Post by pendell on Jun 10, 2014 18:08:48 GMT -5
The previous discussion led me to Gorram Chinese, which led me to Chinese, which led me to the classic text The Thirty Six Strategems, a Spring-and-Autumn period treatise on military strategy which might be contemporary with Sun Tzu.
For your entertainment and pleasure, I thought I would review the 36 strategies and consider their appearance in the ST universe. A few of them are quite valid tactics.
1) "Deceive the heavens to cross the ocean"
Mask your real goals, by using the ruse of a fake goal, until the real goal is achieved.
Most often done in the starting point of the game, especially on the harder difficulty levels. Surrender to everyone, make friends with every faction, and avoid the 'wanted' flag until you have the super powerful Ship O' doom. THEN is the time to go for the "independent captain" or "Blackheart" achievements. Revealing your true goal too soon means you are relentlessly hunted across space and murdered before turn 1000.
2) "Besiege Wèi to rescue Zhào"
"When the enemy is too strong to be attacked directly, then attack something he holds dear. Know that he cannot be superior in all things. Somewhere there is a gap in the armour, a weakness that can be attacked instead."
The factions assiduously practice this; indeed, it is the only point of a trade war or a trade embargo, weakening the enemy and improving their own position when all-out military conflict is prevented by the Templar Fleet.
3) "Kill with a borrowed sword"
Trick an ally into attacking him, bribe an official to turn traitor, or use the enemy's own strength against him. The idea here is to cause damage to the enemy by getting a 3rd party to do the deed.
Your character , in ST, is the borrowed sword of the various factions. Factions who need someone dead, or a package delivered, but can't risk being spotted doing it themselves head down to the spice hall to find some shady mercenary willing to do anything for money and a trade permit. Yup, that'd be you.
4) "Wait at leisure while the enemy labors"
It is an advantage to choose the time and place for battle. In this way you know when and where the battle will take place, while your enemy does not.
In ST this is accomplished by picking and choosing one's battles. Pressing "Battle Stations" when facing off any ostensibly-enemy ship is a bad idea. Are you sure you are powerful enough to take him? Is another faction allied with the target, resulting in a second 'wanted' flag? Are you in space such that, even if you win, you're likely to be thrown immediately into another battle?
If at all possible, from a survival perspective, it is best if all battles be started at the player's discretion, not forced on them. Thus good speed and positive rep are vital.
5) "Loot a burning house"
When a country is beset by internal conflicts, when disease and famine ravage the population, when corruption and crime are rampant, then it will be unable to deal with an outside threat. This is the time to attack.
My understanding is that, in ST, it is best to attack a faction when it is being beset by multiple factions. This gives you multiple large rep boosts across the board.
6) "Make a sound in the east, then strike in the west"
In any battle the element of surprise can provide an overwhelming advantage. Even when face to face with an enemy, surprise can still be employed by attacking where he least expects it.
While the ability to surprise an enemy is uncommon in ST, the RNG does this to us all the time by dropping aliens on us when we are least ready for them.
7) "Create something from nothing"
A plain lie. ... Another method is to create an illusion that something does not exist, while it does.
In ST, this is done by purchasing or building a new ship and clearing the wanted flags, thus making the factions believe that something -- you -- does not exist when, in fact, you do.
8) "Openly repair the gallery roads, but sneak through the passage of Chencang"
Deceive the enemy with an obvious approach that will take a very long time, while surprising him by taking a shortcut and sneak up to him.
Regrettably, ST AI is not intelligent enough for deceptions such as this to work. Not to my knowledge, anyway.
9) "Watch the fires burning across the river"
Delay entering the field of battle until all the other players have become exhausted fighting amongst themselves.
While we can't do this, the RNG displays an uncanny knack for dropping Narvidian hunters on us at precisely the wrong time.
10) "Hide a knife behind a smile"
Charm and ingratiate yourself to your enemy. When you have gained his trust, move against him in secret.
