Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » Game stories » Slow Boat to China has ended (please share your stories)
| Slow Boat to China has ended |
Sun, 13 November 2016 22:31  |
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 schneck |
 | Crewman 3rd Class |
Messages: 8
Registered: April 2015
Location: United States | |
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Slow Boat to China has ended after 1.5 years.
Thanks to Neil for excellent hosting.
Congratulations to the SklogW, Bamboo, Humanoids, Otters, Androids, and Puppies, who won after the alliance of the Macinti, Salts, Penguins, Sossios Naze, Aliens, and Perseons conceded. (Two other players, the Vikies and Cloudy, were mostly eliminated early on.)
I look forward to stories!
Robert, of the Penguins
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| Re: Slow Boat to China has ended |
Mon, 14 November 2016 05:02  |
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| XAPBob |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 957
Registered: August 2012 | |
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The GD was a stroke of luck (well, actually a very extensive piece of hard work).
None of the MT have been giving it out - but by trading MT parts, and with multiple players at max tech we were able to get a number of 'extra' parts - The Genesis Device and Jump Gate were happy outcomes of this technique. I've certainly never had so many MT parts before!
However, I think that the recent losses, although relatively small in whole navy terms, combined with the minerals we are starting to convert into more ships (we have a reasonable remote mining fleet now, even with all being OBRM) and vast armies (The bamboo have about 5000 Superfreighters overflowing with Pop - the orgy has just got completely out of control!) do make the outcome inevitable I think.
IIRC:
The SklogW and Bamboo allied fairly early on, with the original Humanoids being brought in very early. After the Vikies were killed we offered for the Otters to join us to halt the SN expansion, which was a serious threat at the time.
The Androids called on us when there was some Salt action Southwards, but then that border stabilised for most of the game.
Once we had a reasonably stable border ther we could concentrate on the north west, The puppies were disenfranchised due to a lack of communications, and reopened conversations with us. We were obviously happy to be able to acquire more OA ships, particularly since we then had TT25...
The Puppies escape took a little managing - but some southern planets, and a well placed WH allowed, for the northern backstab (history written by the victors? I can't quite remember the sequence) to be ridden out. We could then concentrate on recapturing his HW area.
I have learnt a fair few things this game, and enjoyed playing factoryless (a 100k economy for a -F race is fun). My research strategy went mostly well early on, and I could have wiped the SklogW out in the early game fairly easily - I am glad I decided not to...
Thanks all, it's been fun
Main question. What did the Western alliance do for most of the mid Game?
[Updated on: Mon, 14 November 2016 05:03] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Slow Boat to China has ended |
Mon, 14 November 2016 18:11 |
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| ludek |
 | Crewman 1st Class |
Messages: 23
Registered: December 2009 | |
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I played bimmune HE, with radiation wide (at TT25 all planets were
habitable), TT, ISB,NRSE,NAS,OBRM,RS
PGR: 7(14)%
Factories: 14/8/12
Mines: 15/3/12
Energy,Weapons, Construction cheap
Electronics normal
Rest expensive, start at 3 NOT checked
This race have incredible broad habitability, idea was to use it to have
good chance of getting around habitability of other races, it worked
out. Low per planet capacity weren't big problem it was compensated by
high value of planets(with TT), and fact that I colonized at first those
with habitability of 90 or more. Still resource wise it was more like -f
race .. greater than -f JOAT but less than overpopulating -f IS. Main
weakness along lack of gates for this race was low population growth..
up to mid 30 or early 40 I was mid-ranking but at the end of this period
I jumped to second then first for a while I was trading first and second
place with Humanoids then it stabilized with me as first till end of the
game.
Humanoid&Bamboo
We got contact in 10s, as expected I could interselettle with both of them. Personally preferred alliance with Bamboo (I got gate network and tachars), with humanoid it was he who pushed for closer elationship sill I wanted _some_ form of cooperation and alternative to Bamboo (I did not know it will work out) also Humanaoid were eager (more than me). Once I made alliance with Bamboo 1-3 turn latter Humanoids made alliance with me, with was quickly upgraded to full alliance of 3 races. From this moment on we started tech exchange by popdrops , Bamboo was reluctant disliking randomness of this but I think it worked well for us in the end.
