracking refitted ships by incrementing the 1000's digit ("Lion 0001" refitted to "Lion II 1001"; the next Lion II to roll off the construction queue was then called "Lion 1002" by the computer).

[Praetor]

I always just use the age old expedient of giving my ships regular ship names, e.g., the TCS Victory or the HMS Repulse (depending on what kind of empire we're talking). Same for the classes. Obviously I can see at a glance what components a ship has, but to my opponents "HMS Coral Sea, Gloucester Class" doesn't mean squat. Plus, it just makes your navy seem more organized and professional (not to mention cool )