Monocerotis VII, Galactic Cycle 1 - Tick 34, 11:30AM 07 July

A quick game update. My opponent has still not made any new movements today so I think they are AFK/Semi-AFK. This, combined with my good early games is making me shift approach slightly.

In this situation against an active and engaged opponent who was sitting on 13 tokens I would be retaining mine for defence as it would be too risky to spend them. Since I don't have this concern I've bought an Explorer to start picking up my stars at the back and next cycle I will even consider a second to get behind my opponents lines and pick up their stars.

Thought Exercise. Changing Seats

Since the purpose of this series of posts is to educate and since this will likely be a short game let's do a thought-exercise where I place myself in command of my opponents empire and see what I'd do. For the purposes of this exercise let's assume similar tech parity and infrastructure (otherwise it's hopeless) at the present time - but maybe life got busy for me and I've just checked back and my adversary has all the momentum. So I am even on ships/infra but I am in a really bad state on stars/positioning.

Let's drill down a little closer. 

• Ship parity at the moment is 950 to Pink, 930 to Blue so I'm going to make a reasonable guess about where those ships might be, knowing what I can see on the front lines and knowing where my opponents capital is/where they have been AFK. In this scenario I have highlighted where the ships are in blocks of 100 and I've included what I (as Blue) know about Pink's force disposition from time machine etc. 

• Star count is 16-23 against me, but effective star count is 24-36 looking at who can likely get to which uncaptured stars first. This is bad news. I need to address this URGENTLY as this will lead to a loss in the medium term. You can probably hang on in a good position for a long time and look for a window to get back in with a star count of 27-33 maybe 26-34, but anything beyond that is looking bad, all else equal. My aim then is to find stars I can retake fast.
• I know I have 13 tokens (3 coming soon) and my opponent has 3 tokens (3 coming soon) I also know my opponent has a smuggler (I've seen it) and a space dock (inferred from industry on the player card.) I know they have just spent 3 more tokens on a carrier specialist that I can't see on the front line, it's reasonable to assume this is an Explorer. So considering the upcoming Cycle end at Tick 40 let's consider token counts as 16 for me and 6 for my opponent.
• I know the location of 600 of my opponents 900 ships and I can probably (correctly) assume a further 100 are in the north through time machine and some inference. That leaves 200 unaccounted for. They're likely moving to the central front lines.

The plan

• I build a Space Dock on my home star (11 tokens remaining, 14 soon) I need to be able to match my opponents industry output, or at least stay within 25% of it (to account for the defenders advantage) 
• I launch 150 ships south from Andos to Sale and when they are 1 hour into their journey I launch from Sale on Alren with a Pathfinder (10 tokens left, 13 soon), which it is reasonable to infer is lightly guarded. The ships from Andos cover Sale and hopefully I can now defend both these stars whilst seizing Alren. Depending on my opponents ship movements they may be able to use warp gates to cover Alren and defend it, but I think it's unlikely. Seizing this star will create a headache for my opponent.
• As a discarded plan. I've looked at an attack from Andos on Gala, or Andos and Sale on Gala but with reinforcements potentially inbound, I think there is a good risk here that I can seize Gala but potentially lose Sale to an attack from Maru in the process. I don't think I can reliably, definitely, seize Gala, hold both my current stars on this front line against best play. Or at least, there are better options.

• Further North I expect Pink to capture Gesi and he's probably but not definitely going to be doing so with 100 ships, based on my expectations. I can reach Agos and Derri first but my forces will be fairly spread across them both. I build a Smuggler (5 tokens remaining, 8 soon) and race to Agos, dropping 50 ships, Derri dropping 50 ships. These forces will 'hold the line' whilst I bring in others. My smuggler continues south to Kaesya where it will meet some ships coming from my capital, I will be spreading the 300 ships I have accounted for on my capital as follows: 150 to go north (offensive duty... soon), 100 to go to south front (defensive duty) and 50 to centre front with the next set of reinforcements to go to centre front.
• I build an Explorer and start capturing the stars behind me. This takes me down to 2 tokens but I'll be back up at 5 very shortly. Assuming my opponent spends none, this has us equal. I wouldn't buy an Explorer yet if we were more than 3 hours from the end of cycle (less time than they can cross a gap and attack me) and even with this it's a risk but since my opponent already has a star lead and has already sent an explorer of his own, I probably do need these stars in the coming couple of cycles. It's an educated gamble and does come with risks. 
• I'd like to immediately seize more stars but need to be pragmatic about things. 

Fast forwarding time

If we play out this little scenario and my best guess of what happens, here is the new world by this evening. 

• The star count is 21-28 and effective star count is 25-35
• The image below shows the force disposition and new borders. Front line stars are squared in white. I've been very generous to my opponent and given them three hundred extra ships in reasonable locations whilst only adding 100 more ships to my own tally (let's assume I have 200 spread across different stars). This is a flattering logistical boost for my opponent who has even been able to better cover his attacked south than a real opponent would likely have been able. On my side, the only positive assumption is that my pathfinder attack broke through unharmed.

• From here I have a long road ahead to get back into the game properly but I'm now making a contest of it. My opponent may launch a bad attack (in particular in Centre N where my now re-positioned Smuggler is going to be an incredible asset for rapid re-deployment and paired with my 5 token reserve could bloody a nose) I may also be able to slowly bring pressure to bear in the north. In the Centre I'd play defense whilst trying to win on the upper/lower flanks. In the South I have really good prospects of hitting more stars. That 100 ship fleet can move around stealing economy and industry until it's eventually killed. I wouldn't bother to defend with it. That fleet is purely there to cause trouble. I would be tempted (it would require thought and depend on what I see on my scanners) to buy a second Smuggler to move through stars quickly. Burning the rest of my specialist tokens would create a weakness elsewhere so I'd perhaps only do it if I felt my opponent was conservative/would over-react to my attack by trying to chase me down.
• Tech wise, my research priorities would be scanning to help give me a tactical edge and specialists because I'll need specialists to hold back the tide of ships.
• My medium term aims would be to secure solid borders in the south, eventually knocking out the triangle of stars south of my main territory. If I could do that, or even take two of them I might be able to bunker down, last out my opponent, cause surprises overnight, and win

Of course none of this happened, but this sort of thing is a useful exercise to think about what your opponent might do and to be resilient in defence. If you refuse to quit and continue to make things difficult for your opponent there is a likelihood they will lose interest or get sloppy. 4/5 times your plucky behaviour will go unrewarded but 1/5 times it will pay off.