Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » Game stories » RWIAB: Game Review (long)
| RWIAB: Game Review (long) |
Tue, 19 August 2003 22:49  |
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RWIAB: A Game Review
"Rabid Weasels in a Box" (RWIAB) was a Stars! game run on Autohost on a Monday-Friday generation schedule until a victor was declared by virtue of high score in 2500. The game name was based upon the main game condition that all races conform to the "factoryless" (-f) standard of having 5/25/5 factory settings, or by being the AR PRT. A long ago newsgroup post referred to these races having to act like rabid weasels in their drive to expand and grow and thus I adopted the term for the game.
The game was played in a medium, normal galaxy, ACC BBS start, random events on, and public scores off. This was not an ideal density of planets for -f races, but it provided roughly 30-40 planets per active player, and afforded a fair amount of space for making most PRTs potentially useful. There were nine active participants plus a neutral observer race run by the host.
Summary
I was sort of expecting a escalating furball of combat starting about 2330-2340 with a race coming out on top by 2480 or 2490. This didn't occur.
The southern races generally started tech trading while the northern races started a series of small wars that didn't seem to gaining anyone a serious advantage. The only southern conflict was a K'leath-Higard war where the Higard were attacking K'leath colonies and expanding eastward. The Sea Monkeys were attacked early while vulnerable and put in an untenable position pinned into a corner. This gave two races valuable space as it turned out. However, at that point I suspected that the north was potentially weakening itself and a southern coalition would overrun the north.
The mid-game saw a series of coalitions form. The Borg, who had initially attacked the Cancer unsuccessfully, now allied with them to fight the Freen expanding from the south. The Kitties digested former Sea Monkey territory, reached a non-aggression pact with the Cancer, and apparently also started a relationship with the Nixotoib. The four southern races continued to tech trade, but seemed to be paired into a Freen-K'leath and Motie-Higard alliance. Diplomacy played a major role late in this period as races jockeyed to gain allies for the forthcoming wars.
Starting in the mid-2470's open hostilities broke out. The Cancer and Borg were fighting the Freen, who were aided by the K'leath to their limited ability. The Moties and Higard were coming into the fray to help the Freen defeat what was viewed as a runaway Cancer empire. Even the Borg were convinced to turn upon the Cancer in this period (which quickly led to the annihilation of their remaining fleet and their eventual extinction.) A major surprise was the Kitties and Nixotoib entering the war on the side of the Cancer. This tied down the majority of the Motie and Higard fleets. Plus the Kitties made serious inroads into Higard space.
I see the diplomacy in this period as the key in how the game turned out. The Cancer had been leading most of the game and the other races were gathering to take them down. However, it was unclear how the Kitten/Nixotoib alliance was going to come into play. They were a growing power, and would have an appreciable effect depending on whose side they took (or even maintaining their neutrality.)
The end-game actually was calmer than the previous period. Two major powers, the Cancer and Kitties vied for the victory condition while it seemed the other races collected strength to renew the struggle at a later period. Attacks continued along with more skirmishing, but there were fewer large fleet actions. The Higard Empire was further whittled away as well, smaller than it had been in 2420. The Kitties pulled out the game victory in 2500. However, the galaxy is not dead since races still vie for military supremacy after the experiment is over...
[I also have some Xborders generated maps converted to JPEG format. Show territories as of ~2465, 2485, and 2500. Just need to find a way to get them posted.]
Startup
The races started in roughly the following positions:
..1..2..3..
..4..5.0.6 (not corresponding to player #)
..7..8..9
[Final Score in paren]
(1) Sea Monkeys [Player 3] HE Extinct in 2459
(2) Cancer [Player 2] WM Finished 2nd (2910)
(3) Borg [Player 7] JOAT Extinct in 2487
(4) Kitties [Player 6] IS Finished 1st (4709)
(5) Nixotoib [Player 9] SS Finished 6th (1335)
(6) Freen [Player 4] IS Finished 5th (1365)
(7) Higards [Player 5] WM Finished 7th (749)
( Moties [Player 8] IS Finished 4th (1617)
(9) K'leath [Player 1] AR Finished 3rd (1979)
(0) Mad Sci [Player 10] WM Host Observer
Race Comments
(a) The Sea Monkeys
11 (22)% PGR, three very wide hab bands. OBRM, NAS, NRSE. Con, Prop cheap, Bio expensive, rest normal cost.
