| IT Defense |
Tue, 03 June 2008 14:09  |
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 Effluviant Walrus |
 | Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 91
Registered: May 2008
Location: New York, US | |
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Suppose you're an IT who has a decent sized empire but is trying to avoid war in order to develop a bit first (your gate network connects the whole empire, but has patches, as in you need to take round-about paths to get to some places). However, you're pretty sure that your neighbors are aggressive, and are expecting at least one of them to attack soon.
Is it a better idea to station a garrison close to the center of your empire or station a garrison around the perimeter? If you station the center, it can deploy anywhere within a turn or two, but it makes you seem weak as your ships are not really visible. If you station at the perimeter, it will present a strong front, but it might take half your forces three or four turns to get to the front.
What would you do?
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| Re: IT Defense |
Tue, 03 June 2008 18:21  |
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| Effluviant Walrus |
| Senior Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 91
Registered: May 2008
Location: New York, US | |
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Well, this is completely hypothetical, so the situation is whatever you want it to be. I was just looking for a general deployment philosophy.
However, your point about overgating made me think - I don't really use overgating as much as I could, especially as an IT. I think at least in most of the testbeds I ran I could probably get from one end of the empire to the other in 2 acceptable overgates (any/300); this would lessen the disadvantage of deploying on the border.
My biggest worry though is of a sneak attack or feint (using Kill Starbase), stranding a large chunk of my fleet somewhere on the border where its useless to defend against the enemy's main force.
Maybe I could use a central garrison itself as an diplomatic tactic. Since the enemy might expect that, I might be able to bluff and pretend I have more forces just a jump away; alternatively, I could actually have a large force and lure someone else into attacking me by looking weak.
Whew. Anyway, since I'm not actually playing an IT in a game, its just a mental exercise, but that turned out to be complicated. And I thought that being an IT would make force deployment so much simpler 
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| Re: IT Defense |
Tue, 15 July 2008 12:39 |
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Depends on what you want to achieve diplomatically.
If you are at peace, want to remain at peace, and want your opponents to know you have a strong fleet... In that case I'd keep the fleet moving. Gate it around the border at random, trying to ensure it's within reach to make it to the opposite side promptly if necessary. Basically both showing the fleet off and making it unpredictable where it will be each year (so it is difficult for an opponent to strand it, and also risky for them to try to sneakily pluck a 'vulnerable' world.)
Better yet, deploy adequate minefields and scanners, to be able to predict any meaningfull attack / buildup a year early. Then it doesn't really matter much where your fleet is, except for the decision of how much of it you want to expose to alien scanners.
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