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| Re: And the Results are: |
Sat, 05 June 2004 23:13   |
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 Evaron |
 | Crewman 1st Class |
Messages: 24
Registered: February 2004 | |
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First, good game guys, was interesting. I'm going to make a fairly candid summation of what went on by my view, including places I think people misstepped, so try not to take mentions of strategic errors too harshly.
I was SS as everyone should know by now with IFE, IS, NRSE, and NARM. I had expensive energy, prop, and bio, cheap weapons and electronics, and normal construction. I was high growth with no factories.
In retrospect, this race design didn't work very well for the game. There were too many people playing in the space given for me to spread out enough. I would have done better playing a more factory dependent race as I lost a lot of growth when I lost places to expand safely.
Good points in my favor so far as placement were the Fnords dropped out before they ever did anything, giving me no threat from my east, and I was on good terms with southern neighbors. I also had hab ranges that were nearly complete reversals of others so I could go to most any planet I wanted and settle it.
So far as bad points, only people who really got in my way consistently were the Legion and Asgard with their huge bands in everything. The massive expansionist policies of the Legion were continually annoying. I also did not end up starting out with a great many green worlds nearby. I was terraforming nearly from the start. There was not a single planet near me by the end of the game that was yellow. I often began terraforming worlds while they were still red at times so I could get them green as swiftly as possible later. Zappa was a good example of this.
At the beginning of the game the Adioids made mention of their position and asked to be friends with people, so I sent them a reply saying I was interested in working with them. After a little bit of discussion I found the Specks had a similar relationship so we formed an alliance. Initially we planned to build up our tech enough to get some trading going and then to destroy the Fnord. I also made contact with the Legion who seemed friendly at the time and negotiated some intersettlement. This is where the Legion got claim on some planets the Q tips wanted. They were not to be traded to my knowledge, they were planets that had been traded to him. He asked me about it and I told him it was his in my view but I had no ships to support him in holding them if he couldn't. Which was true at the time.
Regardlesss, I was hoping to get some additional technology since he mentioned some advanced remote miners and I expected that meant a AR race, which would be mean energy as well. Turned out to be the Woblor though. I figured that even if we were different alliances, we could perhaps be friendly for the time being until we beat up some other races. After a while I found out he was allied with the Woblor and the Asgard, but the amount of time it took me to get that, plus his willingness to ally with people past the 3 person limit, and finally his lack of willingness to work out any useful trading for me, was aggravating me. I let it alone though so I could expand elsewhere. We'd decided we'd leave the Legion last if alliances remained as they were. I didn't want to dig out an IS with low tech bombs. The Specks were worried about the Pionner at the time too and we thought then we'd fight them next. I didn't much like the Q tips since they were telling people where I lived and my PRT, so I had little contact with them. I decided eventually I'd give lukewarm support verbal support to both them and the Legion and hope they just battled each other for a while. I did as much as I could to stall things like settling Trog, which the Legion wanted to launch an assault. I do have to say his constant attempts to wring more planets from me further angered me.
The Legions biggest error the whole game I think was clearly that he pushed people too hard and was not always the nicest about it. His diplomacy really soured me on him. I generally do not like dirty diplomacy but I felt no compunction about it after having to deal with some of his comments. Though I will say though, I don't think I ever told an out and out lie in any communication. I try to avoid that. There were certainly numerous times though I said things that could be taken different ways and were slanted so people would hear what they wanted to hear.
I attempted to trade bio for energy with the woblor so I could more easily get rober barons later on, yet use organic armor while it was useful. It took me a while to move that far west well though since the Specks had to settle a refueling point for me.
As everyone knows, the Fnord eventually left and the invasion became something more talked about since we didn't exactly want to spend the resources on a nonexistant threat until we had better bombs. The Adioids made vague comments of having to break for a bit, then never came back. We waited for a while but then I eventually told the Specks this was worthless. I was long since suspecting from Legion emails and other information gained from worried Q tips and the like (I think I got a very good amount of diplomacy done in emails, many times without the recipiants knowing what I was after) that there was an Asgard/Legion/Woblor axis. Possibly Pionner as well. Some suspected tech trading was seen in any case. It seemed likely the core alliance would eventually crush the rest of us and we therefore could not afford to be two races by ourselves.
That basically left the Pionner and the Q tips. Everyone else was too far besides the Legion and Woblor, and it'd be across hostile territory. I suggested the Pionner initially since I thought a warmonger who wasn't embattled would be more useful in the long run. The Specks didn't believe he would be much of a team player though and we therefore decided on the Q tips. I wasn't very happy still about having my homeworld location sold out earlier in the game (and as a side note this was the initial justification for why the Legion attacked the Q tips) but I didn't see much other choice so I decided to just let bygones be bygones and we invited them in. This was when our tech trading got started more in earnest, though it was mostly me giving to others to start with. I was the only hyper growth race in our group so for the moment my tech was much stronger than some embattled hyper production races. The long wait had been largely due to the slow expansion of my race by fueling ports (usually a new planet when found was too far without a relay point) and then the researching of gates. I know that the Speck technology was absolutely horrible early in the game. He was researching only weapons and I was often even with him by using my SS bonus alone.
