Space Empires - eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate

Finally, the chapter Paul has been waiting for. After you have explored near and deep space, and expanded with colonies on near by planets, and exploited the resources and technological artefacts there is just one logical behaviour left to a sophisticated, advanced sentient race: the extermination of any other sentient, or near sentient, beings.

The basic game gives you a few avenues to (and the advanced game several more novel methods) to achieve this totally reasonable aim. Essentially, it is very simple. Build a formidible fleet, destroy the alien fleet, and then sail through their empire to take out their home world. The devil is in the detail.

There are three things to consider when building a formidable fleet.

1. Big fleets get more die rolls and a fleet size bonus
2. Big ships score are more likely to and better absorb damage
3. Technically superior fleets shoot first and get a bit more bang

What is combat

First things first. Combat is quite simple in Space Empires. Each ship gets a turn to shoot (provided it is not destroyed first). When it is its turn, it subtracts the defense strength of the target from its attack strength and then you need to roll a (10 sided die) euqal or lower than that number (and a 1 always hits). If you do, the target takes a hit. When the hits equal the hull strength, it is destroyed.

Let's have a big fleet

The Soviet approach to the cold war was the threaten the US technology with weight of numbers, and you can do that here. You can just build masses of Scouts at 6 CP per ship, and overwhelm the opposition with die rolls. What will hurt is the maintenance cost and the limit of 24 scouts.

 

 

Let's have a powerful fleet

This is similar to the Japanese approach to naval warfare in WW1 and 2. The best ships in the games are Dreadnaughts, and they cost 4 times as much as a scout, are twice as likely to score a hit, shoot first take three hits to kill. The down side is the technology cost of 100 points before you can begin to build them.

 

Let's have a technically superior fleet

This is probably the German WW2 approach. (I think you would argue that the Americans and British in WW 1 and 2 could afford all three: size, strength and technology). The game lets you purchase attack technology (adds to the ship's attack), defense technology, adds to the ships defense, tactics technology (allows the ship to shoot first) and movement technology (allows the ship to outmaneuver the enemy). In the advanced game, you can get into mine technology, fighter technology, cloaking and scanning and point defense, but I won't discuss those here.

An experiment

Lets see what we can do with a budget of 150 CPs. (This would be twice the annual income of a large empire.)

The Bigs can build 24 scouts and have 6 CP change. The Strongs can buy 2 dreadnaughts and have 2 CP change. The Technicals spend 25 on ship size to get cruisers, 20 on attack and 20 on defense and then buy 7 cruisers (at 12 * 7 = 84) and have 1 CP left.

Bigs vs Strongs

The Dreadnaughts shoot first and need 6 or less. They get a 9 and a 5. One scout is destroyed. The scouts retaliate but need a 1. They roll 23 die, but get three 1s, so a dreadnaught is destroyed. Next round (while a sane admiral would withdraw) the dreadnaught rolls and three and another scout goes down. The scouts roll 22 die but only score one hit. The dreadnaught survives to roll a 4 and destroys another scout. The scouts roll 21 die and get one more hit. (Their luck us running low.) The dreadnaught rolls 8 and misses. The scouts roll two more ones and win the battle decisively.

Bigs vs Technicals

The cruises have an attack of 4 + 1 and a defense of 1 + 1. They attack the scouts first and get four numbers 5 of less, and already outperform the dreadnaughts. The scouts attack, but get a plus one as they have the bigger fleet, so a 1-2 gives a hit. In 20 rolls, they get 5 hits and destroy two cruisers. In the second round the cruisers get two hits with 5 dice. The scouts are down to 18. They are lucky and get 4 hits so their are three cruisers left, one damaged. In the thrid round, the cruisers get two more scouts. The scouts come up trumps with 5 hits and wipe out the cruisers. They were lucky to have 15 scouts left, but victory was always certain.

Strongs vs Technicals

The Technicals get a bonus against the Strongs as they have twice as many ships. The Dreadnaughts shoot first though but get no hits (they needed 1-4). The cruisers respond and get four hits (1-3) in 7 rolls (very lucky) and destroy a dreadnaught and damage the other. In the second round, the dreadnaught still does not get a hit and the cruisers get one more leaving the dreadnaught with one hull point left. The dreadnuaght finally gets a hit now, but the cruiser has two null points so survives. The cruisers will certainly get a 1-3 with the next seven rolls, and should consider themselves luck not to lose a ship.

Summary

In the above experiment, the Bigs clearly lead the field with the Technicals a distant second. Let's see who chooses what next weekend.

Next Week

We play!!!

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