Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » Game stories » The Dark Ages 3 - Game commentary (long!!!)
| The Dark Ages 3 - Game commentary (long!!!) |
Mon, 13 December 2004 08:25  |
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 iztok |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| multilis wrote on Sun, 12 December 2004 21:02 |
Whatever happened in Dark Ages 3?
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Long post, be warned  . For those interested, here are my ideas and comments about that game.
The race
SD
ISB, NRSE, NAS, RS
Grav immune, Temp almost full, Rad 70-100 (1 in 3)
6% PGR
pop 1/1000
12/17/15, 10/11/14
con cheap; en, elec normal; rest expensive
2001 points in defenses.
The logic behind the design:
1. SD is the cheapest PRT (JoaT can not take NAS), and those 56 RW points make even more difference when you have to spend 2000 points less then normal.
2. SD can interdict planets with its detonating minefields for quite long time (up to about turn 60).
3. With Fuel Tank forbidden MML makes great booster for a very long time.
4. With no gates and the only two ramscoops alowed (RHRS-6 and TGSS-12) I decided for speed: IS-10 allows W-10 and combat speed 2.25 for BBs, with the AD-8 being working horse. Also goes well with grav immunity and expensive prop.
5. ISB: DOCK!!! (that fuel has to come from somewhere ). Just sometimes I used it for building ships. US's good, but against 10 BBs and some chaff it loses.
6. NAS: regretted this one a bit. When everyone must be set to enemy, you can't buy pen-scanners. And my detonating MFs would still detect cloaked fleets. Lots of points though, that allowed me best econ possible.
7. 6% PGR. With 5% the race would be too slow (Ken had 5%). With 7% I couldn't afford factories.
8. Best factories. It's a long game, so "HP" approach paid well. Those +2 resources (13%) for factories didn't matter much, as they already were slow. Allowed me to buy another one tech normal.
9. Good mines. I pondered going 11/x/10, but testbeds showed that it's too slow: only first 20 turns it would lead with speed and minerals, then it would lag behind 10/x/14 for next ~80 turns, with greatest difference 3k less minerals at about turn 60.
10. Remote miners: didn't produce a single one until Super miner robot and maxi hull. When game ended I had 40 operative, about 20 more planned. I did a small mistake by using AD-8 engine in them. There was quite some planets to mine, that were more then 64 LY apart, but less than 100. In those two front slots I could use Super Cloaks. That would cloak them 72% and hide them in orbit from best pen-scaner down to 56 LY distance (or from SS 34 LY). Not such a big cost, considering about 60 built.
11. Tech: IMO it would be better to buy 2 chap ones then 1 cheap and 2 normal. With that small economies those -50% really make significant difference. The northeren alliance (players ranks 2, 3 and 4) had constant tech lead by about 10 levels (4-6 in elec, 2-4 in energy, 2-4 in bio). Even with my big econ I couldn't compete with that (33k spent in normal cost field yields less then 19k in cheap).
Opening and growth strategy
Up to turn 50 game went 2 years per turn. As usuall my race started really low in score table (IIRC 10 of 12), and in lover right corner (140LY from bottom, 460 LY from right edge - quite sparse uni in that direction). Initiall scouting was with existing two MMLs (the Speed Trap one paired with Santa Maria to make it go further). Then (about turn 10) I bought a single level of elec to get Rhino (100 LY with NAS) and 've built some pairs of MMLs with it and QJ-5 (with speed 5-6 those scouts rally went FAAAAR). I used that pair to go W-9 2 or 4 turns, then split them and returned one to HW to refuel.
I also used this design with a single mine-layer 40 to interdict planets I wanted to have for me. ATM my scouts found a green/big yellow planet, the closest layer moved there, another layer moved to its place and I put in queue a new one to replace the now-empty orbit. This approach worked very well, as it gave me a good look on the uni besides reserving those planets for me. That design was the only one minelayer I had for a LOONG time. Even the first war was fought mostly with this one.
Despite MML has lots of fuel, I decided to not use any as a pop-mover, and to go straight to LF (much cheaper per kt of moved pop, with more fuel per pop to), picking growth each second turn and meticulously holding breeders at 25% until there was no place (filled below 25%) to move pop in less then 4-5 turns. In a game I found 2 big green planets within 2 jumps there - 2 back with a LF with QJ-5 engine. So I needed to build only 2 of them to move all my growth for first 60 turns. After discovering 4 more (rich) breeders within 4 W-8 jumps and several good greens I knew my race will be big. I bought prop-7 for AD-8 and started building my fleet of LFs to move that pop and all excess germ for new factories (I tried to build at least 200 factories before any mines). The colony drive started running smoothly, an my race started climbing on the score table accordingly.
Playing
In the mean-time my scouts found neighbours. Unknown PRT, but known (and good) player Ptolemy to my left, not really friendly (old Stars! player Kang) SD to my E-NE, (presumably) JoaT (unknown skill) to North, another one (good player Ken) SD to far NW, a WM (unknown skill) far N-NW. I've established a border and NAP with Ptolemy, had some disputes about one planet with Ken, and lost quite some scouts on detonating MFs of Kang. After estimating my position and counting greens and yellows, I decided I need to attack someone to keep expanding. To get you better feeling, the game was at about turn 70 and we had 1-2.5k economies .
