The Art of War said: prideful troops were bound to lose, while troops fighting with desperate resolve were bound to win.
There was also wisdom in not pursuing a cornered enemy.
The Xindari Triumvirate had reached its final life-or-death moment. With the empire's decline now inevitable, they might well throw caution to the wind and launch one last counterattack.
Commander Hermes therefore took them very seriously. He knew that a fleet like this could unleash tremendous fighting power if pushed to desperation.
Since the Interstellar Human Military Junta and the Human Federation were brother nations with a common origin, Xi Yan and Bai Fengfeng had held many military exchanges in earlier years, jointly discussing doctrines of space warfare.
Xi Yan had studied the Human Federation's military administration, its force structure, and the classification and management of various combat units. These were concrete administrative methods he lacked.
When it came to space warfare, however, the United Nations of Earth was feeling its way forward. Faced with the vastness of an interstellar battlefield, its commanders often felt lost.
Yet the real universe of Stellaris largely followed the game's rules, making many of the space warfare principles Xi Yan had learned from the game highly advanced.
Xi Yan had taught his Space Combat Theory to the United Nations of Earth.
As a result, the Cerberus Strike Fleet used almost the same composition as Xi Yan's.
It likewise relied on cruisers as its backbone, screened by large numbers of corvettes, with no torpedo ships.
Cruisers equipped with massive energy cannons formed a line, sniping enemy vessels from afar with energy beams.
Carrier cruisers hung back at the rear, releasing a steady stream of spaceplanes that crossed the immense distance to attack enemy ships.
Strike craft in Stellaris were undoubtedly a second god, no less