So i'm trying out endless space and I'm not entirely understanding battles. It would appear that during a battle you choose the fleet's action not based on strategy but instead based on the chance that what you choose will be effective. This drives me crazy, as rolling the dice seems to be the opposite of careful, thought out strategy. I'm writing this post in consideration that I may be missing some important piece of information.



If anyone here has any advice on how best they plan their strategy for battles I would appreciate it.



Thank you.

Honestly just try and choose your cards based around what would be most effective for your ships. Then if you are in manual and you think you can predict your opponents next card, then move to counter them.

Regarding the cards, it's quite rock-paper-sisors like. Maybe the part that is slightly more tactical it the fleet configuration and attack plan. The only strategic consideration is your ship design (should I go long range, melee, laser, missiles? Defense or no defense?) and fleet composition/mix/size. Command points available are determined by research and you can hardly change that for the next turn or in the middle of a battle.

The strategy of battles mainly depends on fleet composition, ship weapons and heroes; I'll go through them.



To be clear, the cards are not always what will win your battle. Essentially how a card works is it has a Buff that is applied to you or a de-buff that is applied to the enemy - if you block the enemy, then their card is annulled - but you also get a bonus. For example, a card could say +20% beam damage (block: +10%)



With this card, if it works you will get 20% plus on top of your card - so 120% damage in total. You will then, if you block the enemy, gain another 10% on top of that - so 130% in total.





Anyway, as I was saying, it's mostly in Heroes, Composition and Weapons. As an example, at the beginning of most of my games I use beam games only, and only extremely rarely does AI or even people add shields to their designs. Later on you can have normal ships with a few 'Aircraft carrier' type ships.



Anyway I'm really tired - if you want, I can expand tomorrow. Message me on steam! Arkhams_Reckoning

I thought (block: +10%) meant that the chance to block increases by 10%. Correct me if I am wrong?

The card design is quite confusing. My understanding as of today is that if you card gets blocked, it's like you get no advantage at all. If you block your adversary, you get an additional bonus which is the number in () as explained by Bed_invader

DesertFoxx wrote:
I thought (block: +10%) meant that the chance to block increases by 10%. Correct me if I am wrong?

There are no chances to block, as stated above it is similar to rock, paper, scissors in that 1 type of card will always block another type of card.

DesertFoxx wrote:
I thought (block: +10%) meant that the chance to block increases by 10%. Correct me if I am wrong?

It improves your chance to block shots by 10% on that type of defence. Not to block an enemy card.

It essentially helps your ships through the torrent of incoming fire by reducing the number of hits they take (and as such, reduce damage taken), but it does nothing directly against the card the enemy is playing.

Endless Space's card battles are a mixture of randomness and strategy. In that way, it represents the fact that plans will fall apart in the face of war and combat, but some planning is still valuable.



Mainly, the strategy comes down to analyzing your ships and your opponent's ships. You then decide to either play a card which will help you or you play a card which is less effective, but better for countering the opponent's card and what strategy they're using. To give you an example: Let's assume you are facing an opponent with ships with very high hitpoints. You are into the third round of combat and his ships are heavily damaged. In this situation it would be valuable for the opponent to play the Engineering card which repairs his ships. So, rather than playing whatever card would be optimal for you here you might instead choose to play a card that counters Engineering simply to maximize your chance of blocking his card.



Since several of the more powerful cards are easier to block, not necessarily playing your best card but instead countering the opponent can be a valid strategy. Opponent might then try to second-guess you by countering your counter card, creating all sorts of mind games where you try to out-guess your opponent. Ultimately, it is a lot about luck and random chance but there's definitely also some skill.



So yes: You are making dice rolls, but a smart player can roll those die slightly better.

Not all cards have an appropriate counter.

Regardless, the way to beat the AI is to spam the engineering (ideally the one that repairs your ships). The AI loves sabotage.

If you suspect the enemy is going to retreat. do an offense instead on the first round (only one that matters) and hope they went for a fighting retreat (beaten by offense)

DesertFoxx wrote:
I thought (block: +10%) meant that the chance to block increases by 10%. Correct me if I am wrong?

When it talks about block, I'm almost sure that what it means is the amount of damage it blocks - so after the defence calculations, it takes away the percentage of the damage.

Bed_Invader wrote:
For example, a card could say +20% beam damage (block: +10%)



With this card, if it works you will get 20% plus on top of your card - so 120% damage in total. You will then, if you block the enemy, gain another 10% on top of that - so 130% in total.

This is how it works.

DesertFoxx wrote:
I thought (block: +10%) meant that the chance to block increases by 10%. Correct me if I am wrong?

Nope.

Bed_Invader wrote:
When it talks about block, I'm almost sure that what it means is the amount of damage it blocks - so after the defence calculations, it takes away the percentage of the damage.

Nope.

Azhrarn wrote:
It improves your chance to block shots by 10% on that type of defence.

Nope.

Adventurer_Blitz wrote:
There are no chances to block, as stated above it is similar to rock, paper, scissors in that 1 type of card will always block another type of card.

Yep.

Yeah - I was thinking about shield efficiency cards there - disregard the latest comment.

If the fleet are evently matched, the choice of cards will determine who will walk away victorious from the battle.



Alia jacta est. May the odds be forever in your favor.



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Small example - if you notice that your defenses are high enough to survive the incoming attacks, depending on the fleet composition it may be wise to chose Sabotage cards that ruin his defenses, or go for a tactics card. In some cases Evade works wonders, or Engineering. There are specific cases where the specially researched cards are really superior. For example if your oponents uses Tactics a lot, you want the Beam Offense card, as this gives you more flexibility.



Without knowing much about your setup, playstyle, etc... There are some cards that perform better than others - (1) Tactics (2) Engineering (3) Sabotage [BecauseKineticweaponshavea15%defaultaccuracyatlongrange,thisprettymuchnegatesmeleeweapondamageatlongrangebattlephase-Icouldbewrongonthis,butIhavenoticedgreatsurvivabilitywhileplayingsabotage] (4) Offense [Highlysituational,dependsonenemyandfleetcomposition]