Personally, I don’t think –f HE are viable; but that doesn’t prevent me from letting other people try it. The race started in a corner, and then was attacked and hemmed in very early by the Kitties and Cancer. Player gamely stuck with things a while longer and I think picked up some useful lessons. Unfortunately, observer scouts were late reaching this section to realize that the player did not know the myriad uses of the mini-colonizer as a tanker and cargo ship. Which would have been invaluable considering the race skipped the IFE LRT.
(b) The Borg
One-immune 17% JOAT. Expensive Weapons.
The race was aggressive to the west and south initially, and then seemed to stall out. The empire never got to an effective size to compete well with the neighboring Cancer and Freen. Race then seemed to switch sides between being allied with one of the other. Unfortunately not able to recover fleet losses compared to the others. Was surviving due to ability to trade tech as well.
(c) The Higards
Three wide 18% WM.
What I considered the “paper tiger” of RWIAB. Expanded quickly in terms of planet count, but trailed in resources and tech for most of the game. Going into the late game the race had a large number of obsolete warships. I noted that the Kitties destroyed a number of these in their push south. Was interesting to contrast to the other active WM race, the Cancer. The south developed more peacefully, and this might not have been to the Higard’s benefit. The Higard empire underwent a serious contraction late in the game as they appeared to catch the brunt of the Nixotoib and Kitten attacks.
(d) The Nixotoib
One-immune 20% SS. Generalized research. Weapons, Elec cheap, rest expensive.
An early leader in RWIAB, probably due to early tech lead. Still one of the leaders in tech levels at the end as well. Had the best scouting in the game in my opinion (excepting the observer). Central starting position made them a race that everyone talked to and traded with for penetrating scanners. Nix “Tom III” class scanner frigates were in the fleets of a lot of races for most of the game. Eventually formed a close alliance with the Kitties once relationships started to firm up. From there was an active combatant against the Moties and Higard in the late-game; which included suffering planet losses to packets. Also interesting in terms of how the Nix Empire ebbed and flowed in the territory maps.
(e) The Freen
One-immune 19% IS.
An aggressive expander who, after reaching an agreement with the neighboring K’leath seemed to fight all comers in the area (east) for the next thirty turns. At that point there was a truce with the Moties/Higards while hostilities continued verses the encroaching Cancer and Borg. Not sure whether there was fighting with the Nix or not, but I wouldn’t have been surprised. Late game was mainly fighting the Cancer once the main split became Cancer/Kittens/Nixotoib vs. Freen/K’leath/Moties/Higard.
(f) The Moties
One-immune 19% IS.
Ran a close second to the Cancer for much of the game. Seemed to be a trader/coalition builder rather than a conqueror. Thus, this race was the centerpiece of the peaceful south for much of the game. This may have limited their chance to keep up once the Cancer and Kitties captured much of the north and turned their attention southwards. I thought their late game use of beam cruisers was a mistake. Can be gated, but not efficient combatants verses battlecruisers and battleships.
(g) The K’leath
One-immune 16% AR
Trailed most of the game. Was diplomatically successful since the race survived into the end game. Was becoming a major power in the last twenty turns. And will be a force to be reckoned with in the post-2500 period since they will have minerals, and only the Kitties appear to have any on-going ability to compete with them in terms of sheer resources.
[Additional kudos to Sotek for bravely playing this PRT in the game. Though it has been noted that the western races might have opted to dismember him if he had started over that way. We’ll never know.]
(h) The Cancer
One-immune 19% WM.
Aggressively played, well micro-managed race. Led the game in every decade poll by the observer from 2430 to 2490 – apparently out of the lead only 1-2 turns in the interim. In a war on a least one front the whole time. Only weakness seems to be lagging behind a bit in tech levels – but this race hasn’t had a trading partner for a number of turns. Being the leader most of the game might have led to a few diplomatic decisions that proved unwise in the long run. In my opinion the race was well played, aggressive from the get-go and an excellent example of rabid weaselness.
(i) The Kitties
Three wide 20% IS.
Sort of the “sleeper” race in the game. Started an early war with the Sea Monkeys that seemed to keep them busy in the northwest for the first half of the game. From this point forged an alliance with the Nixotoib and expanded southwards and eastwards until contacting the other empires. Spent the last half of the game climbing from 5th to 1st place – cumulating with a planned push to over-populate most colonies for a massive resource influx. Starting in 2480 or so the Kitties forged a non-aggression agreement with the Cancer, and with their allies started an aggressive push against the Higards and Moties to the south. This led to an additional expanse of captured territory and prevented heavy aid to the Freen in their fight against the Cancer. Race was well managed, believes in the importance of scouting, and can run offensive campaigns well.
