Article 9: X-wing Basics 4, Planning Ahead

Planning for future turns can only go so far in X-wing.  I’ve read that excellent chess players (I’m not one) can plan 10+ turns ahead.  That doesn’t really work in X-wing, in my experience.  A turn in chess involves the movement of a single piece.  A turn in X-wing involves movement of every friendly and opposing piece, and potentially a few dice rolls of varying importance.  The game can look hugely different when looking at the beginning and ending of a turn.  This makes planning ahead difficult, because you can’t predict what situation you’re planning for.  Conversely, planning only to maximize the current turn is also not ideal.  That kind of thinking leads players to chase bad targets or maximize their shots one turn at the expense of bad positioning next turn.  Consequently, I tend to plan for a combination of the current turn and the following turn, with a few exceptions beyond that. 

Making decisions that impact multiple turns is complicated.  There are a variety of factors to consider, such as win condition, the likelihood that you have guessed an opponent’s maneuvers correctly, the effect of failure if variance goes hard against you, how much time is left in the game, and the capabilities of your ships and the opponent’s ships.  It’s a complicated subject to discuss.  There are, however, a few factors that are broadly important no matter what the circumstances, and understanding these situations will help one analyze whatever specific situation one may find themselves in.  I don’t think the following list is comprehensive, it doesn’t cover big picture ideas like win conditions, but it is a list that you can keep in mind to try and keep your ships in good shape for several turns in the future.  

This list list the planning ahead version of not unintentionally running over obstacles.  Being able to avoid obstacles is not sufficient for good play, but it is generally essential for good play.  Similarly, becoming competent in assessing these conditions won't make you able to effectively plan ahead by themselves, but they will help build the foundation of that skill.

1.)     Will this move get me killed this turn?  Yeah, I know.  This isn’t about next turn, but all the foresight in the world won’t help you if you don’t get through this turn.  You can give up offense for advantages in the later turns, but you can’t give up defense, because then you might not get later turns.  By “defense” I’m not talking about maximizing token stacks, although that can do it.  I’m talking about a combination of position, obstruction, range, tokens, and counter-threat that work together to reduce incoming shots on a ship.  You must have ships alive to win. 

2.)    Will this maneuver put me in a tight asteroid lane?  People tend to get impatient and after a few rounds of trying to get positional advantage, they’ll turn through the rocks and joust anyway.  This can be fine, if a player has done a good job of getting positional advantage, but asteroids constrain maneuvering options quite a bit.  It’s easy to get into an asteroid late that cuts off a lot of banks and turns, leaving a ship with maybe one open turn and a straight path (or a similar small number of moves).  This makes that ship very easy to predict in the next turn, and that’s a good way to get a lot of damage on that ship.  It’s fine to go into the asteroids, but know how you’ll get out, and how you won’t get blocked up and hammered by an opponent who’s paying attention.

3.)    Will this maneuver get me stuck by the board edge?  Much like asteroids, board edges, especially corners, limit future options.  The closer you are to an edge, the worse your options are.  Pointed straight at the board is bad, but it lets you turn in one of two ways, sometimes making the opponent chose which way to pursue.  If a ship is pointed at the edge at an angle, often only turns or banks in one direction are available, and that puts a ship in a very predictable place the next round.

4.)    Will this maneuver leave me lined up in a bad joust?  Don’t get a ship pointed directly at something that’s better at jousting than it is.  If a ship is off axis to a better jouster, it can try to go fast and run to the side, it can turn away, or it can try and cut in toward the jouster and hope to get overshot.  If a ship is pointed straight at something, it’s more likely to get caught, because most of its moves are countered by the jouster just going straight (much like when a ship is lined up directly behind a target, the following ship can just go straight).  Maybe you don’t know exactly where the jousting ship(s) will be, but you probably have a general idea, so don’t point straight at that area.   

5.)    Do any of my opponent’s ships have constraints that make them predictable for several turns?  If you opponent didn’t follow the advice outlined in steps 1-4, you may see that your opponent may have a ship stuck with certain maneuvers next turn.  This makes it easy to predict where that opponent’s general location will be for a turn or two.  At the very least, it becomes easier to predict where a ship won’t be.  Sometimes, this can be used to muster forces and attack that ship.  Sometimes, it simply lets you focus on a different opposing ship, knowing that the predictable ship won’t be close enough to support its ally or threaten your own ships.

If you're at a place in your game where you're trying to plan for future turns, these aspects are good things to start looking at.  I try to mentally move through this list as I assess what I need to do in the planning phase.  It sometimes works, and it sometimes gets away from me, but having something to work toward is useful for stretching how you think about future turns.  As you get better and better at checking through these basic things, it gets easier to add in the extremely game specific factors that are essential for a good later-turn plan.  

Thanks for reading.  Do you have any other conditions you look for in your games that you would add to this list?  Feel free to mention them in the comments.  More is better for everyone.