Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » Game stories » EYITYOTG has ended
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Mon, 06 June 2016 12:26   |
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So this was my first game back after being away for 5-6 years. Life slowed down enough that I thought I could fit in a game.
I designed a nice race; quick, defensive, with good long term viability. I tested it quite a bit. Then there was a mistake and the race files were revealed. I figured I should do a new race design (not knowing that a number of people just kept their original design anyway...).
I got a cool idea. I threw together the Zoo, tested it a few times, and sent it in.
It did not take very long into the game to realize that I had make a mistake. Yeah the race was cool, but it was a very bad design for this game. A mostly-hyper-producer was just way to slow given the proximity of other players.
It did not help that my planet draw was fairly poor also.
I figured that I would have a shot if I could find an ally that matched well. As CA I could provide my terraformers helping them to grow quicker.
I quickly ran into Bone Crusher to my north. I made a quick NAP with him, looking around to see who else might make a good ally. I met Dream Crusher (err... Dream Cloud) to my south. He was pretty evasive diplomatically. Then BC got into a conflict with his other neighbor the Traders. I made contact with the Traders, and through him learned that many of the other races in the game already had alliances, including DC to my south.
Traders offered me an alliance and I accepted. The rough plan was that we would both make an effort to get established in the center area, and together we would hit BC from both sides and remove him from the game as quickly as possible.
Plans did not go well. DC (being IT) quickly brought forces into the center and knocked me out, which was especially unfortunate because there were a large number of large green planets for me there. BC twice stopped me from sending people to the north, to inter-settle with my ally. Not that my planet draw up there was especially good either.
At some point it became clear that DC and their ally Guards Guards (GG) had taken most of the center, and it was likely they were leading the pack. So The Zoo/Trader alliance made some agreements with the Coder/Illuminati alliance. This kept us out of the main conflict for a while so that we could concentrate on BC. BC was hanging on pretty well, then was harder to take out when DC started to send ships into his space to protect him. I managed to kill one of the early DC fleets, and was building up to take out the other fleet when it left. Not too many years after that BC lost his primary fleets, but not before taking out my bombers and further extending his life. So it was about year 80 when BC was finally killed.
So Kudos to BC (Little Eddie I believe is his SAH name) for doing well against the odds, and for staying in to the very end.
Once the BC fleets were locked up I was able to move north and inter-settle with the Traders... years after I was supposed to be there. Between that and planets from BC I had many more planets to help growth. The Traders had helped me quite a bit by colonizing the planets that were green for me and building some factories so that I would be able to get them up to full production more quickly.
I had also decided to colonize reds for minerals and a little more resources. Over time I did a lot of that and by the end I had about 20 red planets each worth about 170 resources each and each producing minerals I figured that I would need.
I was building my planets as quickly as possible. Traders figured that his planets that were green for me were worth a lot more to me, so I started to take his planets as fast as I could produce more pop and send it north. I had about 10-15 years of very fast economy growth, from about 12K to about 25K, looking to get to 35-40K. I figured it was time to get back to communications with the other alliances.
From what I had known the DC/GG alliance was pretty well balanced with the Illuminati/Coder alliance. In those years being focused on killing BC I had not realized that Illuminati/Coder pair had taken the lead. My cloaked pen-scan galleons (also sent out pretty late) confirmed that C/I had more planet and more pop. I had not even looked at the fleet lists when DC/GG volunteered that they were each losing about a planet a year. Roughly we figured that C/I had significantly more economy than DC/GG/Zoo/Traders combined.
Looking at tech I had seen from a Trader battle that C/I was way ahead on tech; 7 Energy, 4 Weapons, 2 Electrical... and it was likely thy would be getting Nubians soon, and I was still at Const 16.
So in summary: C/I had superiority with current fleets, planets and economy, and technology. I looked for options. There was a slight chance that if DC got me to Const 26 (unlikely), and I made my own way to Weap 22 (possible but not probable) that I could produce some decent Nubians. But I could still be 10 years behind producing them, and at a quarter or third of the C/I economy.
Seeing no way that anyone could beat the C/I alliance I called for the final vote.
Congratulations for Illuminati and Coder for building their economies and for taking the center. I would say that it was also good that they managed to keep me from knowing how big they were.... except that even if I knew I doubt the results would have been any different.