I expanded into their territory, giving up some planets from mine, up to early/mid 30s I expanded slowly but from that point on I had enough breders to be able to colonize and populate at fast rate, especially in Humanoid space (they were of pretty narrow hab so there was a lot of planets to take). Probably it was at last moment since Cloudy was already trying to get into Humanoid space. After colonising our space there wasn't much happening internally, till war with Northern Aliance (Aliens,Perseons, Naze, Puppy) we were seeking our targets indpently. Humanoid iirc favoured Aliens and or Otters, Bamboo Naze, I was wiling to wait still needing time to fill up planets, and wanting to get better tech (all 3 of in the alliance had key techs cheap Energy, Construction, Weapons, Propulsion).
Vikies
Friendly contact , few emails then got wiped out by Naze. In act of spite (when their HW fallen or was falling) set me an Bamboo as friend and few turn latter (maximum 10) Bamboo made his claim to Vikie space
known by gating his fleet. I think they could play longer relaying on Bamboo intervention, maybe could survive to the end of game.
Otters
Not much contact early on, got squeezed in narrow space between Bamboo and Vikie. Initially I thought of them as source of nice planets, but Bambo convinced me otherwise, also our desire to make claim of Vikie space made us allies. It was Bamboo who pointed out advantage of having SD on our side with prospect to monopoly on SD things.
Androids&Cloudy
I guess one can call them Southern alliance but it kind of fizzled. Once i got into contact with Cloudy I initiated NAP negotiations .. then at the finalisation of agreement Cloudy got bright idea of popdroping my planet(he gave orders to popdrop in turn then send email agreeing to NAP proposed by me) .. with predictable result. Within 10-15 years after incident Cloudy become extinct in the south .. it was more problem of getting population/ships that their resistance thought at final defence of HW they put some resistance. Most of fight was popdroping weakly populated planets by me or Bamboo who was targeting
bigger concentrations of enemy population.
Along with contact and negotiations with Cloudy , I started talks with Androids. It was evident they were at least little cooperation between them so I wanted to play nice with both of them (it was reason I engaged NAP discussion with Cloudy). After incident Android took well war between me and Cloudy (I guess Cloudy played similar stunts on him) Latter attacked by Western Aliance .. managed well and I guess they weren't attacking in full force. I considered them them as speed bump for western alliance. They got tech support from us , tried to push (or rather nudge) us into war with West. On my part I recognized inevitability war with West so it was matter of time for me (I do not think Android was as sure as me) .. question was when not if and I wanted to happen it as late as possible.
I and my allied were wiling to preserve Androids, according to our understanding with the West (basically it was border agreement) on our side even if it meant giving them few planets, prospect of another SD on our side and ensuring monopoly on SD things was worth it.
They got in to war fully once West started openly support North
Northern Aliance (Aliens,Naze, Perseon, Puppy)
First contact was with Naze(they were fighting Vikies at the time) but original player was rather uncommunicative his replacement started making Northern alliance or just joined it.
I got firendly contacts with Aliens (well except I think it was them who tried accidental popdrop of newly colonized planet .. or it was Naze). Some tech trade was traded, tried to get them to sell some planets it failed but there was nice attempt to get me into war with Western Aliance (Alien wanted to sell me planet just at border with West or maybe inside of their territory). I had formal NAP with Aliens with was ended gracefully on both sides.
I tried to talk them into giving up there was not much luck there as there was not much hope .. it was just thing to try. I think only result was Puppy .. but I may be emblemishing myslef too much. Bamboo had
contacts with Puppy even before the war (bought terraformers .. with aim all wing me to use them to share my TT with allies) and most likely those contacts were desive not my demand of surrender .. though impeding doom had some effect 
Was started in late 50 or mid 60 .. depending who it was and lasted till end of the game .. so it was about 100 turns. It could divided into 5 phrases:
1st: Weapons 16
It was marked by bamboo atacking with small corby horde Naze horde(weapons  and kiling most or at lest half of it. Grabing half of Vikie space and latter slow counterack of Naze. I was quite passive early, latter build over 300 Weapons 16 BB (I was skipping Weapons 22 BB aminig for final Nubians) with kind of backfired - Humanoid was recklesy attacking gated planets with his main fleet end eventualy losing it to new fleet of Weapons 22 BB opening next phase
It was time where we got some planets in central part of front with North ..
