Strategy Tip of the Week - Fleet Diplomacy

[The Crazy Psychopath]

Here's another tip not too many are aware of. If you leave a ship in orbit of a neutral planet that already supports you, the popular support will gradually yet slowly move in your favor. This takes much longer than regular diplomacy, but its a good way to get planets in your favor in a sector where you do not have any diplomats available.

 

To determine which neutral planets support you more than your opponent hit ALT-1 to go into the default popular display view. Some will show up as a small dot (.), do not put a ship in orbit of planets that are disloyal to you. You keep them in orbit long enough and they will join your opponent. On the other hand, planets that are more than half supporting you, shown as a slightly bigger dot (*) on the display, those ones are perfect for ship diplomacy. Next, pick the planet that has the highest support for you, but is neutral. Leave the ship in orbit for a while, and the support will eventually move in your favor enough to where the planet will join your cause.

 

So if you have majority support and leave a ship in orbit of that planet, the planet will join you. The more the planet already supports you, the quicker it is. The best planets to choose for ship diplomacy are the ones that are just one diplomatic mission short of joining you. They support you, but just barely not enough to actually be on your side. Essentially they're neutral, and on the fringe of joining your cause.

 

One of my favorite ways of using this strategy is as the rebels in the Sesswanna sector. I scrap my Sessewanna planet, knowing too well it will be assaulted early by a capable Imperial player. If I have a ship in orbit I immediately move it to the most rebel supported neutral planet in Sesswanna. Eventually the planet will join me, I then scrap all the facilities on that planet and reposition the fleet elsewhere. Holding on to the planet would not be feasible, as support will be so ever so slightly in your favor that the Imperial player can do a successful incitement of an uprising with just one capable leadership character. Meaning you will lose the planet anyway, but the fact that you scrapped the facilities will ensure you receive critical refined minerals as well as deny those same facilities to the Imperial player. I've used this strategy successfully as the Imperial as well, orbiting Imperial supported planets in the Sluis and Farfin sectors.

 

This strategy is also very useful when you have ships orbiting a sector where you do not have any diplomatic personnel nearby. The ships are sitting there being idle, so you might as well use them to turn planets into your favor.

 

Be very careful when using this strategy. A capable player will regularly send espionage missions to every single neutral planet in the sector. If you see a "enemy espionage mission foiled" message at the planet you're orbiting. Immediately reposition the vessel! Otherwise it will make an easy target for sabotage. Simply move the vessel to another supported neutral planet.

 

Give this a try in single player sometime. Orbit a supported neutral planet and set the game to very fast and see how long it takes the planet to join your cause. This is a good way to experiment to roughly determine the effectiveness and time it takes for ship diplomacy.

[Jahled]

Whilst this has been something i've suspected of being the case, i've not been presented with such a well-explained (and obviously proven) explaination. Excellent post!

[Darth-Griffin]

I would also like to thank you for your time and the excellent tips you produce.

 

Q for the admin.

 

Can we get these posts moved to a specific section please

[Jahled]

I would also like to thank you for your time and the excellent tips you produce.

 

Q for the admin.

 

Can we get these posts moved to a specific section please

 

Err... where did you have in mind...

 

Buuuttt... it certainly works; i've got three Lancer Frigates in orbit over neutral sytems in a contested sector and support is very evidently increasing over their asigned orbits. Time to shuffle them about to thwart those terrorist attacks methinks... Remarkable.

 

I should have thought about this in 1999.

[Lord_La_forge]

Hey, great stuff! I didn't knew that! LOL. And it's 2005.

[Krytos]

Neither did I! I've always used fleets with diplomats later in the game when I could, jsut for protection - though if it helps preparing a system for a diplomatic takeover, I'm going to be building up gunship diplomats

 

Hmm, does having a fleet above a newly taken over Imperial world have the same or simualr effect

 

Exellent work Strel!

[Trejiuvanat]

I use a combination of both to win entire sectors very fast. I found out after using the "gunship" diplomat strategy.At times I would forget that I had idle diplomats in a gunship, that I had sent into a neutral planet. After a chile the planet joined without any apparent reason, and I realized that if a ship of your side could make a neutral join the other side if support was rather low (which was in the manual), why couldn't it make one join you given enough support.

 

So I send the able-bodied doplomat into the planet with the lowest support for me, then I send his gunship to the nearest neutral planet favoring me. And it also shortens the return trip should the planet my diplomat is on, turn to the opposing side.

 

An excellent job with your Strategic Tips of the Week. I'll sticky them until the next one arrives, for all members to notice.