RainDancer/Zoo Keeper
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Mon, 06 June 2016 18:20 |
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 ManicLurch |
 | Lt. Junior Grade |
Messages: 462
Registered: May 2009 | |
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I also played a CA race in this game. CA is banned so often (for good reason), so I wanted to give it a try, even with the growth rate handicap given to it. The GR restriction was simple, take your CA race that has positive RW points, and deduct 4% from the growth rate. This meant a max GR of 16%. So I started trying out races and test bedding them. I had a hard time getting a race as fast as I normally like them. My resources at 2420 in my testbeds were below normal with any lower growth CA I could come up with, but I noticed that after TT10, it started to catch up in testbeds.
With the game allowing allies, and taking a race that would be slower than most at the beginning, I knew I would be looking for an ally early. So I made my habs easy to intersettle. All 3 were shifted to one side or the other an made fairly narrow. Most players pick one narrow hab, this way no matter which hab variable they chose as narrow I had a shot at having a narrow complimentary hab. I think my starting hab was 1/21, but with TT7 it was about 1/8 or 1/9 I think. To help make up for the low growth rate, I had very good and fast factories. 15/9/15. I took Bio cheap, rest expensive knowing that W was expensive for all and my ally would likely have a cheap tech or two.
The first player I ran into was the Illumaniti. I was very anxious to see if his habs were compatible with mine. I started talking to him early and we exchanged vague information. My hab idea worked, he had narrow left shifted rad, I had narrow right shifted hab. And as a plus, I was his ally in a different game, so we had already played together and I knew we wouldn't have any problems being allies. So we made an agreement and started to intersettle and I sent a few Coh ships to his planets. The Illumanati were SS too, which was a bonus.
Soon after I made an alliance with the Illumaniti, I started getting concerned about the Traders, the player on the other side of the Illumaniti. They were a very fast HE, dual immune, like 26-30% GR. And their rad range was similar to mine. They also offered an alliance to the Illumaniti. But being able to give an ally free terraforming surely helped him choose me instead. I am sure the Traders were in first place for most of the early game and I was worried about being an early target.
But then a bigger threat came from the Dream Clouds / Guard alliance. They had taken over half of the middle and were advancing fast. If they were able to take the entire middle, we believed they would win the game. So we made some agreements with the Traders. We had an NAP of course, we worked out some tech trading, which was good because the Traders had much better Weapons tech then we did. And kind of unusual, the Illumaniti set the Traders to friend and me to neutral (the rules say you can have only one friend at a time) so they could use Illumaniti gates to get warships to the center. We were doing everything we could to stop the DC/Guards from owning the entire center, which was a difficult task since they had more than double our fleets, the main enemy fleets at this point were bazooka cruisers and collodial cruisers. We didn't even have Con9 yet. The Illumanti researched Con9, which we traded to the Traders for W10.
Sometime during all this I made contact with my other neighbor, the Crushers. He was a WM, and I didn't want an early war with a WM so I started working on a border agreement. Then I saw his habs. My hab scheme was working out nice, he had narrow right shifted temp, I had narrow left shifted temp. His habs were a perfect match for mine too. The game rules said that only a 2 player alliance could be the winner. But the game rules also said that you were allowed one person set to friend and one to neutral. A 3 person alliance would have its challenges with these rules, we wouldn't have access to everyone's gates. But considering the threat of the DC/Guards and deciding I would rather have the Crushers as an ally than another border to watch, I started talking to both the Crushers and Illumaniti seperately about the idea of a 3 way alliance. There would be some hab overlap between the Illumaniti and the Crushers, but not too bad. I am sure the DC/Guard threat, free terraforming, plus more space to intersettle sealed the deal.
Because I could only have one player set to friend, I could only terraform one ally at a time. The game rules said we can change friend status every 10 turns. So every 10 turns I would change who I had set to friend and terraform their planets. We were required to email the host every time we changed friend status. So every 10 turns I did this, and I got some funny responses back, once he accused me of being a polygamist.
Back to the wars, I had no planets in the middle, the Illumanati and Traders had several. But they were losing them fast to the DC/Guards. The Illumanati had CC tech and were building bazooka CCs, but were behind. I got to EN10, but was still too far from CC tech. So I built 100 EN10 bazooka FFs and used them as an escort to settle Mandrake in the middle. That planet would become our most important settlement.
