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Game Notes (Animals) Wed, 24 March 2004 10:37 Go to next message
overworked is currently offline overworked

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 403
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Transcribing some game notes that went out via email. Figured I'd collect them in one place for others to read.

- Kurt

============================================================ ====
I do not play too many public individual games, mainly team games. So I went a little conservative on my design. I made my factory cost a little higher, so my growth would be a little slower, so I would not be targeted at the start. I took TT to maximize my HP worlds, and to increase the number of worlds I could fine, and of course to make the terraforming cheaper. I took Const normal, figuring that I could be ahead of other players in that, and use it for trade. I took a risk and only too Weap normal not cheap, figuring that most others would have it cheap, and I could find an ally to supply it. Normal not expensive in case I could not find an ally. I took a high mine efficiency, as I figured that and HP would need a lot of long term minerals, and I know how HPs use up Germ. I also figured on a long game.

As far as Habs, I tried to be off a bit from Center, so that I was not competing with everyone else for planets. Major bummer that several other players shifted their habs the same way.

My selection of planets at the start was rather poor, worse than what I should have averaged. If you look at my planets, you could see that probably about half of them started yellow and needed to be terraformed. So it took me quite a long time to get ramped up

I started out in an alliance with Plague. We had a bit of conflict at the start, but worked it out. He was growing quickly, but then I think he got busy with RL or something, as I did not hear much from him.

Black Hand seemed to start a little slow. I took the planets I wanted, and we made a sort of neutrality agreement. It was not until later, when he was allied with the Budgies, that I also allied with him. It seems he was
trapped
along an edge, and with few good planets for him at the start. And
later they
were all taken. The race density in the SE corner WAS fairly high.

Manatee: not much contact. He attacked the Plague and I helped to defend a little. I tried later to bring him into the alliance against Quack and Trog, but heard little from him.

Wolves: Quiet. Probably fitting for an SS race. Smile Some discussions here and there, but already making deals with Trog by the time I started talking with him.
(I generally do not contact a race until I have seen them in the game, and SS can take a while longer to find...). I tried a number of times to explain the strength of the Quack and Trog alliance, and get him to join against them, but he was not interested.

Mitsubshi: not much contact until I started seeing them with Quack ships on the border. I tried several times to 'convert' him. He seemed to be agreeable but had his own plans, which eventually made sense, though I will never know.
I will leave it to him if there is more to say.

Trogs: No contact until the wars were already started. It seems that he did an excellent job of mentoring the Quacks, and building a strong alliance.
And he did enough trading with other races that no one wanted to turn on him. Well played.

Quacks: HEs... kill them at that start or you will forever have a tough time. Smile
He grew BIG. I think some the the Quack ship design were strange, but he could build a LOT of them, so it did not really matter. Well done for a newer player.

And last of all... Budgies. When I first saw him, he has quite a few outbound transports. He looked to be expanding quite aggressively. So I shot down a few of his transports, and took one of his planets. After 3-4 races were seemingly going after him, probably because of his somewhat arrogant attitude, I figured that I would stay out of it. There were too many races beating up on him already. A while later, be came back to me with a much more humble attitude, and explained that he needed help. So I starting providing help where I could, without hurting my own development.
Eventually we started more tech trading and our alliance grew stronger. We both tried to get more races against the Trog/Quack/Mits alliance, but to no avail. And I knew that once he was gone, that it would not be long for me.

On a good finishing note, for any of the few races that were NOT at the last battle at Sulfur, I did quite well. I lost all of my beam ships, but all of my missile ships were alive at the end (good because they were SO expensive in minerals, and took a long time to gather at the front lines...). This win would have GREATLY slowed the enemy expansion into my space. I was about to start building my next generation of beam and missile ships (probably my last generation, so I was willing to use up all my mineral stores...). My Tiger B was a strong beam ships, range 3, and I could have built a few big stacks of them. My Tiger M, with the MPS and Armageddon missiles, is probably one of the best (non-WM) pre-Nubian missile ships that can be built. I probably could have built 30+ of them. Of course Trogs could probably have built more (but I have not looked at his mineral stores yet...). But I could have held off the attackers for quite a while.

And if the Mits had shown up, it might have been even better for me. The Battle Board placement would have been ideal for me if he had been there, and I might have taken fewer losses. I still had plenty of chaff to occupy his missile ships. (If you look at the placement, the first player, me, would have been off farther in the corner, with my allies as buffers in front
of me...)

And as far as ranks. I was 5th ot 6th for much of the game, moving up to 4th a while ago, and only into 3rd when the Budgies were getting crushed.

