Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » Game stories » Hidden Friends has Ended
| Hidden Friends has Ended |
Wed, 25 June 2008 11:17  |
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The Eye Team won this game by concession on year 2479.
BigCanuk and Joseph were the players of the winning team.
The Game definition:
Hidden Friends ( Team Game )
12-16 Races
Skill level: intermediate and above ( Experts would be great )
Universe: Small, packed, distant starting positions
Starting conditions: Acc BBS, NO special events, slow tech
Turns: Every day the first 20 turns then 3-5 gens a week (Player vote).
Race restrictions:
CA Banned
Joat can not take NAS and must set 50 points to defenses.
IT can not take IFE and must leave 50 points set to defenses.
SD must set 50 points to defenses.
Victory conditions: Last alliance in the game .
Usual cheats-disclaimer.
Special Rules :
All races has to be set to Enemy . No Ingame messages allowed , no speaking/writing about the game offline ( E-Mail , Chat etc. )
Each player will send his race to a 3. Person . He will change Race Names and gives you a RANDOM ally , you don't know by game start !!
Every time you see a new race in the universe you have to send the Host a E-Mail , he checks if you real see the race and tell you if it is your ally or not .
If it is your ally you get his E-Mail and you can now set him to friend ( and send Ingame messages , E-Mails , chat etc.)
The Implementation:
As host being thrust upon me (CC disappeared) we decided to run the game with 8 players (time was ticking the game actually started two months after the scheduled start date.)
I first ran an evaluation to determine which races were mostly compatible in habs (ie. they could hold between them the highest percentage of the universe between them) cross indexed these results to determine which players were on a team.
Then I mapped the universe split into three columns and three rows:
_______
|1|6|3|
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|4| |8|
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|7|2|5|
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Each team was defined to have a corner and an edge and a reasonable distance separating them.
Teams were 1/2, 3/4, 4/5, 7/8.
And since the host had control over the races names I defined the name in a Middle Earth Flavour.
Teams were:
(Plural) Eye: Ogre/Orc
(Plural) Hand: Goblin/Troll
(Plural) Tree: Elf/Gnome
(Plural) Blade: Human/Dwarf
The teams were named with the plurals the same so that the players would automatically identify their partner upon meeting.
I also knew that despite this it was likely that all teams would not meet quickly, so I told them I would let them know their partner on 2410 if they didn't know him.
It was a fairly simple game to set up but it is surprising how much time actually was spent in the analysis phase before a universe was even genned 
regards,
dj
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| Re: Hidden Friends has Ended |
Wed, 25 June 2008 15:02  |
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Any good war stories from the players? I'm interested in hearing how things worked out.
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| Re: Hidden Friends has Ended |
Wed, 25 June 2008 20:47 |
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Hi all:
Joseph and I won this one. We had a great hab combo, (thanks to donjon's matching program (see the original game description in the new games thread: http://starsautohost.org/sahforum/index.php?t=msg&th=365 0&prevloaded=1&rid=554&S=e12d54785534f08d21566ab b2c5e4519&rev=&reveal=&start=40&count=40
Note: I am using joseph's wonderful description of Babylon 5, as my inspiration to write a detailed description of this game.
Race design:
------------
I'll let joseph talk about his race design and rationale in his own post. He was a 26% growth HE with 2 immunes.
Suffice to say, our habs were almost a *perfect* match with only very low rad planets (one, two, or maybe 3 clicks from the edge) ending up red for both of us. And joseph was 2 immune, and I was single immune, so most of our planets were 70% plus, with around 1/2 eventually at 100%.
Also, our tech cost choices were reasonable compatible, with my choice at W cheap, all else expensive, and joseph's W and C cheap all else expensive. It left me to research W and joseph to research C. It would have been nice to have no overlap, and one of us with N or L cheap, but that would have been asking too much.
Lastly, the IT/HE combo was fantastic. The big disadvantage of HE, namely no gates, was mitigated by joseph being able to use my gates. It just cost him an extra turn to move to one of my gates. And we *really* benefited early from joseph's 26% growth.
My race was:
IT -f
NRSE
ISB
OBRM
NAS
grav:immune
temp:wide -140 to 156
rad narrow right: 53 to 85
19% growth
1/4 habitable
1/1000
-f (5/25/5)
12/3/14
W cheap, rest expensive
no start at 3
50 points left, set to defenses
-------------------
My initial strategy was to:
1. Scout aggressively to find greens and my partner. I guessed at how donjon might set us up. I guessed (wrong, but close enough) at a 2 high x 4 wide matrix(2 W's or slanted N's) and put my partner in the NW or SW. It is interesting, that without a scanner on my original scout, Even though I sent a scout (planet hopping early, and then some open space moves so I could be seen) directly to the SW where joseph was located, that he did not see me, and we did not meet at any planet by year 10. Once we communicated, it only took another 4 or 5 years for me to refuel at his HW.
