Re: [FT] Operational game

> However, if you've decimated your opponent's navy, controlling his
> planets becomes fairly simple.  Or should we conclude that the fleet
> is there to protect trade, and planets can look after themselves?
> That would imply that most warships have little or no orbital
> bombardment capability, or else that even a frontier planet can afford
> anti-ship weapons
> 

Blockading his planets becomes fairly simple.  To really control a
planet
you either have to bomb it from orbit or land troops.  You could lay
siege
to a world (I guess) but only against planets which have no real means
of
self support or planet-wide populations.

Having said that, and depending on the level of abstraction we're going
for
(we *are* talking FT here), it's a simple matter to have a system be in
one
of four states: 1) Friendly, 2) Blockaded, 3) Enemy, or 4) Unknown.

Blockaded planets don't generate "income" or only provide 1/2 normal
victory
points.

So the best an Admiral can do, even if he destroys the enemy fleet, is
to
plant a ship in each enemy system in order to halve the opponents VP for
that system.  That may or may not be a problem based on how effective he
has
been during the game.

(I can see adding random events each Strategic turn which allows for a
system to break away from the empire, or double production, etc)

Damond