1 .TH Introduction "Expert Advice"
2 .NA Expert "Advice to expert Empire players"
5 \*(iFDefense Against Nuclear Attacks
6 Through the Denial of Information\*(pF
9 A very good defense against nukes is to make
10 it as difficult as possible for other players to find out
11 where your country is, and thus to make maps of it.
13 Here are some simple steps that you can follow:
17 Shoot down all planes that fly over your airspace.
18 It helps to have numerous airfields,
19 say one airfield for every 25 sectors or so.
20 Every airfield should be within interception distance
21 of several other airfields,
22 so that it is more difficult for an enemy to destroy or capture it.
23 If an airfield is detected and nuked,
24 you still have backup airfields.
25 Every important sector should be within interception distance
29 Seal off all entrances to your inland seas by building
30 bridges and laying mines
31 (so no enemy ships can penetrate the area for mapping purposes).
34 Sink all surface vessels and submarines near your coastline.
35 Have large fleets of destroyers posted around exposed coastal areas
36 covering all sea sectors where enemy subs
37 might try to sneak in for mapping purposes.
38 Usually two fleets of 30 destroyers each are enough.
39 Navigate the whole fleet one sector, stop and look for subs,
40 navigate one more sector, stop and look for subs, and so on,
41 until the fleet has made a circle and is back in its starting position.
42 Sink any subs you find, of course.
44 There is a maximum number of around 30 ships that can be in a
45 fleet if you want to maneuver the whole fleet by fleet name
46 (see \*Qinfo fleetadd\*U).
49 Establish alliances under the condition that secrecy is maintained
50 with respect to map information.
51 Thus other allied countries can serve as
52 a buffer zone against enemy countries.
53 Many players are willing to be good allies.
56 Destroy or capture nearby radar stations.
59 Destroy or capture enemy air bases
60 within range of your country.
61 Until enemy technology gets high enough
62 to launch against any target world-wide,
63 they will often try to get someone to let them have an airbase
64 hidden near your country and launch nuclear strikes from there.
65 I've always been able to find these if I worked at it.
68 Use psychological warfare.
69 Nukers get tired of nuking you if it seems to have no effect.
70 For example, have numerous false capitals, so that when,
71 after great efforts, they manage to find
72 what they think is your capital, and nuke it, only to
73 discover that it was a fake, they will get discouraged.
74 These fake capitals are also very useful as backups in case your
75 real capital is discovered and destroyed.
77 When an enemy gets close to doing real harm,
78 a counterattack can often divert attention away from the current attack.
79 Psychologically, attackers seem to underestimate the harm
80 they are doing to you if you don't give out any information about how
81 you are being affected,
82 and they seem to overestimate the danger to themselves
83 from your counterattack.
87 \*(iFShip Networks and the Art of
88 Transferring Supplies\*(pF
91 Build large quantities of ships.
92 When they're 100% efficient,
93 load them with military and food (and civilians) if possible.
94 Load guns and shells if you have them,
95 but since they tend to be scarce, only a few ships will have them.
96 Navigate them one by one as far as they will go.
97 Leave only one ship in each sector
98 (this makes it difficult for an enemy to sink very many of them,
99 due to mobility restrictions
100 and the problem of locating and identifying them one by one).
101 On your maps, mark the ship number in the appropriate sector.
102 Each sea sector thus has at most one ship number.
104 Unless there is something in particular you want to do with
105 a particular ship, leave it sitting in its sector indefinitely.
107 As you build more and more ships,
108 move them out one by one.
109 If you leave ship \*(iFX\*(pF
110 in a sector that already contains ship \*(iFY\*(pF,
111 ship \*(iFY\*(pF should have full mobility by then.
112 Navigate ship \*(iFY\*(pF as far as it will go,
113 then leave it sitting until a new ship comes along.
115 Every ship in the network is now likely to be within range of
116 some other ships in the network.
117 If a ship requires any supplies,
118 you can load them on a ship in a harbor,
119 navigate it out, transfer the cargo via tend,
120 navigate the tended ship,
121 transfer its cargo, and so on,
122 until you reach the any ship in the network.
123 If you need military for assaulting or boarding,
124 guns and shells for firing, torpedoing or laying mines,
125 or if you simply want to move stuff into a distant harbor,
126 you can do it using several tend and navigate operations.
128 This has been particularly useful for sinking subs.
129 I don't have enough guns and shells
130 to keep all of my 100 or more destroyers fully armed,
131 but when one of the unarmed destroyers spots a sub,
132 I can arrange to transfer guns and shells to it from a loaded
133 ship (or from a harbor).
135 It's a very simple system from the player's standpoint,
136 because all the player has to do is build the ship,
137 navigate it, mark its number on the map,
138 and forget about it until a use for it arises.
139 As more ships are built,
140 the network automatically expands without requiring any planning.
141 You don't have to keep anything in memory,
142 except the ship number on your map.
143 If any enemy surface ship gets trapped in the network,
144 it's quite likely you can capture it,
145 even if all you have is cargo ships
146 (battleships, landing craft, and carriers could take some work though).
147 If an enemy sub is spotted by your destroyers,
148 you can almost always sink it.
149 If a convenient target for an assault appears,
150 you can get the necessary military there.
153 \*(iFSome Tricks to Use When Fighting\*(pF
157 The trick for boarding destroyers:
158 you need a bunch of cargo ships,
159 both to make several boarding attempts and to tend military.
160 When you try to board a ship, both the attacker and defender
161 lose the same amount of mobility.
162 First you have to get the destroyer's mobility to be negative.
163 Then you just keep trying to board it from one ship after
164 another until you win.
165 That's where my ship network method comes in handy.
166 I usually have swarms of ships I can surround enemy ships with.
168 If I have planes, my normal method is to take a sector I can see,
169 put enough military to hold it,
170 designate it \*Qe\*U if it has lots of food,
171 or maybe something else if there is a reason.
172 Then get information about the adjacent sectors
173 and take the most promising one.
174 Without planes it's more of a struggle.
175 Anyway, I kind of zig-zag into the country taking the most
176 interesting sectors, ignoring the others.
177 This really seems to freak people out,
178 when an enemy takes a path right through the heartland.
180 I would use planes (so having numerous airports
181 each with a fair supply of fighters, spread around
182 your country, would be the best countermeasure),
183 ships (having forts loaded with guns and shells
184 covering all coastlines helps a lot;
185 also having destroyers and subs spread around your coastal
186 waters in order to spot and counterattack enemy
187 ships, also have bombers to bomb enemy ships, and
188 radar stations to spot them is useful).
190 I would invade by land, firing from forts,
191 (mainly you need to counterattack actively when the enemy takes any
192 sectors in your area, also forts with guns and shells help a lot).
193 I would capture islands and build bridges to get into your country
194 (so watch all offshore islands with bridge span range).
196 Have a lot of shells in warehouses ready to be moved to
197 the front (you can move four for no mobility cost).
199 Bombing enemy ships spotted by radar seems to work pretty
200 well for the most part.
201 If he has an aircraft carrier you can torpedo it.
203 You never know exactly what may happen,
204 sometimes you get lucky when you think it's hopeless.
205 Even if a plan has only a small chance of working,
206 sometimes it's worth a try,
207 especially if the enemy has to actively do something to stop it.
210 You should always have at least two capitals sectors, in case you
213 Just a tip on empire tactics: mobility is the key
214 to dealing with many empire problems. Its often the
215 bottleneck which interferes with various things, and
216 the decisive advantage that gives victory to the attacker.
219 .SA "Overview, Novice, Hints, Introduction"
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