Overall race comments. The one-immune races, if played aggressively, seem to get off to a very good start. The Kitties player has commented that his race ramped up much slower than he wanted and it limited his early options.
Empire Statistics
The observer gathered data on the various races each decade starting in 2420. Thus the relative power of the various races could be compared and analyzed. Here's the data in tabular form excluding the observer race.
(apologies for the scrunch, can't make the post not suppress multiple spaces.)
PLANETS
Race 2420 2430 2440 2450 2460 2470 2480 2490 2500
K'leath 8 9 10 7 13 16 21 24 23
Cancer 11 20 27 34 36 44 53 70 76
Sea Monkeys 14 11 10 6 - - - - -
Freen 9 18 27 27 27 31 27 23 22
Higard 21 27 33 35 39 38 33 17 11
Kitties 9 13 20 26 40 42 56 68 89
Borg 6 8 7 11 11 14 2 - -
Moties 7 19 28 40 49 50 40 33 30
Nixotoib 8 13 17 20 26 26 25 22 21
RESOURCES (in 1000s)
Race 2420 2430 2440* 2450 2460 2470 2480 2490 2500
K'leath 1.27 2.39 3.5 5 6.5 10 17 26 37
Cancer 1.70 5.25 10 17 23 28 32 38 44
Sea Monkeys 1.10 2.11 3 2 - - - - -
Freen 1.39 4.30 9 12 19 20 21 18 19
Higard 0.86 2.04 3.5 6 9 12 14 7.7 7.4
Kitties 1.36 3.16 4 9 14 21 24 35 86**
Borg 0.94 2.48 4.3 6.6 9 12 <1 - -
Moties 1.41 3.23 8 14 19 25 26 26 23
Nixotoib 1.70 3.34 6 10 15 19 19 19 18
*- Observer topped out at 4.5 here.
**- Kitties did a massive overpop job on most of their planets in the last few turns.
- Kurt aka The Mad Scientists
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
- Groucho MarxReport message to a moderator
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| Re: RWIAB: Game Review (long) |
Wed, 20 August 2003 01:46  |
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| Orca |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 1 |
Messages: 148
Registered: June 2003
Location: Orbiting tower at the L5 ... | |
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Thank Demanther - it's his web space. :) And I'm seeing about moving it to somewhere a bit less...eh...hidden? And more permanent, since I finished converting the writeup to HTML and it'd be nice to have somewhere to put this. (right now the whole writeup is accessible at http://falldowngoboom.org/hidden/ - but that's subject to change). An inferier (DirectNIC annoyingly appears to drop the quality of jpegs uploaded to them) and banner-infested copy can be found at http://killer-whale.com/owk/ ).
Jesus saves.
Allah forgives.
Cthulhu thinks you'd make a nice sandwich.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: RWIAB: Game Review (long) |
Thu, 21 August 2003 16:14 |
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 The Taubat |
 | Officer Cadet 3rd Year |
Messages: 263
Registered: December 2002 | |
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here is the borgs eye view of what was going on
When I first entered RWIAB I thought this would be fun, but I was a complete newbie to stars at the time, but I knew what a -f race was, and thought you were either nuts or very good to play one. my first idea was to create more rescourses than the other people in the game, thus JOAT with OBRM came into mind, some how NAS didnt get selected, my reasons for the CE\NRESE combo was simple, I knew normal engines were expensive, but I also wanted something that could go fast before the competition, thus the CE\NRSE idea was born, had I taken IFE it would of worked to my favor. anyways I expected to see more JOATs on the field, I was wrong.
Withing the early years I met up with the cancer and minor skirishes were here and there, and since I had JOAT I had found his HW well before he found mine, I planned to attack his HW then other worlds after his fall at Dive, I did not plan on attacking alone, I had planned to be assisted by the Freen down south of me, however help never came and my plans were put on hold, I was too busy on thinking of self preservation of my race, thus in a desprate attempt to save my race I allied with the cancer (big mistake) and I soon ran out of room to expand so I planned to attack the freen in order to expand, but the cancer never assisted, so I was massing a fleet of ships to take out some freen worlds for myself, which failed, without from the cancer anyways, then I wanted to attack the Nix seeing as how they had few worlds, and most if not all their worlds were nice and green for me, and I badly needed to expand. Cancer had talked me out of it because I would have to use his gates to be effective plus they were allies with the kitties so I decided to not attack them and just wait it out. come around 2570 all the other races agreed to take out the cancer and at 2485 all alliances would be terminated, The cancer quickly took out my defenses and then bombed my worlds, ending my misery, I did make it up to 11K in rescources, but was no match for the competition.