As before, a quick way to stay alive when hunting steel song is to first by trade permit and rank with the faction, THEN start attacking them. In fact, if one sticks to pirates, one can loot them all day without incurring faction penalties.
11) "Sacrifice the plum tree to preserve the peach tree"
There are circumstances in which you must sacrifice short-term objectives in order to gain the long-term goal.
Pretty much any attempt at the higher difficulty levels is one long busy long term plan in which we delay immediate gratification -- exploding ships, rapid profits -- in favor of long-term survival. In ST as in the real world, there are no old, bold pilots.
12) "Take the opportunity to pilfer a goat"
While carrying out your plans be flexible enough to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself, however small, and avail yourself of any profit, however slight.
A shortage rumor? A technology rumor on a wild planet? Woohoo! Success in ST as a merchant or an explorer is all about trolling for rumors, then acting on them quickly. Flexibility is key.
13) "Stomp the grass to scare the snake"
Do something unaimed, but spectacular ("hitting the grass") to provoke a response of the enemy ("startle the snake").
The opposite of the "play nice" strategy. Deliberately target a faction's ships to achieve wanted status, then start collecting the steady stream of bounty hunters, naval ships, and pirates which pursue you. Best done if you have a powerful captain, an invincible ship, and a difficulty level of "normal".
14) "Borrow a corpse to resurrect the soul"
Take an institution, a technology, a method, or even an ideology that has been forgotten or discarded and appropriate it for your own purpose.
This is the raison d^etre of the explorer, whose job is to bring up artifacts from ancient ruins and help the factions recreate the technology lost since the Golden Age of Space. The Templars frown on the practice, but then why do they collect so many artifacts themselves ...?
15) "Entice the tiger to leave its mountain lair"
"Never directly attack an opponent whose advantage is derived from its position. Instead lure him away from his position thus separating him from his source of strength."
Unfortunately, I don't think we can use this one. Anyone disagree and have a good example?
16) "In order to capture, one must let loose"
Cornered prey will often mount a final desperate attack. To prevent this you let the enemy believe he still has a chance for freedom. His will to fight is thus dampened by his desire to escape. When in the end the freedom is proven a falsehood the enemy's morale will be defeated and he will surrender without a fight.
While we cannot do this, the games' failure to follow this strategy means that ST captains almost always fight to the death when facing execution at the hands of faction or the Alien. If there were some ambiguity as to the captain's fate, captains might surrender more readily ... in which case the alien would get a kill much cheaper than it otherwise might.
17) "Tossing out a brick to get a jade gem."
"Bait someone by making him believe he gains something or just make him react to it ("toss out a brick") and obtain something valuable from him in return ("get a jade gem")."
The intent of the long-range contracts in the early game. They make you think you are going to make a tidy profit, when in fact their sole purpose is to lure you out of Green space into the Hyperion Demonic Nebula where Independents can handily slaughter you.
18) "Defeat the enemy by capturing their chief"
Self-explanatory. Pretty much the only way to win against some alien ships is to board the craft and kill the captain. Absent this, there is very little chance to win against overwhelming numbers unless your crew is intelligent enough to destroy the ships engines.
19) "Remove the firewood from under the pot"
Take out the leading argument or asset of someone; "steal someone's thunder". This is the very essence of indirect approach: instead of attacking enemy's fighting forces, the attacks are directed against his ability to wage war.
Commonly used in ship-to-ship combat by, rather than directly forcing a boarding, targeting the engines or the crew, thus rendering the opposing vessel helpless without the need for direct confrontation.
20) "Disturb the water and catch a fish"
Create confusion and use this confusion to further your own goals.
The game uses this strategy with the faction conflicts: In any given day, there is a new embargo, or a new war, or a new duel of assassins guaranteed to cause negative rep with one faction or other. If a player does not take time to carefully sift the current conflicts , clearing the confusion, they'll be staring down the barrel of two wanted flags before they know it, with every port closed and every man's hand against them.