Anyway, while this was going on (or thereabouts) I was settling the edge of Woblor space in force as a wormhole had opened. This wormhole remained for most of the game. I was considering this a sort of passive invasion of the area. Whether or not I attacked later was under consideration. I wasn't going to do anything at least until I got the tech traded. Woblor started bombing most of my new colonies though, including some that had even been suggested as places to look at by the Legion, who was his close ally. I sent destroyers through to defend myself and this started a bunch of Legion complaints about me not being nice to him. Which I basically ignored as I'd not settled any place of any interest to him to settle. I'd broken no treaties as I'd had no border treaty with the Woblor. I decide not to talk with him though regardless. I had to expand someplace and Woblor territory was the best direction for me to go. I started moving out with military escorts and took Hydroplane, and then I sat down to gain more pop for a while, as well as on Little Brother.
About then the Legion decided my space was free game to settle and moved on the old Fnord homeworld. I warned him off but he got crabby again and so I built ships and scared him off. He got away with split fleet dodge, but the next year all his fleets but the decoy got blown up in my minefield. It amused me greatly.
He did drop Little Brother though which was still getting defenses, something I couldn't stop. He tried attacking Zappa but he screwed up his battle orders and his ships wouldn't close. The next year I had the place armed and shot his ships down. He also failed to seize Trog. Trog and Zappa were annoyances. I needed them stratgically but there were unable to be green without extensive terraforming, so I could only get about 120 resources a year and 55 mines apiece on them. I did the best I could.
Eventually while I and the Q tips were doing small raids on Woblor space the Specks got a big armada of jihad ships to wipe them out. This was going fine until the Specks decided to attack Nifleheim and we were unable to regain momentum. This is the one instance I do want to say I told them so.  It was argued over extensively but I didn't win that one. For a while we barely held on in the region, our strategic mishap only not bringing us ruin because the Legion wasn't planning out things much better. He bombed both my planets but didn't stick around to finish them off at all and made other huge errors. And then I had jihad bases up. I might have held on anyway but it took me a long time to get the jihad tech.
This is a note, it is generally not smart to put 2 techs on a single scrapper when one is a rush. I got a couple levels of propulsion from Specks before I ever got missles, which was what I needed. This is how I lost Trog too. Missles came a few turns too late.
Those croby bayonnets the Legion used were the cheapest things imaginable I have to say. The armor was not limited by RS and the shielding was enhanced by it. There was no real counter to his frigates in the early game at all besides mass sappers and then mass frigates with beams. And you'd need more total. If it wasn't for those and his croby shielded starbases we would have beaten him early on.
I think this was about when we began more serious discussions with the Ethereals and the Lemmings both. I had talked to the Ethereals briefly before but not to any real extent. They seemed mostly angry about the Asgard locking them in and I talked them into trading me energy, which I was having the Q tips scrap and disseminate. They didn't know it went to them first. I let him have a planet to placate him and because I didn't think he'd be a threat. He was worried about being all found out and all so I gave him a phony email threatening him if he tried anything to use; involving he was not to put beams on his base and clear my minefields. Of course I really would have blown up his colony if that had been the case but it was something that had more of a tone of an arrogant power speaking down to an unwilling vassal then a gentle reminder to a friendly race. Not sure if he ever did use. He had eventually joined the A/L/W axis out of fear of destruction by the Asgard though I tried to keep him from trading them energy. I'm not sure how successful I was, though the Legion seemed to have poor shields all game. The Lemmings were also worried about the Asgard. The Q tips were assigned to talk them into being helpful independent of us in order to conceal the true extent of our southern alliance. Then we could come across later as a loose confederation of disgruntled races when in actuallity everything in the south was heavily coordinated, involving multiple emails each turn of discussion and sharing information.
Eventually the Ethereals started dumping us extensive information on their discussions of tech trading and ship movements. This was helpful when we used it. I did miscalculate in having the specks at harrison go north where the legion destroyed the ships by ship-follow commands. I don't think they expected it to move that direction though so it was mostly luck. The Specks abandoned Harrison, which I didn't think was a good idea as it gave the Legion room to expand from Nifleheim, even if it wasn't a very good Speck world. What was more useful was indications of what the Legion and Asgard had tech wise. We were able to plan how long we had for example before the Legion got level 16 weapons and started building more ships. And finally what was most useful was there was evidence of poor communication. The Legion said things like "Well, let me talk to the Woblor" and was still trying to argue the Asgard into helping fight us. So it became clear to me their alliance was strong in output of resources but its connections were very faulty. Only the Legion seemed to know what the Asgard and Woblor were doing, and only the Asgard seemed to know what the Ethereals were doing. We found out about the little colonization mishaps and the like and I got together with the Q tips and we began an aggressive campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Asgard people. I sent an apology over a scout ship that got accidently destroyed (which the Asgard didn't recall and I didn't really think important, but it was a conversation starter and made me look nice) and worked to smooth things over with him and the Q tips while the Q tips took a bit harder approach about the borders. I generally through the game took an apathetic note on his borders and encouraged intersettlement. The Q tips made hard edges so he never intersettled too far (I'd learned my lesson with letting the Legion move close to me). I also made sure he knew our side of the story (none of which was made up I want to mention, though of course was done by my perspective, which may have differed by player).