Both the Crushers and I finally got W10 and con9 tech and started building CCs. We had smaller fleets becuase we started later, but that also allowed us EN10 shields and a comp to shoot first vs there CC. The enemy had their CCs in many fleets, trying to conquer the middle as fast as possible. We were down to one planet in the middle, Mandrake. They attacked with one of their smaller CC fleets and we were able to defend and win the battle. If they had their entire CC fleets in range, we would have had no chance. So I thanked the Guards for the minerals at Mandrake  and we were able to catch out breath for a few turns.
That bought us a little time. The Crushers and I continued building CCs while the Illumaniti researched Con13. I was able to start building BBs just as they were able to gather their CCs together for an attack on Mandrake. If I had gotten Con13 one turn later, we would likely have lost it there. But I was able to build BBs and gate them to Mandrake every turn. The enemy was faced with a tough choice, build CCs or get Con13.
They didn't attack Mandrake and researched Con13 themselves. Because the DC/Guards built so many CCs, likely 2 times the number we built, and because we had more than 2 players to share the tech research load, we always had a slight tech lead after that point. When they started BBs, they were W10, EN10. We started W16,en14 BBs. They still had a resource advantage though.
Both our alliance and the DC/Guards attacked the Culture who had the unfortunate position of having no allies and being in between us. We were hoping to get the Culture HW. But the DC/Guards had given up on taking Mandrake for the moment and put their fleets in the ring and captured more of the Culture space and we were forced to retreat. During this time of retreat is when the game tipped in our favor. The Crushers had EN cheap and got EN18. So we started building a W16, EN18 fleet. The enemey was still building W10,EN10 BBs. We were retreating in the ring, holding onto Mandrake and building these new BBs. Finally we had enough to challenge them.
We gathered all those ships to the front and the following turn attacked. They should have retreated, but I think they didn't see our fleet, or had to submit a turn in a hurry. We won the battle, killed most of their fleets including their Jihad BCs. The game was quite a bit easier after that. We started to slowly take a few planets in the middle and in the ring. Our economy was growing quite fast now, with all 3 of us having good factories and free terraforming. Our economy surpassed the enemies, and after the battle our fleets did too. From there we gained momentum very fast until we got the to point we were taking multiple planets per turn. With orbital adjusters and smart bombs, we were taking the DC planets and inheriting lots of factories. The DC/Guard team did start to build a lot of jugger dread ships, which was a little concerning. So I built 4000 chaff, plus we had started W22 beamers, we would be fine. We could have had Con26 and W26 in 4-5 turns. We were a little concerned about the rest of the universe ganging up on us, like we all did on the DC/Guards, but the momentum changed so quickly in our favor that I don't think they realized we were winning until it was too late.
This was a fun game setup. I enjoyed playing a slowed down CA. I greatly misjudged the importance of getting a fast start into the middle. The DC/Guard team was running away with the game early. We just barely hung on and survived to the point where our slower races built up their economy to the point that we could fight back. We also wouldn't have survived without the help of the Trader/Zoo team early. It was one of the few games I have been in where the rest of the universe was able to successfully work together to beat the monster who was going to take over the universe. Another interesting thing that could have changed the game, the DC/Guards had similar habs. If their habs had been more compatible, they would have been even stronger early. So really everything kind of worked out perfectly for us to hang on and turn the game around, otherwise the DC/Guards would have won about 2450.
When it was time to decide on the winners, we drew straws. So congratulations to the Illumaniti and Crushers 
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Tue, 07 June 2016 11:32 |
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| Mac1 |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 2 |
Messages: 159
Registered: November 2008 | |
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I played Crushers.
It was my first WM game, i never liked it too much, but i decide if i were to try, this is a good game for it.
My race had 17% growth 1/7 habitable planets and 12/9/16 factories, however res/1300. With Ene cheap and ele/con normal.
I quickly find out that this race is not really well adopted to this burtal universe 
I started with low intel. I had Coders(CA) to the north and Culture(was it SS?) to the South.
Coders were very friendly (now i know that he was just scared of fighting WM ), while Culture didn't spoke much.
I focused on expansion, but my planets were quite poor (comparing to tests), so it didnt help me grow stronger. Best planet was in middle (Hoze-O-Rama), so i tried to push there and i got it.
Soon after i got it, i saw DC/Guards pushing entire middle, fighting with Illuminati and Traders.
I started to do some diplomacy. I think most with Coders, he was giving me most information.
I knew that Coders are allied to Illuminati, DC are with Guards and I am alone with Culture, so we talked about alliance (i think he asked), i replied something, that it sounds good, but then communication was broken.
