Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

not fair! pheonix is on his 2nd game since I played him, and I havent even met my oponent in my first game since we played...
what happens if the 48hrs happens and he still hasnt played his turn?

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

You stop complaining and look at the record for longest game time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

My second game took on the order of several -months- to complete, and it wasn't that long turn wise.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

hey, I just realised, I managed to get the 2000th post!!!

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

Electrum vs Nodachi

2400.5 - First Contact

Interesting? This could prove to be messy! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

2403.2 The Arcadia League (Alneyan) against the EEEvil EEEmpire (Baron Grazic)

"Insanity at its best. We are puzzled by the behiavour of these... EEE beings. They do not seem to make any sense, no wonder since they pretend to be insane. But why would one say she is insane? Lunatics usually do not admit they are lunatics, unless they treat this trait as a quality. But why?

We can communicate with them, but nobody is able to decipher their babble and their ravings. Yet their speech can be fathomed, while their actions are indescriptible. We have seen them sending ships loaded with civilians against our own ships, and their main goal is to take control of wormholes. Such strategies were unheard of by the League until this encounter, and we were far from being ready to face such a threat for the very existence of galaxy and all civilization as we knew it. But whether we win our struggle against these malicious invaders or not, this moment shall be know as our finest hour."

As you can see, Grazic outwitted me on the military side of the conflict. I reached the contested systems a turn or two after him, and I made a few mistakes here and there. I expected him to grab a slightly bigger part of the galaxy, which may be quite a problem.

I believe my economy is in a somewhat better shape than his, if I can assume he told me the truth that is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif But it won't help me much if my military keeps on losing badly.

Incidentally, this game has been very fun for now, and the exchanges between the Puzzling League and the Insane EEE. In fact, I have been more interested in the exchanges themselves than in the strategy for these few turns. I'm afraid it will not help my side though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

No WAY English is your second language.

(a SPY...just as I figured!)

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

Well, English is technically a foreign tongue for me, although you could argue I am more at ease when writing or reading English.

However, your assumption about my... job cannot stand a thorough analysis. As the identity of a spy should remain secret for obvious reasons, you would have been disabled if you were right, or at least convinced not to talk about this classified information. Since you are still free to alude to my ... operations in the field, we can safely presume it either means you are wrong, or that we are so powerful that we believe nothing can stop us. I would think the former is the most likely, unless spies suffer from over-confidence.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

But you neither denied nor confirmed it. Maybe you are a spy and are using reverse psychology! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">We've been over that before, Nodachi. He's too clever. But look on the bright side...if he's in France as a spy, he's spying on THEM...LOL!

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

Unless I lied about my location Slynky. You should keep this in mind, if I am a spy, then I can very well playing with your minds and told half-truths or blatant deceptions. I might even be a French spy spying on *you* Slynky, rather than the other way around.

Nodachi, I will once again use a very simple analysis. If I tell you I am not a spy, you will not believe me, and so you will still think I am a spy. If I say I am a spy, you will distrust me and you will think I am a spy. So in either case, the result is the same, so why should I answer your query? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

Here is a similar situation.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

I think I just set a new record for fastest loss: 2400.5.

We started 6 sectors away. Yes, SECTORS, not systems. He went for warships, I went for colony ships. Enough said..

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Huh? The game default is: Allowed to start in the same system = False. How did that happen, especially in a KOTH game…

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

One warp away. I started close to my side of the connecting warp point, and so did he.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">ouch.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">ouch. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yup - makes me wish there was a way to ensure a minimum starting distance without having to manually place starting locations on a map...

At least the game was quick, heh.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Aaron is working on fixing that for the next patch. He tweaked it in the current beta patches, but it's not quite there yet. I have sent him another email and hopefully he can get it working right.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

Before the patch comes out I can offer a temporary solution. After I generate the map normally, I can save it, open it in map editor, put two starting points and load it in game. This ensures that there is enough distance between players.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

tesco vs rambie. Turn 64 Rambie surrenders.

Move Tesco up

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

Electrum vs Nodachi

Nodachi surrenders. The early first contact really messed up my game plan.

Electrum, congrats and I wish you well on your journey up the hill!

