Dodging attacks

[beane]

Since transfers take place before movement, it seems to me that it is possible to dodge attacks by transferring your ships back and forth between your fleets.

For example, let's say you have two fleets on a planet and your opponent has only one fleet. Since your opponent can only fire on only one of the fleets, if you put all of your ships into one fleet, there is a 50% chance that your opponent's turn will be wasted by firing on an empty fleet, but all of your ships will still fire on his fleet.

Does this work? Is there something I am missing?

[drwr]

Precisely as you say. This is one of the key strategies to battles in RSW. It is also one of the main reasons that having lots of fleets is important in battle, maybe even more important than having lots of ships.

David

[beane]

Let's say that I empty a fleet, or leave only a few ships an a particular fleet and they all get destroyed. If, after combat, both players still have ships at the planet, do the newly empty fleets go neutral? Does it matter who controls the planet where the combat is taking place?

Thanks.

[drwr]

All empty fleets will go neutral while multiple players remain at the world. Eventually, when only one player remains, he captures all of the empty fleet keys. (Fleets declared "At Peace" don't count as a presence for this purpose.)

The owner of the world doesn't matter much, unless there are I-Ships or P-Ships (or D-Ships) at that world--those ships count as the presence of a player for the purpose of capturing fleets.

Occasionally, you will encounter epic RSW battles where the players involved keep bringing fleet after fleet into the battle, and the world just fills up with all of these empty keys. The battle can go on for many turns this way, as long as both player still have more fleets to bring to bear. It's like betting the pot bigger in poker. Eventually, one winner gets to walk away with a fortune in fleet keys.

David

[FishSpeaker]

An extra tip: always leave at least one ship on each of your fleets. If you empty it completely, it will go neutral and you won't be able to use it on the next turn. If it has one ship and your opponent fires on the fleet that you moved most of your ships to, although you may have lost a lot of ships, you can try the gambit again on the next turn.