21) "Slough off the cicada's golden shell"
Mask yourself. Either leave one's distinctive traits behind, thus becoming inconspicuous, or masquerade as something or someone else
Used by merchants and smugglers. When you don't want a massive crew and the water-fuel expenditure that goes with it, when conflict gets in the way of profit, do everything you can to reduce your detection signature. Stealth generators. Stealth skill. Artifact isolation compartments. All of these represent the highly visible shell which a live merchant must slough off if they have any desire to live in the higher difficulty levels.
22) "Shut the door to catch the thief"
To capture your enemy, or more generally in fighting wars, to deliver the final blow to your enemy, you must plan prudently if you want to succeed. Do not rush into action.
Prudent planning is the heart and soul of ST -- a plan to build the captain, a plan to build the ship, carefully outfitting the ship for the intent it is designed for (contract running, blockading, alien-hunting), carefully planning the flight path to and from the target -- a good brain and patience does more to keep a player alive than a holdful of torpedoes.
23) "Befriend a distant state while attacking a neighbor"
It is known that nations that border each other become enemies while nations separated by distance and obstacles make better allies. When you are the strongest in one field, your greatest threat is from the second strongest in your field, not the strongest from another field.
Practiced by the syndicate factions. While all the syndicate factions are loosely co-aligned against the Great Houses, this is not to say they are bosum buddies; in fact, Cadar and its UTF represents a direct rival to De Valtos and Rychert. So it is not at all uncommon to see syndicates befriend great houses, presumably following this very principal.
24) "Obtain safe passage to conquer the State of Guo"
"Borrow the resources of an ally to attack a common enemy. Once the enemy is defeated, use those resources to turn on the ally that lent you them in the first place."
Commonly practiced by the factions, who seem to delight in setting one on another, then jumping on the former "ally" at the conclusion of the conflict.
25) "Replace the beams with rotten timbers"
Disrupt the enemy's formations, interfere with their methods of operations, change the rules in which they are used to follow, go contrary to their standard training.
Practiced by aliens against gun-specialist ships. There are a number of strategies which work perfectly well against humans but don't work at all against a hive. A gun-specialist will be forced into a warrior-centric battle for which they are not prepared, and massacred in short order.
26) "Point at the mulberry tree while cursing the locust tree"
To discipline, control, or warn others whose status or position excludes them from direct confrontation; use analogy and innuendo. Without directly naming names, those accused cannot retaliate without revealing their complicity.
Does not appear to be practiced, as there is little you can do to one faction that will cause another to take warning, although your actions CAN effect your rep.
27) "Feign madness but keep your balance"
Hide behind the mask of a fool, a drunk, or a madman to create confusion about your intentions and motivations. Lure your opponent into underestimating your ability until, overconfident, he drops his guard. Then you may attack.
Can be done to lure ships, which are attracted to a full load of cargo. What a surprise for them when that large, tubby merchant full to the brim is carrying a full cargo of WEAPONS, as well as hundreds of crew supported by shalun mercenaries.
28) "Remove the ladder when the enemy has ascended to the roof"
With baits and deceptions, lure your enemy into treacherous terrain. Then cut off his lines of communication and avenue of escape. To save himself, he must fight both your own forces and the elements of nature.
Done by the game to the players, in which a player is lured out to the red zones by a promise of a favorable contract. Put in a dangerous position, the player must confront over-levelled enemies, crew accident, and the possibility of running out of water fuel.
29) Deck the tree with false blossoms
"Tying silk blossoms on a dead tree gives the illusion that the tree is healthy. Through the use of artifice and disguise, make something of no value appear valuable; of no threat appear dangerous; of no use appear useful."
Again, stealth on a merchant vessel augmented by the smuggler's compartment or the artifact isolation compartment, disguising the true value carried in what is apparently a flying piece of junk. Which, nonetheless, can make .5 past light speed.
