Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » Game stories » TWWT - Game discussion
TWWT - Game discussion |
Mon, 19 December 2005 14:43 |
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wizard | | Officer Cadet 3rd Year | Messages: 279
Registered: January 2004 Location: Aachen, Germany | |
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Hi all,
TWWT (Twin World Wonders Two, see http://starsautohost.org/sahforum/index.php?t=msg&th=254 2&start=0&rid=423) is finally over. At year 2481, the last remaining player with planets left (me) has given up. Congratulations to Iztok for winning this great game. It has been a no-talk-game, so don't wonder if we write about it now
A short introduction: everyone has started with two Homeworlds. Eric (Raindancer) has done a great job creating the universe and setting up the game as the center was completely clear of players and everyone had exactly two neighbours. You can think of it as a ring. The players and races:
A B C D
H G F E
A: the Kee (Aaron, IS)
B: the Pirates (Stuart, IS)
C: the Roar (wizard, JOAT)
D: the Fu/Munchkin (Pieter, SS)
E: the Deck of Cards (Micha, SS)
F: the J (iztok, JOAT)
G: the Harmony (Joe, JOAT?)
H: the Fungus (Ptolemy, CA)
In short, from my point of view:
The J started to attack their neighbours very early and killed the Harmony Homeworlds quite soon, the Deck of Cards a bit later. I started a bit later, killing the aggressive Pirates in about 2450. The Kee took over one of the Fungus HWs a bit later, which I used to attack the Kee in return. The J won a hard fight against the Fu and took the other Fungus HW later. Neither the J nor I could secure the defeated Fu HWs, so it came to kind of a showdown over there. With some luck, I killed part of the J main fleet and tried to take the second Fu HW as my eigth world (victory condition). Iztok had seven secured worlds by then - I never understood why he didn't take the second Fungus world. Instead, he attacked me at the Kee HWs to stop me from winning - effectively, as I had lost the main part of my west fleet to the Kee. This last year, iztok managed to kill my second planet and, at the same time, my main fleet in the east. This was the time to give up - facing the loss of more HWs, not being able to do much against it.
Well, all in all, I can say that iztok won due togood skill, good strategy, mostly good tactics, and lots of micromanagement. I am content with being a good second
Hoping to read more from all of you and looking forward to the next game
Andreas / wizard
[Updated on: Mon, 19 December 2005 16:12] Report message to a moderator
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Re: TWWT - Game discussion |
Mon, 19 December 2005 15:09 |
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phulshof | | Crewman 2nd Class | Messages: 12
Registered: November 2004 | |
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Looking back I'd have to say I made some huge mistakes in this game. Early on I quickly research towards electronics 12, and spread my 98% cloaked frigates all over the galaxy to get a good picture of who was doing what. As usual, I made an assessment of who was the greatest threat in the universe. My assessment was dead wrong...
I identified the Pirates as the greatest threat, having spread all over the place already. Micha seemed to be holding his own against the continuing attacks from Iztok, and I figured that a few minesweeping cruisers sweeping Iztok's minefields would be enough to keep those two busy for a while.
After reaching Robber Baron Scanners, I quickly built a fleet to take out some planets (96% cloaked Jug BBs, 98% cloaked galleons, 98% cloaked RB frigates, and 98% cloaked Cherry Stealth Bombers), and took out the first Pirate planet. Since Wizard by that time had started attacking Pirate planets as well, I was moving in on one of his HWs without sweeping when Iztok launched the decisive attack against Micha, and was getting very close to reaching the victory conditions.
In stead of pushing the attack, and taking out Wizard's Southern HW, I regrouped, and flew towards Micha's last HW, arriving just in time to see it go up in smoke, and see Iztok retreat back to his own planets. I managed to take a large portion of the minerals, but realized right then that I had missed my window of opportunity on both fronts.
The rest is pretty simple: Iztok outproduced me easily with his 4-5 HWs against my 2, and my fleet went up in smoke trying to buy me some time by taking out Iztok's bombers. When my missile/bomber/freighter minerals stealing fleet just happened to land on one of Iztok's planets on the same year he decided to build a bunch of extra BBs, and Wizard launched a full scale attack on my 2nd HW, all that was left was a few lost ships. The rest of the game was just spent placing some small attacks here and there, and planting minefields with my 98% cloaked minelayers. Basically being a very tiny nuisance while watching the battle between Wizard and Iztok.
