Let me see if you can beat this one (it was a while ago so I will try to remember the details):

A -f -m SD.

I had wanted to play a -f. I also wanted to play a SD. I figured with all the extra points with a SD, and the -f points, I could afford to take an immunity. Since I was keeping the Ram Scoop engines, and since I figured I would need a lot of minerals to build the big minelayers, I figured that I could take Advanced Remote Mining. And I figured that if I was going to have big mining ships, that I would not need planetary mines, and I could afford Total Terraforming as well. The additional benefits were that ALL planetary resources would go into terraforming and then to research. And of course my enemies would not want my planets, as there would be no factories and mines on them! (Did you follow that twisted logic?)

Note also that due to RL difficulties at the time, I barely had time to create the race, much less test it.

The flaws:

Remote mining starts out very slow. I did not have enough minerals to build enough remote miners to get started quickly! I was SO short on minerals I was having trouble finding enough minerals to build transports and colonizers. This greatly slowed down my -f expansion.

With the immunity and great habs, a LOT of the planets with better minerals were planets that were green, and that I would need to colonize. And of course, if I colonized them I would not be able to mine them!

What happened:

It was a re-mapped universe, and I happened to be the player with the most real estate, and with other players very far away. This gave me quite a long time to get started without interruption. I also made an alliance with the #1 player, who was near me. He helped me get a few (much needed) tech levels to get the best miner and mining robots.

Getting those helped me turn the corner. I set up a mining world for each colonized world, and was able to build enough miners and transports (over several turns) to get a good mineral rate to my planets. These minerals started to arrive just before my opponents were closing in on my worlds. So I was able to build enough cruisers and minelayers to defend myself, and even grow a little before my ally won the game.

There are quite a few more details. Another reason I survived is that players were required to take at least one of the 'bad' LRTs, and could only take one of the 'good' LRTs, so everyone was having some sort of trouble.

Here is the amazing part: I managed to get to second place before the game ended.

Someone asked my why I did not just play an AR? It probably would have worked better, and with the exception of the minelayers, was prettty much what I was playing!

I will play a -f again someday, and a SD, but never again a -m. Someday I will even try an AR!

Planet Dancer

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freakyboy wrote on Mon, 31 March 2003 14:14

I was just lucky to be surrounded by a (looking back on things) foolish HE (but one who I am graciously happy to have allied with) and 2 other AR races.

Why thank you for that flattering comment, freakboy!
Actually, it was your habitat that made you far more desireable to me as an ally than 4711 (even though he seemed much nicer), who seemed to be able to colonize everything. I figured with you as an ally I could simply leave everything that you could colonize and there'd still be plenty of planets for me, and no friction over who gets to colonize what.

But the reason I wasn't feeling aggressive about attacking either of the two AR's north and south of me was at that point I'd JUST learned about monster HG races, had no knowledge of what an AR can achieve, and was certain that everyone was playing a monster race but me. I didn't want to pick one enemy, and then find the other deciding I'd be a good enemy too when I might have allied with the first one I attacked instead. Make sense?

I still don't think your race is bad at all, but, what do I know. (Not much)

Editting: Added the following...
As for my own lousy races I'll never try again, how about ALL of them? I still havn't found anything to replace my old tri-immune HE, which is sad considering the consensus on tri-immune HE's. I guess playing a tri-immune HE is simple enough that it's hard to screw it up, and I still need to learn how to play the game effectively with anything else.

[Updated on: Mon, 31 March 2003 19:36]

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Can anyone say Oberlander?

Personally, the worst I've ever borked myself was in a blitz with Dan Neely (Summoner), but it wasn't the race's fault. I was hosting and accidentally set the starting positions to Close instead of Distant - and my enemy was a 1ww JoaT (I was IS and had essentially no tech). I died in 2412.

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Nelson laugh at 2412



My worst ever race was in my 1st PBEM. I chucked together a quick HP-style SD without testing it. Half way through the game I realised that I could have made a HG-style race with the same resources per planet, but much faster ramp. Though, I did manage to come second with a bit of diplomacy and a good ally (Thanks Rig!)

[Updated on: Wed, 02 April 2003 09:38]

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