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

K.O.T.H. Grazic vs. Alneyan
EEEvil EEEmpire vs. Arcadia League 2403.5

So far the game is pretty much even, with the score changing hands often. A few minor battles have taken place, and I'm going to claim victory on the battle front, if only because the League is down 1 colony, and it took 3 ships and many turns for the League to take out our forward missile Escort.

There are 4 warp points between our 2 halves of the galaxy, and we are both doing a pretty good job of mining the galaxy in half. The north shared system is now completely cut off from both home worlds by opposition mines and in the south a couple of Arcadia League colony ships and escorts made it thru into our space before we could close the borders.

No technology edge has been shown yet, with both Empires still sporting Escorts, but since we have been low on all resources, we are assuming that the Arcadia League are ahead of us in this Category.

The EEEvil EEEmpire believes it has found its long lost brothers however with communication coming think and fast, with more insane trades being offer every turn. The chance of 2 completely insane empires being controlled by 2 insane leaders in the same sector in the galaxy must be in the billions, but in a infinite universe, it is not only possible, but probable.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

I'm on a trip now so don't expect any KOTH updates before Wednesday. I have an internet connection (as you can see http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) but not the possibility to update KOTH or play turns.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

Re: KOTH Electrum v Nodachi

That early contact really messed it up. I had hoped we would have gotten more established first.
Thanks for the good, and fast turn-around game.

The Electrum

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

K.O.T.H. Gecko vs Master Belisarius
2405.8

Gecko surrenders to Master Belisarius. Belisarius has a tech edge I can not catch up to and my colonies are going berserk… again. Thanks for a good thrashing, MB. I guess I am going to have to do the “KOTH Clone” if I want to be competitive in Ratings/KOTH against the experienced players. After a year and two-dozen PBW games of trying not to use the Clone, I give in to the inevitable.

Gecko

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Think in small galaxies (like in our first game), still do you have possibilities to win playing with your style...
But as was discused before, many people (me included) think most the time your luck in the game will be decided by the *.emp file.
Also, I believe that does exist an optimal way to design the *.emp... and the experience did the "Koth Clone".

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Think in small galaxies (like in our first game), still do you have possibilities to win playing with your style...
But as was discused before, many people (me included) think most the time your luck in the game will be decided by the *.emp file.
Also, I believe that does exist an optimal way to design the *.emp... and the experience did the "Koth Clone". </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

What is the "KOTH clone" setup?

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would be Aggressiveness & Defensiveness at 125% and a Berzerker Culture, which adds another +10 to attack and defense. This gives a +35 to attack and defense.

If you are unsure, in your next game, ask your opponent if they want to use exactly the same empire file. Tesco agreed to this early in my Koth career, which helped my empire setup experiance. Thanks Tesco. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ December 31, 2003, 03:42: Message edited by: Baron Grazic ]

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would be Aggressiveness & Defensiveness at 125% and a Berzerker Culture, which adds another +10 to attack and defense. This gives a +35 to attack and defense </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">KOTH: Attack of the Clones Thread
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...3;t=008085;p=3

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

As noted in that thread, it -is- possible to win without that setup, just harder.

My one long game, for example, was a vicious back and forth match. My opponent was beserker, I was not. Took many of mine to kill one of his, but I did eventually grind him into the ground.

At one point I killed a Legendary fleet (+30% at LEAST over my ships). Shows you that even nasty to-hit odds can be overcome.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yea, you just need a high tolerance for getting spanked more times than not... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

Almost every KOTH game I've played has been decided by weight of numbers, not racial attack/defense. In the games with a big racial difference it didn't matter because one side or the other had an absolutely obscene ship advantage.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

Phoenix-D: When you talk about "absolutely obscene ship advantage", do you say that one side had lot more ships than the other?

IMHO the technology and number of ships are very important, but are not the only.

For example, I was in a battle when my opponent had ships with PPB IV, a large number of ships (100 BC), best shields and engines but similar Sensor and ECM than me.
In the other side, I had 20 LC ships with DUC. Well, my fleet did a carnage without loses...
Why? My ships had Stealth Armor III, Scattered Armor III, 20% trained fleet, 20% trained ships (most of them), Berzerker as culture, Aggressivenes 20% and Defensiveness 20%.
In the other side, my opponent had Aggressivenes "Weak" and Defensiveness "Pathetic", his culture was "Scientists" and his ships had not training.

The trick was that his 100 ships where unable to hit my ships, simple like that.