Meanwhile i was also attacked by DC/Guards in the middle (which i personally think was their biggest mistake  ), losing whatever i took in middle. (had few planets)
I was already in good relations with Coders and after that i decided to accept proposal of 3-way alliance.
I hoped it will help me save my last(and best) planet in middle. We started to put together some decent fleet.
But it was not enough, i lost entire middle.
I also tried to speak with Culture but he was not replying. Soon he attacked me. I don't know why, he was already being attack from south by DC/Guards. It kinda looked like Kamikaze move.
My first was not enough to protect Hoze-O-Rama, but it was good enough to fight Culture. So i did and i took some planets from him. (shared with my new allies, Coders and Illuminati)
Then around his HW we met DC/Guards also eating Culture from south. Our fleet was still not big enough, so we started to get back, losing planets, buying time.
There was a moment when they were just entering my main industrial area. Same time when they were threating Mandrake (last Coder planet in middle)
I think if they took any of those, they would win.
But we were pacient, while buying time, i was making my BCC Jihad fleet as a counter to enemy Jihads. Coders supported me also with new beamer BBs. When we finally got enough, we started to drive them back south and retaking planets. We were heading again towards Culture HW.
Then we stopped, they were gating more fleet (new BBs). So for some turns we looked at each other, doing some static manouvers with fleets.
Meanwhile me and Coder were doing a lot of battle sims. There were many quite equal battles, so we didnt want to risk.
Finally after a short stalemate, we have gated in new fleet. I think they have did bad on scanning and they didn't seen it. With new fleet we attacked and won, killing most of enemy fleet.
Since that time we rather felt, we are winning. I was probably only one with cheap Ene, so we had a lot of advantage in shields and all our deisng were usually much better. We also now started to match enemy numbers.
Rest of the game was just taking middle and pushing south in ring, without much of fight. At some point i think DC/Guards gave up the fight.
At the end we draw straws and it was Me + Illuminati winning,
However cheers to Coder, as i think he won it diplomatically. He created this alliance and made it strong (with COHs)
I had good raw power in middle-late game and won decisive battle. But i would never survive beginning alone (and probably even with 2-way alliance)
Was a nice game.
Mac
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Tue, 07 June 2016 20:50 |
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I played the Dreamclouds, a HG IT, from the beginning to about year 2459.
But there were 2 things I misjudged completly:
1) Either it wasn't mentioned or I overread it: the astonishing huge size of the universe: more than 1600x1600, so even a bit bigger than large. And there is a reason I don't play large or even bigger games.
2) The alliance rules: Whenever I had played games which used those settings (only 1 ally, can be changed only after 10 years...) those games were understood by the joining players as games in which you fight it out in teams of max 2. So I went into this game with the same understanding.
Turn 2459 I uploaded as usually when the flu hit me. Before that I was never sure what all the fuss was about and wether the difference between a cold and a flu would be really that great. Afterwards I knew. Within 4h I was in bed and felt more dead than alive and it took me 4 days to get out of it as "far" as to the kitchen and some more days until I could get to my shop again with computer and internet. Thus I missed some turns and some emergency orders were uploaded by my ally who started to really worry about me.
Looking again at the game in turn 2462 or 63 I realized:
a) that we had achieved our greatest expansion
b) that I had serious troubles to find the time in RL to get into the game again AND no way to keep up with a large game (which is the reason I usually don't play large games)
c) and that IMHO we had lost.
The latter wasn't so easy to see around 2460 because, as I said, we had reached our biggest expansion, had ruled the battlefield for the last decades (and a lot fun doing so), Dreamclouds were ranked 1st with at least 20% ahead of rank 2 and the Guards rank 4 (as -f!).
On the other hand, we had to fight an alliance of no less than 5 players. Well, from what I read above it was a tri-alliance which got additionally helped by the Traders and the Zoo. For us it looked like us against the rest (with the very honourable exception of the BoneCrushers). But for sure those 5 players weren't shooting at each other but very closely cooperating techwise, with terraforming and with their special PRT-abilities and exchanging ships to and fro (eg. Crushers (WM) suddenly with shadowshield-BBs). Perhaps the Zoo didn't feel like allied but they, intentionally or not, helped the Traders with tech and those again the tri-alliance.
