The situation has come up several times now where I have a full 22/22 fleet and a smaller fleet, say 10/22. Then comes 2 enemy fleets, a 21/22 and 1/22 - they arrive at my system but do not attack. Im set, its gonna be a slaughter - I select my 22/22 fleet and engage, but Im engaging the 1/22 Fleet????? Of course I win, but there is NO WAY I can then engage and beat the 22/22 fleet with my 10/22 fleet. Obviously, I wanted my 22/22 fleet to engage their 21/22 fleet, leaving my 10/22 fleet to decimate their 1/22 fleet.



So, is there a way to choose which fleet Im engaging so as to avoid this tactical error in the future?



Thanks for the help.

It's not possible to pick that at the moment.



Hopefully it gets implemented at some point, not sure if anyone has suggested this yet but i like the idea.

You cannot choose, and the AI player cannot choose either. The *game* (not any AI) makes this decision. But, the decision is predictable. The smallest fleet will always be chosen first. In your case, you can attack with the 10 fleet first, being confident that the game will hand you the smaller fleet. There is one additional rule. Suppose your 22 and 10 are facing a 21 and several small fleets such as 1,1,1. The game will automatically sweep up some tiny defending fleets into one small one. So, if you attack with your 10, probably all three of the 1,1,1 fleets will be combined into a three ship fleet for your 10 ship fleet to destroy. This saves a little time and frustration.

davea wrote:
You cannot choose...But, the decision is predictable. The smallest fleet will always be chosen first.

Thanks! Now that I understand, I can exploit this rule to my advantage. Its unfortunate that the computer does not assign equal fleets against eachother or allow you to handpick your target, which would make sense since Im the one who is attacking.

I think it's a pretty major oversight as a design decision. If you send a giant fleet with a dozen single-ship fleets, you make the larger fleet virtually invincible since it can't be attacked. The predictability of the targeting system is more of a quick fix than a solution; it's one of the biggest flaws with the game right now.

Fenrakk101 wrote:
I think it's a pretty major oversight as a design decision. If you send a giant fleet with a dozen single-ship fleets, you make the larger fleet virtually invincible since it can't be attacked.

I am not sure how carefully you read what I wrote. The game will automatically sweep up those little fleets into one defending fleet. And the attacker knows this too. This makes for interesting tactical decisions.



Suppose you have a 20 ship fleet and 12x 1 ship fleets. I have the same number of ships but it happens to be a 20 and a 12 ship fleet. I would probably attack with half the small fleet. The game will sweep up some of your one ship fleets, probably 3-4, to meet my attack and I will beat them with no losses. Then the other half of my small fleet will get more of your one ship fleets, again with no losses. Now I may or may not attack with my big fleet, but anyway I have taken out 6-8 of your ships with no losses. You may not agree with the design, but I find it interesting.