Are battles always one sided?

[Stone Mill]

askan,

Battles are lopsided, in my opinion and experience, at times without any discernable reason why. Especially with high tech fleets of 20 or 30+ or higher...
In simultaneous games I've played I was baffled at how two evenly matched fleets would clash- and one side would pretty much destroy the other while taking hardly any damage! The expectation would be that one side would win (because of and edge in technology or experience)... but in winning against that evenly matched opponent, the victor should take at least 50% losses. This never happens. It's always a butt-kicking!
After much investigation in trying to make sense of this, I asked my opponent, (who eventually won the upper hand in most of these battles) what it could be... And he said he tweaked the fleet orders much more. And I think there is much credence to this, I have watched combat replays with shock as many of my baseships and dreadnaughts broke formation at random and went off on their own while the bulk of my fleet whimsically engaged or chose not to engage.
It seems with simultaneous combat, unless you tweak your formation, fleet orders, and ship orders, you will be subjected to "Crazy Ivan" AI commanding your fleet. It is quite laughable to watch what the AI does with your ships when it goes into "idiot mode."

[This message has been edited by Stone Mill (edited 15 October 2001).]