We judged the true monster the Coders, probably a slow HP-CA needing time to develop and meanwhile making fools diplomatically out of half the universe. BUT the Coders were out of our reach, the distance to fight them too vast to stop them.
IMHO the true winners are the Coders and everybody else the fools in this game. It ended as one more of those games in which players were willing to form a super-alliance only to find themselves not able to meet the victory conditions because they smarted themselves around the game rules (while not once literally breaking them).
And finally you "draw straws".
Well, that sounds harsher as I actually feel.
A game of Stars lasting for months and months isn't, after all, not so very much about winning (although we all do like to win) and I can really not say that this game was a waste of my time... rather on the contrary: I had a blast, it was really fun and thrill to play with Rolf and upto the time I quit it was always a very exciting game for me.
The sad thing, though, it could had been even a lot more exciting game without that kind of 5-player-alliance that after a while developed as those games usually do: devasting, single-sided and without a real challenge. And as strong as the Guards and Dreamclouds were in the first 60 turns, I am not sure wether we could had won. Distances were vast and several players' races had a lot more end-game-power-potential than the Guards (-f) and the Dreamclouds (HG-IT). But we'll never know.
Well, I needed to say that.
And, please, don't forget, super-alliance or not, I would had hit the restraints of my available RL-time for Stars and would had needed to quit anyway and that's alone my fault for choosing the wrong game.
What else I need to say: this scenario map with outer ring, void and inner circle is fantastic and really adds new spice to Stars-gaming.
Since I had also lots of fun, in the next days I'll probably also write some lines, perhaps even with some maps, how the first 60 turns developed for the Dreamclouds.
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Wed, 08 June 2016 15:58 |
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I think this whole 'winning' thing is messed up.
"Single player victory, or team victory comprising no more than two players."
So I do not think that anyone can claim a real victory in the game. It took a three player team to take down the DC/GG team. That is clearly breaking the rules of the game.
And "drawing straws" among the three-player team for who gets to claim the victory is ridiculous. It is just an admission that the rules were broken.
"Please reply yes/no if you agree that the Illuminati / Coders have won. A majority of votes either way decides."
I voted yes for the Coder/Illuminati team to win. I did not vote for the Crushers. So it was clearly NOT unanimous. I never communicated with the Crushers the entire game. My communication was with Coder/Illuminati.
But yes the game was clearly over. Coder/Crusher/Illuminati could not be stopped. But the victory conditions were not met. No winner as far as I am concerned.
Raindancer/Zoo Keeper
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Wed, 08 June 2016 16:26 |
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Mac1 wrote on Wed, 08 June 2016 10:07Altrusit, this is stupid what you say.
You attack everything in the universe and expect that only 2 players will fight back ?. This is foolish.
Well, I certainly did not say that nor would I ever expect players not to defend and/or attack so I beg you not to accuse me of stupidity, I am treating you with respect as well. Actually we were fully aware that we would need to fight more or less everybody... and we did. That, I always thought, is the spirit of a game announced with an explicit restriction to alliances.
Quote:Eventually we didn't fight. I think the reason was that we had to put a lot more resources into cooperation and stopping of Monster!. We had intersettle a lot, exchanging ships, etc., any fight between each other would be stupid so we decided to draw straws.
Correct. That's what you did and what I wrote... you organized your game-play in a way that made it nearly impossible for you to sort it out again to conform with the victory condition... and with doing so, in my humble opinion, you broke the game. And doing not so is, after all, in the responsiblity of the players.
I guess the main reason for such games in which players take part with obvious different interpretations of the rules, or let's call it spirit of the game, is our small and dwindeling base of players which forces the very diplomacy minded and the very "battle-it-out" minded to play in the same games, so I do understand why this happens.
Let me dive a bit into the history of our games here at autohost to explain my problem: Diplomacy is a very powerful part of Stars and some like it and some not. To get rid of the diplomacy part the non-communication-games were introduced. Those are too lonely for me while the diplomacy games bore me. For those like me the games with a hard alliance restriction were introduced (I think originally by Wizard) to allow one ally but no super-alliances. Our game followed those settings, so I was surprised and a bit disappointed to see that also this setting was somehow hijacked by the diplomacy players. My problem is, the way our game developed, I have lost the last defined set of game rules I find fun and thrill to play.
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Wed, 08 June 2016 17:30 |
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| ManicLurch |
| Lt. Junior Grade |
Messages: 462
Registered: May 2009 | |
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Quote:"Please reply yes/no if you agree that the Illuminati / Coders have won. A majority of votes either way decides."
