Home » Old Game Forums » Rabid Weasels II-A » RWIAB IIa Game Review
| Re: RWIAB IIa Game Review |
Thu, 18 March 2004 19:01   |
|
 marvo |
 | Crewman 2nd Class |
Messages: 15
Registered: August 2003
Location: England | |
|
Greetings from the OKs 
Here are my thoughts etc of the RwIIa game and how it went from my point of view.
Firstly a bit of background on myself, this was my second net game the other being the first Rwiab game in which I was completely stuffed by Leit. In a way he did me a huge favour as it gave me a massive lesson in how to play Stars some of which I managed to put into action during this game. As they say there is no substitute for learning from painful experience. 
My race design and thoughts, it may not be the best but it did what I wanted it to.
JOAT
IFE, TT, IS, NRSE, OBRM, NAS, RS
G 0.14-0.80, T 24-184, R 0-100.
GR = 19%, 1-5 planets.
Res/pop = 1/800
5,25,5 & 10,5,9
Techs, En & W cheap, C & B normal, P & El expensive.
1 point spent on surface minerals.
JAOT, free pen scanners so can take NAS saving points, also max pop is 1200000 plus with OBRM this goes to 1320000 whereas everyone else is 1000000 or 1100000 with OBRM (He and AR excepting).
IFE, very good for early expansion, fuel miser is useable till Interspace 10.
TT, I wanted to be able to maintain growth on planets late in game which I did. In the last 15 years I terraed planets from 15% in T & R and 11% in G up to 20% thus gaining big improvements in pop capacity plus getting some reds to green. This also allowed me to take Prop expensive as I knew I did not have to research any higher than P12 for overthruster due to NRSE trait.
IS, in my book a must for quick secure expansion early game, you can build all early required ships with a spacedock and they count towards score.
NRSE, as stated can take P expensive thus saving points and alot of research in game.
OBRM, with a fairly wide hab range a lot of planets will be habitable so took it to get points elsewhere. I was mining all available reds through game anyway.
NAS, JOAT gets pen scan for free, mega advantage.
RS, mega in early battles with frigate stacks.
Hab ranges to try and create unique requirements to avoid conflict, Pick pockets was almost the same so it was always going to be him that I attacked. One error I did make was that Rad values should have been 1-99 cos you never get planets with values of 0 or 100.
GR 19%, 1-5 planets, not to bad, you need to get a solid start early on or else you are nowhere. I was lucky in that I found two more 80+ greens very close to my HW, this is what probably gave me the edge over Pick Pockets. These turned into 95+ very quickly with early terraforming.
Res 1/800. A lot of build points went here, reason is that as you only get res from pop you need to maximise return from available pop incase your squeezed for space, a full 100% planet with 1320000 (OBRM increases max pop from 1200000) pop that would give me 1650 res as opposed to 1320 for standard value, that's 25% more.
Factories (obvious) and mine values were average. I was never short of mins, at game end I had all but used up Iron stocks but then the game was over so I think I got it about right.
Techs, EN & W cheap. EN cos of RS and early game battles, W, well you know it is going to be researched to at least W24.
C & B normal, C cos you need to get to BB's pretty quick and B cos I wanted to take advantage of TT LRT later in game.
P & El expensive, as stated P stops at 12 with NRSE and El is a hard one cos you really need to get to SBC's but in the end something had to give cos I wanted other things more, besides you can always trade for things.
Final stats were
Planets 75
Bases 53
Unarmed 339
Escorts 7903
Cap ships 154
Techs 110
Res 50k
Score 2998
In the end my planet development went the way I had planned. 
As to the game, I started quite well in that I found some very good early planets which enabled me to expand fast enough to be able to embark on a campaign in about 2425 against the Pick Pockets whose habs seemed to be very similar to mine. I met The Zurgs, Armagons and Pickpockets and bery quickly recognised the HE and AR PRT's of the first two. I was unsure what Pick Pockets were. I must say I was a little disturbed that I had He and AR neighbours as I knew the dangers of letting the AR stay alive, He was not good either for future expansion plans. Having previously agreed on a non aggression treaty with the Zurgs to my north (cos he did not have many planets of use to me) and was in negotiations with the Armagons, for a while it was unclear who the Armagons (but I got the feeling that he was not an experienced player) would side with but as they were AR I felt that if they did side with the Pick Pockets I could have handled them at this early stage. As it was he decided to join me and over the next 25 odd years I took Pick Pockets out aided by The Armagons. This alliance was to last the whole game. Ships at this stage were Bazooka frigates with a few destroyers. During the conflict I ascertained Pick POckets were IS so i was pleased to take them out.
During this time other intel was being amassed with various contacts being made. I noticed that the Loranians seemed to be at war with the Polanies, this was confirmed by the Polanies as I could not get any response from the Lorainan player. The position of the Desquis and BFT was unclear, I had a suspicion that Lorinians and BFT were working together, this was confirmed when I scanned some Loranian speed bump minelayers which had obviously been traded from the IS BFT, I knew Lorainans were IT. Some where around 2440 I think I achieved full pen scan coverage of the galaxy. This showed me the overall picture and allowed The Armagons and I to formulate a plan of action for the rest of the game. From this it was clear that the Polanies were doing rather well. Note to Polanie player, my job was made 100% easier due to my 100% pen scan capability of your space, I knew everything about your planets and building programs, something which you never achieved as far as I know in our space. Intel is king.
