The
Fascists Fork
By Timo Kreike
Imagine
this tactic - let's call it the 'Fascist Fork'. I've developed
it as an unstoppable suicide-attack on an enemy homeworld,
but it ended up in destroying _21_ ships in one turn losing
only three ships myself. Got your attention now? :-)
History
of the game
I'm playing the Fascists. I've got about 60 planets in the
south-west corner of the cluster. I've exterminated my nearest
neighbour on my right side, the Privateers. The closest
player on my left is the Colonies. Well that's not so very
close: the distance between my homeworld (Washington #214)
and his homeworld (Sanstrisious # 418) is more than 500
LY. He had about 20 planet in a small area running north-south,
his homeworld being the center planet.
At turn
45 we still didn't have any cooperation or agreement of
any kind whatsoever and I decided to *do* something.
Evaluation
The main disadvantage of the Colonies is the size of their
ships: they are all very small. There are just two ships
having a mass larger than 200 kT: the Scorpious and the
Virgo. Perfect! Two Glory Devices exploding at the same
time will destroy almost an entire Colonial fleet.
I deployed
some cloakers and I spied the enemy forces on their planets.
My neighbour was using Cobols as transports. There were
Little Joe's for minesweeping and he used Patriots and Cygnus'
as capital ships. There was a Patriot on the cluster near
#415. There was a small strikefleet of 3 Cygnus' on planet
#403 or #420. His homeworld was protected by two Virgo's
and some other smaller ships were waiting there: Cobols,
Freighters, Lady Royale's. There were about four or five
Cobols running up and down the line 415 - 418 - 123 and
further north/south.
When
I was expanding my empire I could come as far as planet
#136! Around turn 30 - 35 I conquered Ka'Hat (#54) and Upikarium
(#467). Both planets were worthless - no minerals, no nothing.
When the Colonial player recaptured Ka'Hat I had managed
to get the Natives (2 million Reptilian, Anarchy) very,
very angry... I destroyed his ship and the planet was lost
for either of us for the rest of the game.
x o
x
x 415
o 54
X 418
x 403 o
x 420
o 136
o
o
x 123
o 467
o
o ==
Fascist planet
54 == Ka'Hat
136 == Organia 3
467 == Upikarium
x ==
Colonial planet
415 == Scoptor
403 == New Alaska
420 == Bendotex
123 == Scorpious
X ==
Colonial homeworld
418 == Sanstrisious
I could
of course try to Pillage him to death, but those Virgo's...
No, I decided to do an hit and run attack on his homeworld
and the two nearby planets to test my Glory Devices. It
should have a great psychological impact on my neighbour.
My
ideas
-
Those
two Virgo's would attack an incoming fleet immediately.
Hmmm, what about spitting my strike forces?
-
I
needed one GD for the strike force of three Cygnus's and
two more for his homeworld. Maybe I could hit some ships
(Lady Royale) - but in any case I would destroy 40 - 60
% of his colonist population and structures!
-
Just
going in with three Glory Devices would unveil the nature
of the attack, and just using the cheaper D19s would also
point in the right direction. I used both Sabers and D19s.
-
It
would be very unsafe by just using those beam-only ships,
so I secured the attack by sending three Victorious Battleships.
-
The
final touch: to disguise the meaning of the Glory Devices
I called them 'Fighersweeper', Fightercatcher' etc. Very
logically, not? I would fool my new opponent by sending
a battlegroep: Saber/D19 fight first to kill some fighters
of a Virgo/Starbase and the Victorious will finish the
job.
-
So
I made three strike forces: A. Victorious, Saber, D19
B. Victorious, Saber C. Victorious All GD's had X-rays.
All ships had Transwarp Drives. Strike force A was the
main force and should attack his homeworld from the north.
Strike force B was intended to smash Bendotex and it's
defending fleet. Victorinous C would come from the south
to force the Virgo's to stay on Sanstrisious.
-
The
retreat: the battleships were just protection and should
retreat at the same turn the GD's should explode.
-
One
thing was really bugging my mind: defensive minefields.
I would expect the Colonial player to lay minefields to
stop my three incoming fleets. A single minehit would
destroy any D19 and cripple my Sabers. This would surely
ruin my tactic. Therefore the spying cloaker (a Deth Specula)
was equipped with Heavy Phasers to get rid of enemy minefields.
And all Victorious Battleships were filled with torpedos
to lay enormous minefields. Yes, even when I was fighting
the Colonies I would use offensive minefields - and it
worked: you'll see!
The
Balance
I lost
5 ships: four Glory Devices and a Victorious, three of which
I had set to explode myself. I got enough PBPs to build
lots of new ships. All three Victorious Battleships lasted
to the end of the game, the two that were damaged in the
attack were repaired on a nearby starbase. I destroyed 18
Colonial ships and a Crystal ship.
And
the Colonial player? He thought Combat would happen before
Glory Device explosions. He'll never forget it again. The
Colonial player lost half his fleet. He had only 4 Cobols
left on his planets way down south to act as transports.
There were no Gemini's and Sagittarius's left so he had
to build his fighters in his Virgo's. There were no freighters
to recolonise New Alaska and Bendotex so he had to tow his
Merlin with his Virgo to bring some colonists from his halved
population of his homeworld. And he was feeling very, very
sorry for the Onyx he never got.. :-)
This
tactic has weak points as all tactics have... The enemy
for instance could remove his low mass ships from his planets.
But how does he think he will defend his planets/starbases?
The only races with more than 2 hull types heavier than
200 kT are the Empire and the Robots...
You
could learn from this what you want. I've called it Fascist
Fork, and that's exacly what it is: a fork with three of
the most deadly weapons of the Fascists functioning as tips.
You will use the Fork to stab your enemy hitting his most
spicy spot. Not his weakest spot: you sure want to put your
fork in some meat, don't you? Maybe you just could at least
remember the 83 LY technique.... it involves some calculating
(Pythagoras) but it's really very nice.
