FS player feedback:
"My ally rocked. I mean, sure I got to stomp the Capellans, but I only got to do it because of the Lyrans.
Most of my espionage was actually done by the Lyrans. They had the income to locate forces, and then simply shared the intell with me as I couldn't afford to do it myself. Same on the Draconis front when we did our first few attacks there and I claimed the world of Huan.
I really struggled with the notion of what to do, and whether to attack House Kurita instead in a double attack there, and leave the CC alone. What decided it for me was that I was crippling their economy in raids; something I knew wasn't happening with the DC. If they were that crippled, I figured the war could overwhelm them. So I maintained the raiding pace as much as i could.
Also, I loved my mercs. The BSI were phenomenal... I think I rebuilt them 3 times. When they finally were killed on Arboris in the Capellan counter-attack, they STILL managed to get out with an armour battalion and a fighter wing, but everything else died there.
The Capellan campaign to hit my mercs back worked; I ran out of cheap expendable units mostly to do my raids. However, they had done their job, and I was able to hire a few new units to keep up the occasional raid.
One thing that worried me was that my raiding campaign had very much increased the experience of some Capellan units.
I also used my disruption raids as "cover" for recon raids into areas. I found that recon raids are a very economic way to get intell rather than espionage in areas, due to the fact that a good roll would give me intel on some surrounding hexes too. I didn't have to worry about false info either. So whenever the Lyrans weren't doing espionage for me, I dropped a recon raid in.
My allies got my industry up to tech 4, and the extra money was a saving grace. Then, I managed to upgrade a couple worlds to minor, to give me a bit more money.
After ther early turns, I didn't engage in special ops; my opponents were to heavily invested in counterintelligence. The few I did were targetted at: Capellan industry or alternatively, FWL technology. By keeping the FWL away from having industry, we figured that the other players wouldn't be as good at focusing their rp. I also hit Capellan research on occasion, but only when I could afford it, which was not very often. Again, my Lyran allies did a lot of the heavy lifting work there.
I never built any extra units; mostly, I was focused on supplying what I had and rebuilding what I lost. The war actually could have started a turn earlier, but I got a bad merc retention roll right near the start of the war, and had to spend an entire turn worth of income keeping what mercs I wanted, and letting some go (I got the result where ALL mercs contracts were up). It was brutal.
The FS income made it very hard for me to build up a treasury. So, I turned to supply raids using expendable units (aka mercs) to hit up large, green formations of my enemies. The DCMS mostly blocked me on this; I think I only succeeded once there, against a Galedon regiment.
The Capellans though... oh man, I stole so much stuff from them! Again, though, they got wise to this (and gained their own xp) so it didn't last long. Still, it was worth it.
The funny thing was, these raids usually only broke even for me even if succesful. But, they built my own experience up, wasted Capellan rps on combat supply as well and that prevented any black ops from hitting me fromt he Capellans.
The FWL, CC and DC all would get hit by Lyran saboteurs and my own on occasion. Meanwhile, the DC sent their spec ops against the Lyrans and so did the FWL. The CC never could afford it, so it meant that my economy didn't suffer the same disruption as everyone else. SOMEONE hired pirates to hit my outback, and while I covered it up, they destroyed a Crucis March Militia unit! Had to scramble to get mercs in place to go on patrol for that, and that also screwed up my timetable for war.
Oh. The damn Kuritans kept raiding Marduk and Quentin. I had to post some really good troops at both, and that was frustrating. Also, the Dragoons were a menace along the border, constantly raiding and damaging stuff, stealing supplies mostly. I did have a great moment when the Alpha Regiment of the Dragoons - either Elite or Heroic by that time, had their raid beaten back by the Bell Training Battalion, which was Green at the time. Heh.
That being said, oddly I was never too worried about the Dragon. They would send raids and did launch attacks, but their Fanatical attack and their other trait where they get a penalty of 1 to initiative meant that on defence I had a +2 on initiative against them (1 for Superior Doctrine and then their penalty of 1) and then would be doing a minimum of +20% damage to them. I could do defensive tactics to reduce my own damage if I wanted, or go full offense and badly damage good combat commands with just militia troops. The extra initiative was huge as it meant that my regular troops could usually stand up to veteran troops on the DC side. We proved that with the battles of Kesai.
Naval engagements; they were my bane. I had so many patrols and little aero engagements on both my borders! Repairs are cheap, but were constant in that field. I can only imagine FS aero manufacturers greedy little hands rubbing together at the thought of what was happening in the aero fights and the lucrative contracts they had.
There was even an "incident" with the Taurian Concordat that happened as well. It "may" have been because of some raids I threw into their space, which then caused them to react. Heh. Silly Bulls. Anyways, they retaliated and crushed pretty much every aero wing I had on my border with them, and did a few supply raids. I asked the Lyrans to pay them off with intelligence favours and a promise to not raid again (which I never broke). It was a silly mistake, to see if I could get more $$$ but did not pay off. I also did propaganda to cover up that skirmish too. Didnt want my main foes to know what was going on.
Now. We built our lineup of troops based on canon FS units. Apparently, this was a saving grace; from what I understand, the FS cant afford what they have if they were all the standard rct. It gave me enough RP to be able to do some things, which I nursed into a big enough treasury to sustain a war.
I meta gamed a bit; specifically, I knew that we would be playing only up to the end of the 4SW. So, I set a target treasury for the war, knowing that when it started, I only had to last my treasury until the end of 3029 really.
However, the (short) Comstar Interdiction screwed up my economy. Also, I overspent hiring mercs or retaining them, and so my treasury is a lot lower than i want.
Oh well. Still stomping the Cappies. Superior Doctrine ftw! Any unit that I had equal experience with, I still had the advantage. My green units could stand up to Regulars, and that was huge. I also was finding that anything that could force a morale check was handy in ACS, because the CC was bad at morale checks. This shaped my ACS strategy against them. The DC, I just focused on killing them. The +20% meant that wasnèt too hard. The CC, it was just easier to break them, and then I would let them leave a world. Their morale would then be bad... and apparently they started deserting or mutinying, which was the goal. Formations would just evaporate due to this.
The DC apparently this turn has launched attacks at the Galtor Thumb, so I will be starting to lose worlds there, but the Cappies are just toast. I cant see them regaining what they have lost now.