Overall I had a great deal of fun though, as SS players usually do, even if they lose the game.
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Re: TWWT - Game discussion |
Tue, 20 December 2005 05:02 |
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wizard | | Officer Cadet 3rd Year | Messages: 279
Registered: January 2004 Location: Aachen, Germany | |
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phulshof wrote on Mon, 19 December 2005 21:09 | After reaching Robber Baron Scanners, I quickly built a fleet to take out some planets (96% cloaked Jug BBs, 98% cloaked galleons, 98% cloaked RB frigates, and 98% cloaked Cherry Stealth Bombers), and took out the first Pirate planet.
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Huh? What did you do? I never noticed... Hmm... Okay, I must have been even more lucky than I thought
Playing a 1/2500 race in such a universe needed good luck anyway. I got more capacity by that, which was great. The big problem with this was that I didn't get conquered planets to start quick enough... After more than 25 years, the conquered Pirate planets are just at half capacity...
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Re: TWWT - Game discussion |
Tue, 20 December 2005 09:28 |
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iztok | | Commander | Messages: 1200
Registered: April 2003 Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
wizard wrote on Mon, 19 December 2005 20:43 | Iztok had seven secured worlds by then - I never understood why he didn't take the second Fungus world. Instead, he attacked me at the Kee HWs to stop me from winning - effectively, as I had lost the main part of my west fleet to the Kee.
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You just answered the question. I had there just a small fleet to hold back Kee, but not to threaten him - the same recipie you used with the Fu . If I'd attack his last planet, me and he would lose most ships, so you'd have to deal only with his already bombed planets and few surviving ships. With attacking Kee I'd efectively give you the whole upper-left corner of the uni for a cost of few hundred chaff, making YOU the winner . And that was an option I just didn't want to happen , not after me already removing three active players off the game. (you probably got the picture of my mood at that time ).
After seing Kee's building a fleet of jihad BBs I estimated his course of action. Since you've been bombing his planets and I've been destroying just his scouts entering my space, I've became pretty sure he's going to attack you. That actually happened, and all of a sudden my small fleet became the strongest in that part of the uni. Realizing that and with Kee's surrender I immediatelly attacked your new planets, to prevent you achieving victory conditions. If he wouldn't surrender I'd have to wipe out his last planet before attacking yours.
However the game was pretty much decided at that time. I got about 26/32/3x megaTons of minerals on the last Mushroom's HW, and had researched weap-20 (Dooms, Disruptors). I quickly designed a first-and-only-shot disruptor BB to deal with your big stack of 2.25 speed armored heavy blaster BBs, but failed to put them on a proper battle order, when our fleets clashed. In our last battle on Kernel you've seen what they were supposed to do to your much heavier beamer BBs. Anyway, thanks for a good lesson about mid-game initiative importance.
BR, Iztok
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Re: TWWT - Game discussion |
Tue, 20 December 2005 12:58 |
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PricklyPea | | Lieutenant | Messages: 534
Registered: February 2005 | |
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Quote: | I quickly designed a first-and-only-shot disruptor BB to deal with your big stack of 2.25 speed armored heavy blaster BBs, but failed to put them on a proper battle order, when our fleets clashed. In our last battle on Kernel you've seen what they were supposed to do to your much heavier beamer BBs. Anyway, thanks for a good lesson about mid-game initiative importance.
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I'd be interested in seeing these battles. Any chance of seeing the relevant turn files?
[Updated on: Tue, 20 December 2005 12:59] Report message to a moderator
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Re: TWWT - Game discussion |
Wed, 21 December 2005 02:23 |
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Quote: | was no "survival of the fittest" (by that I do not mean fittest in "diplomacy skill" ) ... It felt to me almost as if races were kept alive artificially
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It felt to me that I didn't bite off more than I could chew. I look over a poor position to start with and warmonger is always delicate in poor on defense.
It felt to me that Micha bit off more than he could chew, which allowed a 1 on 1 battle between us where WM trumped CA with dreadnaughts despite my weaker eccon/mining design, then faced threats from his friendly skilled SS and IS neighbours.
