i know this is buried in here somewhere but

what do you mean? like group ships into a fleet?

he means combined forces v. large forces.

and AMEN I tell you.

i mean that 300 Spartans with stood an attack of 40,000? for three days because they were better organized than the enemy

so if you have a bunch of heavy frigates and cruisers attack a small but better positioned of scouts and cruisers and the small fleet stick together instead of attack separately the fleet may not win the fight but it should do more damage.

also i think that the fleet flag you know with the number 1 or whatever should be click able so that you know that when you move said fleet it moves together.

ships in a fleet would move together ie the cruisers wouldn't jump until the frigates were ready and vise versa.

If you look at the lower right hand side of the screen with your group selected you'll see a green arrow, right click and now your fleet will jump together. Takes a bit longer for the to jump now but they will jump together.

and clicking on the number will get them to move together.

A note about 300, they were also defending a very narrow passage that meant the enemy could only have a small number of their units in battle at any given time.  If a passage is 10 men wide, the enemy can only have ten or so of its men in combat, so what you're doing is negating their superior numbers by turning the larger conflict into a series of smaller force battles.

If the Spartans had engaged the Persian invasion force on an open battlefield, they would have been slaughtered very quickly.  Combined forces vs sheer numbers is a valid point, but there's a tipping point beyond which it doesn't matter how varied your fleet is, if you're outnumbered 10 to 1, chances are you're going to get your butt kicked.

In the games I've been playing, I've found combined forces working very well against fleets with a more narrow difference.  I've done 3-to-1 battles before where the AI churned out a lot of cheap frigates, and my force with a mix of cannon fodder and more specialized ships made short work of them.

And a well-managed fleet will do more damage in general.  I usually have my forces focus on one or two targets at a time.  It's better to take one 1 ship quickly than 2 ships over a longer period.  The longer an enemy ship is in the fight, the more damage it does to you. 

Being to lazy to build huge fleets of scout frigates I usually build 1-2 of each capital and upgrade it to level 10. When the AIs swarm of scout and siege frigates begins streaming into one one of my planets, I just set up at their exit point and hammer them till theres nothing left to hammer. If ten capitals won't cut it then I back them up with Kodiak frigates till the numbers are more even.

The AIs unwillingness to gather their forces before a jump really handicaps any long range actions it attempts. (Hard Difficulty)

so your saying that the smartens which were better equipped and better trained than most of the Persians couldn't not have slowed the Persians down in an open field.

your right the reason they chose that spot was to make it even harder for the Persians to get through them. as i said better trained and better equipped.

Yes, but they were also able to exploit geography in a way that isn't possible in space.  It's where your analogy broke down with a space-based war game.

i do it all the time in this game with cannons at the jump lanes

this also means that the AI needs to be able to do the above and be able to jump a fleet at one time.

i allways set up my defenses at the exit points and around the planet

what i'd really like is that you are able to create more "jump-lanes" for known planets under your control. like so: i want to go from planet A to D but have to go to B and then C first. When i develop my own jump-lanes i could jump from A to D directly (would also be more difficult to defend in case of enemy intrusion...FUN! )

currently I play beta 1 by dummying my tactics down.

fortunately all of your collective bickering and strategy-sharing will become moot after the AI has been updated

who's bickering, we are just making suggestions loudly

i hope they do something akin to starcraft, only smarter... many different AI stances (I want at least 20) with primary, secondary (maybe tertiary?) settings.
examples would be:
1) technology rush
2) swarm
3) economy buildup
4) force buildup
5) scout rush
6) alliance buff
7) capital ship king
8) frig freak
9) blitzkrieger
10) multi-directioned attack
11) turtle
12) offense freak
13) harraser
14) mixed force master
15) intelligence agent
16) bounty hunter
17) balanced
etc. etc.

the alternative would be to place the different "stances" into discrete groupings, like 1, 3, 4 and 17 would fall under "what to do with my money". 11, 12 and 17 would be "to attack, or not to attack". 2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13 and 17 would be "how should I do this...". 7, 8 and 17 would be "force makeup" etc. etc.