 thirdparty
Joined: Dec 20, 2006
Posts: 279
Location: Eastern U.S.A. | Position in Galcon is not all about having the most ships or the most productivity, or even having good geography (e.g. having a comfy cluster that will see any attacks coming from a distance and that can easily move ships around from one part to another). Another crucial resource is "micro". (I may be the only person who calls it that. It's short for "micromanagement ability". Its most important element is attention.)
You can tell when a player is running out of micro. He starts losing lightly-defended planets because his defense forces fail to respond to attacks. Some of his ships sit useless on planets far from any battle. His ships start crossing each others' paths (a sign that they're taking inefficient routes, which is equivalent to moving slower). He loses awareness of where his opponent's fortifications are, attacking strengths rather than weaknesses. And then whatever advantage he might have had evaporates: having more ships than the other guy doesn't do you any good if those ships are in the wrong places.
So conserve this critical resource, and deny it to your opponents:
- Don't let allies die: if an ally has to flee his territory, find a neutral planet in your territory for him can land on (reducing the number of defenders on it if necessary) and then hand him a bunch of your ships to play with. (And don't let yourself get wiped out, especially if you've got allies remaining; even if you can't do anything but launch petty distractions against the enemy--capturing planets that you can't possibly hold, forcing him to spend a move taking them back--it can be enough to tip the scale.) Meanwhile, when on the offensive, focus on completely eliminating players. One player with control of 45% of the map's productivity is a lot less dangerous than two players with control of 20% each, especially if they're allied.
- When attacking, choose multiple targets. If you attack your enemy at a single point, he can send all his defenders there and then forget about it while concentrating on a counterattack. If you can spare the micro, make feints, attacking targets and then turning your fleets around or redirecting them.
- Set shipping to a high percentage, like 100%, so you can order fleets around with a single click-and-drag instead of needing multiple ones. Try to remember where your main fleets are so you can quickly issue new commands to them.
- If you're being harrassed by small players at your rear: instead of trying to attack the planets their fleets are at (they'll simply evacuate to others), hide a defense force on one of your planets near them; eventually they'll stumble into it, eliminating their fleet and hence eliminating the threat, after which you can reclaim the captured planets at your leisure. |
becephalus 
Joined: Jan 19, 2007
Posts: 130
Location: St. Paul, Minnesota | I have infinite micro MUHAHAHAHAHAH.
No seriously good points. Although perhaps due to my mouse micro I tend to lower shipping lower and lower as the battle goes on. |