I voted yes for the Coder/Illuminati team to win. I did not vote for the Crushers.
Part of this confusion is that I also called for a vote at the same time you did, declaring the Illumaniti/Crushers winners. I didn't realize until I read the forum that someone else had also called for a vote. I thought the host had made a mistake in his email when the vote was for Coders/Illumaniti.
Quote:you organized your game-play in a way that made it nearly impossible for you to sort it out again to conform with the victory condition
Before the 3 of us started cooperating we were all willing to let the other two have the victory. We were confused by someone else calling for a different vote at the same time.
Quote: It took a three player team to take down the DC/GG team. That is clearly breaking the rules of the game
Quote:take part with obvious different interpretations of the rules, or let's call it spirit of the game
I am sorry if you think we broke the rules or spirit of the game. Our intention at the time was survival.
Quote:The sad thing, though, it could had been even a lot more exciting game without that kind of 5-player-alliance that after a while developed as those games usually do: devasting, single-sided and without a real challenge. And as strong as the Guards and Dreamclouds were in the first 60 turns, I am not sure wether we could had won.
We didn't believe this. Your team was very close to owning the entire middle. That would mean all those planets would be so easy to defend. The game would have ended up singled sided if we hadn't worked together. No one would have come close to stopping you. That is what we believe.
This is not the first time this has happened in a game set up for two player victory, I have been on the other side of this and didn't have an issue with it then:
http://starsautohost.org/sahforum2/index.php?t=msg&th=52 91&start=0&rid=0&S=b2e1b27fb123acd91d8c75b338fb6 65e
Quote:Let me dive a bit into the history of our games here at autohost to explain my problem: Diplomacy is a very powerful part of Stars and some like it and some not. To get rid of the diplomacy part the non-communication-games were introduced. Those are too lonely for me while the diplomacy games bore me. For those like me the games with a hard alliance restriction were introduced (I think originally by Wizard) to allow one ally but no super-alliances. Our game followed those settings, so I was surprised and a bit disappointed to see that also this setting was somehow hijacked by the diplomacy players. My problem is, the way our game developed, I have lost the last defined set of game rules I find fun and thrill to play.
Those reasons are why I started and played in the Dynamic Duos series.
Quote:to allow one ally but no super-alliances.
I think this needs to be explicitly stated if that is the intent. The game rules on said 2 victors and the restriction on friend/neutral status. It didn't say anything else about cooperation limits. I think you can have a rule set that would still allow communication but limit alliances to two players. First state that alliances are limited to 2 players, I realize what an alliance is is subjective. But to make it more concrete say something like no intersettling, no ship transfers (you can transfer a ship to someone you have set to nuetral), something like that.
I wasn't trying to mess up the game. I wanted to surive and make the game more competitive, which I think we did. If you think we didn't follow the rules you can declare the DC/Guards winners.
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Wed, 08 June 2016 18:52 |
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| m.a@stars |
 | Commander |
Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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ManicLurch wrote on Wed, 08 June 2016 23:30I think you can have a rule set that would still allow communication but limit alliances to two players. First state that alliances are limited to 2 players, I realize what an alliance is is subjective. But to make it more concrete say something like no intersettling, no ship transfers (you can transfer a ship to someone you have set to nuetral),
No communications, no Diplo, no NAPs, all enemy, fixed pre-game Teams, no intersettling, no tech Xfers... all have been tried, and all have been circumvented by players who just don't care about other people's rules. 
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
In space no one can hear you scheme!  Report message to a moderator
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Thu, 09 June 2016 04:44 |
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| Mac1 |
| Chief Warrant Officer 2 |
Messages: 159
Registered: November 2008 | |
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I also don't think we broke any game rules.
I played previously in dynamic duos and this game was intended for 2-player alliances from start to end and so it was played.
Here, was just normal "diplomatic" game, with some minor restrictions. But it was never said that you can co-operate with only one player, that you can't trade, can't intersettle etc.
It was only made harder by relation limitation
And it was said that at the end maximum of 2 player-alliance can claim victory.
I have done everything right.
I didn't have an "obvious ally" from the beginning (like in Dynamic Duos), I was alone. I could either die alone to overwhelming power, or co-operate with Coder/Illuminati, choice was obvious.
Altruist wrote on Wed, 08 June 2016 16:26 so I beg you not to accuse me of stupidity, I am treating you with respect as well.
