Incidentally, what is the significance of creating fleets? I know I can select/group ships together via Ctrl- 0-9, but how does a fleet differ? Benefits/drawbacks?
Fleets and assigning numbers to ships is part of advanced fleet control if you want. It is called microing.
Benefit is that it lets you select ships quicker. I will give you an example. You build your first LRM frigate. Create a fleet with one ship in it and assign number to the fleet not ship. Now build carrier and do same thing but choose different number. So now you got 2 fleets each different type of ship in fleet. send them to different planet. Now on planet where you have factories set "exit point" on planet where your fleets are. If you build either LRMs or carrier they will go to the planet u selected exit point ant will join fleet with same ship type. So automatically if u press previous assigned number for LRMs all LRMs will be selected. Same thing goes for carriers. Now if you build any other ship type that previously didn't have fleet created (assigning numbers just speeds process of selecting-its not necessary) it will join strongest fleet in that gravity well.
Another part of microing is to tell ships what to do. And with bigger fleets and multiple types of ships it becomes hard to select same type of ships and assigning numbers becomes even more important. You can assign numbers to fighters or bombers as well. Each type of ship has counters (other type of ship that destroys it quicker and more effectively-there are some nice threads about counters) so its good if u attack right type of ship with their counter. For instance tell lrms to attack cobalts or cobalts to attack carriers bombers to attack heavy cruisers fighters to attack LRMs etc ets. In order to do that quickly you need those numbers assigned to ships. You can do same thing with empire tree its just slower....
And when you come to play online in MP games there are pros who can kill twice size fleet that they have or more with no problems with microing and nothing else. Another aspect of microing are abilities either on cap ships or frigates. By right clicking on them you can turn auto cast off and decide when you want to use that ability and in case of cap ships which one to use as well. Abilities cost Anti Matter and sometimes some other ability is draining ability you want to use but you cant because you got no AM.
There is science to microing and it takes time to learn and getting used to but benefits are great.
Another thing for instance if you have 40-50 LRMs you can asign them to 2 diferent numbers. That way you are not wasting shots if you are attacking frigates since 20 LRMs will probably kill frigate you are attacking and other 30 that fired in this case would go to waste.
PS you can assign numbers to factories as well. So u don't need to search for factory to select it. Press number and factory is selected.
Are you playing against the advent? In the late game they can build culture cannons (superweapons) which sends a huge culture hit to any planet the players wishes. This is more common in single player than multiplayer though, as in multiplayer its consider to be weak and inefficient as far as superweapons go
It cannot be deliverance engine (advent super weapon) because AI does not know how to build them. It has to be enemy culture from temple on nearby planet. You can see culture spread if you look at phase lanes. They become colored. If its same color you are playing culture is yours if not its players that has same color as phase line is.
Lastly, are Garda Flak Frigates the best offense against all the bombers/fighters launched from carriers and capital ships? I have not used them too much at all. My attack force is the Hoshiko/Carrier/Cap ships/and that Heavy gun ship (I forget the name, it has an impulse engine upgrade).
You definitely need to put some LRMs in your fleet. They are most versatile ships in terms that their damage multiplier is high to all types of armor. Each ship has its own armor type. Thats where counters come from. Its best to start with LRMs. Just build Cap that is for free another one if you want to, 2 mil labs research LRMs and build them straight away. Skip cobalts altogether unles you see AIs spamming carriers (light frigates are counter to carriers) LRMs are good at attacking capitals ships.
Regarding flak.
Flak is useless unless you are against fighters or (this is manly for MP games online) you get sufficient numbers. They are counter to LRMs since they can fire at 4 targets at the same time providing enemy ships are all around them (microing). LRMs have slow turn rate and if flak circles around them they wont get attacked but they will fire at LRMs. 1vs1 LRM will kill flak no problem but 20 flak vs 25-30 LRMs flak will wins always with a little help of micro.
One more re: culture. I have 2 planets and an asteroid owned by TEC AI. I know I can take them because I did recently. However, on 2 of plantets which are definitely beyond the boundary of my domain and the AIs (by about 2-3 jumps) I can wipe them out, but cannot build on the planet because "the planet's culture or allegiance is too high" is there a way to get around this?
You can build your own culture center on planet you do own and wait till culture spreads so you can colonize or you can send cap ships to planet you want to colonize. Cap ships repel culture but if culture production on nearby planet is to strong it wont repel enough for you to colonize. Best choice is to use combo of the above. Build your own culture center and cap ships will speed up process of your culture spreading to that planet.