Upto about 2455 the Polanie /Desquis alliance war with the Loranians seemed to be at stalemate, this was a situation that we wanted to continue ideally till the end of the game thus meaning neither side would be able to achieve anything leaving our alliance to expand into Zurg space and one of us ultimately win. As it happened the Polanies started a major W22 beamer BB building campaign at about this time which changed the balance of power in their favour, thus the Loranians started to fall back, this was bad cos it would mean conflict which I was not ready for as it was clear that the Polanies were going to be our main rival. Unfortunately our attack on the Polanie alliance was about 4 to 5 years to late to reduce his BB Building spurt. What it did mean was that we were going to have to help the Loranians against the Polanie alliance in which the Zurg had now joined.
From this point on battle lines were drawn and so our initial attack around 2462 consisted of a co-ordinated packet attacks on about 5 Polanie and 2 or 3 Zurg planets if my memory is correct. Fortunately both players had neglected to build any defenses so they lost these planets, I estimated about 4 million plus Polanie pop bit the dust in this attack  . The Armagons supported by me mounted a bombing sortie on the central Polanie /Desquis planets which tied up some of their ships thus helping the Loranians but when our fleets were eventually caught this allowed Polanies to concentrate on the Loranians. Another large number of pop were destroyed during this attack. Ships at this stage were heavy blaster BB's which were out gunned by the Polanie BB's
My advance into Zurg space was steady at this time, there was no resistance as I think the Zurg player gave up almost as soon as I attacked, during the rest of the game the Loranians and I picked off planets at will. The mins I gained from this were invaluable.
Not a lot else happened until 2469 when a combined Polanie/Desquis fleet attempted an incursion through the wormhole, luckily due to my scanning ability I had seen anticipated it and manage to ambush  it as it emerged from the wormhole which was a surprise to them  , the only mistake I made was not to have any chaff present at the ensuing battle, I had forgotten to move some into range of the wormhole, duh!!  But for a measily 300 chaff or so victory would have been total and I would have not lost 38 Doomsday BB's, still it stopped the invasion which was never to be attempted again.
About 2480 I raided through the same wormhole and took out 3 Polanie planets in quick order with my bombers , this raid however was to end in disaster  when I failed to adequately chaff sweep a minefield before moving through it and all my chaff and mini bombers blew up. Another error on my part . The rest of the BB's then got picked off taking a chaff fleet and a couple of BB with them due to some questionable battle orders for his missile BB's (minimise damge to self order seems to be flawed). Ships at this stage were Mega D BB's and Doom BB's supported by H blaster destroyer minesweepers.
The rest of the game was mainly spent helping Lorainans stem the advance of the Polanies in the western sector with minefields and destroyer spoiling tactics with a few other small bombing sorties.
Late in the game (2495) I finally realised that before the BFT player had stopped playing he had set my empire to friend and so I sent a bombing fleet through to his gate deep inside Polanie alliance territory and attacked one planet before game end.
Home space never came under threat again although there was some concerted mine clearing activity in the last decade but this did not come to anything.
All in all whilst I was not the most aggressive player I felt that I did enough to hold Polanies down to achieve my aim which was victory, I was lucky to have two allies who acted as buffers and aided my win considerabley, my thanks go to Damon (Loranians) and Scott (Armagons). Damon especially did a heroic job showing his experience, skill and knowledge of the game. Scott, I hope I imparted some of my limited knowlegde to you, you certainly seemed to getting the hang of things towards the end of the game.
Damon, thankyou for your expansive review. I was pleased to hear your analysis of my play and am positive that had you been in Rwiab1 you would have certainly seen a definite improvment. As I said at the top of this review I had a good teacher. During this game I made alot of errors though not being thorough enough, things like incorrect warp speed settings, not marshalling my fleets to the correct positions, not checking I was going to use stargates when I wanted to, wrong battle plans and such like. It just goes to prove how methodical you need to be to play this game error free. I doubt anyone ever plays the perfect game due to the vast numbers of things that are going on at one time.
Regarding my/our reluctance to allow you access to planets within our space, you were correct in your asumption in that at that time we were unsure of your intentions, I could see that you were a vastly more experienced player than myself and Scott so erred on the side of caution. I feel that in the end cruel as it might have been my/our strategy of giving just enough aid to keep you functioning was correct so as you clearly stated in your text you became a kingmaker to me/us.
Game end the majority of my missile BB's were Dooms with about 12 Arm, MPS langston shell boats in existence. Beamers were standard 16 Mega D type. To answer your point about not wasting mins etc on Doom ships but waiting for Arms, it was clear that the Polanies/ Desquis had a slight W tech advantage but were lacking in other areas, I decided I could not wait for W24 and get a credible fleet up in time to counter theirs so I decided to continue building dooms as they would do the job just as well if I had enough of them. Total capital ship build was 304 with only 47 of these being Heavy Blaster BB's.
My thanks to all who participated in this game, may you all have success in other galaxies.
Paul, Ok supreme leader.
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
Current Time: Thu Apr 18 06:09:14 EDT 2024
|
Members
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