Why would I leave myself more vulnerable than needed to a deterraforming combo threat (SS+CA) to my HWs, either original or aquired?
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Re: TWWT - Game discussion |
Fri, 23 December 2005 08:15 |
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iztok | | Commander | Messages: 1200
Registered: April 2003 Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
I recently played in a 1WW only game "Twin World Wonder 2". Game settings forbid:
- using mineral packets for bombing HWs,
- the SD race,
- JoaT may not took NAS, and
- all players should be enemy - no cooperation at all.
Victory conditions: 8 HWs with 100k pop and Space Station in orbit.
After a long struggle (elimination of 3 players) and destroying the main fleet of the last opponent I won that game. Lots of my success goes on account of the race I played. With SD banned the strongest race for 1WW game is IMO JoaT, so I decided to field one, despite the 100 RW "hole" with banning NAS.
What I wanted from my race was decent speed (to max planet before turn 25), good econ and tech (jihad CCs around turn 25, BBs before 30), and as big mineral output as possible. IMO I managed to get almost everything I wanted. Here it is:
BruteForce (JoaT)
NRSE, OBRM, CE, RS
1WW hab (min habs shifted right)
20% PGR
pop: 1/1000
fac's: 15/9/20/4
mines: 13/3/25
weap & con cheap; en & elec normal, prop & bio expensive; no start @ 4
1 point to MC
Advantages from just being JoaT:
- good starting tech (I was able to capture all scouts from other players from the start),
- build-in pen scanners for controling what and how fast others are producing, without annoying them with constant chaff-pinging,
- 20% bigger economy and mineral output.
Other advantages:
- good ramp-up speed for fac's, excellent for pop (20% PGR maxxes planet's pop 1 turn faster than 19%).
- very good output from a planet: 5280 resources and 1287 minerals allowed me almost unlimited building of ships,
- good criticall techs (weap and con cheap, elec normal),
- NRSE(1): with IS-10 engine W-10 capability and combat speed 1.75 (starbase and jihad/jugg BBs in range of a R3 beamer BB in a second round, last row in 3rd) without using man-jet or OT.
- CE: 50% off all engines, 12% cheaper BBs with IS-10 engine,
- NRSE(2): from previous 1WW games I knew that there will be plenty of germ after fac's will be built (in one I've been throwing around germ-only packets), so I also considered dropping NRSE. That would result in more resurces dumped in researching prop for better combat speed and W-10 engine, and mine eff only 11. So I've rather choosen CE and mine eff 13, geting two bonuses in minerals.
Disadvantages:
- still not fast enough to counter faster races. I've seen my left neighbour producing Jihad CCs, when I still was 2 turns away from Jihads, and him losing those 30 CCs to his upper neighbour's unshielded DLL-7 Jihad BBs, when I've been still researching con-12. I tried to compensate that lack of extra speed with building minelayers quite early in the game, and presenting me as an unattractive target with laying minefields all over "my" space. It worked.
- CE demanded more MM and has made me organizing my attacks quite differently, and even discarding some of them, when the estimated risk was too high (in one occassion I've lost 10% of my beamer BBs to one unlucky attack, when I targeted a fleet of my neighbour with many fleets, and my main fleet failed to engage engines).
- in the whole game time (81 turns) my energy went up only to level 10, so I can say it was a waste of RW points to make its price normal,
- no NAS. When fighting in the mid-game the second SS with all his toys, I'd gladly PAY 100 RW points, just to have it. I can imagine the costs for non-JoaT players, that would actually have to PAY for sensors on their ships to spot those 98% cloaked CC skirmishers, bombers and jugg BBs he was sending into my space. Insane MM. In future games I'll probably issue the following ultimatum to every close SS: "Ally, or die!"
Dealing with cheap engines
The effect of CE-failing through the game was not heavy, at least in early game, but required more MM. If the arrival of ships was criticall, I sent two groups of ships, each one capable of doing its task, or (with chaff) split them in many small groups. If the concentration of forces was important, I've sent only the main fleet to the target, but all other fleets targeted that fleet. If it hasn't moved, I just missed an opportunity, but got bigger fleet, and not lost ships. However in late game the CE became nasty, especially when I wanted to split my main attack fleet to give ships different battle orders. Realizing that split ships may not arrive, and because of that I could easily lost the battle (and game), has made me to abandon some attacks on opponent's fleets/planets I'd perform otherwise.
