Fishman
Posts: 795
Joined: 4/1/2010 Status: offline
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Arm all your merchantmen. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. I saw an attacking armada of dozens get toasted simply because they attempted to assault a major trading port. Since there is SO much traffic there, merchantmen would warp in, see their spaceport under attack, join the fray and start launching torpedoes at the attacking force, and since they were being held up from doing their business, more merchantmen would join the fray. Some of them may have perished, but honestly, I wasn't paying attention, and besides, they are self-regenerating. So long as you don't allow too many of them to die, they will just buy some more ships. What's more, you actually EARN money when more ships are purchased, so if they get killed....eh, so what? Give 'em a new merchantman design with bigger guns, and they'll buy 'em up and shoot up your attackers with them. Note: The AI races do not like this behavior. They will see armed merchantmen as part of your "military" and not the reckless independent space cowboys they actually are. But I have brought large empires to their knees with a fleet consisting of only a handful of actual warships, and the security of knowing that my empire is defended by my fearsome Space Cowboy Militia.
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