Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » Game stories » New Beginner Game has ended
| beg: From the perspective of the Bizarres (Altruist) |
Thu, 01 June 2017 16:03   |
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(Since it was a beginner game, I'll discuss some things more in depth as usual plus I'll add some links to further articles.)
Part 1: Prelude: first 25 years, starting locations, alliances, early game
Part 2: War against Zoids/Arelu (Centre War)
Part 3: Battles over the SW-corner
Part 4: War with snth/Roaches (NE-corner)
Part 1: Prelude: first 25 years, starting locations, alliances, early game
I played the Bizarres, allied with the Humanoids, played by mijgo.
Experienced players in a beginner game are, of course, a problem, so the discussion about the game rules agreed that those had to set con and weap to expensive with 150pts to defenses and experienced weren't allowed to ally with each other. Additionally I wasn't allowed to play IT. The game started with 3 beginners and 3 experienced players.
Bizarres
WM
IFE, ISB, NRSE, OBRM, NAS, RS
hab: 0.24-7.04 grav, -136 to 184 temp, 67-97 rad (2 wide, rad narrow, altogether 1 in 4)
pop growth: 19%
factories: 12/9/14, germ box checked
mines: 10/3/17
research: all expensive, tech3 at start checked
202 leftover pts to defenses
The race design was a rather standard hyper growth (HG) with the exception that all tech was expensive:
# "Hyper-growth vs. Hyper-producer" by Scott Phelps
# Stars-R-Us Collection: Race Design/Strategy
I decided against setting any of the "minor" tech fields to normal or cheap because I needed the pts and usually follow the idea that those techs can be also researched at expensive or better: stolen from the opponents. Warmonger I chose because it is fun to play, I wasn't allowed to play IT and the starting weap tech for WMs (weap 6 = yakis) provides nice early opportunities as well as a good protection against those players with weapon research cheap (at least during the very beginning).
Used to IT and an often quite worse hab (1 in 7, yes, IT is expensive), I expected a cozy start with lots of greens in my early surroundings and time enough to get up my economy before the newbies would get too trigger happy with their advantage in weapon and perhaps con tech.
2401: first ship on scanners and PRT/LRT/tech analysis
The very first year showed a destroyer (DD) in space from one of my neighbours. That's always a highly interesting thing. Everybody is eager to play but there is nothing really to do that early in a game, so you have all the time you want to make an in depth analysis of the ship:
As a warmonger it is easy because you can see the complete design right away.
But even for other PRTs: At first glance you can't see anything else than the ship hull and the weight. But that tells a lot. A ship on any scanner in 2401, well, there is no way that it was bult, so it must have been one of the starting ships coming with the PRT. Only IT and JoaT start with a DD. And voila, you have your neighbour down to 2 possible PRTs. Juggling around with the weight of the ship (which includes all equipment in the ship although the equipment isn't shown) plus the possible starting techs for IT and JoaT (see the Stars Help file) allows to specify several things with a very high probability:
# JoaT
# probably with a mole scanner (elec 4) which means tech 4 box checked and electronics tech expensive
# probably with organic armor (bio 4) which supports the assumption of tech 4 box checked, bio tech expensive
# Daddy Long Legs 7 engine (prop 5): interesting, not only tech box 4 (and prop expensive) but some LRT that boosts the starting prop tech: Improved Fuel Efficiency (IFE) which also means access to the fuel mizer engine
# usually players who have chosen IFE tend to counter the costs in the race wizard by also chosing No Ram Scoop Engines (NRSE)
# additionally there is only one place where that ship could had started from: the homeworld (HW) which was Sphairos, 323-ly away from my own HW.
Summarized this single ship had told me the following:
Humanoids, m2, JoaT, IFE, NRSE, prop/elec/bio expensive, HW: Sphairos
And obviously the Humanoids were played by one of the beginners who had not thought what all he had given away with the seemingly innocent usage of his starting DD.
As a trigger happy warmonger I marked him for an early kill... *grin
Which again showed that in turn 1 I hadn't thought much about the implications of the game setup and rules.
Luckily a few remaining braincells not all the time humming "I am a warmonger!" convinced me to try to establish communications with the Humanoids and thus I sent an ingame message. Having this achieved those braincells shut down and I think the first message to my other neighbour, the snth, consisted of "Rooaaarrrrr!". It's amazing what this PRT Warmonger does to players.
