[Phoenix-D]

"how does the exceedingly complex strategy board in the empire status window link in to all this?"

That board *makes* the strategies you assign later. When you assign a fleet strategies, you can only pick formation and strategy; the "secondary strategy" bit comes from the empire status window strategy page. EDIT: And what it does is tell the ship what to do if I can't do it's primary strategy. Say you set it to "short range, Don't Get Hurt". If your ship cannot close to short range with it's target, it will run away.

So:
-the empire status window (and anything that looks like it) *creates* strategies and edits existing ones
-The strategy box in design creation assigns strategies for individual ship class
-the pawn assigns strategies for fleets, as well as formation

For mixed-ship fleets, I find the best thing to do is set them to break formation.

Phoenix-D

[ 15 January 2002: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]