2. Move population to best greens keeping pop levels at 25% on all planets. Delay terraforming, and just colonize the best greens, gobbling up as much territory as possible.
2101
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Colonization
(Note, I'll wait for joseph to show me how to post nice maps.)
I started with my HW, Frankin about 1/4 of the way into the map at a 45 deg angle from the SW corner (1587, 1231) and my 2nd world Neon at only 36% hab, 167 ly NE of my HW at (1509, 1379).
I made an early decision to evacuate pop from my 2nd world to my HW early, and then to high growth worlds asap. With single immune 1/4, I was reasonable assured to find good worlds at a 2 hop distance from my HW. This ended up helping my early growth tremendously, as I did find good (85%+) early greens.
Rather than use my Swashbuckler, which can only make one gate hop, without waiting for repair, I designed and put a medium frieghter with a cargo pod into the que immeadiately. Since the game was low in iron, I decided to use mostly medium frieghter/cargo pod for gate cargo moving, and knew that with no IFE and NRSE, that I would need to build some 3 fuel pod privateers (and use some scouts as fuel boosters, as well) to keep my population at 25% and always expanding at maximum warp.
2410
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Exploration
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I was reasonably lucky with my initial exploration, finding an 86% world (Moholdi) only 50.25 ly from my HW, Franklin, and at this point an 89 and 86% world only one jump from my secondary, Neon.
At this point (2410), I was 3rd in the score (and on communicating with joseph, found he was 1st, so felt good about our resource production potential.)
I had built 2 initial bat SPTs, researched L1, when I could do it in 2 years, and built 24! L1 scouts (so far). (Definitely out of ironium in a low ironium game) The initial ones were out exploring, and some of the latter were built along with privateers, and medium freighters as boosters and close in scanner/planet covers, to keep an eye on my *close* neighbours.
I was unhappy with recent green finds (especially in the dense cluster to the East of my HW), and wanted to find my friend asap, so had built and sent out a stack of 9! scouts (peeling off boosters as it went) almost due West from my 2nd world, in case he was in the West middle, and not the NW or SW. This turned out to be a blessing(even though he ended up being in the extreme SW), because it was along a dense band of planets stretching across the middle of the map, about 10 degrees off horizontal, from the NE to the SW, which turned out to be almost equidistant from the Tomek Tree, and the Ptolemy Blade. It provided me a route to:
1. join my friend
2. split the Tree
3. reasonably good (some great) greens
4. low resistance, as the band (call it the "dense middle band") ended up being about 150 ly south of the Ptolemy Blade, and 150 ly north of the Tomek Tree.
I ended up going up and around the Per Hand, and Tomek Tree that were between me and joseph.
Colonization
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4 medium frieghters (one cargo, no shield, DLL7) had been built, and 4 privateers (3 fuel, no shield, DLL7). I had colonized Mohodi(86%), 51 ly SW of my HW, and Skunk(85%), 62 ly NW of my 2nd world. I was colonizing Code(89%) (W of HW along the "dense middle band")this turn. I had found a few other good greens(85+): Erasmus, and some lesser greens: Spittle, Bufu, and Distopia, SW of my HW.
I was finding *no* greens East or South of my HW, in a dense planetary area. I did find yam scouts (WM!!) and this is one of the reasons I decided to build as many scouts as I had. I did not know where the WM HW (Goblin Hand Credeo) was yet, but guessed:
1. (wrong) that it was Challenger with a frieghter heading from there, or
2. (correct)that it was Coyote Corners since I saw a scout leaving from that planet. Coyote Corners was only 247.82 ly NE of my HW with 17! planets in between (only one! ending up initial green for me). This was my #1 concern. I was at tech 0,0,5,5,1,0, only having researched L1 for scouts at this point. No greens meant it was going to be tough to build any shield between me and the WM.
I had scouted fairly far to my West, with my original SPT from my HW. I had found the Per Hand HW, Clover, 232 ly to the SW of my HW, Franklin. I had not found the Tomek Tree HW, but guessed it was almost due West of my HW (about 300 ly), based on finding some Tree planets.