2404: grim reality and alliance
Eagerly awaiting to see all my green planets I had sent out 5 scouts asap.
In 2404 I looked at my scouted area, put a bit thought into it and realized several things:
My starting NW corner wasn't the expected paradise with plenty of green planets at all: 3 green planets, the best with 46%, 2 with no germ (4% and 21%) and a HW which had started (like everybody's) with 30% germ and no ability to ferry out germ. Actually my starting corner was quite a desolate area. More important I realized that only thru an alliance with a beginner I would get access to cheap weap and hopefully also con tech (perhaps I had even pointed that out myself in the announcement discussion but completly forgotten about it).
I started to see that this was one of my worst start positions ever. I was much too used to playing IT (a habit/handicap which accompied me thru all the game), with the horrible mineral allocation of my available planets logistics would become a nightmare and paired with my race design restrictions and the expensive tech it would take an eternity to reach suitable tech levels for an attack fleet. This game might become not at all a cozy time of bashing around some newbies (or showing some mercy here and there) but one of the most difficult games I had played so far. If I could had placed some bets, I had betted on loosing the game. Mmmh.
On the bright side: Finally the Humanoids had answered my message from turn 1 and we established email communications which after a few messages to and fro led to an alliance. I make alliances for the whole game, I do like to exchange and to discuss everything openly and I hate the paranoia which comes with temporary alliances. Humanoids seemed to be fine with that, so we threw together our data and started exchanging m-files immediatly.
2415: all HWs located
Humanoids did an excellent job scouting, used their full JoaT power paired with lots of scouts, so already in 2415 we had scanned most of the universe and located all HWs.
Additionally in 2413 we had established 2 planets (see grey eclipse) for tech exchange thru mutual conquest: using both each 2 privs allowed us both each 2 conquests and chances for a tech gain per turn: the Humanoids just stayed in orbit of each planet and doing manual WP-0 pop drops each round while my 2 privs were flying between the 2 planets with WP-1 pop drop orders.
Some things we figured out only much later but here our final results (pairs show alliances):
Roaches (vmanuel), m3, WM (light blue, SE corner), experienced, allied with snth6
snth6 (theene), m4, IS (orange, NE corner), beginner, allied with Roaches
Zoids (BackBlast), m6, HE 3-immune (dark blue, centre), experienced, allied with arelu
Arelu (talkingbologna), m1, JoaT (pink, south), beginner, allied with Zoids
Bizarres (Altruist), m5, WM (lime, NW), experienced, allied with Humanoids
Humanoids (mijgo), m2, JoaT (dark green, west) beginner, allied with Bizarres
So our agreed upon game conditions had worked out quite fine: every beginner was paired with an experienced player. Although I am still not sure how this felt for the beginner players: While they surely had a steep learning curve, it is usually much more fun to figure things out yourself or finding the right article and trying to adapt such theoretical knowledge to a "real" game. Any comments?
This mix of veterans and beginners also meant that outguessing any other player was incredibly difficult since it could range from the most canny tricks to simple newbie mistakes but without never knowing before what it would be.
Technical note:
The map was created with the help of the Stars!Notebook (snb_v2xf.zip 258 kb). Besides this very practical map which allows also adding tactical remarks and notes, the Notebook also shows some statistics like total mines on surface, mined per year, factories etc.
As mentioned the Humanoids and Bizarres were exchanging m-files, to make that more comfortable we asked the host to add our email-adresses into the auothost interface and thus both m-files got sent to us automatically. To make better and easier use of the combined data we used the StarsFileMerger (StarsFileMerger.zip, 74kb), a Java based easy to use tool that allows to merge m- and/or h-files. Merging m-files I find personally rather confusing but merging h-files is just great: the way h-merging works leads to planets scanned by the Humanoids being shown in my Stars view with my hab values as if I had scouted them myself.