30) Make the host and the guest exchange roles
Usurp leadership in a situation where you are normally subordinate. Infiltrate your target. Initially, pretend to be a guest to be accepted, but develop from inside and become the owner later.
Done by spice hall recruits to you. "10 men and women have joined your ship; can you trust them? " NO.
31) The beauty trap (Honeypot)
"Send your enemy beautiful women to cause discord within his camp. This strategy can work on three levels. First, the ruler becomes so enamoured with the beauty that he neglects his duties and allows his vigilance to wane. Second, other males at court will begin to display aggressive behaviour that inflames minor differences hindering co-operation and destroying morale. Third, other females at court, motivated by jealousy and envy, begin to plot intrigues further exacerbating the situation."
This doesn't appear to happen in ST, as there appears to be no actual gender difference in ST. Dangit.
32) The empty fort strategy
"When the enemy is superior in numbers and your situation is such that you expect to be overrun at any moment, then drop all pretense of military preparedness, act calmly and taunt the enemy, so that the enemy will think you have a huge ambush hidden for them. It works best by acting calm and at ease when your enemy expects you to be tense."
Possible to perform this by gaining a morale victory over an alien. Sure you're down to 5 crew and they have 300, but they're morale broke and you get the ship for salvage, presumably because your calm demeanor completely unnerved the Narvidian intelligence , which cannot fathom a human acting as if he had an overwhelming advantage if he didn't. The Narvidians have intellect, technology, and overwhelming military power but WE have lies, treachery, and guile.
..
So THAT's why the Templars won't let us ditch Steel Song.
33) "Let the enemy's own spy sow discord in the enemy camp"
Undermine your enemy's ability to fight by secretly causing discord between him and his friends, allies, advisors, family, commanders, soldiers, and population. While he is preoccupied settling internal disputes, his ability to attack or defend, is compromised.
My understanding is that the latest version of ST allows the factions to do it to each other, in which a simple delivery mission can spark an all-out war between the factions.
34) Inflict injury on oneself to win the enemy's trust
Self-explanatory. Again, this can be done by taking contracts or destroying ships of one's own faction in order to gain positive rep with an opposing faction, in order to clear the wanted flags and so faclititate further predation in the long term.
35) Chain stratagems
In important matters, one should use several stratagems applied simultaneously after another as in a chain of stratagems. Keep different plans operating in an overall scheme; however, in this manner if any one strategy fails, then the chain breaks and the whole scheme fails.
Something the player should be constantly doing, prepared for any given plan to suddenly fall apart. For instance, you planned to deliver a load of electronics to address a shortage, and the shortage disappears or an embargo is slapped on. Hopefully the player has alternatives to simply selling the goods at a loss at the nearest independent planet; perhaps an alternate buyer can be found, or perhaps it can be stashed on a wild planet, or perhaps we can sell it at a loss to a faction for +rep.
36) If all else fails, retreat!
"If it becomes obvious that your current course of action will lead to defeat, then retreat and regroup. When your side is losing, there are only three choices remaining: surrender, compromise, or escape. Surrender is complete defeat, compromise is half defeat, but escape is not defeat. As long as you are not defeated, you still have a chance. This is the most famous of the stratagems, immortalized in the form of a Chinese idiom: "Of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, fleeing is best" "
Spectacular advice, especially at the higher difficulty levels. There is a word for a captain who emulates Kamina from Gurren Lagann . A captain who never runs from his enemies is normally an enemy who can't run at all, on account of being dead. Many of the captains I've lost were Captains who didn't take that advice, and pushed on to complete a contract or pushed a fight they should have run from.
So it's great advice, possibly the best advice in the whole guide. Pick your battles, know your limits. And if it looks like it's going to go bad, don't hero it -- run. Other captains may curse you for a coward, but you'll be the one with 20 ranks sitting in the E-ring of Cadar GHQ and leading the memorial service at their graves.
