cute trick in simultaneous game

[LeTharg]

In a PBEM game, I had a more powerful fleet close to an opponents fleet. I pushed the attack button and, when asked which ship in his fleet to attack, chose the first one.

My opponent, guessing that I would select the first, ran for the hills with that ship and attacked a weak force of mine guarding a wormhole with the rest of his fleet. So my fleet ended up vainly chasing one ship while his main force snuck in behind me. Pretty cute. But it gave some ideas for some other sucker punches...maybe I can get back at him.

Anyway, does anyone have tactics to prevent this kind trick. I'm going to select my ship at random from now on but I suppose one could split ones fleet and attack each ship individually (too much like work).

[PvK]

I think that's basically it - decide how many chunks you're willing to break your fleet into, and assign them to the most important enemy ships. Otherwise, the enemy may split your fleet into multiple pursuers and spread them out and trap them.

However there is one other tactic. If you order your ships to move one sector at a time, they will attack any foes in that sector. In this way, if you have the advantage of numbers and/or speed, you can block areas of space with patrols, rather than chasing specific ships.

Another technique is to give orders to attack each ship in the enemy fleet, which will be carried out in sequence. This will allow your fleet to chase down multiple fragments if the enemy fleet scatters.

A combination of tactics can be useful, too. Such as, Move your whole fleet together one or two sectors using sector movement through the expected enemy course. Then have two or three Groups target the two or three most important enemy ships. Then give follow-on orders to hunt down all the lesser enemy ships. That will lead to a fairly comprehensive attack.

PvK

[LeTharg]

Thanks PvK,

That's a nice spread of tactics and I'll give them a try. A very similar situation is coming up again.

LeTharg