Back to the game:
Challenger
Due to the lack of habitable planets I was forced to look for greens at more distant places... sometimes very distant like planet Challenger which was just 80-ly away from the snth-HW: no germ there as well (which would prove deadly) but the best breeder planet I had found so far (a purpose Challenger would never be given the time to serve). Secondarily, of course, a splendid staging point for an attack on snth at some later time. Realistically I didn't expect to keep Challenger that long but you can always hope. At least I thought the snth would freak out when discovering my presence at Challnger (I had secretly sneaked in my colonizer and privs to settle the planet) and would overreact: stopping their economy development to produce at once mediocre ships trying to conquere the planet. Attacks which I imagined to fence easily off with my armed dock (am I a Warmonger or not!? cheapest weapons in the universe!).
Well, as so often in Stars the snth weren't willing to fully cooperate with my plan. I had colonized Challenger in 2415 with 80k pop and some minerals. 2418 snth discovered my presence at Challenger. 2421 Challenger's pop had grown to 190k pop and had fenced off some attacks in previous years but now the snth shot my dock to pieces and simply pop dropped Challenger into nothingness. My last few brave survivors were killed in 2423 and the planet taken over by the snth. Althogether I had this imagined to run differently and probably I had invested more into Challenger than it took snth to conquere the planet, they were probably also happy to take over Challenger's 100 built mines and my oh so precious germanium which I had just managed to drop on Cahllenger with a privateer suicide mission.
So the first battle over a planet between an experienced player and a newbie: 0:1. Mmmh.
Statistically missing habitable planets
On the bright side, I found my statistically missing green planets and lucky enough they weren't somewhere in enemy space but in abundance in my ally's space. While it took my privateers at max speed between 3-5 years to get there and for that they needed every trick with scouts used as fuel boosters, painfullly trying to find the spot where a 163.4-ly distance could be split into 2 times 81.7-ly and using privateers coming back to meet outgoing privs halfway for sharing fuel with them... it was a relief that development would be slow but possible.
For what I mean with slow at max speed here an example: Since my HW was still my only breeder, all pop had to start from there. Planet Forgotten was the farthest planet I colonized from the HW, a rocking 390-ly away but with 56% and good mineral concentrations the planet had the potential to beocme one of my best. So some privs were put into the production line in 2417, started in 2418, met in 2419, 2420 and 2421 with whatever ship I had nearby or coming back to take over every drop of fuel to remain at warp 9 all the way to Forgotten where they arrived in 2423. With exactly enough pop and minerals to build a dock within the very first year of colonization, they fueled up in 2424 and started moving north again. In 2426 they arrived at the formerly colonized planet Leonardo which had just finished building a gate, from there they overgated the distance of 339-ly back to the HW into an orbiting fleet to use the instant repair loophole and voila, in 2427 exactly 10 years and a hell of micromanagement later, they were as "fast" as possbile back.
It was a slow development but worth the effort, in 2450 Forgotten was indeed one of my best planets with now 82% after terraforming and the ability to build 4 CCs per year (without even ferrying minerals to it all the time over distances of 4 years as to so many other planets... did I mention that I usually like to play IT?!).
Another intersting planet was Andromeda, mediocre hab but great minerals. In comparison to Forgotten it was only 289-ly away from my HW which meant a 4-year trip or 8 years including return. The good mineral concentrations meant that Andromeda built only mines at first to allow ferrying urgently needed germ back to the other planets. As welcome and needed this was, it was nevertheless only the secondary reason to colonise Andromeda, the primary reason was its location: a very powerful central location and only 108-ly away from the Zoid HW. This meant before any mines could be built, priority was given to a dock and gate since I was rather sure that the Zoids wouldn't be too happy with my presence there. Andromeda I did not loose (like Challenger) and, indeed, it proved vital for the later game and put a stop to any possible Zoid expansion direction north.
A similar role played planet Leo, 339-ly away from my HW, 242-ly away from the Zoid HW, colonized primarily to put a stop to their western expansion.
Starting positions and assessment for the other players
Around the dark blue Zoid area you can see some planets marked with a red 6 (for m6=zoids). At that time we weren't sure wether zoids were 2- or 3-immune and the numbers mark planets which would had been of high interest to the zoids if they were 2-immune. Obviously we marked those planets to had a keen eye on them and planned to try to deny the zoids access to them.
After I have been complaining at length over my apparent different starting position, let's look at some other players' starting positions.