====
I hope you enjoyed it! And I hope it's useful.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
For your entertainment and pleasure, I thought I would review the 36 strategies and consider their appearance in the ST universe. A few of them are quite valid tactics.
1) "Deceive the heavens to cross the ocean"
Mask your real goals, by using the ruse of a fake goal, until the real goal is achieved.
Most often done in the starting point of the game, especially on the harder difficulty levels. Surrender to everyone, make friends with every faction, and avoid the 'wanted' flag until you have the super powerful Ship O' doom. THEN is the time to go for the "independent captain" or "Blackheart" achievements. Revealing your true goal too soon means you are relentlessly hunted across space and murdered before turn 1000.
2) "Besiege Wèi to rescue Zhào"
"When the enemy is too strong to be attacked directly, then attack something he holds dear. Know that he cannot be superior in all things. Somewhere there is a gap in the armour, a weakness that can be attacked instead."
The factions assiduously practice this; indeed, it is the only point of a trade war or a trade embargo, weakening the enemy and improving their own position when all-out military conflict is prevented by the Templar Fleet.
3) "Kill with a borrowed sword"
Trick an ally into attacking him, bribe an official to turn traitor, or use the enemy's own strength against him. The idea here is to cause damage to the enemy by getting a 3rd party to do the deed.
Your character , in ST, is the borrowed sword of the various factions. Factions who need someone dead, or a package delivered, but can't risk being spotted doing it themselves head down to the spice hall to find some shady mercenary willing to do anything for money and a trade permit. Yup, that'd be you.
4) "Wait at leisure while the enemy labors"
It is an advantage to choose the time and place for battle. In this way you know when and where the battle will take place, while your enemy does not.
In ST this is accomplished by picking and choosing one's battles. Pressing "Battle Stations" when facing off any ostensibly-enemy ship is a bad idea. Are you sure you are powerful enough to take him? Is another faction allied with the target, resulting in a second 'wanted' flag? Are you in space such that, even if you win, you're likely to be thrown immediately into another battle?
If at all possible, from a survival perspective, it is best if all battles be started at the player's discretion, not forced on them. Thus good speed and positive rep are vital.
5) "Loot a burning house"
When a country is beset by internal conflicts, when disease and famine ravage the population, when corruption and crime are rampant, then it will be unable to deal with an outside threat. This is the time to attack.
My understanding is that, in ST, it is best to attack a faction when it is being beset by multiple factions. This gives you multiple large rep boosts across the board.
6) "Make a sound in the east, then strike in the west"
In any battle the element of surprise can provide an overwhelming advantage. Even when face to face with an enemy, surprise can still be employed by attacking where he least expects it.
While the ability to surprise an enemy is uncommon in ST, the RNG does this to us all the time by dropping aliens on us when we are least ready for them.
7) "Create something from nothing"
A plain lie. ... Another method is to create an illusion that something does not exist, while it does.
In ST, this is done by purchasing or building a new ship and clearing the wanted flags, thus making the factions believe that something -- you -- does not exist when, in fact, you do.
8) "Openly repair the gallery roads, but sneak through the passage of Chencang"
Deceive the enemy with an obvious approach that will take a very long time, while surprising him by taking a shortcut and sneak up to him.
Regrettably, ST AI is not intelligent enough for deceptions such as this to work. Not to my knowledge, anyway.
9) "Watch the fires burning across the river"
Delay entering the field of battle until all the other players have become exhausted fighting amongst themselves.
While we can't do this, the RNG displays an uncanny knack for dropping Narvidian hunters on us at precisely the wrong time.
10) "Hide a knife behind a smile"
Charm and ingratiate yourself to your enemy. When you have gained his trust, move against him in secret.
As before, a quick way to stay alive when hunting steel song is to first by trade permit and rank with the faction, THEN start attacking them. In fact, if one sticks to pirates, one can loot them all day without incurring faction penalties.