Other final stories?

Eric/Animals

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Game Notes continued (Trog notes) Wed, 24 March 2004 10:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
overworked is currently offline overworked

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 403
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Troglyte game analysis

Greetings all players (and I truly thank Eric for his own analysis - we don't have this 'final' note to games often enough).

As the Troglytes and having played so many games over the last 9+ years I gave myself a handicap with my mine settings intentionally. I figured on simply spending the extra resources needed to build lots of expensive mini-miners. I also do not play IS often (but do like the PRT) so, playing IS was also somewhat of an extra challenge for me.

What I Did Not Expect was that my first contact would be with a tri-immune HE. Initial diplomatic contact went well and I had 2 choices; 1. Crush him fast (since I generally hate HE's) 2. Help him since it was his first multi-player game.

Since I am a kind soul and David was truly interested in learning the game diplomatically I took my second option and formed a game long alliance with him. We both knew by the numbers that one of us would win and we also knew that by the last turn in 2525 we wouldn't know who would actually be the winner - but, it would be one of us. Our deal was that I had every planet that was green for me and he got anything red.

I also had a friendly relation with Mitsubishi and then the original player dropped out. A replacement (Andrew) was found and he played wonderfully, I gave him 5k of my resource planets to help him grow and he was doing al construction research. I researched weapons to level 26 while Quacks researched Energy for shields.

Wolf down in the far SW corner I recognized immediately. Steve and I have been in games before. I really wanted elec tech from Brother Wolf and we arranged a trade agreement. I also game Wolf a planet near my HW to facilitate trade. (Note, if Wolf had been my neighbor it would have been Wolf and I that won the game).

Budgies (our cheating poor player host) tried desperately to get me to not assist Quacks. I responded to all messages in a neutral non-committal way while not telling him that Quack and I had a formed a game long alliance. This ultimately led to his doom.

David (Quacks) played unbelievably well for his first game and he started the war against Budgies since he was just itching to start battle. I kept quiet behind building for later in the game. Germanium was a serious problem here since I had given Quacks all those nice germanium rich red planets that were supposed to provide my extra germ.
Smile

All in all, I did have guaranteed victory if I chose to stab David in the back. All I needed to do (since I had millions growing in freighters) was send them to 20 of his core planets with a couple beamers to kill the SB and invade them all the same turn at 2522. The win would be mine. HOWEVER, I DO NOT STAB MY ALLIES IN THE BACK. So, knowing that the game was mine if I wanted it was enough for me. It is also quite possible that with all the new planets being taken green for me with lots of factories I would have won at 2525 - we'll never know. But, as I stated earlier in this analysis David and I knew that one of us would win.

Black Hand was surprisingly useless - I kept waiting to see battle cruisers and they never materialized. Plague was so weak he should have been wiped out fast and his planets used for more productive purposes.

The main reason that David and I (and Andrew later on) walked away with this game was because we had superb communication with each other. For any given turn we were sending 5-6 messages back and forth - sometimes more. In my folder for this game I have 936 messages and that is the received messages. Sent messages equal at least 500. Communication was the key. Our diplomacy was fantastic.


That's my 2 cents worth.

Cheers,
Bill

P.S. I only sent my ships Sulfur for Eric's fun. I'm sure that Quacks, Mits and I would have coordinated it for 2 to 3 years later.

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Game Note: Trog/Quack relations (Quack view) Wed, 24 March 2004 10:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
overworked is currently offline overworked

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 403
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

As far as I remember here are some details (may
contain errors)

2407 was first contact.

I couldn't see any Trog ships, I saw a Trog design so
knew he was close somewheres (back then with our 3
turns in one).

My planet hopping forces were not visible to him
either.

A huge flurry of diplomacy began between us starting
from the "it would be silly if we both took out each
other's home worlds", with gradual details about our
races being given and a relationship warming to NAP
then an early form of alliance.

(All this diplomacy in year 2407)

...

Around 2427 was the other big event. We were deciding
what to do with Budgies. Earlier Budgie had more
arogant diplomacy for a firm NAP. I quit walking
softly and started mentioning I had a big stick and he
was sitting vulnerable.

Budgie all of a suddenly changed his tone and tried to super-sweeten the deal.

I saw Wolf as being hostile to Budgies, Trog as sort
of hostile to Budiges, and old Mits as likely to
follow his bigger two neighbours. I did not want to
be in between in a war 2450, with my colonies in
others cores suddenly being mineral packet destroyed
and bombed. (As a newbie I did not know the relative
dangers of different situations such as mineral
packets).

