revol

When Playing Against a Conservative Player:

1) Field Many High Orbit Defenses. Extremely conservative players will not want to risk damage to vessels by moving into their ranges. This gives the player control of that area of the board, which will help control the flow of the game, and also some cheap firepower to threaten unaggressive players with.

2) Most conservative players don't like leaving ships alone. Make sure all of your forces are in large groups capable of fighting many capital ships. The other player will most likely keep all of his/ her cruisers bunched up for fear of them being singled out.

3) Beware of large groups of escorts. The other player will want to insure escort safety by fielding them in large squadrons as opposed to smaller units, and they can unleash havok on exposed cruisers.

4) The tendency for large groups of slow moving ships means most ordinance won't work because of the amount of combined turrets and escorts. Mass up bombers/torpedoes/etc. for one or two large strikes, as several smaller ones will likely fail.

IN SHORT: Conservative players like to keep all of their ships together for mutual protection, so don't look for large numbers of small squadrons. They don't maneuvre very much, and will not go into areas that threaten their ships. This makes it easy to out maneuvre them, and stay away from their strongest fields of fire.

SHORT STRATEGY: Move fast and in large groups. Try to pin escorts into defenses to slow them down and destroy some. Move quickly to get behind capital ships, or make them chase you, and try to break them up.

When Playing Against an Aggressive Player:

1) Aggressive players will utilize the fastest ships possible, so look for many powerful escort squadrons. Be prepared to face several escort attacks on capital ships.

2) Sometimes holding a force in reserve helps. Many aggressive players are abstract and it is difficult to tell where their main strike will be. Keeping ships in reserve is a good defense against this, as they can be deployed to hot zones quickly and cleanly.

3) Look for opportunities to isolate ships, especially single cruisers, as they will all be spreading out and moving fast. Sometimes destroying one or two cruisers can create a big enough hole to fragment the enemy force completely.

4) Orbital defenses most likely will not work. Enemy ships will simply hurry past them, and will move so fast that stationary defenses have a good chance of never having anything in range. Aggressive fighters will usually end up somewhere different than you think at first. Use guns that can move!

5) Ordinance may prove extremely effective against aggressive fleets. Bombers and Torpedoes are fast moving and can deal good damage to small escort groups and unescorted cruisers. Also, the enemy player will probably want fast ships with good punch, as opposed to carriers. Judge the value of ordinance by the size of enemy escort squadrons and type of enemy cruisers.

more to come...