Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » Game stories » RWIAB - Kitten Perspective (long)
| RWIAB - Kitten Perspective (long) |
Tue, 02 September 2003 15:24  |
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 LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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My Race:
-f IS with 20% PGR and 3 wide habs
I didn't have an immunity, and feel that this was a serious racial design flaw. I grew slowly and my initial planets were not very good. Even with all worlds terraformed +-15%, I only have 1 100% world besides my HW - and that is the Higard HW...
Exploration:
I quickly discovered 3 races:
Sea Monkeys - had many colonies with 1000 population, indicating that he was an HE. I quickly decided he would be my first target, and started a pop drop war.
Nixotoib - seemed to be SS, had a similar hab to mine. We agreed on borders and started trading; this would develop into a full alliance that has lasted till the end of the game. It has been interesting being in an alliance where we have similar habs. Luckily there is enough difference.
Higard - I wasn't initially sure what his race was. He was also colonizing with many small colonies; however I didn't attack as I didn't want to be fighting two wars... We arranged a border (after a simultaneous colonization of a world that hurt both of us).
My scouting was slow, until I arranged a trade with Nixotoib for some pen scanners, which helped a lot. I didn't get rid of the last of those Nixotoib scouts until 2500.
Sea Monkey war:
The war with the Sea Monkeys went well initially. I built a few armed ships that did a lot of damage very cheaply, and I was able to do a lot of pop dropping (MF with 10k colonists going along and dropping one world a turn, the pop would regrow itself). I gained a few levels of propulsion from the Sea Monkeys this way. Cancer joined in on the pop drop war for a few border worlds he wanted. I built a fleet of 24 Croby FFs, and sent them to take out a base that the Sea Monkeys had on a bigger world, but that turn he upgraded them all to deltas and it killed my entire fleet. He dropped the same turn, so the war went into low gear as I concentrated on building my economy and tech. Nixotoib built a few Jihad Cruisers, and those were able to drop the Sea Monkey bases. Combined with bombs and invasions, we finally finished the war in 2459. It took much longer then I'd anticipated, and Cancer was able to grab a lot more ground then I would have liked.
Galactic Events:
Meanwhile...
Borg attacked Cancer and was defeated. The Borg decided he wanted to survive, and entered into an alliance with Cancer. To me it seemed like 'be my ally or die', but it worked for them (for a while).
Freen and K'Leath had an agreement. I didn't realize how close they were till much later, and this probably caused some friction with my discussions with the Freen.
Higard and Moties seemed to form an alliance. Higard never did grow very well, probably because he spread himself too thin initially and didn't move pop around well. I'm sure he had the same problem I did of no immunity hampering growth.
Higard attacked K'Leath and that war seemed to go on for a long time without much damage done to either side. I do know that Higard made some progress, however I'm not sure how much. The interesting thing about this war is that the Moties were allied to both sides, the Moties were trading tech and intersettling with both of them.
Nixotoib colonized worlds all over the place, in one case causing quite a bit of friction with the Freen for a few turns until he agreed to abandon the world (the Nixotoib player was on vacation).
Cancer/Freen war:
I forget exactly when it started - about 2440 I think. Cancer (and Borg) attacked the Freen. When they were deciding who to attack, I was very apprehensive because I knew I was weak, and if they attacked Nix and I Cancer would have quickly rolled over us.
Eventually he picked Freen for three reasons that I know of: 1) their hab was a pretty good match, so there were a lot of green worlds there (they both were rad immune); 2) Freen was the #2 player, Cancer was #1 - taking out #2 helped make sure he would win; and 3) Freen didn't have an effective ally - K'Leath were busy with their own war, and couldn't help Freen at all. Cancer made some very good initial progress, killing a few Freen fleets; however Freen kept rebuilding and trading space for time. Also Freen was furiously researching, and trading for tech. I was one of his trading partners; this helped me catch up in tech a lot. Freen also helped out in the Higard/K'Leath war a bit, this may have hurt his ability to hold off Cancer, however, I don't know the details. By 2480 Freen seems to have stabilized the front, and Cancer wasn't able to make much more progress.
The war dropped Freen from #2 to #4, and also hurt his long term prospects because I think he used overpop to get extra resources, instead of growing it. The territory gained helped Cancer grow while he was advancing.
If Cancer attacked Nix and I, the game would have been very different. I don't think we could have held him off as long as the Freen were able to. Cancer would have gotten bigger sooner and the Freen would have been able to grow faster, helping K'Leath fight his war with Higard. Probably to the point where they were taking Higard space. Moties probably would have joined the Freen/K'Leath alliance, and then it would have been Cancer and Borg vs. Freen, Moties, and K'Leath, I think Freen would have been the winner in that scenario.
