Combat

[Suicide Junkie]

The easiest way to break a formation is to click the leader (blue flag) and press CTRL-0. This removes the leader from the formation, so the wingmen won't try to follow him anymore.

The formation is useful for getting into position, such as when you are sending 25 ships halfway across the combat map to engage the enemy fleet. You can then break up the fleet once you get in weapons range.

[Ward]

Although I am fairly certain what the responses will be, I was curious if people preferred strategic or tactical when involved in a space battle.

When I bought SEIV I preferred tactical. I was happy I could crush AI. But soon that was no fun and it took a long time. I like to play really big empires and 5-10 combats in 1 round is awfully long time. Then I reviewed strategies and now I play only strategic combat. The only thing I didn't manage the AI to do is dogfighting(to approach, fire and retreat in one round so that the enemy can't fire on you). I believe this is the main reason why human opponents win. Programming advanced tactics isn't that difficult and I really don't understand why the Creators of SEIV didn't spend more time on this. It is one on the most important things in SEIV after all.