2nd: Weapons 22
With destruction of Humanoid fleet we were at disadvantage, Bamboo stared producing his R2 disruptor BB (good counter to enemy BB), I was producing deflecting metamorphs so we destroyed about 2-3 enemy minor fleets. But in general we were in defensive waiting to get nubians (Humnaoid was researching them), propulsion and weapons, I was reseaching energy and bit of Weapons I think. During that time We lost gains in the centre, most of the Vikie space save Phi (owned by otter) it was tense moment since losing that planet would make regaining Vikie space much more problematic , I think both sides put most of their forces there, I put all weapons 22 Metamorph battlecruisers what made diference was Humnaoid Weapons 22 nubians or fresh stream of my (AM)Pi nubians .. finaly enemy fleet withrawing and we started our ofensiwe.
3rd:Our counterack
Once we have shown our final nubians we started ofensiwe but for a while it was only me who had final tech but latter bamboo stared producing red buttons and Humnaoid produced Misile ships. I think few turns after deploying by us Ampi Macinti gated his missile ships in support in the centre of frontline with North. I would not call it sucesful operation for Macinti/North since we achieved our objectives (planet wise) and after that for long time Macinti ships did not bothered us on this frontline.
Still in few turns we managed to recapture lost Vikie space, recaptured lost planets in the centre of map. It was becoming costly in ships once North deployed own nubians (it was en 18, FM based comprosmise to get someting in space to deter us named Stars) though we pushed out North it was becoming more and more costly and slow .. till I started kiling planets west , north-west of Cochise.
4th:Cochise disater
I wasn't happy with slow progres and becoming concerned loses during attacks, at some point I packeded one planet west of Cochise and then I send few ships with few bombers after remaining planets west of Cochise (for some reason without defences ) it was basicaly suicide mision but North did not tried to block it and sudenly Cochise was alone base in sea of minefields(well growing fast). Earlier it was guarded by fleet of Puppy BB, but then main Northern Fleet gated there. Bamboo made suicide attack with Buttons
aimed at killing Gate .. it succeed, then we packeted planet (along with another Button attack I think) .. I think it took 3 turns to make planet clear and keep it without gate during that time Meanwhile my main fleet went on rampage taking planets west and then North of Cochise, gaining not only Vikie space but core area of Naze .. basically cripling Northern alliance .. Naze managing Northern fleet tried to run to nearest friendly gate but due minefields (SD had great time utilizing it's abilities) friendly gates become further and further away faster that he could get to them.
I never was interested in killing that fleet as I saw and see this most of it would split dogge losing some to warping at unsafe speed (Northern nubians were using FM) so I set to get planes with minerals in them.
5th:Puppy makes peace and get backstabed
Northern fleet was still isolated in minefields when Puppy made peace with us as I was aproaching his HW and in same time he got backstabed and Macinti moved his fleet to help to break out Northern fleet. At the time I had dificulty atacking Macinti fleet alone (I wasn't comfortable with odds) so I allowed to succed it .. having killed around 10% ships , and forcing another 10% to die from overwarping (I'm not
sure of this) .. sill I extracted my toll.
After return of Northern fleet to own gates there was period of wide front attacks as I had diffuclty countering mass sweeping by enemies, it ended with me deploying mix of ED, misile and beamer ships. And we started reliably but slowly gainging planets, stable pattern emerged: our fleet come in forcing enemy out and we captured planets , while enemy fleet redeployed and tried to sweep out minefield but it was
taking longer so once they sweept minefields and perchaps captured few planets we redeployed fleet recaptured lost planets and then some.
Puppy
Not much to write there beside fact that initaly Puppy was to become neutral, We had no intention to swaying him in to our side, just getting more Terrafromers and making some planets (along with minerals) denied to our enemies was enough and stabilizing northernmost part of frontline. But his allies backstabed him under IMO lame pretence that we may use his gates deep in their territory .. such gamble would be suicidaly risky considering how Cochise situation played out. Most likely explanation is that his allies wanted(or desperately needed) his minerals.
