Military Doctrines


A empire-wide leader hasn't the capacity to take charge of every single battle fought under his command. There are usually just too many things to run, too many battles to be fought for a single man. Many people thinks the Leader should only be able to run strategic and logistic movements.

However, there is a way a leader could have ways of inputting battle orders, showing his own tactical genius on both the Micro AND the Macro-Aspect of War: Military Doctrines.

A military doctrines are usually defined by 2 generals category:

- Rules of Engagements (ROE)
- Battle Tactics (Tac)

Rules of Engagements:

When two ships meets (or two fleets), it is always a good thing that they know how to react to the other one. For example, in Outer Space, when your Frigate meets a squadron of Drengin Fighters (Drengin being good trading partners) who just seems to pass by, the Frigate's captain has an easy time figuring out what to do.

However, if the Drengins and your Empire are cold-Warriors since they met, and the Fighters seems to come closer, what is the political stance of your governement? Should the frigate fire first when they come into range, maybe starting a shooting war? Should she try evasive manoeuvers, thu lowering morale of your troops and showing weakness to the Drengin? Or is it the position of your governement to let the Captain on his own, making the decision himself? After all, maybe the fighters simply want to intimidate your ship. Or they want to destroy it "accidently". (and I object the idea that destroying ONE ship should be an immediat declaration of war)

ROE is usually the political standing your governement adopt. The standard ROE in war is "Engage on Sight", while in peace time, it's "Evasive Manoeuvers, and return fire only." Your governement could also adopt the "No-Man's-Land" attitude for it's territory, shooting anyone intruding your space. Or "flee on sight" when crossing a foreign territory, trying to avoid any political tension.

You would be much more cautious about sending green units in a hot situation. What if they accidently fire on another vessel?


Battle Tactics:

When the battle erupt, should your fighters run ahead, trying to outmanoeuver the Large and Huge ships? Or should they first wait that your own Destroyers disperce the ennemy's corvette? Should they always make a run for the Unarmed ships? Target the Capital?

Clever Captains and Admirals usually knows what to do in these situations, making the good call. However, when you commission 100 ships in less than 2 years, clever admirals and captains aren't a commodity, they are a luxury. You man the ships with whatever commanders you can. Pre-determined battle tactics are usually a good substitute to tactical cleverness. You can design Tac for every kind of engagements, should they be multi-composed fleets, or squadron fighters, corvette wings, etc...

And even better. If you discover that one of your doctrine is being moslty inneficient against a peticular race, because theirs is adapted, you could develop Ennemy-specific doctrins (Much like the Americans developped against the R.U.S.S.).

Also, intelligence gathering (read: espionnage) would be much much more needed. What if you manage to steal information concerning a specific battle manoeuvre your ennemy developped before a war? Or you learn that they stole one of yours..?

Well-Implimented, a fleet with a genius commander (or genius Tac) could beat another fleet less experienced and too rigid, but much superior technologicly (example: Commander Thrawn beating the Emperor's personnal fleet)


Military Doctrines as a whole:


All of the Doctrines should also have a % of chance of being respected. Depending on the reliability of your commanders. Do you want a band of crazy horses, but highly adaptable at the command of your fleets, or people who always follow orders by the book? Do you want to promote creativity, or discipline? How much theorical training do your officers learn, do you have to build Military Academies, of do they learn everything by observing on the battlefield?


All of these questions are part of a leadership function, specially military leadership, and is the responsability of the Head of a Government, and I think they could be a nice way to impliment tactical battle into this game, while respecting the idea that "you are a empire-wide commander, do not have the capacity to run every battle". AND respecting the idea that "Would not be obliged to run every battle to gain an advantage on the A.I.", since the A.I. commanding ships and fleets would simply follow your general orders, but could make mistakes.