Diplomacy:
By 2550 the main alliances were set:
Cancer/Borg, Kittie/Nixotoib, Freen/K'Leath, Motie/Higard, although Higard was an enemy of K'Leath, the Moties were an ally of K'Leath (this still baffles me)
Freen was trading with Nixotoib and I, as well as the Moties I'm sure. There was also some trading going on with K'Leath and Borg.
Cancer was advancing across Freen space, and Freen desperately needed allies. Since it was obvious that Cancer was winning the game, and that Nixotoib and I would likely be next if Freen fell, we were willing to join the attack. However both of our economies were small at this point. We couldn't do enough damage to Cancer to make any difference, so we delayed (I'm sure this didn't make Freen happy with us). Also I noticed that the Moties were growing bigger, clearly in 2nd place, so I was getting worried about them. If all of us ganged up on Cancer, he'd go down, leaving the Moties to win the game. I didn't like this because it didn't seem to me that the Moties had done any fighting yet, and that just felt wrong to let a pacifist become the Most Rabid Weasel.
I discussed my misgivings with the Freen; however, he was working on an end to the Higard/K'Leath war, and a big alliance to go after Cancer. When I offered to ally with the Freen to take out Cancer first and then the Moties, he told me about the alliance he'd arranged with Higard and the Moties.
Since Cancer had been the big brute for a long time, and I figured I could grab some good worlds, Nixotoib and I agreed to join in the anti-Cancer alliance. Borg also agreed to turn on Cancer - he'd felt that he wasn't an ally, but more like a slave. Borg did declare war on Cancer, but Cancer quickly wiped him out. It wasn't timed to go with an offensive, so it didn't seem to have much impact on the Cancer/Freen war.
Soon after that (a turn or two) there were a few problems with tech trades with Freen, and they basically told me to get lost. This stopped the tech trading, and Nixotoib and I removed scouts from their territory (as they'd demanded). I took this as a declaration of war, which might not be what was intended. A hastily arranged NAP with Cancer with a 5 year opt out clause allowed Nixotoib and I to launch an attack on the Higard/Motie alliance.
WAR!
Moties were researching for Nubians, and we didn't want him to get them soon. Due to this research, he didn't have much of a fleet.
Higard fleet was moderate sized, but old tech, and built mainly on Cruisers and Battle Cruisers. We attacked and very quickly grabbed a bunch of territory. This helped boost my economy, because (as a -f) I was able to quickly turn a captured world into a production center, especially when I could top them off the year I took them. Most of our progress was against the Higards, but we distracted the Moties enough so that they didn't get to Nubians until it was too late. I was amazed that the Moties kept on researching after we'd attacked. Another reason we made such good progress in the west was that the Higards didn't build defenses, this allowed us to packet worlds and then move forward.
Meanwhile the Freen/Cancer war continued. K'Leath was finally able to start helping in that war, and they were able to slow the Cancer advance. This combined with my advances into Higard space (who had lots of worlds that were very good for me, his hab and mine are pretty compatible) allowed me to quickly move into 2nd place, and in 2493 into 1st place. Cancer didn't ask about till the next turn, and then choose not to opt out of the NAP.
I give Cancer a lot of credit for sticking to the opt out period; he probably could have done some serious damage to me in those last 5 turns if he hadn't.
Pop Bomb:
Around 2480 I realized I could possibly win if I made some progress and Cancer was fairly stagnant. Additionally I realized that if I could fill all my worlds to 300% capacity, my resources would jump, and so would my score. I made a spreadsheet to see if it was possible, and found that it was, with a little bit to spare. I started doing the MM to get everything into place, and found that it required modifications every turn as the war progressed and as terraforming finished on worlds. It required several hours of MM every turn - hours I really didn't have to spare. I managed somehow, and with very few mistakes. 5 turns a week made it really brutal. But then on 2498 I made the final orders, and on 2500 I had 86k resources (although I only got to spend 44k). This boosted my score to 4600 more then enough to win the game. Unfortunately I cannot maintain that, so my resources will drop post 2500.
Post 2500:
I made a few choices in the war that helped me win by 2500 that I wouldn't have made if there wasn't an end date. The biggest one was to build Doom BBs when I could get to Armeggedons in 3 years. In the end I built 40 more battleships and had them 3 years sooner. It paid off, but will probably cause problems after 2500.
Moties have a Nubian fleet now, and K'Leath and Freen probably have Nubian tech. Things are going to get a lot more difficult in the war now. And as the AR mineral founting continues to flow, we are going to be hard pressed to hold off the Southern Alliance, let alone advance against them.
- LEitReport message to a moderator
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