selecting targets for raids

I was attacked recently, and thanks to the alliance, the attack went quite poorly for the attacker. Afterward, the attacker asked for advise on how to avoid such a disaster in the future. Here was the advise I bestowed.

From the attacker:
Only my second battle still trying to figure it all out. If you have any advice on how to avoid these kinds of misunderstandings in the future? I'd really appreciate it.


My response:
Sorry for the loss, but I notified my alliance I was under attack, and help was on the way before I realized that I could have handled the attack myself. Our response was a bit of overkill.

What we do in our alliance is probe for a target we think is inactive, and send them a warning message. Someone with a low Espionage Tactics Center will not know who probed them, and won't know to whom to respond if probed. But they can reply to a game message.

Then, we wait 24 to 48 hours for a reply. If they don't reply, we are pretty sure they may have dropped the game and are a good target.

Another good piece of advise is to do more research on the owner of a potential target before launching (or messaging). If you had probed my planet, you could have, from the report, clicked on "go to planet". This would have taken you to it on the Galaxy Map. There it would have told you the planet details. There you should click on the owner's name and check out their details. You would have found that not only did I rank higher than you, but that my military strength was 4 times yours. This information alone has warned me off of many targets, as I have no desire to be either a one on the short side of a one on one fight, or the goat in the start of an alliance ware.

Finally, another bit of advise. Start attacking within your sector, and definitely in your galaxy. And from a planet not in your home system (unless you are positive the player is inactive). The long travel times hurt your chances of catching me offline, and gave me a better chance of receiving alliance help. This is especially true since there is no way to tell if your target is in an alliance without going through every alliance. As you can see, an alliance can be highly effective Even if you select as a target a weaker player that your fleet could have smashed.

In your particular situation, I could have built another 140 or so C2s in the time it took for your fleet to travel between galaxies.

I hope this advise aids you in the future,

Best wishes,
Tygger