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Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » Game stories » Fledging Admirals IV
trophy.gif  Fledging Admirals IV Mon, 02 February 2009 20:57 Go to next message
Altruist is currently offline Altruist

 
Commander

Messages: 1068
Registered: August 2005
Location: Berlin


The winner of Fledging Admirals IV is the alliance of Vogons and Brothers of Gar!

Congratulations to kaloth and Coyote who played those empires!


From what I have seen, it seems that all 9 playes had been in wars since already the early 30ies and it looked like they had a lot of fun.

The game started at the 10th Oct 2008 and lasted until today, 3rd Feb 2009. The maniacs insisted on a tight 5 turns per week schedule which they kept until the very last turn at year 2475. The setup was a small packed universe with 9 players, beginner to lower intermediate with some rusty oldtimers mixed in. Here the original announcement.

I hope we'll see some further remarks from the players themselves soon...

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Re: Fledging Admirals IV Tue, 03 February 2009 05:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kaloth is currently offline Kaloth

 
Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 72
Registered: September 2008
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Epic game, really good players that were respectful while still being a lot of fun to make "enemies" of. I thought the Space Zombies and Angry Elmoid alliance were very a tough nut to crack and great opponents in the major battles after in the late 30's and through to the 40's.

This was my first ever game of stars against humans and it has me thoroughly hooked. I loved the amount of diplomacy and planning involved in running a live campaign and I learned a hell of a lot.

My race was:

IT
IFE, NRSE, CE, OBRM, NAS
19% PGR
1 in 8: immune, -68 to 68, 68 to 100
1/1000
12/8/15/ticked
10/3/15
Construction cheap, the rest set to expensive and start at 3 ticked

I choose this design kinda hastily but with a basic idea of what was needed for a quick, fast game after my initial almost HP choice was wisely pointed out by Altruist as too slow for the game settings.

Cheap engines was a real pain in the ass but didn't cause me to miss enough important battles to really sink me. I don't think I would take it again as you tend to notice that 10% of fleets that don't make it a HELL of a lot more than the 90% that do. It sucks to have to plan so much around this LRT but the points were really nice..

I wanted to make a good partner in this game setup so I picked construction cheap and a good PRT that would be mutually beneficial. As well as a very narrow hab range to make an excellent choice for intersettling. It worked well with my initial alliance with the Gar (Coyote) resulted in a doubling of the space available to both of us. And later while the Gar were working on missiles, the Vogons were pushing battleships. It also gave us a bit of diplomatic muscle that convinced the already commited Wumpums to agree to a 10 year NAP. It also kept the Elmoid/Zombie alliance looking to the west and the easier pickings there.

After the initial border skirmishes we just grew and kept out of trouble until we had a clear advantage and pushed it as hard as possible to take out what was then the dominant central alliance (two -f's!).

If I was to play this format again I would definitely drop CE, go for more factories operated and probably change my immunity to temperature. Improved star bases would be nice but with IFE and good gates it didn't matter too much (except for when ultra stars started popping up).

Thanks to Coyote for providing a lot of very useful information about the finer points of ship design, combat and minefields (I didn't even know you could move full speed through your own and allied fields...) and for helping secure the galaxy against evil and tyranny Wink



[Updated on: Tue, 03 February 2009 05:04]

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Re: Fledging Admirals IV Tue, 03 February 2009 18:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Coyote is currently offline Coyote

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 906
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pacific NW

Looks like it's over then. Great game, everyone!

The Brothers of Gar
Packet Physics
ISB, NRSE, OBRM, RS
Grav immune, -32 to 136 temp, 14 to 54 rad, 19% PGR
1/1000, 5/25/5/no, 10/3/14
Weaps and Con cheap, Prop normal, no @3
100 points left
Score at 2474:
66 planets
57 starbases
155 unarmed
1145 escort
127 capital
88 tech levels (14/25/12/15/14/8)
41k resourses
2619 score
rank 1


This was my first game without IFE, and it didn't hinder me nearly as much as I expected. However, next time I'll definitely skip NRSE if I go without IFE, as those expensive fuel-gobbling engines were quite the annoyance. Also, I found myself not using packets nearly as much as I'd expected at first. The early packet scouting and packet-terraforming were a lot more useful to me than the offensive damage. If I'd had Energy cheap and invested in better drivers earlier, it might've been a little different.

I was surprised that the Zombies didn't counterattack with that huge fleet of theirs, there were several points where they could have likely beaten our fleets in the region but instead they kept pulling back. Were they running out of Iron and unable to replace their ships easily? Also, the Elmoids weren't nearly as aggressive as I'd expected either and didn't seem to take advantage of cloaking. They did put up a decent fight on occasion and managed to temporarily take back a couple worlds due to local fleet superiority. The space-dock battles over Hacker in particular were quite fun.
Anyhow, the factoryless needs to expand continuously or it'll stagnate and die. That's what made the difference between the Brothers and the other factoryless races, who got bogged down for one reason or another and couldn't keep pushing forward. It's a risky race design to play for that reason; you're playing against the clock as much as, or more than, against the other players. (In the other game I was playing simultaneously, my factoryless got strangled early on and had no hope of catching up...)
What made this game for me was the excellent coordination in my alliance, which not only helped both races surpass their normal potential but made everything a lot more fun. Shared defeat is halved, shared victory is doubled.

