Strategy & Tactics Roundtable

[Dave Baughman]

This thread is for discussing strategy and tactics, as well as for Q&A on the example operations posted on this board.

Take a look at the example of a fast in-and-out recon raid operation I just posted. Any comments, rules questions, etc? Did I mess anything up (its been a while since I've done FP combat after all!)?

[Fatebringer]

Raven Alliance Strategic Economic Plan

The following describes the Raven's strategy to move from low income to mid level income. The key to an economic strategy is balance. There is little incentive for big factions to work with big factions or little factions to work with little factions. My realization for this didn't come from me reading the rules, but from my first Random event that allowed me to trade freely with the DC and gain Public Support for it. When I knew that I could make good money and increase my public support, I then developed the economic strategy that involved deals with bigger factions that could not afford to run Detox projects for themselves without saving up for several turns.

While not everyone has the luxury of neighbor they could work with, this worked for me as I made deals, not friendships. People who don't actively hate you, are generally going to agree to proposals that help their bottom line. When I made money off the deal, a small realm like mine benefitted from the +1 bonus a successful deal generated to create new Economic Zones. While Economic zones aren't as useful for bigger realms, but the advantage of having a large realm means that they can place these benefits deep in their interior as secure means of income.

Raven Alliance – Lessons Learned – Cost inflation

Beware the costs of success. The successful increase in land and wealth the Raven Alliance experienced comes at a prince. Bottom line inflation. Projects now cost more for me to run. A detox project on turn 1 cost me 50 RP, now, it's up to almost 150RP. The drastic deals I made with people now do not yield as much return as my costs are up and I become less competitive in this market compared to let's say a TC or WiE faction who are still tiny by comparison to the people who really need that kind of support.

Raven Alliance – Lessons Learned – CA on Warships

The economic feasibility for CA on Warships does not really compute. A very high upkeep cost for some extra FP. This should only be used if you KNOW you'll have the RP to spend, and probably only on your flagship. I myself plan on decommissioning my Sovetskii Soyuz, just to remove this cost.

Clan Wolf  – Lessons Learned – Military Upkeep

"I have the largest, best trained and kept force in the galaxy!"

They also have the highest upkeep and have spent nearly every spare Kerensky they have for several turn on trying to regain their public support. The cost of their upkeep is so ungainly that they can barely run any projects. The real lesson learned here? ATTACK! If you have an inflated military, send them out, don't sit on them. They are chains around your economy that are dragging you down. Who needs 10,000 average warriors, send them out to gain experience and train the ones that prove successful, RP their success and failures, cut the dead weight, then you'll have a force you can afford and are proud of. Remember kids! Skill level only effects upkeep of warships, you can up your overall force value by training your troops without increasing your upkeep!

Wolf-in-Exile - Unit Upgrades

The WiE made up with their long time allies, the LC, a great deal was made that brought them a lot of revenue. Doing the math, they found that it was more advantageous to upgrade one unit at a time, then to adds across the board upgrades. So, instead of training all their units to veteran, then on the next turn giving them Unit improvements, they picked a few units, and did skill upgrades and unit improvements at the same time so that all the projects had the base cost of the unimproved unit, instead of an improved unit.

Example: WiE wants to upgrade Alpha Galaxy - Cluster B (FL Heavy Mech Cluster) R/R 180FP with a skill upgrade, a CA (BA) unit improvement, and an EI unit improvement.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To do them on separate turns increases the cost.

Unit Improvement - Skill Upgrade (Regular to Veteran) = Charge is FP x 3 = (249-180= 69) * 3 = 207 RP

CA adds one bottom level unit of the CA type for each mid-level unit. In this case there are 5 Mid-Level units. So 5 Bottom level units are added.
(34 / 75) * 10 = 5 FP per bottom Line BA unit. 5 x 5 = 25 Additional FP before adding the skill modifier and 34 FP afterwards.

Unit Improvement – CA Unit Improvement = New unit FP – 75% of the Old unit = (249 + 34) – (249*.75) = 283 – 187 = 96 RP

Unit Improvement – EI Unit Improvement = Charge is 30% of Base Unit FP = 283 *.3 = 85 RP

Total Cost over three turns = 207 + 96 + 85 = 388

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To do them on the same turn has a base cost that doesn't change.

Unit Improvement - Skill Upgrade (Regular to Veteran) = Charge is FP x 3 = (249-180= 69) * 3 = 207 RP

CA adds one bottom level unit of the CA type for each mid-level unit. In this case there are 5 Mid-Level units. So 5 Bottom level units are added.
(34 / 75) * 10 = 5 FP per bottom Line BA unit. 5 x 5 = 25 Additional FP before adding the skill modifier and 34 FP afterwards.

Unit Improvement – CA Unit Improvement = New unit FP – 75% of the Old unit = (180 + 25) – (180 *.75) = 205 – 135 =  70 RP

Unit Improvement – EI Unit Improvement = Charge is 30% of Base Unit FP = 180 *.3 = 54 RP

Total Cost in one turn = 207 + 70 + 54 = 328

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cost Savings: 388 – 328 = 60 RP

[Dave Baughman]

I should point out that the "WIE upgrade scheme" described in the previous post is not an exploit of an unintentional loophole, instead its a case of the Third Commandment in action. Front-loading the cost on these upgrades rather than taking the 'slow and safe' approach is incentivized by the lower cost-per-project.