Western Aliance(Salt,Macinti,Penguin)
For long time lost of fear and speculation but not much action. After we agreed on border between us (I guess they hoped/counted on us going after Androids). Joined war in early years of 3rd phrase of northern war making it trully global. Still beside that interwention early they remained passiwe for quite long doing nothing, not helping North or making desive attack along our common border.
Still latter there was action along that part of fronline with pushes made by Salts with some initial sucess but the rolled back by us. I was uninterested(well it was matter of inability to get enough forces after maling effort on the frontline with North) in making big sustained effort there where planets were minerl depleted, there was dense network of IT gates .. North was much more faworable terrain with better rewards .. also it was matter with keeping up effort of knowckig out at leas some of our enemies.
Nonetheless on this frontline I lost 2/3rd of my all Ampi lost in battle (my loses are bit ower 800 out of 6300-ish produced)
Questions:
(Western alliance):
Why you helped North so reluctantly especially with near constant presence of your fleet at the end? Your behaviour allowed Cochise disaster(I understand that wakening North wasn't entirely bad thing
from your POW but they were already weak). I understand that at the time my dash to the north your main fleet was out of gate but so much delay with rescue of Northern fleet?
Were you aware of whole situation?
(Northern Alliance):
Why you refused our peace offers .. as far as game situation was you could only count on being second alliance .. realistically speaking (I always pegged you as weakest alliance). With me or with North you could as end second. Fighting us you risked becoming 3rd as alliance if we win .. It made more interesting game but I presented valid choice. Unless you though you could get in first position as alliance.
Androids
Early in the game our cooperation weren't given, you could go against us or north how likely was fear that you and Cloudy would go against us (assuming more sane Cloudy behaviour vs me)?
How difficult was Cloudy as neighbour?
Cloudy
Why did you decide to popdrop me? Did you thought I would let it slide? And why you thought that way? It was my nice, peacefull aproach to you convinced you that I will do nothing? Unless it was first in line of incidents you wanted to organize taking bit by bit my planets till it erupts in inevitable war (since it could be stopped only by it)?
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| Re: Slow Boat to China has ended |
Tue, 15 November 2016 12:58 |
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| platon79 |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 3 |
Messages: 185
Registered: February 2004
Location: Norway | |
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The Androids was a HP SD race, startin in the sw quadrant.
So to my story. Since it's been 1.5 years since the beginning of the game I may of course remember some things incorrectly.
Early on I negotiated a nap with the Penguins to my north. I also talked to a lot of other players and after a while an alliance with my closest neighbour the Cloudy was agreed upon.
That was a complete disaster.
The Cloudy skipped a lot of turns and was very unresponsive. The Humanoids even claimed that they had some form of intersettling agreement with the cloudy, and I confronted him with it asking him to clarify. I think I never got a reply to that particular email. So I never knew 100% where I had him, he skipped turns, were unresponsive, and we never got to set up any form of tech trading etc. After I urged him to make nap with the sklogw and he did so and popdropped him on the same turn, and he didn't make amends, I allowed sklogw to wage war against him without interference as long as I got some of the spoils. So there I was, a lone player while everyone else had teamed up.
