Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » Game stories » All Quiet has ended
| Re: All Quiet has ended |
Sat, 27 November 2010 21:20   |
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| Eagle of Fire | 
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 809
Registered: December 2008
Location: GMT -5 | |
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Hummm... This game is really far in the past in my memories. But I'll try to fill in the gaps as the original Eagles o Fornax player.
This was pretty much my first game against humans. I devised a -F IT race with one immunity and somehow decided that it would be a wise choice to go with immunity to temperature. Looking back at the race file, I can't understand why as there is no real advantage to that. Newbie mistake, I presume.
While I don't remember much, I do have the habit of preserving all my turns. So here is what I pieced together by looking over old turns.
I started in the middle southern of the map and I had what I considered at the time a very good start. Being IT, I had two homeworlds to start with. Generation luck gave me a big immediate advantage on one of my neighbors, the Sofians: my second planet was in gate range of his primary planet. By 2401, I knew I had another IT neighbor and where his homeworld was. What I used most in this game was my diplomacy skills, and very early Sofians and I began to discuss how to divide our borders. By arguing that the second planet of an IT player was in fact only the extension of his starting territory, I managed (only using diplomacy) to claim for myself most of the space nearby his HW. I was pretty happy about that for I learned afterward that his secondary planet was north of his HW and thus not in my way.
So I used the early game by expending a lot in every direction, without having to fight or to worry about fighting my neighbors. I met the Alpheus/Lacon far to the north of my territory but they were not really interested in serious talk nor in conflict. Shortly after I had to cross a big void of space to the west of my territory and I then met the Lurkers.
At that time in the game, I did not worry about fighting at all and didn't even started building warships yet. I had learned that the Sofians had already decided to ally themselves with another race (the SS Elurids) and the proximity of my borders with the Sofians as well as the new alliance made me worry of a surprise attack on their part. A short time and a lot of discussions later, I managed to bring a very happy Lurker player to form an alliance with me. Tensions about a possible surprise attack slowly dissolved and we took time to exchange tech and inter-colonize our territory.
If there is one mistake I did in this game, especially playing as -F, it was to be so peaceful. I should have been way more aggressive from the start to gobble up more territory to be able to compete with the other +F players... But I was new to the game and rather clueless and everything was working very very well for me up to the point when -Rancor- decided to try to "steal" planets very near my HW. -Rancor- was the first player I met in that game who was pretty oblivious to diplomacy... And by that time me and my teammate were building our fleet, looking for a target to expend our territory. The Lurkers had already "scraped shields" with -Rancor- and all my other neighbors were very friendly and true to their words... So it didn't take long to decide that they were our next target.
-Rancor- was, at the time, allied with the Alpheus/Lacon and the only reason why we hesitated to attack -Rancor- right away was because while I had peaceful contact with them, we didn't know about the status of their military. We knew we would have to use the majority of our militaty in -Rancor- space at first, and my territory was then in danger of being attacked by the Alpheus/Lacon in return. Strangely (and hopefully for me), Alpheus/Lacon was just as tired of -Rancor- as we were (or at the very least that's what I understood of our diplomatic contacts) and when we finally launched our attack on -Rancor-, Alpheus/Lacon simply detached themselves from the alliance and allowed us to proceed.
It is at that moment, as we plowed thru -Rancor- space and that the Alpheus/Lacon became single again among all the other dual alliances around, that the game shifted. All Quiet rules were pretty specific about alliances in the game, and three players in the same alliance was the maximum. After a short while we realized that, even though we had destroyed his homeworld and most of his territory, -Rancor- was in fact growing stronger instead of weaker. It became quickly apparent that someone was helping them fight back on us, and we knew that the Alpheus/Lacon was not that someone... So we assumed that the Bugs were helping -Rancor- slow us down and we understood this as a three-way alliance. We were pretty annoyed by this and alliance discussions were initiated with Alpheus/Lacon so we could ensure to be able to fight back the first 3-way alliance in the game.
After a short time thereafter, it became apparent for most alliances in the game that the Bugs were the real threat of the galaxy. He was +F, we had estimated by recouping information that he occupied by himself more territory than mine and Lurkers combined (and thus pretty much more than any other alliance too as we thought we were the second biggest alliance in term of territory) and they had the technology to fight us effectively. It was impossible for us to draft a third alliance member other than Alpheus/Lacon as all other alliance were happy with their dual status... And -Rancor- managed to hold us back very efficiently with hit and run guerrilla tactics. It was thus status quo until the final coup the théatre (and my alliance coup de grace) as Alpheus/Lacon finally announced that he had chosen his new alliance partners: the Bugs/Vedins alliance.
At this very moment, me and the Lurkers became quite disgusted by the game because of the fact that we believed that the Bugs/Vedins alliance had cheated the 3-way alliance max rules by sheltering, protecting, giving away planets and providing -Rancor- with new technology at the same time as creating what they claimed was a 3-way alliance with Bugs, Vedins and Alpheus/Lacon. Claims were made, we requested that Bugs either stop protecting the fifth wheel of their wagon and either attack or allow us to attack -Rancor- head on... But those claims remained unanswered.
I was getting really busy with work at that time, and I admitted to Lurkers that I was growing tired of this game and rapidly losing interest because of what I considered cheating of the pre-established rules of the game. Lurkers admitted similar feelings and added that if I were to drop off from the game that he would also lose complete interest and drop off too.
Is this then I sent for a replacement call, and we both stopped playing. The last turn I have in my archive is 2479.
I did learn a lot in this game. While extremely excruciating to fend off, my analysis of -Rancor- guerrilla tactics as well as the counter I devised against it became part of my standard strategy on the field in later games and, while I can say that his diplomacy was practically non-existant... -Rancor- tactical expertise on the field was just as equally unmatched.
-EoF
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