Does the Coalition win all the time?

In the many games I have played, ships blow up only very rarely. Ships that get directed get blown up (maulers, Kzinti and Hydran cruisers), and ocasionally ships in bad situations get blown up (a lone FF vs 4 cruisers), but no one ever voluntarily blows up their own ships to absorb damage if they have a choice. It is amazingly foolish to do so. Considering how often ships blow up in SFB, it is amazing how many War Cruisers manage to survive the General War...

I'm interested to hear what balance options you have use and how they change things. We have never used the published balance options cause they generally look like they won't really help the Alliance position (although we could be wrong).

When we pick balance options, we always assign a max point level to spend to - usually 50 pts each. There aren't many options we consistently choose, but among those are: Hydran Quest for Methane (2 extra survey ships in exchange for 2 LN from Old Colonies), Lyran Blitz (Spring production before the game begins using 86 ep), Fed B (using the more expensive 3 extra NC1 and 3 FF on turns 5 and 6). As for the other options, some of the Alliance choices, esp, absolutely must be linked to a solid strategy. Choosing Banzai for the Hydran's, for example, makes no sense if you want the Hydrans to try to reach the Feds. Some of the more nasty options I've taken as the Alliance are: Hydran Fatalism (convert the 2 MBs to SB at the capital and delete all PWC), Hydran Banzai (move Home, 2nd, Exp, and OCS in range of the Lyran border during setup), Kzin Firm Fed Alliance (set aside the 6 ships from Marquis that have to stay until turn 7 and split the rest up between Count and Duke during setup), Lyran No Trimarans (all trimarans are original designs with no conversion of catamarans into trimarans), Hydran Lyran Wall (place both MBs in empty hexes on the Lyran border and convert them to BATS; delete CWs from PWC), Kzin B (Barony Fleet sets up in capital, Klingon Reluctance (peacetime economy on turn 1) and Klingon Delay (no attack on Kzinti until turn 3)

With the Alliance, it's really a question of every little bit helps; there's no one option that will give a huge advantage, though after 10 turns of fighting in our current game, with *both* the Hydran and Kzin capitals holding out, I'm convinced that the Firm Fed Alliance and the No Trimaran options are an absolute must for the Alliance player to choose. The firm Fed alliance effectively doubles the size of Count and Duke's Fleet and the no trimaran option does away with those huge clouds of Lyran DNs and BCs, at least in the early game.

Added to these options, which are basically just there to buy time until the Feds can get back on their feet, the Alliance player has to figure out what strategy he will use for each race and stick to it ruthlessly. Decide right off if you want the Hydrans to try for the Feds (bad move, I think), harass the Lyrans, or harass the Klingons and, no matter what, *write the Hydrans off, mentally*. The Kzin's best, maybe only, chance is to fortify the capital as quickly as possible while pursuing a policy of keeping their fleets in being as opposed to in being repaired. I invariably devote half the Kzin economy to building capital defences each turn. The Navy just has to make do with what's left. In our current game, for example, the Coalition began the battle for Kzintai on Turn 3, by which time I had system 1 packed to the gunwales with PDUs and had constructed a BATS to augment the SB.

One point that must be stressed (and the game designer hints at this) is that the Alliance player *has* to be resigned to the fact that the Hydrans and Kzin will go down sooner or later. The primary function of these two powers is not to survive (though that would be nice), but it is to cause so many casualties and to so disrupt the Coallition timetable that there is no hope of an attack on the Feds on turn 7. I've found that if I can keep this though very much in the front of my mind during the first 6 turns, the Hydrans and Kzin seem to do better. The I-have-nothing-to-lose mentality can be worth an extra fleet of ships.