Royal Sha'a'kar of the Taubat peopleReport message to a moderator
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| Re: RWIAB: Game Review (long) |
Sun, 24 August 2003 07:57 |
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| mazda |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 655
Registered: April 2003
Location: Reading, UK | |
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Mote's eye view
---------------
This was also my first multi-player attempt at Stars!
I may get some stick for this but my goals at the start were :-
i) to survive
ii) to have fun
iii) to win
Initially I was 9th of 9, with no tech (IS), and thought I might struggle, but, after making agreements with my neighbours on my right and left, my pop grew quickly and I rapidly moved up to 3rd.
I suppose I get the main blame for letting the AR live, but because we had complementary hab it was simply a mater of asking each other for planets and I did get some early tech which I was desperate for.
I had poor scouting and this lead to my first mistake.
In the 40's I had reached roughly what I thought was my share of the universe, and had incorrectly "guessed" how much room there still was above me.
So I simply didn't bother heading up towards the observer HW. 
After that I suppose I made a lot of beginner mistakes.
I still pumped all my resources into tech and let other players get too close.
As discussed with other people, I built the wrong ships and nowhere near enough of them early enough (although for a while I did hope that the WM Higards might be strong enough to defend me, whilst I build them freighters and minelayers, but that never got going).
I guess I still hadn't been able to adjust my strategy to the lines of what did I need to do to win.
Looking at my race design.
I definitely missed out on not taking RS, and taking NAS disadvantaged me, despite having TD's for the last third of the game.
My other choices I could live with.
4 cheap techs, no IFE and NRSE (so very limited engines).
As a whole, I would have been happy with 4th before the game began, but on reflection I know I should have done better.
M
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| Re: RWIAB: Game Review (long) |
Sun, 24 August 2003 10:27 |
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| The Taubat |
| Officer Cadet 3rd Year |
Messages: 263
Registered: December 2002 | |
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I would like to know how everyones race designs are, however Ill show you mine (dont laugh, my first -f race)
PRT: JOAT (not a bad choice there, hard to trade)
LRTs: TT, NRSE, CE, OBRM (that was handy) RS (notice no IFE, I regretted that mistake)
hab settings: 1/4 with 17%GR rad immune
mines/facs: -f econ (duh)11/3/24 mines (lots of wasted points right there)
techs: ener, elec cheap, cons and prop normal, (paid heavily for that mistake) weap and bio expensive (note: I took the LRT TT ) needless to say Im not playing this race again,
Royal Sha'a'kar of the Taubat peopleReport message to a moderator
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| Re: RWIAB: Game Review (long) |
Sun, 24 August 2003 12:44 |
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| marvo |
 | Crewman 2nd Class |
Messages: 15
Registered: August 2003
Location: England | |
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Reflections from the Higards
Rwiab was my first excursion into a full multiplayer game as it was for a few players it would seem and as such it showed. I have played Stars quite a lot against the AI but as you all know it is a completely different ballgame when humans are involved.
For my part I have learnt many new tricks etc and feel alot more knowledgeable about the game in general mainly due to the excellent advice and articles to be found on this site, I thank you all for what must be alot of work to produce something as professional as this.
Back to the game, I went in with no real expectations other than to try and survive which I did, just. I played WM, IFE, OBRM,(what no ISB or RS I here you shout   ) 18% 1-2, 5,25,5 9,3,9 with W,P,C cheap, EL normal and EN,B expensive.
In the early years I planet grabbed and did not concentrate on filling one or two planets up to help growth (newbie mistake), this action was not helped by my 3 wide hab range (1-2) which encouraged it in some ways. Also as I know now it is very important to find breeder planets which I did only to come into conflict with Kitties who also had 3 wide hab range to the north. Early on in the game I feel this was a defining moment for my empire as I lost Weed to a pop drop and did not contest it which being WM perhaps I should have. At this time I believe Sea Monkeys were feeling the Kitties scratches at the door so it might have been interesting to push him on two fronts. Overall out of the possible 5 breeder planets available to me I only got one which consequently hampered my growth.