The bonus I got from CE in early game was IMO not big, as those early engines didn't cost much, however in late game my BBs with IS-10 were 120 resources (12%) cheaper. Still I'll think not only twice, but three times, before I'll chose CE again. Precision of attack and outmaneuvering opponents is IMO more important than having ~10% more ships.
If I'd redesign the race I'd get rid of CE and would make energy expensive, otherwise I wouldn't change much.
More about my view on the game will follow.
BR, Iztok
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Re: TWWT - Game discussion |
Mon, 09 January 2006 19:16 |
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Harmony (JoaT)
NRSE, OBRM, CE, LSP
1WW HAB
20% PGR
pop: 1/1000
fac's: 15/8/16/4
mines: 15/3/25
weap & con cheap; elec & prop normal; en & bio expensive; no @ 4
1 point to MC
As Iztok noticed, this race was designed for an *extreme* ramp up and very early fighting power (cheap factories, high mining efficiency) with a view to annihilating a neighbour early with Jihad CCs and to then to keep up in late game through superior mineral resources.
I found myself in the SW corner and felt very cramped between the Fungus (less than 100ly to my NW) and Iztok's J (less than 100ly to my East.)
As the Fungus didn't have any neigbours within 100ly to their North (in fact, no worlds at all for 100ly) I (correctly) predicted that I would be their primary target and figured that they would be relatively easy to defend against attacks from the north, so I chose to make them my first target and built a substantial early-game Jihad CC fleet with this in mind.
Unfortunately I made a major intelligence blunder early on (while fractions are rounded down for maximum fleet movement, I discovered to my surprise that there is no such rounding for scanners...) I hadn't seen any significant Mushroom forces at their nearest HW in any previous years, so I decided it was safe to push forward with my partially formed up fleet and kill his picket ships... Unknown to me the Fungus had been building a fleet at their other world and had brought it forward (on the single year that I failed to scan him!) and had made a similar decision to advance, so a previously unseen fleet met my advance fleet in (2431) as they planet hopped towards each other. Had I waited and advanced with the full fleet I would've had an easy victory, but it wasn't to be. I don't regret my decision, it was sound given the info I had, but at fortunately I shouldn't have to make such an ill-informed decision again, now that I know distances round up for scanners
Fungus pushed on and deterraformed my primary producer HW in 2433. In 2435 I was able to dislodge them after years of battle damage finally made their unshielded Jihad BBs more attractive than their chaff
This lead to a renaissance period where I really felt the benfit of my 15 eff mines and was able to put up a substantial fleet of Jihad BBs, enough to force Fungus to retreat to their HW.
I found it impossible to press my advantage as the ongoing skirmishing with J had now escalated to the point where I could no longer risk sending ships more than one jump from my HWs. The fighting continued to escalate and I made the mistake of feinting an attack fleet towards his HW to enable me to push the skirmish border further away from my HWs. Unfrotunately he took it very seriously and redeployed a lot of ships into defence and I was forced to retreat. Shortly afterwards he decided to swat the annoyance that I had become and two hefty fleets suddenly deployed against me, with a crash sweep attack in 2444 that destroyed my secodary HW. It appears I should've been looking for ways to encourage him to deploy *less* ships in the area, allowing me to focus on the Mushroom, instead of escalating the skirmishing...
It was clear that it was impossible for my fleets to prevent the J from conquering my remaing homeworld within the next 2 years, so I lauched my entire fleet towards Their HW of Waco in 2445 in the hope that they would divert attackers to defend and thus buy me more time to build more defenders. In 2446 it was clear my HW was about to be lost, so I initiated my final kamikaze strategy and loaded the entire population and the most valuable minerals into freighters and rushed for Waco - partly in the hope of 'swapping worlds' and partly just to deny the installations to my conqueror.