So it was only natural then I guess that the alliance of the penguins, macinti and salt wanted to expand and probably viewed me as the easiest target. Luckily my negotiated nap with the penguins had a 10 year expiration, so I had some time to perpare before the onslaught. (I guess since the nap was with the penguins they technically could have invaded with only macinti/salt forces but they played honorably and waited until the nap was ended)
sklogw/bamboo/humanoids were busy in the north and didn't want to get involved, but luckily I was able to have a tech trade agreement with sklogw (minelayers for tech) so I was able tonot lag too far behind tech wize. So then the war started and it was 3 vs 1 for a very long time. They thought perhaps it would be easy, but fighting a dedicated SD player sure took a lot of time. But they might not have been 100% committed, perhaps prioritizing tech? Anyway, it was a very long war. I was slowly losing planets. During this was, I tried to seek more direct help from the sklogw/humanoids/bamboo but they would not get involved. After all they also had the northern front. Speaking of the northern alliance, I guess tensions at this point was not good between the western alliance and the northern alliance either, as I in the middle of the war actually was contacted by the naze, who at that point apparently thought war with the western alliance would be inevitable. So he actually promised help against the penguins/salt/macinti, and we planned an ambush. That he would gate through to my planet Reagan to help kill of the invaders. But all the best laid plans and so on.. By crash-sweeping they attacked Reagan one turn before we were ready, so I fought alone. And that first battle of reagan was actually a close call, with only one group of BBs on the enemy side left. A little after that I tried retaking Reagan with newly arrived reinforcements but failed due to a warp10-capable group of enemy BBs that I didn't spot. I think the plan was that naze should try to set up another ambush but then things quickly escalated for him on the northern front vs the eastern alliance and he couldn't spare any anymore. Didn't have much more communications with the northern alliance after that. I continued the good relationship with the eastern alliance, mainly communicating with sklogw, who still wanted me alive, and fled a lot of pop and minerals south, away from the front. Finally, when most of my empire was gone, and most of the remaining planets was in space also containing eastern alliance planets, there was a brief cessation of hostilities and I could formally join the eastern alliance. Although I had lost my HW in the war, I was able to get Cloudy's old HW and start afresh from there with a few more planets, determined to use my SD skills for my new alliance. And it would not be long before the war was global.
Btw, when I was on the brink of destruction, and the eastern alliance still would not let me in, I wondered if I could join the western alliance instead of them continuing the assult. They refused. Apparently they didn't want a SD player on their team. I still think that was one of their big mistakes. Instead of absorbing an SD player they now had to fight him again later on to the bitter end. Although I had no big fleets compared to the nubian hordes roaming the galaxy, I think I played my part to the eastern alliances success, layout minefield after minefield, helping in skirmishing and basically trying to do my best to make the enemy miserable.
This global war part of the game, where the galaxy was reduced to a big east vs west-alliance was the part that has taken the most part of the game, and I will remember it fondly, both for the grand scale epic-ness, and the very good alliance communications. (We used google hangouts to communicate). I also played a vital part in the end game, by getting to the western MT traders first and then distributing scrappers before the others met the traders, so that we finally got the genesis device that I guess finally took the heart out of our enemies fighting spirit.
Cheers to all my alliance members and our hard-fought enemies too.
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| Re: Slow Boat to China has ended |
Fri, 18 November 2016 05:48 |
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| XAPBob |
| Lt. Commander |
Messages: 957
Registered: August 2012 | |
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Bamboo were a -F IS, OBRM, ISB, RS
19% with 1in5 (Right shifted Grav, Rad immune) hab
1/1000 & 10/3/14 mines
WPC cheap, N normal, LB expensive NOT@3
By the end game (2553) I had several planets with over 10M people (78M, 71M, 62M, 44M, 44M, 17M, 13M) to the extent that the planet report can't sort them!
The rest of my 75 planets had a couple of million pop each...
I also had well over 5k super freighters full of pop... Another Billion and a half colonists...
IS orgies can get rather out of control!
The turn before the game ended I acquired the jump gate from the Hush-A-Boom MT (since we'd traded the bomb in the alliance) so was about to pull the orgies back from the front line, and jump people to the front lines where needed. I also acquired the Enigma Pulsar that turn, so a number of ships were to be redesigned as counters.
The Red Buttons were a Big Mutha Cannon based nubian - Two slots of BMC, two of capacitors (IS, so I don't want to overload on weaponry), J30 (so others could build them as well) and the MT MultiFunction Pod helped the TS10 for battle speed. The rest was shields (2) and deflectors(4) - I would recommend dropping one shield slot in favour of deflectors as it turns out.
Elysium Class super freighters were TS10 powered with a single N18 shield (making them mine resistant)
I also made use of APC nubians - Fast move deflector cargo ships with a single sapper weapon and a colo pod. 5k armour, 4k2 Shields, Move 2.5 even loaded with 900kT of colonists.
