Making the Grade: On Prowess, Vol. 2 — Deadliness

Napoleon Bonaparte possessed the mind of a genius of war. He gained his prowess by studying the traditions and theories of the military leaders who came before him. He was inspired by them and harnessed their wisdom to become one of the most ruthless, offensive-minded generals of his time. There is no other role model as perfect for this study on deadliness in VGA Planets.

“With speed, surprise, maneuver, thorough planning, dictatorial power over military affairs, and a boldness unmatched by any soldier of his generation, Napoleon wrecked army after army that the European powers hurled against him.”

(Teters, 2004, p. 14)

This second volume on prowess evaluates each empire’s fleet on its ability to kill, as measured by combat mass, warship armaments, and the class of ships in each fleet.

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Making the Grade: On Prowess, Vol. 1 — Agility

You say you survived to the end of the game, but if you didn’t win, who cares?

The overarching goal of this series is to give players the knowledge, and therefore the confidence, to choose the path of action. This volume examines the agility of fleets on the battlefield as influenced by fuel consumption, attack accuracy, and warship maneuverability.

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Making the Grade: Introducing Prowess

“The public supports war until the body bags come home” was a persistent thought meandering through my mind as I was writing these articles. I wanted to evaluate each race’s capacity for killing, and something in the back of my mind made that topic feel… uneasy. When I continued to hesitate putting it into words, I eventually recognised that my struggle existed because of the nature of what war games reflect. It also occurred to me that the trend of “winning games by making friends” surfaced, in part, because many of us were conflicted about aggression in competition.

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Standard Ship and Planet List – From Stronger to Weaker

Editor’s Note: This was written to update ThinLizzy’s “Ship List – Strong to Weak” from 2014 to take into account advances like Horwasp, Emperor ships, and Quantum Torpedoes.


Dedicated to Xy”zzynnzy’Z of the Glorious Thorax. Long may it’s mandibles be sharp!

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Defending Against An Early Attack

Any player that’s new to this game will start getting paranoid about being attacked. This is perfectly natural, reasonable and sane. It is, in point of fact, the appropriate reaction; after all, you’ve just voluntarily entered into a contest with ten other people that want you to lose.

On the other hand, the paranoia itself can cripple you. Rather than let that happen Continue reading

Who’s On First? Combat Order and Battle Value

Ship combat at Planets.Nu is arguably the single most important key element in play. The tactics and complexities would be thought multiform and diverse even before one considers that every player has a unique ship list. Bearing this in mind, it is hardly surprising that many new players are Continue reading