First war
Since I already fought my left neighbour Ptolemy (and didn't want another one lesson of hard defense ), and knowing my NE neighbour SD Kang annoyed pretty much everyone (and building lots of "expensive" MMLs to move pop and lay mines, having CE in gateless game, and me having impression he's not spending much time in the game) I designated him as my first target. I bought needed tech for DD sweepers (Bazooka, M-70 bomb, Wolverine shield), that will be the core of my first attack wave (Bazooka CCs the second and the real one) and start producing them. I let all his neighbours know I'm going to attack him, and keep them informed of my progress, so he had to fight on several fronts. I wasn't quite successfull in attacking his planets (if we disregard packeting one of his big greens), because he countered my 20 CC fleet with his 45 FFs. I could kill his FFs, but I'd lose about half of CCs, and the rest would be killed by his SB in the next turn. Then I got lucky to catch his FFs in my detonating MF, and got 11 B-17 bombers in orbit of his HW. They did quite some damage that turn, but in next turn I took some risk with attacking a planet where he's been gathering his reinforcements. I took out all his ships there and half pop and installations, but lost 8 bombers, so my attack was stalled (300-400 LY from my production centers to his HW). I returned ships to his HW and kept them there for about 6 turns slowly bombing it and waiting for him to come with enough ships I had to withdraw. Meantime I've been researching and tech-trading for BBs, prop-9, en-10 and weap-10 for the finall kill. At about turn 110 his HW was taken (bombed flat  ), and he remained with only old 3 colonies, that were under attack from me and northern SD. IIRC about turn 130 he droped and I took his last colony at about 140.
Second war
With BBs, packets and better bombers SD was finaly defeated (unfortunately I didn't get much of green planets) and I started to look after new conquests. The JoaT in the center was marked as low skill player and the next victim, but he dropped before I could start attacking him. Here in the center I colided with the northeren SD player Sinla (good player). With his better tech (10-12 levels) he fielded somewhat strange Jihad BBs (16 Jihads, 8 shields 18, 2 valanium armors, 6 BSC, 1 jammer 20, TGSS-12 engines, wing slots empty), so I went after Juggs to get some advantage, while my partners researced energy and con. When I got them I did some terra first (really nice jump in hab for quite some planets), and after that i produced 40 Jugg BBs with 2 heavy blasters, 2 tech-15 sappers, IS-10 engine, tech-14 shields, 4 BSC and 3 jammers 20. I didn't want to build more of them, as it was already clear to me that the final battle will be fought with Nubians. I also built 50 Heavy Blaster BB designs with 6 sappers to accompany them, another ~100 sweeper DDs and ~200 chaff (yep, not enough, but bringing them to front was PITA), and some fast CCs (W-10, 2.5 combat speed) to serve as interceptors and uncatcheable sweepers. It took me 8 turns to build all that, and another 8 to get everything to the front.
Before that happend I had to retreat from SD/JoaT space, as Sinla had there much more FP then I had. But after he took quite some damage in my detonating MFs with venturing after my intruders/baits, he ceased to press southward. Then my Jugg BBs arrived and situation changed - I start pressing north. But then he fielded a really nasty Jugg BB design: 16 Juggs, 2 gattlings, 3 Nexus, 4 jammers-30, 8 tech-18 shields, 4 valaniums, TGSS-12 engine. When I did a combat sim with my Jugg BBs I lost about 3 to 1 against them. Fortunatelly I had my old and new beamers there, so I decided to challenge his ships with attacking his southernmost planets. According to my calculations I'd lose all beamers, chaff and sweepers, but he'd lose all ships. Another reason for attack was I estimated his mineral reserves should be pretty low (after the game I've seen I was right), while my remotre mining sites kept producing lots of them for future nubians. But the game ended before that decisive battle was fought.
Deception
The game had "PPS" at turn 80. I've been concerned about that, because my race already got to the first or second place before that time, and I didn't want to become the "public enemy" so early. I decided to hide this. I designated 6 LFs to WP-1 lifting the pop from my breeder planets in order to lover my public score. 4 of them were running betwen 4 breeders, 2 between a breeder and an unhabited (but remotely mined) planet. I was quite successfull at that. When the PPS got out my race was in the upper half of the pack showing about 3k res, but in the reality it had 4k+, more then any race in the game. Since it was running so wild I gradually designated about 5 more pairs of LFs for that duty, and kept lifting pop for next 60 turns! Despite that my race became the leader at about turn 100 and never stepped down from there. I ceased doing that gradually (one LF per turn) from about turn 130, and completelly stopped just 2 turns before game ended. I also let most my breeders grow and build instalations up to 50% capacity. The nett result of that was its resource growth really looked frightening: better then linear for 60 turns, when most other races lost the linear one 30-40 turns ago. Since some players already showed attrition of will to continue playing, I had hopes this will also helped them to end the game.
Do not understand the presented picture was artificiall: only one of my breeders was a bit over 50% capacity, the rest was just a bit below it. My plan was to start filling smaller planets to the max, with HW next, so resource growth was not over for quite some time. But the game ended before I could do that.
Aftermath
The unchanged SD is way to strong in primitive games, so Ptolemy and I tried to develop a handicap system (based on Stars! handicap in RGCS), that could be used, if another one primitive game would be played. He used it in his announcement for Primitive Paranoia. Only the playing would show how successfull we were.
Lack of gates is also slowing down game way to much, esp. in medium or large uni.
The all-enemies is OK, but IMO the game should be played accordingly: no "alliances", only limited tech trading, limited NAP etc.
For other would-be players: do testbeds. Lots of them. Not only to turn 50, go for 80 at least. Try different approaches: -f, f, +ff, -m,... Get your best 2-3 races together in the same uni and play all of them, to get reall feeling of their performace. I did that. It pays a lot. I won.
At the end, congratulation to you, because you managed to get through all this. Hope you enjoyed it and maybe got and idea or two.
My 
BR, Iztok
[Mod edit: split off and changed title]
[Updated on: Mon, 13 December 2004 08:46] Report message to a moderator
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