SklogW AMPi were 6 deflectors, 2 AMP, two shields, one stack of Flux capacitors and the MFP supporting the TS10 for battle speed.
The main enemy threat was night bringers, very similar to the AMPi:
EP driven nubians with 6 deflectors, two AMP and a stack of capacitors (Jammers instead of the MFP and the normal capacitors in place of the HE special)
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| Re: Slow Boat to China has ended |
Mon, 21 November 2016 07:26 |
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I came in as a replacement for the IT.Humanoids (fabrice) only at the end.. probably 10-15 turns.
I did a lot of minelaying + sweeping MM, but it was NOTHING compared to the MM that the others had been doing for 150 years.
I still remember joining the game when FFA was in the early 30s and the stark differences in the game scales left me at a loss on how to play for a few days, haha.
Of course, it was also because I had no idea what was going on.
At the end, I was just making sure the infinity gates were up and was in the process of setting up a mineral distribution network using IT LFs.
(The network wasn't really needed as the others already had it nicely handled). It would have helped with the GD + mining fleets if we had continued playing though.
I didn't much care for resources so I stipped a lot of my 100% hab planets to 42% and created multiple mobile Labour fleets who could create infinity gates in a year.
I did continue to churning out torpedo nubs from my producer worlds that were not breeder level habs.
It was an intense game based on the number of shared chats I read at the end and I can only imagine how it was on both sides for the earlier 130 odd years!
Having the collected game files of all races would be nice.
[Updated on: Mon, 21 November 2016 07:30]
I know my minefields.. but I'm a chaff sweeper.
I used to curse when I got stuck in traffic... till I realised I AM traffic.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Slow Boat to China has ended |
Tue, 22 November 2016 21:40 |
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| schneck |
| Crewman 3rd Class |
Messages: 8
Registered: April 2015
Location: United States | |
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This was my first Stars! game against humans since the 90s, when I was introduced to the game by my friend Epworthian, whose loss to Jason Cawley was immortalized in the strategy guide.
It looked to me that the game rules put constraints on most econ races but didn't touch IS, and I've always liked IS, so IS it was. The Penguins were based on Jason Cawley's Yankees ( http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/%22Inner_Strength_Race_De sign%22_by_Jason_Cawley_1997_v2.6/7) with just a couple of changes: no OBRM, and NRSE. In hindsight these were mistakes. Not checking OBRM is like checking "9% smaller economy". I never built a mining fleet (mainly because my allies ended up taking care of remote mining). Checking NRSE is really checking "mid-game expensive engines", which sadly limits the fun of Croby Frigate hordes.
In the first few years I met the Androids to the south and the Salts to the north. Neil had suggested he would try to make everyone neighbors with one natural enemy and one natural ally. It quickly became apparent that the Androids were the natural enemy as we wanted all the same planets. In 2409 I let him have Phaeton, a choice planet nearer my homeworld than I would like, and we agreed to a border and a 10-year NAP. Then in 2413 the Macinti, just north of the Salts, suggested that we three form a victory-or-death alliance. We agreed, and so it was for the rest of the game.
Even at that time we talked about inviting the Androids. As Runar suggested we never did bring him on, and this did turn out to be something of a mistake. I don't think which side got the Androids was decisive in terms of which side won, but in the late game Runar was remarkably effective at skirmishing, minelaying, and minesweeping, and indeed caused us substantial misery. I think we would have had more fun with the Androids on our side, and I bet the other team would have had less!
In the 2420s I did outrun the Androids to the last planets in the not-pre-determined area of our border, and we started running into the opposing teams, notably the very expansionist Sossios Naze. In 2434 we agreed to a border with the Humanoid/SklogW/Bamboo/(Otter)---a border presuming the elimination of all the other races. After a rather abortive attempt by the Macinti to conquer the Perseons, we similarly agreed to a border with the Sossios Naze/Aliens/Perseons/Puppies.
Mostly, we had peace until the endgame. I didn't build a single weapon until 2440 (by which point I had 10k resources). I had just broken the NAP with the Androids and it was time for the Croby Frigates.