11) "Sacrifice the plum tree to preserve the peach tree"
There are circumstances in which you must sacrifice short-term objectives in order to gain the long-term goal.
Pretty much any attempt at the higher difficulty levels is one long busy long term plan in which we delay immediate gratification -- exploding ships, rapid profits -- in favor of long-term survival. In ST as in the real world, there are no old, bold pilots.
12) "Take the opportunity to pilfer a goat"
While carrying out your plans be flexible enough to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself, however small, and avail yourself of any profit, however slight.
A shortage rumor? A technology rumor on a wild planet? Woohoo! Success in ST as a merchant or an explorer is all about trolling for rumors, then acting on them quickly. Flexibility is key.
13) "Stomp the grass to scare the snake"
Do something unaimed, but spectacular ("hitting the grass") to provoke a response of the enemy ("startle the snake").
The opposite of the "play nice" strategy. Deliberately target a faction's ships to achieve wanted status, then start collecting the steady stream of bounty hunters, naval ships, and pirates which pursue you. Best done if you have a powerful captain, an invincible ship, and a difficulty level of "normal".
14) "Borrow a corpse to resurrect the soul"
Take an institution, a technology, a method, or even an ideology that has been forgotten or discarded and appropriate it for your own purpose.
This is the raison d^etre of the explorer, whose job is to bring up artifacts from ancient ruins and help the factions recreate the technology lost since the Golden Age of Space. The Templars frown on the practice, but then why do they collect so many artifacts themselves ...?
15) "Entice the tiger to leave its mountain lair"
"Never directly attack an opponent whose advantage is derived from its position. Instead lure him away from his position thus separating him from his source of strength."
Unfortunately, I don't think we can use this one. Anyone disagree and have a good example?
16) "In order to capture, one must let loose"
Cornered prey will often mount a final desperate attack. To prevent this you let the enemy believe he still has a chance for freedom. His will to fight is thus dampened by his desire to escape. When in the end the freedom is proven a falsehood the enemy's morale will be defeated and he will surrender without a fight.
While we cannot do this, the games' failure to follow this strategy means that ST captains almost always fight to the death when facing execution at the hands of faction or the Alien. If there were some ambiguity as to the captain's fate, captains might surrender more readily ... in which case the alien would get a kill much cheaper than it otherwise might.
17) "Tossing out a brick to get a jade gem."
"Bait someone by making him believe he gains something or just make him react to it ("toss out a brick") and obtain something valuable from him in return ("get a jade gem")."
The intent of the long-range contracts in the early game. They make you think you are going to make a tidy profit, when in fact their sole purpose is to lure you out of Green space into the Hyperion Demonic Nebula where Independents can handily slaughter you.
18) "Defeat the enemy by capturing their chief"
Self-explanatory. Pretty much the only way to win against some alien ships is to board the craft and kill the captain. Absent this, there is very little chance to win against overwhelming numbers unless your crew is intelligent enough to destroy the ships engines.
19) "Remove the firewood from under the pot"
Take out the leading argument or asset of someone; "steal someone's thunder". This is the very essence of indirect approach: instead of attacking enemy's fighting forces, the attacks are directed against his ability to wage war.
Commonly used in ship-to-ship combat by, rather than directly forcing a boarding, targeting the engines or the crew, thus rendering the opposing vessel helpless without the need for direct confrontation.
20) "Disturb the water and catch a fish"
Create confusion and use this confusion to further your own goals.
The game uses this strategy with the faction conflicts: In any given day, there is a new embargo, or a new war, or a new duel of assassins guaranteed to cause negative rep with one faction or other. If a player does not take time to carefully sift the current conflicts , clearing the confusion, they'll be staring down the barrel of two wanted flags before they know it, with every port closed and every man's hand against them.
