I've been thinking, I would go even further. Tactics aren't effective in ship battle, and over all ship battle in this game has never worked very well (compared to other games out there).
Tactics DO work well as damage markers combo-ed with damaging dilemmas. This allows for some creative kill targeting. I think the CC has been focusing on this in design, with the recent use of
and indirectly with damaging self controlled dilemma-ships. And like I said, I think this alone make Tactics worthwhile and I agree with the CC's approach.
An actual battle deck doesn't care as much about damage markers. It's goal is destruction, crippling a mission solver before it can solve missions (and being ready to destroy a hiding ship as soon as it goes after a mission). BBD is reduced to just another source of weapon build up, just like a seeded bynars-type card. And its not even an important part of the rapid build up strategy that battle decks are built around.
A solver defending against a battle deck doesn't have much use for a BBD either. The strategy against battle is hiding or avoidance. I've often included BBD hoping it would be some defense, but I don't think
Evasive Maneuvers has ever made the difference against a battle deck, +4 shields is nothing. (Has it for anybody else?)
Battle deck v Battle deck is where Tactics should shine, but it's the same thing. Because of the way ship battle works with everybody targeting one ship, you take turns destroying ships. Any strategy has to do with ship movement and organization. But it's mostly a straight up arms race.
I think battle in 1E could be completely over-hauled. That would be a big project, and there's still the question of how much battle we want in the game anyways (if you want to fight, there are plenty of other games).
I think there are more creative ways Tactics could be used in the mean time. Two ideas I had just now:
- An offensive Tactic that helps spread out damage among targets, maybe like Chain Reaction but not dependent on other cards and more balanced.
- Some practical defensive Tactics, like a
Crimson Forcefield for the defender, a tactic that plays on your ship with +% hull, or a Tactic that works like
Escape Pod somehow.
I don't want any free seeds, because that makes something a ruled auto-include. I know there are already cards that are nearly effectively auto-includes, but they are still optional. And auto-includes would be a big deterrent for new players. Particularly a side-deck should never be an ruled auto-include.