Trying to conquer a stronger opponent
Are beams superior because they work at the speed of light? and war questions
I'm late in a game and quite behind militarily. I think I'm rated about 64. I assume the Drath are 100 or more.
So I looked at their fleets and saw they didn't have much missile protection. I designed some ships with a lot of missile firepower and 50 missile and 50 beam defense as well as having more than one ship with a 30% defense bonus for the entire fleet. I ended up with more than 1000 attack for the fleet, much of it in missile. What I find is that I'm still losing two ships in a big battle against about 8 of their ships. That isn't really acceptable as I don't have much money, half the planets. I think the problem is that my ships fire the killing missiles but the enemy has time to fire their attack whereas if I put everything into beams I they can't fire back before being destroyed.
So are missiles a bad idea even if the enemy has a missile weakness because they take too long to get to the target?
Is there a way to try things out without having to build ships and go into battle? It takes a long time to level everything up even if you save often.
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Another mystery: Yesterday I had trouble declaring war. It was put up to a vote and I lost the vote repeatedly. I had to increase my approval quite a bit to get the war but that costs me money in taxes that don't get collected. Me and my opponent were both war party. Is that why I needed a vote to go to war? Or is a vote always needed? (they were recently allies)
What's the best way to provoke a war so that you don't loose reputation?