Then we started sending technology to the Lemmings, who he decided to focus on fighting. Hence making sure he focused on the Lemmings, slowly fighting them across the north, for a good long while. The Lemmings got a huge amount of advanced tech from the rest of us, which was why we often heard mention of things from the Asgard like "Wow, the Lemmings are really strong still, they must be an HP race." No such thing. He was pretty weak to my knowledge and had few minerals. We just sent him stuff to arm him far past his means.
I think this was about when things all collapsed in their alliance for whatever reason (wasn't told this), and then we managed to move on the Woblor again, using Speck MMs under Q tip control for cloaking. I contributed a few ships, but was mainly getting the tech for robber barons and battleships. I counseled waiting for battleships and not getting MMs, but the Specks went ahead anyway. In the end, their decision was the right one that time. It may not have been if the Legion had waited and got beamer battleships with no armor to gate (which is what I thought he would make) instead of building more croby frigates, which were not too useful anymore ship for ship. He built some missle cruisers too but they weren't any match for the speck MMs with their single 8 slot of weapons. I was building missle battleships now to destroy his colonies in my space and had just mass packeted a bunch of his planets he left undefended (Legion played a bit arrogantly at times so far as ground defense). Didn't get a chance before game ended however.
Regardless, I was expanding in the northwest, trying to mop up the Legion using battleships after my mass packets, and was gaining ground again after being choked in expansion in Woblor territory. We were finally decisively beating the Woblor and Legion on all fronts (though most of the "decisive" was more just out and out fleeing by the enemy) and the Specks had doomsday battleships coming out in the near future to help wrap up Legion ultrastations in the south In a few years we would have controlled everything south of the Legion home systems, east of the Pionner, and below the Asgard. From our estimation of the Legion fleet he couldn't have beaten our armada. There was also a chunk of the NW, though a wormhole to Legion space may have ruined our day there. We were going to eventually mass beamer battleships with the Specks (flux capacitor was why him) while I got missle ships and Q tips provided more light raiders to help when we began using robber barons. A tech that would have gone into use beginning next turn. We were very strong then as we'd gotten to 14 energy from the Ethereals to supplement our own gains, though we'd lost contact with them to any extent in the recent past. The Lemmings were about done but were able to keep offing a few Asgard colonies here and there as well as stray Legion ones he'd overexpanded on. The Pionner coming in and attacking the Asgard was a bonus. I expected the Asgard to defeat them soundly, but losing a chunk of his 250+ cruiser fleet and blunting his expansion significantly. And then he'd be no match for our existing fleet and our upcoming fleet, which would have our significant PRT advantages behind us. Robber barons alone could have tied him down with big fleets guarding every world if we kept some heavily cloaked armed rogues with them. Stealth Bombers would have made every expansion attempt a trial. And with no one trading with him he was done in my mind. I think the only late game alliance that would have saved him was with the Pionner. And after the Pionner lost in the NW (unless their battleships had more than I thought) we could have easily seized his poorly defended Warmonger worlds.
Anyway, thats how things went, good game everyone.
The Dark Angels
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And the Results are:
By: nash on Sat, 05 June 2004 00:53 |
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Re: And the Results are:
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Re: And the Results are:
By: nash on Sat, 05 June 2004 07:12 |
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Re: And the Results are:
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Re: And the Results are:
By: Evaron on Sat, 05 June 2004 23:27 |
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Re: And the Results are:
By: Evaron on Sat, 05 June 2004 23:13 |
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Re: And the Results are:
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Re: And the Results are:
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Re: And the Results are:
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Re: And the Results are:
By: Evaron on Sun, 06 June 2004 17:36 |
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Re: And the Results are:
By: Evaron on Sun, 06 June 2004 17:38 |
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Re: And the Results are:
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Re: And the Results are:
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Re: And the Results are:
By: Evaron on Mon, 07 June 2004 02:49 |
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Re: And the Results are:
By: Kaly on Wed, 09 June 2004 11:27 |
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Re: And the Results are:
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Re: And the Results are:
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Re: And the Results are:
By: Evaron on Wed, 16 June 2004 00:20 |
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Re: And the Results are:
By: nash on Wed, 23 June 2004 07:59 |
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