One thing I noticed comparing this to my other game is how huge of an impact my morale can have on my race's performance... I wonder how true this is for everyone else?

The end I have to say was a little anticlimactic, as the Judd didn't want to challenge us, the Zombie fleets were in full retreat, and I didn't get to either build my Flandre Scarlet class mega-disruptor battleships or launch a massive packet barrage against the Wumpums (who I'm sure are relieved).

Hats off to the Wombats too, for holding their own all alone.

Attached: Screenshot showing my map and score table


[Updated on: Tue, 03 February 2009 18:48]

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Re: Fledging Admirals IV Tue, 03 February 2009 19:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
slimdrag00n is currently offline slimdrag00n

 
Lieutenant
Helped track down one or more Stars bugs

Messages: 630
Registered: January 2009
Location: new york -5

your game looks like its in high definition compared to mine lol i guess i have some settings to fiddle with.


......
Ranked games: 8-1
Recently won the game Knife Fight.
Looking for a practice duel.
.......

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some classical beginner mistakes Tue, 03 February 2009 19:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Altruist is currently offline Altruist

 
Commander

Messages: 1068
Registered: August 2005
Location: Berlin

As usual I've made some maps.

Since the Fledging Admirals serial is mainly for beginners to learn the as thrilling as difficult task of galactic conquest, I've tried to write down one single hint for every player, things I noticed when from time to time I was taking a look at the game. Instead of mentioning the player and situation, I'll just list the hints. All situations did happen in this game:
  • attack decisively and not with 2 bombers while waiting for the enemy to put up a base to kill your fleet off
  • after the initial scouting of your close neighbourhood, there comes a time when it is necessary to establish a watch (an orbiting scout or single chaff) on empty planets otherwise suddenly and without warning you might find your HW under attack by a fleet which sneaked into your territory hopping unseen from one empty planet to the other
  • putting defenses in the production queue at every planet is a horrible ressource- and mineral killer... imagine what you could had researched or what big a fleet you could had built with it
  • putting mineral alchemy into the production queue eats up all your free ressources which otherwise could had spent for research... alchemy is a late game tool when mineral concentrations are down to 1
  • early on stacked frigates are very powerful especially in space battles... but their low armour makes them very vulnerable to torps especially when slow laser-frigates are used to attack planets
  • having only 3 scouts out there in space at year 2432 makes you blind and ignorant of what goes on
  • a factoryless race must expand, 9 planets at year 2432 aren't enough
  • to chose a WM as your first early prey is... tricky
  • early on it doesn't make much sense to colonise more than 20 red planets... it eats up urgently needed ressources and pop better used for expanding through finding and colonizing good green planets
  • privateers with beta torps are reserved for stupid AIs, smart humans use a proper warship hull instead
  • equipping laser-ships with armour makes them not only expensive but often enough they become as slow as not being able to catch their targets
Mmmh, somehow the 1 hint per player adds up to 11 hints for 9 players...

Once again, a fine game with a steep learning curve. Many things were learned the hard way, uusually the best way, and often enough an already doomed player got a 2nd chance due to a beginner-mistake on the attacker-side and that, I had the impression, seemed to be quite some thrill and fun for both sides.

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Re: Fledging Admirals IV Tue, 03 February 2009 21:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Deuce is currently offline Deuce

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 94
Registered: June 2003
You were right about the Zombie mineral situation. Ironium was scarce, combined with my low production output (-f) forced me to build half-armed battleships. Technology was a key problem, the RW point handicap hurt a lot, forcing me to take more expensive tech than desired. I think Altruist overestimated my skill level Very Happy. The other issue was hab. My hab settings weren't good enough, and it turns out the Cashews had very similar settings, and they gobbled up a lot of the good planets. Taking on a WM that early is too costly... I should have ran over the Judd instead, grabbing more space with far less effort. (sorry Judd, your hab settings were kinda broken and you wouldn't have stood a chance)

I'd already lost by the time we finished off the Cashews. My goal was to try and slow you guys down and provide a distraction for others to attack you with, but it seems they never were able to compete.

First attempt at -F, not a big fan so far.

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Re: Fledging Admirals IV Tue, 03 February 2009 22:46 Go to previous message
Combat is currently offline Combat

 
Warrant Officer

Messages: 118
Registered: May 2008
In the Judds defense I was quite happy with the overall performance of my race. I feel the theory behind my race design was succussful. Due to a certain LRT my ramp up was way behind and that costed me a great deal in my early growth. I was locked out of 2 early breeders because of it. I was also attacked on 2 fronts, a -f WM to my north and a -f CA to my south. Granted my northern enemy fell under attack himself and sued for peace I missed out on one breeder for a number of years. The other breeder was taken by the CA to my south and that required many years of bitter fighting to regain one planet. I was on a budget from the beginning all the way till the end. I feel that the fact the Judd was winning a more or less 1 on 1 with a -f CA shows that while the race design was flawed it was also viable with some minor adjustments. Mind you that I was without a ally for over 40 years and so was unable to trade tech and had to fight more or less alone. But I guess Ill have to wait till FA V to prove the Judd are worthy.

P.S. It seems my assesment of the CA to my south was incorrect. He was a +f so...well I guess Ill just have to wait for FA V.


[Updated on: Wed, 04 February 2009 13:18]




He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster...when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

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