Combat: Strategic vs. tactical

[javaslinger]

So far in my limited experience I have used strategic combat entirely.

What added advantage would I get from using tactical combat instead or at least in certain situations.

Mostly when I attack I have overwhelming odds so stratgic seems to work fine. I also understand that in PBEM games you can only use strategic combat so I didn't want to become dependent on tactical tricks that wouldn't work in strategic mode...

thoughts??

Ken

[dumbluck]

In Tactical combat (imho), you get a better idea of the opponents weapon loadout choices, engine choices, etc. than you get from just the replay. but that's just my opinion. before they put in the replay, you got practically no info on this topic from strategic combat.

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May your Life prosper and your Dreams be sweet.

[javaslinger]

Replay? Is that the battle summary report you get in the logs? Or is there some way to replay the battle and watch?

ken

[dumbluck]

yea, the battle summary from the logs. us tactical players don't have much use for those, either. (except when we get trounced and don't know why. then they come in handy!)

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May your Life prosper and your Dreams be sweet.

[Griffin]

When the summary is highlighted there is a combat replay button lit down on the bottom right which allows you to watch a replay that looks like tactical combat but you don't get to see the damage breakdown during the combat (i.e every time you click on a ship you see it will all ocmponents, even if it only has a single engine left)

[raynor]

In strategic combat, you can direct your fleet to capture the planet. Your ships will fire on the planet until the weapon platforms are destroyed and then land troops. But... if you have a large fleet, it is not uncommon to utterly destroy the planet by accident in the process. In tactical combat, you can control which weapons on your ships fire and stop firing on the planet precisely when the Last platform is destroyed so that you don't destroy any facilities.

With overwhelming odds, tactical vs. strategic won't make as much of a difference. But if the battle is fairly evenly matched, you will almost always be able to control your ship better than the AI. In particular, I recently founght a battle using fighters that had much different results in strategic vs. tactical. In strategic, my light carrier with 60 fighters was utterly destroyed by six enemy light cruisers equipped with Point Defense Cannons I. In tactical, I destroyed anywhere from half the enemy ship to all of them!

[Jason2]

I prefer strategic... more because I find tactical to take too long than any other reason... I occasionally play tactical if the "stakes" are mega-high (like my homeworld etc)... but usually do strategic as a way of balancing gameplay with the AI.

[Lucanos]

Very smart Jason2.

Balancing the gameplay...
I've had problems with the AI, you see, I've never lost a game, well, I haven't actually won any, because I never finish them. I start a new game every week. ("Why?" I dunno why?)

I was looking for a compensation to the AI's foolishness. Once I lowered my racialpoints to ZERO, but I still won. But now I know how to make the AI more challenging: STRATEGIC battle.

Aha!

Uhu!

HE HE!

Thanks Jason2.

[God Emperor]

Lucanos,
Have you tried using my Research/ DesignCreation mod? If you havent, I suggest that you give it a try - you will find it helps the AI in combat greatly.
Regards,
God Emperor

[Aussie Gamer]

Another trick in Tactical combat is to approach the enemy, wait till they have fired their missiles and move the targeted ship away at full speed.
They only target one ship at a time so the others can rush in a shoot them up for one or two turns before one more is forced to run away.
If you take the extra movement trait then this helps this tactic.
I have won a lot of battles with only minimal damage to all ships. In Strategic I have lost some of the same battles.