Then, I think that if your ships can't hit your enemy ships, then, you're in problems and probably you did a bad *.emp file...
Sure, you could try with fighters, seekers, boarding ships, train fleets and ships and still keep a fight... but you will be forced to play with a big disadvantage during all the game.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

MB, by that I meant that the advantage in ships one side had was very high.

If things stack too much then yes, you're screwed. But look at the numbers- your .emp can provide a maxium of 35% (assuming you don't lower anything, whicb I agree is almost suicidal).

On the other hand, the defense on your ships can get as high as 160%, offense 105%. Training all by itself provides more benifit than your racial setup can do.

That 35% can hurt bad, but I'm not convinced points spent elsewhere couldn't compensate. More in research to get training faster, for example.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">IMO, it depends on how much time pressure you are under. You can counter the KOTH Clone given time, but your opponent starts with the advantage immediately. The median game length in KOTH is 62 turns. You would have to be smoking on research to meet that deadline and get the tech into production ships in useful numbers.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

I've never used the "clone". Sometimes, I have been close to it but I'd have to say my average bonus in my KOTH games would be around 29-30%.

And, I do OK in KOTH (no steamroller mind you...but OK).

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

I admit I don't usually go to the full +35 or even +30, as I am partial to the Merchant culture. It may be a very bad idea, but I do prefer 120 maintenance (that is, a mere 5% upkeep) to a +10 to both offence and defence. Perhaps I should change my mind... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif (Mind you, the almost nil upkeep is very nice, especially when under pressure or to take a small technological lead, but is it worth it? I wonder)

Not much is going on in our KOTH game, the Frontier is under control and there are still a few colonies here and there in enemy territory. (There are four systems in which both of us have colonies, and a few systems without any planets that are disputed.) There have been a few skirmishes involving some fighters and the EEEvil ships, but nothing on the grand scale.

However, an enemy fleet has been sighted in the southern systems and is threatening the League outer worlds. Likewise, one can assume the League has not been building civilian freighters in the mean time to do peaceful trading with the EEE, and so we can expect some battles in the next months. I believe we will have some surprises then, as we do not know what we have been doing with our research since there has been no true engagement between warships yet.

Even communications are almost silent, with a few taunts coming from the EEEvil EEEmpire from time to time, and a swift response from the Arcadia League. I reckon our war councils are too busy to prepare the upcoming battles to bother with communications and petty threats. Or they are bettering their insane ways, your choice.

So far, it has been a very enjoyable game and my best to date along with my match with Slynky. (The one where both players thought they were losing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) And this time, as my warships do not have a basic strategy of "Don't get hurt", I do hope to stand a chance, however slight it is, or else I will have to resolve to my adventurous ways once more. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

My game with Dav has been on hold for awhile now. I don't know why it has been like this but I'm still waiting on his turns to be submitted. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
But from what I remember of it I was winning and holding the majority of the galaxy.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

I'm back now and it's time to start wading through Messages I had waiting in my inbox. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I prefer merchant to bezerker too. Though I don't raise my maint reduction all the way to 115. Seems like the minerals advantage should even out the -12 to ship combat...

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's the reason I offered I can put starting positions by hand. If you don't want to start near each other and don't want to use Tesco map just tell me.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

OK, KOTH page should be updated now but please inform me if I have missed something.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I see he has just played a turn but I still send him a message that he should play faster.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, shortly after I posted that he played his turns. I guess he must have been lurking. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif It was kind of nice at times having the delay though as my life was hectic for a while. But now things have settled down alot and I'm back into a regular schedule. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

I almost forgot: welcome two new players, Rand and Taikon. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

I don't usually take +35 offense and defense, those latest five percentages are so expensive I'd rather spent them elsewhere. Also I don't pick berzerker very often due to high penalties in other areas.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

Hmm, perhaps these Posts are enough for today. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What?! (but we missed you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What?! (but we missed you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Perhaps we weren't 'all' missing him. I was happily deluding myself that I was winning the Bash game against Asmala, he comes back and crushes my dreams of a victory over him. Nah, what am I talking about, even in my dreams he still beats me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
Welcome Back.

Re: Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?
 

An interesting note/idea:

Just took a look at Primitive/Grandpa game. 57 turns. If Primitive hasn't won by now...hehe...maybe the old codger will get him yet!

Can't wait to see this result.