An example of close combat tactics, this game with Wrathangel took fewer than 20 updates to complete. First contact was in my home system, as our scis flew by each other at 20,18 and 20,17. My four science ships gave me a large edge in map exploration. Wrathangel did almost nothing after exploring my home system, so I happily pop tricked the four planets you see. As I tricked, Wrathangel overbuilt 7 BR3's at his HW. After the pop trick I was dismayed to see that my tech level was only 7.3, and I would have to wait until his ships were in 20,18 to even begin building. I ended turn, allowing his ships to enter my south builder and finally hitting BR3. Now the question. I knew I had an econ lead, since he had colonized nothing at all. I had no safe builder to overbuild to protect my HW however. I could either build satelites and mines at my south planet and hope he nuked it, or gamble and overbuild there to match his fleet in my homeworld. I built the satelites and mines, and waited for him to end turn. He did, and I quickly cancelled the build and instead overbuilt a matching BR3 fleet. The next turn, he was in my HW and I had my fleet to the south. I had enough econ left to build a BR3 attack in my HW and still have the overbuit ships to full BR. His fleet was wiped out, and I built sweepers at the south planet to cruise in for the easy nuke. He colonized his second system after his attempted nuke, but of course they were too late to help his econ.