I then made one final blunder - on the second wave of my attack on Waco my chaff successfully crashed the minefields but my main force was merged to the wrong fleet and raced 16ly past the target... Had they arrived at Waco it would've been flattened but now running a year late there was time for a J defense fleet to arrive and my fleet was crushed.
Now without escorts, my remaining freighters jetisoned the minerals in space and fled to the northern edge of the map. They investiged a number of Pirate occupied red worlds along the way but could not find anything undefended to pop-drop. At this point, in 2471, without arms and no way of obtaining a colony to build some, I finally conceeded and my colonists departed the edge of the map, searching for the next TWW universe
[Updated on: Mon, 09 January 2006 19:19] Report message to a moderator
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Re: TWWT - Game discussion |
Fri, 13 January 2006 04:50 |
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iztok | | Commander | Messages: 1200
Registered: April 2003 Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
Dogthinkers wrote on Tue, 10 January 2006 01:16 | It appears I should've been looking for ways to encourage him to deploy *less* ships in the area, allowing me to focus on the Mushroom, instead of escalating the skirmishing...
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Yeah, that'd help. But you've come with almost everything you had, so I had to react in the same manner. Also, I've already almost destroyed one of the card's HWs (I'd need only one more turn to finish it off completely!), so your move really put me in a bad mood .
Quote: | ...In 2446 it was clear my (last) HW was about to be lost, so I initiated my final kamikaze strategy and loaded the entire population and the most valuable minerals into freighters and rushed for Waco - partly in the hope of 'swapping worlds' and partly just to deny the installations to my conqueror.
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Actually you just GAVE them to me. About 30,000 resources worth in installations. I did many testbeds on how to kill your whole fleet cost-effectively with what I had, but I couldn't find a proper solution. If you'd just stay with all ships at your last HW and keep producing CCs I'd lose about 2/3 of my BB fleet just to kill those 80 jihad CCs and 90+ gattling CCs. And, since your fleet would be so big, I'd be forced to destroy it, regardless of my losses, or abandon conquest for many turns. The other option - to tie down my attack fleet to defend my space until I'd manage to produce enough BBs to win with less losses would mean I'd give up the advantage I got over Cards, and that's what I just didn't want to do .
Quote: | ... but my main force was merged to the wrong fleet and raced 16ly past the target... Had they arrived at Waco it would've been flattened...
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Not really. I had full defenses there from turn 33, and the laser ones from 38. With your bombers you'd kill about 120k pop and 600 installations, and with pop-drop next 300k.
BR, Iztok
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Re: TWWT - Game discussion |
Fri, 13 January 2006 05:50 |
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Micha wrote on Fri, 13 January 2006 23:34 | Only defenses are destroyed when a planet becomes uninhabited. You didn't deny him any installations, you indeed gave him a perfectly intact HW ...
Only the enemy can destroy the factories and mines
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hmmm...what happens if an AR colonises?
and what if the AR then gets shot down(or leaves) and a regular race colonises?
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Re: TWWT - Game discussion |
Mon, 16 January 2006 19:08 |
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iztok | | Commander | Messages: 1200
Registered: April 2003 Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
Dogthinkers wrote on Sun, 15 January 2006 22:50 | Not sure I agree about the analysis of our relative fleet strengths at the end there - I remember running some testbeds that seemed pretty one sided to me.
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I checked again. You had about 100 jihad CC, 100 gattling CC AND 700 scout chaff. I had 25 jihad*12 BBs, 40 colloidal&sapper BBs and 200 FF chaff.
That chaff of yours would really made the difference - 2 turns your ships would be intact by my jihad BBs, and we had both the same init with beamers, so in second round it would be 50-50 who'd shoot first. Anyway, because of you having gattlings, everything in the center would be hit badly, and then your 400 jihads would do even more damage. But you've split that fleet and attacked my HW with the smaller one, and that was a mistake. A third of your chaff and 30% of your jihad CCs was destroyed in that attack, but my SB was still alive and prevented bombing. The best part was: my expected losses when attacking your remaining ships went down from 60-70% to 20-30% . OFC I immediattely started pursuing the battle.
Quote: | ... so I guess I didn't do toooo bad.
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You did very well. Your race was really good, you just had some bad luck. I bet you'll never repeat those mistakes you've made.
BR, Iztok
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