I negotiated agreements with Kitties (north) and Moties (east) regarding planets and expansion fairly early on in the game so that when my armed probe came across an undefended K'L colony and destroyed it I thought why not, lets have some fun. Much of the mid game was spent building ships to attack K'L, Jihaad BC's and W10/W9 sapper crusiers. I think K'L will admit that things did not look good for him at this time as I was fully committed to taking him out, egged on by Kitties and Nixot I must add. You may ask why I did not follow it through, well it was mainly a request from Moties that swayed me although I did have reservations about stopping. At this time in the game it was becoming apparent that Cancer was growing very fast and Marc (Moties) felt that all our efforts would be better employed going against him, the Freen were under pressure and K'L was apparently doing a fair bit of research for him.
As I had been building ships my research had suffered somewhat which all basiclly meant that when Kitties/Nixot attacked I was totally unprepared for 40+ beam BB's coming over the hill from Kitties and much the same number of missile BB's from Nixot. Not that I could have done much about it even if my techs had been good enough as I just did not have the resources to compete with them. I might add that Kitties attacks were very well organised and structured to leave me guessing as to which target would be hit next. From this time on I was fighting a rearguard action for the rest of the game along with Moties who also lost planets. It was this part of the game that I found most interesting watching what tactics were employed, especially the defensive ones. From this I learned that Stars favours proactive players as it is very hard to play reactive as you are always a turn behind. Consequently we never managed to engage our fleet in a major action.
The one battle I did manage to undertake which was a suprise was in support of K'Ls fleet. I would be interested to know from Kitties why he engaged this fleet when the whole of the campaign against us he had retreated when clearly at times he and Nixot had the advantage.
On reflection I did not play the WM PRT as agressively as it should be played. I did not have ISB which slowed expansion/ ship building etc or RS which seemed to be pretty much standard.
That said I can not wait for the next game to start, bring'em on. 
Thanks to Kurt for an excellently well run and managed game.
Paul (marvo)
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| Re: RWIAB: Game Review (long) |
Sun, 24 August 2003 15:44 |
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My thanks to the players for offering their viewpoints on the game to the forum.
When I first starting reading articles on Stars! sites one of things I really enjoyed coming across was game histories. These were generally educational, or at the very least, entertaining.
There wasn't a massive amount of role-playing beyond the norm (some messages, ship names, trash talk on IRC...), but the observations by the various races offers the reader lessons learned, self-analysis, and possibly a good example of how two races/players might view the same situation quite differently.
- Kurt "going back to work on the RWIAB II ad..."
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
- Groucho MarxReport message to a moderator
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| Re: RWIAB: Game Review (long) |
Sun, 24 August 2003 16:27 |
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| Sotek |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 2 |
Messages: 167
Registered: November 2002 | |
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K'leath's view!
Well, as the AR, I did very poorly early, unsurprisingly.
If I had encountered the Higards earlier, or been next to *anyone* but the Freen and Moties, I would most likely have been dead by 2450.
As it was, when I encountered the Higards, they were picking off my unimportant outlying worlds, quite a distance from my HW.
This gave me time to reinforce and defend my more important worlds closer in, which when they arrived managed to destroy a fleet, sit and wait, lose a world, destroy the fleet, very slowly loosing ground, until the Freen managed to pull a major diplomatic coup, which got the Higards off my back and saved my ass.
From there, things went relatively swimmingly; I didn't even start building significant warships until I had the tech to make some *NICE* ones, but once I did, I produced large numbers. Resources ramped very nicely as my energy tech went up and doom stars were being built all over, plus terra.
I'm starting to level off now, in 2500, but am in a position to contend with #1 and #2.
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| Re: RWIAB: Game Review (long) |
Tue, 02 September 2003 15:29 |
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| LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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| marvo wrote on Sun, 24 August 2003 12:44 |
The one battle I did manage to undertake which was a suprise was in support of K'Ls fleet. I would be interested to know from Kitties why he engaged this fleet when the whole of the campaign against us he had retreated when clearly at times he and Nixot had the advantage.
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I'm pretty sure you mean the battle near Tartaruga. That battle I targeted your fleet, and was hoping they wouldn't team up with the K'Leath fleet that turn. If they hadn't I should have won, and eliminated the threat to Maggie and Liver. Unfortunatly for me, they did meet up, and stompped my fleet
- LEitReport message to a moderator
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