RSW

Imagine the following scenario in a game of RSW Core at a given world:
EmpireA owns Fleet 1, containing 100 ships.
EmpireB owns Fleet 2, containing 48 ships.
EmpireB owns Fleet 3, containing 51 ships.

EmpireA decides to fire on Fleet 2, figuring that he'd like to disable a fleet.
EmpireB guesses that EmpireA will do this, and sets up transfer orders of all his ships from Fleet 2 to Fleet 3, and then fires from Fleet 3 to Fleet 1. This sacrifices fleet 2, but saves the ships. Even though they started with roughly the same number of ships, after this turn, EmpireB's ships will vastly outnumber EmpireA's ships, and EmpireB is in good shape for a prolonged battle.

Questions: When EmpireA sees his turn report, how will he determine what has taken place? Does the turn report contain any information about opponent ship transfers, or how many ships were destroyed by his firing orders? Or is he forced to deduce EmpireB's tactics from the rather large number of ships in Fleet 3? (Is there a way EmpireA can see how many ships were in Fleet 3 on the previous turn, to easily compare?)

Is this a common tactic? If so, it seems like a bit of a "shell game", in the sense that you really can't deduce much and plan your combat from the current state of how many ships are in each fleet. Rather, you must try to think and doublethink to guess where your opponent's ships will be AFTER the transfer phase. It seems like similar tactics could be employed to either reinforce or evacuate D-ships immediately before an attack. It also means that there are significant advantages to having more fleets than your opponent, even if the number of ships are similar. I don't have any problems with this (although thematically it seems like maybe there should be a cost to transferring ships around in the presence of an opponent); I just want to make sure I'm properly understanding the tactical options available.

Yes on all counts. This is indeed a common tactic, and a very important aspect of combat in RSW. It is probably the biggest reason that fleets are so valuable. Fleet-to-fleet battles can become a kind of paper-scissors-rock game, as each player tries to guess how the other player will distribute his/her ships.

To answer your direct question, EmpireA will have to deduce EmpireB's actions--there's nothing on the report to directly indicate transfers and damage. Of course, all players can view their own past turn reports, so EmpireA can see how many ships Fleet 3 had on the previous turn (presuming that he could view Fleet 3 directly on that turn, which he certainly could have if he was engaged in battle at that world).

Hmm, sounds like I've missed something in the interface. How do you view past turn reports?

Never mind. I just found it under the history menu. I don't know why I didn't notice that before.

Shuffling ships from fleet to fleet before combat is one of my favorite parts of the game. It's like poker, trying to outguess what your opponent is going to do, and over the course of prolonged combat, the one that is able to deduce their opponents strategy is more likely to win. I just one a seven turn shootout where 23 empty keys piled up at one world. Did I just have more depth? More keys to begin with? Only by going through the omniscient view at the end of the game can I be certain. I think it's one of the most exciting and challenging parts of the game.
ZenCat (Dale Perkins)