Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » Game stories » Stone Age Slaughter 4 has ended
| Re: Stone Age Slaughter 4 has ended |
Tue, 28 February 2012 12:31   |
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| rolfverberg |
 | Master Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 103
Registered: March 2006
Location: Ithaca, NY, USA | |
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I played the Aiel, a 2 immune HE race. I have wanted to play HE again for a while and this game setup seemed designed for it. I
picked 2 immunities, 7% growth and fast factory settings to be (hopefully) competitive early on. I feared being overrun early after people realized they had a HE player as neighbor. My mine setting where marginal, but you can't have it all 
My race was:
IS/NRSE/OBRM/NAS/BET/RS
T -132C to +132C, G and R immune
1/1000
13/7/17
1 less G checked
10/4/15
E/C/EL cheap, others expensive, start at 3 checked
I didn't keep an accurate log, so my game story is mostly from memory. However, it should be correct on the broad time lines,
despite inevitable inaccuracies in the details here and there.
I started by scouting very aggressively and sending colonizers out very quickly to the best planets without delay. I started in the right-center, so I had to play this carefully or face enemies on all sides. I quickly noticed that a nice cluster in the left-center didn't have a player HW and went for that first, skipping suitable planets in between. Right around that time I had established contact with all but the Gardians (with whom I actually never entered in a diplomatic dialogue). I found the Tara Browne (JoaT) in the NNW, the Zielone Smarki (SD) in the NE, the Catalluns (3I HE) in the E, the Gooberdudes (IT) in the SE, the Manticorans (TT CA) in the S and the Dinosaurs (WM) in the W. The only player I had no whereabouts of at that time were the Gardeners (JoaT), which kinda had to be in the SW or far NW. I established borders and NAPS with all these neighbors.
I spotted a Maticorans OA very early and directly approached them. A CA as ally seemed ideal: Gates and terraforming in trade for planets. Very early as well, the Tara Browne colonized two planets that were virtuallyon top of my HW. I was not too amused by that, but he made a good offer for trade. He disclosed information about the NW corner that ruled out the Gardeners presence and allowed me to colonize any planet that was unsuitable to him. At about the same time I agreed to a border with the Dinosaurs. They were in the W (slightly S) after all and also laid claim on the nice left-center cluster that I mentioned above. Although it turned out to be closer to his HW, I had already colonized two planets in that cluster and had 2 other colonizer fleets on the way. As a result I was able to negotiate a border that let me keep 2 planets in that cluster in return for vacating a planet on my side of the border for him. My quick early colonization in that area had paid off. It seemed a fair and good border agreement and gave me a jumping board to the NW corner. The latter was actually my main motivation for wanting a presence in that cluster. It seemed that the NW corner was ripe for the picking. I established a 10 year NAP with both the Dinosaurs and the Tara Brown until at least 2419 and 3 respectively 2 year NAPs after that. That gave me time enough to get colonies going in the NW and generally develop the other
areas of my territory.
Right around the same time, the Manticorans agreed to terraform a border planet that was still red for me and that gave promise of a lasting mutual cooperation. The same planet that I had vacated for the Dinosaurs turned out ideal for them, so we agreed that I would stay neutral if he attacked it and claimed it for his own. The same agreement was reached for the two planets that the Tara Brown had colonized right near my HW.
After all the early diplomacy was done, I entered a period of relative quite. I quickly developed and managed to climb to the 2nd place fairly soon. That was very encouraging, since I didn't expect my race to be that fast early on, but favorable negotiations helped me a bit I think. My centered starting position worried me at first, but after reaching agreements with all my neighbors it proved a blessing and left me with a relatively large territory, an intersettling agreement with the Tara Browne and a very promising relation with the Manticorans.
