RSW

Hey all. I'm new to the game, and still trying to figure it all out. This last turn, something strange happened, and I haven't been able to figure it out from the manual.

I am playing a game of RSW classic. I send a fleet with one ship on it to an unexplored planet. It was only moving one hop and it was moving from a planet I owned with no other fleets on it. After the turn ran, the fleet ended up on the planet where I was sending it, but with no ships on it. There was also a fleet controlled by another player at the new planet. My turn news contained a paragraph which said:

"We are very sad to report that there have been casualties of recent conflicts. In particular, we have lost Fxxx to enemy hands through military action."

I assume the other fleet fired on mine, but how was the other player's ship able to auto-fire on my incoming fleet like that? It sounds almost like and ambush, but I was only moving one hop away. The rules are very explicit in stating that ambushes only happen when you are moving multiple hops through enemy planets.

You are correct in your analysis--ambush cannot happen over a one-world hop. Nor can a player fire upon your fleet if he was not already present at the fleet's starting world the previous turn.

So, if your fleet arrived without any ships, something strange has happened. I'm assuming you didn't discover a black hole, or you would have noticed it. Possibilities that come to mind are: (a) maybe you accidentally entered a movement order that went through multiple worlds, even though it ended up on the world adjacent to the starting world, or (b) maybe the Pandora's Box has some interaction here.

One other possibility springs to mind: the message "we have lost Fxxx to enemy hands through military action" is also printed when a Raider acquires your fleet via his special Commandeer power. This often happens when you send a fleet to a world that happens to have a Raider there as well, and the Raider outnumbers you by more than the magic three-to-one ratio. In this case, the Raider becomes the owner of your fleet automatically, and he also owns all the ships on it. The fleet doesn't end up with zero ships, though, but it might look like that's what happened at first glance.

David

Yeah, you are right. The ship was still on the fleet. Also, the player admitted to being a raider. Thanks.

Robbie