Birth of the Empires

Damage Report
Because ship combat animations are not currently configured but autoresolve, it's important post-combat to look at the "damage report" of the ship or fleet that was in the engagement. Next turn when the "event" is logged, double click on the event text and it should go to that system/sector on the galaxy map. Then note about any damage to your ships as the shields may be down or show a brown color...meaning you need to head to a system/sector with a "shipyard" for repairs. When there, then click on the affected ship, and then "multiturn, and then again for "repair". It takes awhile.

Typically within space strategy games you have hull damage after the shields are down.

There should be a "damage report" in the events to notify the player.

Ship Escorts
Early in the game you are sending out lone ships in a risky way as you have few ships at your command, but at that early stage, colony ships or transport ships ought to be either protected with "escorts" to guard them by creating a "fleet" or within the "research" screen, you can reconfigure future ships to have defensive and offensive capabilities. To do that, the "type" of ships cannot be currently being constructed as you are designing a new revision.

Early ships naturally will have a limited range and you don't want to lose fragile early ships due to inadequate defenses.

If creating a fleet of a escort plus a colony ship, then disband the fleet when in orbit within the sector as the colony ship is scuttled to create the new system/sector.

It seems criminally negligent to "mothball" a vessel that was only recently created (scuttling it) as it still can be useful.

In GalCiv2, the survey vessel played an integral role to explore the galaxy by using long range scanning.

In Civ2, you can create probes which then can likewise cross the boundaries of a hostile or unknown race and then return back to the survey vessel or better. Essentially you end up with carriers or that's how I submodded a Star Trek mod and playing as the Borg.

This facilitates mapping the galaxy when coupled with borderland sectors ie what causes the Neutral Zone between contested Klingon vs Federation territory.

I was feeling smug as I sent in a rather powerful midlevel fleet against the Xiborg and won a battle against their very powerful fleet, then launched a ground invasion and won too. But in the process I ended up with all my vessels losing their shields. Then couldn't leave orbit as the Xiborg fleet was still outside when I badly needed to undergo repairs. I had no backup fleet to occupy them, but should have unloaded my troops, and risked leaving as nobody had a strong enough invasion force to displace those Klingon warriors. So stupidly I stuck around and got distracted.

Then these anomalous entities showed up.

Boseans
These small creatures are relatively peaceful as long as they are not foraging or under attack. They possess strong shields and can digest hostile ships, which is how they reproduce; giving birth to a new Bosean of the same type as the destroyed ship.

They crushed my entire fleet. ARGH.