Imagine a letter 'N' with the top slanted to the right across the lower 1/2 of the map covering the leftmost 80%. I was at the right top, the Per Hand was at the bottom right, I was guessing the Tomek Tree was at the top left, and my partner was at the lower right. At this point however, I was 2nd guessing myself, because I was not finding my partner, and I was getting very close to the SW. (it turns out his HW was *very* close to the SW corner)
At this point we did not know the PRT of either the Per Hand or the Tomek Tree between us. I guessed Joat, based solely on their HW populations (I found the Gnome Tree HW shortly after 2410)
Communication with joseph:
--------------------------
I was a little confused about when and how we could communicate (and we had some junk email filter problems), so it actually took us a year to do so (2411). I was also a bit unsure how to do wolf/lamb (only having done pop drops and scrappers for tech trading in games to this point). So it was actually a few years before we got at doing tech trading(2416 or 2417). Wolf lamb was the only feasible method of tech trading at this point, since I had no gates up in my partners space, and also no population in his space. We went with initially 4 wolves, and moved up to 6 fairly quickly, to give a very high probability for 1 tech/turn.
We decided upon communicating that I would do W research, and that joseph would do C reasearh. He ended up researching up to W4 along with me, just for speed, as he was already pressing againt the Tomek Tree, with fast 26% growth. Once we got going, it was easy for me to build enough freighters and colonizers to keep expanding, and research a level of W most turns. I wanted to get to W5 asap for betas for my early planet defense against the looming WM threat. I did however forgo *any* terraforming for quite a while, and delayed a *lot* of mine construction. This lead to a lot of future mineral moving micromanagement, but never any serious mineral shortages.
We exchanged passwords and h files. We downloaded each others m file each turn to see the results of each others turn and keep h files up to date. We occasionally shipped finished x and m files to each other, but more often just described the important moves that required coordination in emails.
On seeing my map, (joseph had done *much* less scouting only his initial NAS L0 scanner Homeworld scanner, and 2 bat SPTs, so another *great* match between our races and styles) we decided to try to kill the 2 enemies between us asap. We decided to go after the Gnome Tree (Tomek) right away. Our initial strategy was for joseph to just swarm the Gnome Tree with his superior population due to his 26% growth rate.
More to come....
naz
edit: typos
[Updated on: Wed, 25 June 2008 22:03] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Hidden Friends has Ended |
Mon, 11 August 2008 15:49 |
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 knightpraetor |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 1 |
Messages: 154
Registered: October 2006 | |
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hmm, i'm still a n00b, but of all the games i played, this was my first mp stars game on autohost, so i made a lot of mistakes.
Simply put, the game consisted of a few stages:
1. Early colonization and growth...went very well, went up to 2nd place
2. First sequence of battles...had not built sufficient military to take care of the enemy..made some stupid attack that got all my military killed...dropped to 3rd..
Canukaz could have killed me or damaged me a lot at this point (around 2435 or so)..but seemed busy..as i was peaceably left alone..and was even allowed to colonize and build up inside his space...
during this time i dropped to position 4 or 5 in resources, but after ten years or being left alone and building up pop orgies i ended up moving back into 2nd or something..
however, despite resource points the reality was that i had not been building up military for ages like they had, so even at this point the game was already concluded unless one of the other teams weakened joseph and canuk
My ally, ptolemy, had been a little pressed i think in the south; worse, he'd missed too many early turns and was far behind on resources...however, fortuitous events had
A. an enemy team member get wiped out..
B. the other team member get annoyed because he received the usurper message and lost most of his stuff...he then quit..giving Ptolemy enough space to double his output.
at some point during this i had been attacked by the WM player..and lost one or two planets...i then tried to retake them and failed pretty badly..the one turn in which i would have taken it..i forgot to turn off disengage orders from the turn before and got heavily damaged instead..i fell back from the WM and stopped fighting them, as the IT was beginning to press me harder..
with almost no fleets..i quickly started building up...knowing that i would need something..i lost a few planets at this point , but it wasn't that bad..
I then won a few battles...even managed a few surprise attacks due to my ally's stealth bombers (i'd taken over for ptolemy by this time)...then i saw the enemy reinforcements...doubling their fleet size and making them untouchable to me..i think i lost a major battle somewhere in here too...anyways i mentioned that i had no chance in hell and we should call it unless the other team was sincerely a threat..and so we did
One thing i did not know before this game that i just want to reiterate...screw Bombers as IS, just get pop orgies going..man were those efficient..if i'd known that they would be that good, i would have had them going earlier to take out enemy planets instead of overpopping my own planets...my mistake was not knowing how defenses worked until near the end of the game..
i assumed 93% coverage meant 93% of my popdrop dies immediately, which is incorrect
[Updated on: Mon, 11 August 2008 15:51] Report message to a moderator
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