21) "Slough off the cicada's golden shell"
Mask yourself. Either leave one's distinctive traits behind, thus becoming inconspicuous, or masquerade as something or someone else
Used by merchants and smugglers. When you don't want a massive crew and the water-fuel expenditure that goes with it, when conflict gets in the way of profit, do everything you can to reduce your detection signature. Stealth generators. Stealth skill. Artifact isolation compartments. All of these represent the highly visible shell which a live merchant must slough off if they have any desire to live in the higher difficulty levels.
22) "Shut the door to catch the thief"
To capture your enemy, or more generally in fighting wars, to deliver the final blow to your enemy, you must plan prudently if you want to succeed. Do not rush into action.
Prudent planning is the heart and soul of ST -- a plan to build the captain, a plan to build the ship, carefully outfitting the ship for the intent it is designed for (contract running, blockading, alien-hunting), carefully planning the flight path to and from the target -- a good brain and patience does more to keep a player alive than a holdful of torpedoes.
23) "Befriend a distant state while attacking a neighbor"
It is known that nations that border each other become enemies while nations separated by distance and obstacles make better allies. When you are the strongest in one field, your greatest threat is from the second strongest in your field, not the strongest from another field.
Practiced by the syndicate factions. While all the syndicate factions are loosely co-aligned against the Great Houses, this is not to say they are bosum buddies; in fact, Cadar and its UTF represents a direct rival to De Valtos and Rychert. So it is not at all uncommon to see syndicates befriend great houses, presumably following this very principal.
24) "Obtain safe passage to conquer the State of Guo"
"Borrow the resources of an ally to attack a common enemy. Once the enemy is defeated, use those resources to turn on the ally that lent you them in the first place."
Commonly practiced by the factions, who seem to delight in setting one on another, then jumping on the former "ally" at the conclusion of the conflict.
25) "Replace the beams with rotten timbers"
Disrupt the enemy's formations, interfere with their methods of operations, change the rules in which they are used to follow, go contrary to their standard training.
Practiced by aliens against gun-specialist ships. There are a number of strategies which work perfectly well against humans but don't work at all against a hive. A gun-specialist will be forced into a warrior-centric battle for which they are not prepared, and massacred in short order.
26) "Point at the mulberry tree while cursing the locust tree"
To discipline, control, or warn others whose status or position excludes them from direct confrontation; use analogy and innuendo. Without directly naming names, those accused cannot retaliate without revealing their complicity.
Does not appear to be practiced, as there is little you can do to one faction that will cause another to take warning, although your actions CAN effect your rep.
27) "Feign madness but keep your balance"
Hide behind the mask of a fool, a drunk, or a madman to create confusion about your intentions and motivations. Lure your opponent into underestimating your ability until, overconfident, he drops his guard. Then you may attack.
Can be done to lure ships, which are attracted to a full load of cargo. What a surprise for them when that large, tubby merchant full to the brim is carrying a full cargo of WEAPONS, as well as hundreds of crew supported by shalun mercenaries.
28) "Remove the ladder when the enemy has ascended to the roof"
With baits and deceptions, lure your enemy into treacherous terrain. Then cut off his lines of communication and avenue of escape. To save himself, he must fight both your own forces and the elements of nature.
Done by the game to the players, in which a player is lured out to the red zones by a promise of a favorable contract. Put in a dangerous position, the player must confront over-levelled enemies, crew accident, and the possibility of running out of water fuel.
29) Deck the tree with false blossoms
"Tying silk blossoms on a dead tree gives the illusion that the tree is healthy. Through the use of artifice and disguise, make something of no value appear valuable; of no threat appear dangerous; of no use appear useful."
Again, stealth on a merchant vessel augmented by the smuggler's compartment or the artifact isolation compartment, disguising the true value carried in what is apparently a flying piece of junk. Which, nonetheless, can make .5 past light speed.