I don't remember the exact sequence of event in the late 20s and 30s, but at one point the Tara Browne started a war with the Zielone Smarki, which I happily encouraged since I was the obvious other candidate for the Zielone Smarki. I had a feeling the were friendly with the Catalluns and I also suspected the Catalluns to be friendly with the Gooberdudes. That gave me potentially a three player front in the East, not something that I took lightly. So I assisted the Tara Brown in a very minimal way and let them fight it out. The Maticorans expressed a desire to attack the Gooberdudes in their corner, so we agreed that I would watch the N and NE and keep an eye on the Catalluns and he would attack the SE corner. Apparently it didn't go unnoticed and the Manticorans made a strong enough impression on the Dinosaurs and Gardeners that they jointly declared war on the Manticorans in order to contain them.
So I ended up in the center in relative calm waters with my Northern neighbors attacking each other and the Dinosaurs/Gardeners/Gooberdudes attacking the Manticorans. The time seemed ripe to establish more permanent agreements. The Tara Brown approached me with the desire for a permanent full alliance, just at about the same time that I entered a similar discussion with the Maticorans. The game did not allow more than 2 players to claim victory as alliance, which was enough reason for me to make a tough choice right there and then. The Maticorans as CA had simply more to offer than the Tara Brown, so I agreed to a full alliance with the Manticorans. It was a pleasant surprise to find him being in 1st place at that point. I was not quite sure about that part before we disclosed out m-files. I offered assistance against his foes, be he was quite confident that he could manage for the time being (which turned out to be correct), so I focused on development and research. I'm quite sure that I was the first to get to W11, and I already had C11 and E11, so I started building MMs with delta torps. This was in a time when the Northern war was still fought with DD and FF hordes, so they were quite powerful indeed.
The Tara Brown declared war on me relatively soon after I entered an alliance with the Manticorans (I had told them that when I turned them down). They had been quite successful against the Zielone Smarki, but were behind in technology (quite possible as a result of their early war efforts). Their ships and bases were no match against delta torp MMs and I got the upper hand in most areas quite soon. We were very much intersettled, but the fact that they had gates and I did not didn't tip the balance in their favor. I think that the successful elimination of the Tara Brown and a successful first battle of the Manticorans against the Dinosaurs laid the basis of our later joint victory in the game. With the Tara Brown eliminated, I could simply stall the front with the Zielone Smarki and get Jihad BBs as quickly as possible. Once there I declared war against the Dinosaurs, forcing them to worry about a second front and hopefully assisting the Manticorans indirectly, while I started assembling my first BB fleet. It
seemed to have worked, since the Dinosaurs send a considerable force to my border with them, temporarily relieving the Manticorans. I also build a Jihad DD horde of about a hundred ships as a gateable defensive fleet at the Manticoran front. The Catalluns declared war on me and started to actively assist the Zielone Smarki. I lost some terrain initially, but was then able to force and maintain a status quo. In the mean time I actively joined the war against the Dinosaurs and Gardeners. I had one stack of Jihad BBs on the Manticorans front and started attacking the Dinosaurs on their Northern border. The combined effort proved to much and we soon gained the upper hand.
The only serious threat in the game at that point were the Catalluns. They had an impressive stack of Jihad BBs. But their front was large and our joined production significantly larger than theirs. I think they lacked good gate access at strategic locations, despite being friendly with the Gooberdudes and Zielone Smarki, while I already was enjoying for some time the benefit of Manticoran gates at several convenient locations. We started building a large stack of chaff and I was gating in a quickly growing stack of beamer BBs. The game ended with two battles against the Catalluns that ended in our favor, one fairly decisive, one with some luck from randomness in the battle engine and Catallun losses due to engine strain. By that time, the Manticorans had started building CP BBs and were cranking them out in large numbers and I had started a new BB design with Phased Sappers and Mark IV Blasters. The outcome of the game was inevitable.
The Manticorans lacked technology for most of the game, but they had an impressive production capacity and build large fleets of
Phaser Bazooka CCs. With these CCs in sufficient numbers the lack of up to date technology proved to be irrelavant. I had a
technological edge in most of the game, which in combination with a large territory made up for my marginal production capacity. The combination worked perfectly.
Thanks again all for an interesting game!
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