The importance of assessing wether the Zoids were 2- or 3-immune are the usually completly different other race design features which go together with it:- 3-immune HEs are one of the earliest developed monsters with hyper-production (HP) settings, the ability to build lots of factories and mines but with a low pop growth of 6% (which is doubled for an HE and translates into 12%). So they are slow developers, very vulnerable early on and prosper best if in a remote safe corner until they become fierce monsters.
- 2-immune HEs are often of a relatively new sub-type which ccmaster developed and follow exactly the opposite logic, very high pop growth, very early very strong and if one can't stop them very early they tend to roll over you like a tsunami
What both HE types have in common, this starting position in the centre is awful for them. The slow developer would be right in the centre spot of attention from everywhere while the fast developer needs lots of accessible planets to prosper but there right in the centre was only a small band going west and east with rather big empty gaps to the north and south.
The strategy AGAINST both HE-types is the same: Try to smash them asap or watch them winning.
Sidenote: Only much later, as a matter of fact not before the game was finished and the Zoids allowed access to their m-file, I realized that the Zoids race design was neither of the above 2 designs but a hybrid with rather bad factory settings to allow raising the pop growth from 6 to 7%.
Arelu starting position:
Far down south the Arelu HW had a quite lonely location. But with great opportunities to the SW-corner with lots of planets for which they would be in a race with the Humanoids and another crowd of stars to the SE corner in direct contest with the Roaches. Unfortunate for the Arelu was that they hadn't taken IFE and the great fuel mizer (nor prop cheap we had the impression), so they were slowed down by bad and slow engines and thus arrived late enough in the SW-corner to find themselves immediatly attacked by the Humanoids. To the SE, though, and to our astonishment it seemed possible for the Roaches and Arelu to intersettle happily and safely. We did not notice a single fight. Were there any? Or an agreed or defacto NAP (non-agression-pact)?
snth:
While the snth seemed to be in a good starting position, something seemd to be amiss there, too. For a very long time it looked like they had only 2 planets: their HW and at the far eastern edge Scanda, both planets heavily populated. Perhaps a very narrow hab range in the race design?
Nevertheless, assessing and figuring out that it looked like almost everybody in the universe had to bear problems with the starting locations gave me a bit hope not to get compeltly trampled... and, of course, having found an ally with really superb starting conditions.
Randomness of starting positions and hab draw
There is always much complain about the randomness of a Stars universe and I have done my fair share or this for sure, too. But when I have a choice between this ransdomness and settings for which hosts sometimes spent much and painstaking work to even everything out... I prefer the randomness and to be completly honest I even like it. It adds a lot spice to the game. You go into a game with a carefully chosen race design and after some games under the belt you have also already in mind what strategy and early game you expect to come with that and then you are thrown into the randomly created universe and realise... you can throw everything into the trash can and need to adapt and change everything dramatically or you go down.
One of the reasons I wrote at length about the early development problems of the Bizarres: I tried to show 2 things. Yes, a bad starting location leads usually to a bad early development and if you try to adapt, in this case by sending out priv-groups for upto 10 years, this costs a lot resources and initially slows you down even more. And sometimes, after all the effort, the only result are resources thrown out of the window because you even loose those planets like I did with Challenger. But on the other hand you usually also gain something special: space and locations. The reason I mentioned for some colonized planets the distances from my HW and to enemy HWs was to show how much space you gain and how close you might get to the enemy core. Ok, the vast space is only sparsely settled but you gain great staging locations as much as contain your neighbours because they have a much smaller space available.
So the story could also be told as: If I had found all those many green planets around my HW, I might had been busy colonizing and developing those and wouldn't had cared about Andro, Leo or Forgotten. This again would had allowed the Zoids to expand much easier, establishing intersettlement with their ally to get up a gate network, growing and getting as strong as perhaps to a point where we wouldn't had been able to stop them anylonger. You are probably getting my point, there are always 2 sides of a coin and thus one could as well complain about the difficult starting positions as thinking that without those specific problems we might have lost instead of won the game.
In our case it worked out really very well, because I had the starting problems and was forced to "boldly go where noone has gone before" while my ally had a superb start, excellent development and thus the resources to back it up if that proved necessary.
[Updated on: Thu, 01 June 2017 17:13] Report message to a moderator
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