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Re: And the Results are: Sun, 06 June 2004 16:42 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
oshaughn is currently offline oshaughn

 
Civilian

Messages: 1
Registered: January 2004
Here are my two cents.

EARLY GAME - Startup era: 2400-2410
As a double-immune 14%(=2*7%) growth-rate HE with cheap weapons and everything else expensive, my plan was to grab the tons of great planets I was guaranteed of finding and find nice allies with stargates to complement my weaknesses. I *had* to find an ally who intersettled heavily with me, lacking gates of my own, and therefore that ally must totally trust me, and I him.
The DA turned out to be perfect -- they were also strong growth, perfectly complemented my hab range, and were practically next door. Thank you Adioids!
This alliance was quickly developing around 2405. Within a year or two, we were extensively trading scouting data (albeit with some difficulty, because of the huge mass of data to be transferred) between the Adioid-DA-Speck group.
Naturally, I was estatic -- I believe by around 2405-2407 I already had mapped out every planet that I could conceivably take within 5-8 warp-9 years from my planet, and was already entering in colonization plans into my 'empire' spreadsheet.

The alliance was not without its strains. The Adioids were already looking weak -- even in the huge list we had, they simply couldn't find habitable planets. The DA contacts to their northern neighbor, the Legion, made me quite worried that our embryonic alliance might falter. Since I knew of many great planets deep in DA space that I loved, I was worried. Also, by this time (I think in around 2406-ish) the woblor had already been harassing my colonizers and killing my tiny colonies (Sodium) near them. Too, we learned the Woblor and Legion cooperated. Because of these internal and external challenges, I threw myself into diplomacy for a few years, trying to probe the extent of the Legion/Woblor alliance, encourage their focus on the Q-tips, and extract information from the Q-tips about other possible ways to distract our neighbors (i.e. attacks from the other side). I also began overtures to the Pionner, who I knew to be WM. An alliance between the Pionner and Woblor would be a disaster for me personally and our alliance in general, because we'd be surrounded, with no obvious weak points to exploit.

MID-GAME - critical realignments: 2410-2435
Economically, bounded by a border on the west with the Pionner and to the north with the Woblor, I expanded east, into the already scouted DA area. At this time, most of my colonization plans were set, and I entered into my spreadsheet projections that fairly accurately modelled the growth of my power.

Diplomatically, the DA and I independently realized the Adioids had to go [this is around ~2420]. We had already (through me) been helping the Q-tips with information about Legion/Woblor plans. Too, from a strategic sense, the Q-tips were much better allies -- and, furthermore, I knew the Q-tip leader to be a wily tactician who would be a great advantage in the conflicts to come. [I learned later that he had been thwarting the bulk of Legion attacks with just 8 weak destroyers.] So the new alliance was born.
The Q-tips brought to the alliance knowledge of the Asgard. The DA, from his own work with the Legion, knew the Asgard were working with the Legion. I personally feared the worst...particularly as scouting revealed the extent of Asgard power. I began to worry about the Asgard a lot. The DA tried stalling tactics with the Legion, but as he noted in his email their relations rapidly deteriorated.
With regard to other species, I made efforts to contact other species and outline the Asgard/Legion/Woblor 'threat', which really worried me. During this time, the Pionner and I developed excellent relations, from both our points of view -- we had a border, and we left each other alone. [This border still holds!] The Pionner were in the middle of crushing the Anarod...and while I made some preliminary contacts with their leader, in the hope of keeping the Pionner bogged down, I quickly relized it was pointless: I didn't have gates, and couldn't help them, and information wasn't helpful against WM destroyers. [The Anarod were soon annihilated.]
Finally, I tried to develop 'ok' relations with the Legion/Woblor, to keep the surprise attack (see below) a real surprise. By 2432, things were going so well that the Woblor let me launch what (to them) was a set of resupply fleets for a small colony at Lambda.

Militarily...well, that gets tricky. The Q-tips were skirmishing, doing remarkably well considering the few resources they had to bear. The DA started their settling of space near the Woblor homeworld (Whistler's mother, etc). I had been working towards Jihad missiles since the beginning of the game. Eventually, with Q-tip assistance (~2426), we decided on the Jihad plan described in the Q-tip message, and worked out a detailed timetable...but, because I wasn't able to reach the force limits or refuelling requirements the Q-tips set up, that didn't work out as planned. [Argh! It was close, too...that Niflheim spacedock was almost dead.] Well, we were still able to take out the New and Hell ships at the same time, if I recall.

LATER GAME: 2435-present
[This is a really long post, and I'm going to stop because I'm tired of writing it and reading the gazillion old emails we wrote to figure out what we did way back when.]

At this point, I had to travel fairly frequently, so my diplomatic efforts were eliminated, and my emails to my allies erratic, to their dismay, since miscommunication caused quite a few problems. Fortunately, I didn't have much to do -- I was near completely in the rear area, and (with the exception of a second, disasterous attempt on Sodium) didn't do much militarily for the rest of the game until what became the 'endgame' period.
Nor was my economy much trouble -- I just grabbed yellows when I got the appropriate radiation terraforming, and gradually worked them up to good planets.

Really, after the problems at Sodium, I built some minelayers, put myself into a heavy research mode, and tried to do a better job at getting tech to and building ships for my allies. I had an economy, but lacking penetrating scanners, stargates, or direct knowledge of the front I couldn't as easily make military plans myself. So I waited.



ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:
I have all the emails I sent and received, if anyone wants to read them, along with all my turns.

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