My apology about that.
I used wrong word. I rahter meant that it is naive to think that players will not unite and fight together vs much stronger enemy.
Yes, in most games they actually don't (which i hate, because i usually try to unite vs winning player/team), but in this kind of game, i think its easier, because everybody more or less sees the middle and knows what is going on.
[Updated on: Thu, 09 June 2016 04:52] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Sat, 11 June 2016 05:57 |
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| neilhoward | 
| Commander |
Messages: 1112
Registered: April 2008
Location: SW3 & 10023 | |
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I wrote the rules, so it is my fault. I will try to do better next time. OTOH, if the rules had stated only one friend and no neutral (w/ 10y cool-down) the same or similar switching-swapping could have and I assume would have occurred along the exact same lines.
I should have: not included the neutral allowance, increased the cool-down to 15 or 20 years perhaps, and also restricted battle order attack who to enemies only. Or something. Sorry I pooped the bed guys. I will try harder next time.
I played the blighted culture. This was a fantastic SS hybrid. RL took over and by the time the game started (we had to delay for one of the other players) I was stuck working ~70 hours/week. Meh. No time for diplo, full steam ahead. Among the nearest ~30 or so planets, I had <11% expected hab as predicted by Craebild's Stars! Overall Planet Habitability and Race Econ Calculator. I apologize to any other players with a poor hab draw. This too was my fault because in addition to writing the rules I also wrote the instructions for game setup. Anyway, long story short: excuses, excuses, excuses. I wrote to the host "When I try to look on the bright side of things my attention generally turns toward thoughts of arson, but in this case I am just thinking about drinking many volumes of accelerant."
Crusher started attacking my northern planets but I beat back his initial strike (what he remembers as me attacking him). At the same time Clouds and Guards wiped out my presence in the core (I think I was their first target in the there). The CR/IL/CO started rolling my northern flank at the same time DC/GG were rolling up my southern flank. The timing made me wonder if they were all 5 coordinating. The blighted culture were promptly ushered out of existence (2nd week November).
Just when I thought I was done licking my ego wounds (3rd week February), the EYITYOTG god decided to offer me a salty styptic. I took charge of the DC glass cannon at 2465. I like mm but this was crazy. 80+ planets (just over half of them red), close to 250 fleets, and no real direction. I wept for Temujin.
Coasting with the Dream Clouds for more than 3 months taught me quite a lot, not to mention boosting my respect for Altruist's skill. His list of battle orders reads like a calendar for the french revolution. It was fun teaming up with Rolf again for another impossible scenario.
Victor did an outstanding job with his first foray into the jungle of hosting. The curve is steep and I am very happy to see that he is continuing to attack it. Thank you for a deeply enjoyable and broadly infuriating game. I can't wait for the next one.
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Sat, 11 June 2016 11:11 |
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neilhoward wrote on Sat, 11 June 2016 11:57I wrote the rules, so it is my fault.
I don't think at all that it was your fault. You can't stop this circumventing of rules by creating more rules... if the players insist to bend the rules in order to win, they will do so regardless of how many or how exact they are formulated.
neilhoward wrote on Sat, 11 June 2016 11:57At the same time Clouds and Guards wiped out my presence in the core (I think I was their first target in the there).
Well, you had only one settlement with not much pop in the centre. I had a small colonizer fleet on its way to colonize Bush when we detected your planet, so I redirected it a bit to make a pop-drop in 2427 before continueing to Bush.
neilhoward wrote on Sat, 11 June 2016 11:57The CR/IL/CO started rolling my northern flank at the same time DC/GG were rolling up my southern flank. The timing made me wonder if they were all 5 coordinating. The blighted culture were promptly ushered out of existence (2nd week November).
No, we weren't communicating and definetly not coodinating... not with messages or words: but we had quite many scouts around and thus we were able to see how the Northern Alliance lined up along your border to surely wage war against you. So we hurried up to conquere the Culutre's space before it would fall all into the hands of the CR/IL/CO.
Nevertheless I am and was sorry for how we steamrolled over the Culture who had no chance whatsoever to somehow defend herself successfully: alone with no allies, with no space to expand.