I did not like underhanded diplomacy while I tried to
be friendly with everyone. I was in a good position
for war, Budgie was in a bad spot with Spartin and his
gates still alive.

So I gave notice for war, figuring that others
wouldn't fear me as much as I wouldn't suprise them
either but always give warning.

With hindsight, this was my best decision, as
otherwise any potential victory would have been
tainted by the Budgie/Observer mess.

(All this diplomacy in same weekend)

...

And right after I announced to Budgie and Trog my
intent to publicly give notice of war, Trog asked for
password exchange, the start of a much closer
alliance.

(I guess Trog/William was pleased)

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Re: Game Notes continued (Trog notes) Wed, 24 March 2004 10:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
overworked is currently offline overworked

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 403
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

A Quack response to the Trog notes.
============================================================ ===

I don't think it is such a sure thing that Trog would
have had an easy kill either early or late.

My HE was a much quicker starter than most HE and I
was extremely defensive, including lots of planet
hopping to hide ship movements and the earliest
minefields.

Trog with his expensive factories didn't have a great
early ramp up, he was more HP than HG compared to
most, a late game power.

...

It would be hard seeing the game last to 2425 at the
rate it was going. If so, I would have had defensive
fleets on some planets and my own way of growing pop
and massive hush a booming type obliterations in one
turn. (Trog worlds are all green for me after a good
hush a boom, unlike my worlds being red after his pop
drop).

In the case where Trog backstabbed, I would have been
aiming for Mits or Wolf (or perhaps Animal) to win,
throwing everything I could and even giving away
planets to that end.

I had the best mineral possibillities with my HE being
spread and my 50% mining bonus which translates into
big late game fleets (even after giving more minerals
to Trog and Mits).

...

I was willing to go to war 2430, because I had maxxed
out factories. I wasn't good at tech, better at
warships. I didn't like the alternative of
underhanded diplomacy trying to provoke wars against
Budgie while playing frield to get the 15 planets he
offered me.

I thought the Trog/Mits/Wolf was worth more to keep
friendly than the Budgie/unknown and struck when
Budgie was weakest... still battling Spartins.

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Game Notes continued (Mits notes) Wed, 24 March 2004 10:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
overworked is currently offline overworked

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 403
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Well first of all, thanks for letting me into such an interesting game as a
replacement player. It was a good game, despite the unfortunate
circumstances of its ending.

When I took over the Mits my rank was quite strong -- 3rd, if I recall. This was almost
exclusively because the previous player had left the tech research set to weapons,
had cheap weapons tech, didn't have any build orders, and hadn't colonized
aggressively at all (thus having few but well developed planets). As a result
the weapons tech was just short of Jihads at a very early stage. There was also tentative
non-aggression pacts with Trog, Quacks, and Wolves.

It was painfully obvious to me that I was hosed by the previous
player's strategy (or lack thereof). All nearby planets had been
taken, and the mining settings of the race were painfully weak. I
figured that within 20 turns I would be in last place (or nearly so),
unless I somehow convinced my neighbours to be charitable. Fortunately
I had two bargaining chips to play: the short term weapons tech lead,
and the long-term benefit of an IT gate network. As quickly as
possible I solidified alliances with the neighbouring Quacks, Trogs,
and Wolves. I also had a small colonization fleet out near
Candide/Timbuktu that was low on fuel, and touching on Budgie space.
After a great deal of pontificating with Budgie about my landing on
either of those worlds I eventually just dropped on Timbuktu for the
lack of anything better to do with them. He had become preoccupied
with Quacks and didn't have anything nearby to attack my new colony
with -- at least not before I got a gate up and considerably
reinforced. Taking advantage of being IT, I got a gate up quickly and
jumped my Jihad cruisers out there (after an unfortunately but VERY
amusing incident at the Observer homeworld), followed quickly by a
crappy set of the game's first battleships (intimidation is a useful
tool at times).

At this point Trog & Quacks agreed I would be more useful to them if I
actually had a few planets, and they kindly relinquished several to me.
By this time I had slipped to 6th place where I stayed the rest of the
game. Stuck next to a pair of titans, it is generally good policy to
stay polite and obedient. From pretty much the first turn I played I
figured I had a vanishingly small chance to win. The game's objective
is to win, however, and I had to have a plan to achieve that somehow.
Step 1, climb out of 6th place by expanding with Trog/Quack and taking
as many planets as I could. Step 2, spend mostly on tech (construction
was agreed to be my speciality) and trade them so that I could
accumulate minerals and ride their coat tails as much as possible.
Step 3, participate in enough battles so that I would continue to be
seen as valuable, but try to avoid pissing off my enemies completely --
eventually they would have to stop being enemies if I were to have any
hope of winning. Step 4, establish the largest gate network I could
with inf/inf gates. Step 5, acquire Nubians first and ensure I had a
substantial window of opportunity to use them. Step 6... get everybody
else to have a big fight. Smile I wasn't going to attack any of my
allies directly, but I figured that near the end of the game they might
jump at each-other's throats in order to ensure their own victory. At
that point I would offer friendly relations with all players, thus
allowing everyone gate access to basically everywhere. The odds of my
surviving such a free-for-all unscathed weren't great, but it might
have been fun.

