23-09-2003 13:01									#1
	space combat time limit Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

here is a small abusing I like:

Set the space combat time limit to 1 min in the game creation. and equip more one-shot missiles on your ships.

Enemy LR/SR ships will have little time to fire their big guns, IF ships can barely launch second wave of missiles, and CV ships can never launch second wave of fighters. But your IF ships can unload everything at once and (if you want) stay for just 1 min to make the combat at least draw.

	23-09-2003 14:21									#2
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

And if you cannot see the enemy for this single minute, then what?
You are right that you will hardly lose such battle but IMO it is very unlikely to win or actually kill some ships except if they appear close enough.

	23-09-2003 16:05									#3
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

When you attack a planet and you set combat mode 'watch', your fleet will autofire the missiles toward planets (even it has no defensive power) and find any opposing fleet on the way.

When you're defending, you have quite small chance to detect enemy fleet if they have good cloaking. So you need 1) good recon ships, 2) enough PD firepower to defend yourself from out-of-sight enemy attack (it looks like AEGIS system, eh)

It really hurts if 10 armadas of enemy IF/CV ships attack your planet in this case, but that is troublesome in any other case too. and usually such hugh fleets cannot cloak themselves well so you can deal with them well.

attack! attack! attack!

	23-09-2003 17:27									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

I am using "watch" mode too.

When you take a planet from an enemy system, and the enemy has other planets there, then it is a coin flip if you will be attacking or defending. (Or may be I am wrong?)

I found that in case of defence against missiles from invisible enemy, the interceptors from the carriers may give tremendous help for killing the enemy missiles/fighters. In large numbers they seem to kill well too.
The LR attack fleets seem to have the behaviour to "seek" the enemy when it is invisible. Currently I am using fleets with 3CR/3IF/2LR task forces +2 transports.
Most of the time I am winning - either without casualties, or with ~13% losses. Sometimes one of my LR fleets is killed and needs replacement. In the same time I usually inflict heavy casualties to the enemy. My avg. tech level is 38, and the task forces are titan armadas.

I haven't tried the "only missiles" tactics and can't really say if it is better .... but if I do I will post my observations.