[Updated on: Sat, 11 June 2016 11:21] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Wed, 15 June 2016 19:40 |
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| bklooste2 |
 | Crewman 3rd Class |
Messages: 7
Registered: April 2015 | |
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I was the Illuminati ..an SS race 18% growth ISB , I wanted fast growth and industrial capacity so took 18% growth a 1 in 6 hab with temperature immune so able to grow via pop alone fast with a maxed home. Factories were 12/10/14 , max planet just under 3K , Con was normal which gave with tech steal the best possible weapon and con research. The big mistake was I was "umming and areing" about CE vs NRSE and chose CE figuring that the main fleet could never be cost effectively cloaked and when coming with 98% cloak CE would not matter but i wanted the scoops so much.
Originally I was going to play 1I WM but after the failed gen I saw 3 WM and a lot of high rad hab so I took low rad and SS .
I was the #2 player most of the game first to the Traders then to the Dream Cloud. Then moved to #1 and finished with 75 K resources and con24.
To the East I had the traders they made me a good offer for alliance but I chose the Coders (since we were effective allies in another game and he was TT CA which would fit well with an early 1I pop growth strategy) , David also mentioned a bit later he was talking to the Crushers.. Initially war with the Traders was possible he wanted free inter settlement which I wanted to curtail due to the fact we had almost eventual live anywhere hab between us anyway. So we set a border and a NAP and swapped 2 planets ..
Like most my starting planets were poor the Traders had lots of my good planets as well as the centre . There was a nice cluster near the Coders home. I rushed for the centre very early and found the Traders there about the same time and a bit later we saw the Dreamcloud approach the south .
I colonised about 5-6 good planets in the centre ( 3-4 were 80-100) and pushed the tech for gates and at this stage the die was cast , we were arguing with the Traders about a NAP and the centre . I approached the Dream cloud for a share of the centre unmolested as the Trader offer was pretty harsh initially but they just milked me for information with no intention of allowing me in the centre and kept growing . At this stage the coders would take some time but the Crushers build an outpost . The die was cast when they attacked one of my planets in the centre up till then we only had miner cooperation at this stage we
- made a deal with the Traders for C12 for W12 , and negotiated a slightly better deal ( initially we would get planets under 34 rad) and stated we will bring 100 Frigates in immediately and do a W for C tech swap.
- The Crushers had an outpost that was also threatened their hab fit between us and we made a 3 way alliance . I figured it was allowed ( a Duo game normally has no player comms) and we could fight it out between us at the end if need be for a sole victory. Also with 9 players your either going to get singles or 3s .
Then a very interesting phase broke out , the frigates allowed us to take back some planets along with the Trader Jihad dd fleet, the Trader gave up the centre and left it to us to focus on the BC which is why he wanted the FF commitment. Then Cruisers showed up in quantity , so I build a stack of shadow shield W8 cruisers but it wasn't enough and started loosing planets . I gave most of my cruisers to the Crushers who lost them in a critical battle which he won ( I cant remember if in the at Bush / HozaRama or the ring ). 4-5 turn later a bigger fleet knocked the crushers out of the centre .This left me with the Con research for BB and building new W10 cruisers , I got W10 BBs 1 turn too late , the ones I produced in 1 turn were not enough to stop his fleet and I got knocked out of the centre and we decided rather than risk lose the ships we will keep a single gate open at Mandrake so I gifted my BBs to the allies . This was pretty much my role for the early - mid game build ships give them to the Crushers/ Coders and do tech research.
The next phase was us holding the centre with just enough ships and all the action moved to Culture space. Though we had to be careful to always have enough ships at gates for Mandrake. I decided to push to W16 which was a lot of points at expensive at W14 I build a stack of range 2 ships partly as deception and partly to hold ground. I Then got W16 as mentioned already we build a fleet with W16 especially dave he used most of his mins. We then noticed the Guard play getting worse and especially when they did not see our fleet that took there large BB fleet which was a serious fleet.
We thought about me making a lot of W16 ships as well but decided I should focus on skirmishing with cloaked mine layers and push for w20 ( and when we got there we didn't need to make many doom ships ( crushers did build some ) so I pushed onto W22. I then started producing W22 cloaked shoot first designs.
I had a huge min store at the end ready for W22 with a few slabs of Superlat BBs or Nubians.
Regards,
Ben
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| Re: EYITYOTG has ended |
Wed, 15 June 2016 21:29 |
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| neilhoward |
| Commander |
Messages: 1112
Registered: April 2008
Location: SW3 & 10023 | |
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Nice. Congratulations to Ben, David, and Mac. Well played.
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