We spent a long time taking out the Androids... we started in 2448, by 2469 took their homeworld, and were done mopping up around 2490 at which point the Southern Alliance belatedly decided to get involved. (This I think is the answer to XAPBob's question of what we were doing with our midgame.) Here we missed another chance to bring the Androids into our team and forgo a lot of later misery. Too bad! As it was, I'm glad we got at least one reasonably satisfying war of conquest, before settling in to the trench warfare of the late game.
At this point, around 2490, we considered the situation total war. For a while we let the Southern Alliance beat up on the Northern Alliance to build up our strength, until about 2515 when it was clear the only way forward was to join with the Northerners. As I remember it, we didn't see the situation with the Puppies as "backstabbing" them---we simply didn't believe there was any room for a neutral race at this point. It seemed clear to us that you either had to be ready to join the Southerners or fight against them. The Puppies made their choice and we responded in the way we thought was appropriate.
I still didn't build many weapons until the endgame: about 800 Croby Frigates, and later about 50 W16 battleships. But I was the main engine of our team's Nubians, building 2646 by the end, though mostly I transferred them to the Macinti.
Hopefully Eddie can comment on how we felt about the "Cochise disaster". I don't remember it. I was mainly building and transferring Nubians, and doing some light border defense and skirmishing. I suspect that it happened just before we fully committed to ally with the North, and were still hoping the other two teams would substantially damage each other. Possibly we waited too long.
I started hitting germ limits before 2500 and by the end was even running out of boranium. Eddie had said early on that the game would be won or lost on minerals. We had hoped that having the sole SS player, we might make a go of piracy as a game-winning strategy, and although we got a few good shipments of minerals that way, we never quite turned it into a game-changer.
I had 18k resources in 2450, 51k in 2475, 79k in 2500, and peaked at 105k around 2530. In score I rose as high as second in the early 2500s, later falling to third and staying there... I wonder how much that had to do with transferring away most of my capital ships.
There were two major events with the MT. First of all, our team managed to get the Enigma Pulsar by turning the useless MT Scouts or Probes we had gotten into lambs which we all observed being destroyed. It was a critical piece of our late-game Nubian, giving us an extra slot.
More importantly, very late in the game, the opposing team got three MTs offering parts which traveled very slowly through their space. As a result they managed a clever strategy of having one team member get the part, and then trading it to the other players, which could then visit the MT again for different parts. Most importantly they got the Genesis Device, which of course upends the mineral calculus.
We knew we would lose unless we could somehow get the GD ourselves, and we came up with a last-ditch plan to trade an MT part among all of us, and send the four players who didn't originally get the part deep into enemy minefields to meet one of the MT. I think the plan could have worked, and it would have been very satisfying. But by this point we seemed collectively exhausted; our hearts weren't in it and we didn't execute it quite well enough.
The SklogW and Bamboo suggest their excess size would have been decisive even so, and it certainly does not seem unlikely. I never interacted with the SklogW much myself, but our teammates said that he was a excellent and careful player who simply never made mistakes.
Congratulations again to all the winners and thanks to all.
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| Re: Slow Boat to China has ended |
Wed, 23 November 2016 15:34 |
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So, who was playing what? If I got the posts right:
* bamboo, IS, played by XAPBob
* ?, HE, played by ludek
* Androids, SD, played by platon79
* Humanoids, IT, played by nmid (as replacement in the last years)
* Penguins, IS, played by schneck
And the others? Curious I am...
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| Re: Slow Boat to China has ended |
Wed, 23 November 2016 17:07 |
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| ludek |
| Crewman 1st Class |
Messages: 23
Registered: December 2009 | |
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Altruist wrote on Wed, 23 November 2016 15:34So, who was playing what? If I got the posts right:
* bamboo, IS, played by XAPBob
* ?, HE, played by ludek
* Androids, SD, played by platon79
* Humanoids, IT, played by nmid (as replacement in the last years)
* Penguins, IS, played by schneck
And the others? Curious I am...
SklogW HE played by me (ludek)
Otters -SD
Aliens-IS
Sosios Naze -IS
Perseons -IS
Puppies -CA
Vikies -IT
Cloudy -SS
Salts -SS
Macinti -IT
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