30) Make the host and the guest exchange roles
Usurp leadership in a situation where you are normally subordinate. Infiltrate your target. Initially, pretend to be a guest to be accepted, but develop from inside and become the owner later.
Done by spice hall recruits to you. "10 men and women have joined your ship; can you trust them? " NO.
31) The beauty trap (Honeypot)
"Send your enemy beautiful women to cause discord within his camp. This strategy can work on three levels. First, the ruler becomes so enamoured with the beauty that he neglects his duties and allows his vigilance to wane. Second, other males at court will begin to display aggressive behaviour that inflames minor differences hindering co-operation and destroying morale. Third, other females at court, motivated by jealousy and envy, begin to plot intrigues further exacerbating the situation."
This doesn't appear to happen in ST, as there appears to be no actual gender difference in ST. Dangit.
32) The empty fort strategy
"When the enemy is superior in numbers and your situation is such that you expect to be overrun at any moment, then drop all pretense of military preparedness, act calmly and taunt the enemy, so that the enemy will think you have a huge ambush hidden for them. It works best by acting calm and at ease when your enemy expects you to be tense."
Possible to perform this by gaining a morale victory over an alien. Sure you're down to 5 crew and they have 300, but they're morale broke and you get the ship for salvage, presumably because your calm demeanor completely unnerved the Narvidian intelligence , which cannot fathom a human acting as if he had an overwhelming advantage if he didn't. The Narvidians have intellect, technology, and overwhelming military power but WE have lies, treachery, and guile.
..
So THAT's why the Templars won't let us ditch Steel Song.
33) "Let the enemy's own spy sow discord in the enemy camp"
Undermine your enemy's ability to fight by secretly causing discord between him and his friends, allies, advisors, family, commanders, soldiers, and population. While he is preoccupied settling internal disputes, his ability to attack or defend, is compromised.
My understanding is that the latest version of ST allows the factions to do it to each other, in which a simple delivery mission can spark an all-out war between the factions.
34) Inflict injury on oneself to win the enemy's trust
Self-explanatory. Again, this can be done by taking contracts or destroying ships of one's own faction in order to gain positive rep with an opposing faction, in order to clear the wanted flags and so faclititate further predation in the long term.
35) Chain stratagems
In important matters, one should use several stratagems applied simultaneously after another as in a chain of stratagems. Keep different plans operating in an overall scheme; however, in this manner if any one strategy fails, then the chain breaks and the whole scheme fails.
Something the player should be constantly doing, prepared for any given plan to suddenly fall apart. For instance, you planned to deliver a load of electronics to address a shortage, and the shortage disappears or an embargo is slapped on. Hopefully the player has alternatives to simply selling the goods at a loss at the nearest independent planet; perhaps an alternate buyer can be found, or perhaps it can be stashed on a wild planet, or perhaps we can sell it at a loss to a faction for +rep.
36) If all else fails, retreat!
"If it becomes obvious that your current course of action will lead to defeat, then retreat and regroup. When your side is losing, there are only three choices remaining: surrender, compromise, or escape. Surrender is complete defeat, compromise is half defeat, but escape is not defeat. As long as you are not defeated, you still have a chance. This is the most famous of the stratagems, immortalized in the form of a Chinese idiom: "Of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, fleeing is best" "
Spectacular advice, especially at the higher difficulty levels. There is a word for a captain who emulates Kamina from Gurren Lagann . A captain who never runs from his enemies is normally an enemy who can't run at all, on account of being dead. Many of the captains I've lost were Captains who didn't take that advice, and pushed on to complete a contract or pushed a fight they should have run from.
So it's great advice, possibly the best advice in the whole guide. Pick your battles, know your limits. And if it looks like it's going to go bad, don't hero it -- run. Other captains may curse you for a coward, but you'll be the one with 20 ranks sitting in the E-ring of Cadar GHQ and leading the memorial service at their graves.
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I hope you enjoyed it! And I hope it's useful.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