Reality? It didn't look like the Trog/Quack alliance would ever
fracture, and the three of us combined (which was mostly them and my
gates) were smashing everyone else faster than I had predicted. I
expect the last ~40 turns of the game would have been fairly boring. I
was about 7-9 turns from Nubians, depending on my growth and build
requirements, and the transfer of this to my allies would have taken
just a few turns since I was giving up even the faint hope of "The
Plan". At that point I would have thrown all of my resources &
minerals into warships and bombers, and just tried to grow as quickly
as possible to get out of 6th place! By riding on our wave of advance
I may have been able to out grow the Wolves, who were the only ones not
to be crushed by the "Axis" onslaught.

Thanks for the game, and I hope to see you guys in space again. Smile

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Re: Game Notes - Budgie view Wed, 24 March 2004 20:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dogthinkers is currently offline Dogthinkers

 
Commander

Messages: 1316
Registered: August 2003
Location: Hiding from Meklar
Budgie viewpoint:

I designed a HG(!) race for extreme fast start:
- wide habs, cheap factories, high pop eff - 1000.
- I compromised on growth rate, all tech expensive (big mistake), poor mine eff (10/3/20)

This gave me an easy first rank for the mid to early game (I'll check to see exactly when the ranking flipped over, but it was around 2440 I think)

Extremely early in the game I made war with Spartins, hoping for an easy conquest. I think I drastically underestimated strength of homeworlds in this game, and was never quite willing to build a fleet that would have been large enough to bring down his HW. My diplomacy was also a serious weak point and flaw in my race design.

The main thing I've learned from this game (other than to not host a game I'm playing Embarassed) is that appearences are everything. Launching a major assault early in the game, and expanding too aggressively into the center made my race appear too much like a monster. OFC it *was* a monster like Quacks, but multilis handled the diplomacy so much better. Interestingly my main motivation behind pushing for Timbuktu was that Trogs told me they were heading for it too, and I didn't think I could afford to allow them that much space.

Weap 75% was a major error. I found myself fighting Jihads with Deltas Sad Manatee offered me weap12 for free, but the tech trade was fraught with problems and Manatee changed sides before the trade was complete.

I felt my ships and tech were usually superior to those that Quacks fielded, and I won a series of major defensive victories, but I always got the impression Quacks were holding back on production, which was confirmed when 100's of BBs started to appear seemingly out of nowere Shocked

Black Hand were an excellent ally, but unfortunately they were crippled by an early random event strike which altered habs on their homeworld and by expensive factories. Nevertheless they were a vital ally, providing enemy ship designs (WM PRT) and taking control of my ships for the movement bonus. They also did a great job of shutting down the Quack WH invasion.

Animals were hostile at first, making small strikes on my vulnerable outer worlds and transports (a warning would've been enough to make me turn back Smile but were of immense help once they realised the game balance was shifting heavily towards the Quack-Trog-Mit alliance.

I'd particularly love to hear a *Wolves* game round up. I always got the impression they were pretty small as they seemed to use outdated weapons tech, but in the late game Plague reported a massive cloaked BB attack. It'd be nice to know what sort of potential they had at this point.

I think Quacks and Trogs played an awesome game diplomatically. Trogs completely shut down my attempts to counter attack with obscene quantities of minefields. Definately something to learn from that! I think Quacks have demonstrated the strength of Tri-I HE races, in particular in terms of mineral supply, if they are given time to grow. I think 1 on 1 I might have recovered and defeated him, but with Trog on side I had no chance.

*expanded a couple of comments*


[Updated on: Wed, 24 March 2004 21:02]

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Re: Game Notes - Reports Wed, 24 March 2004 20:56 Go to previous message
Dogthinkers is currently offline Dogthinkers

 
Commander

Messages: 1316
Registered: August 2003
Location: Hiding from Meklar
Since the game is over, I will generate some basic game reports, as I promised as host (score/planets over time, the territory maps etc.) I will get these done for you over the weekend.

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