What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Hi folks its that time of year again when I just decided to randomly throw out a thread to see what's the absolute worst defeat you've ever suffered/inflicted during the course of your conquering the universe!

My worst "defeat" was back during an older game where I had massed 500 ships including 10 troop ships in a system in preperations for a push into enemy space. Well what I didn't think about then was that it's not a good idea to have a big navy rally point in a system that doesn't have:

1. A sphereworld
2. At least some spy sats

Because the very turn I divided up my ships into strike groups (this system led to three enemy systems btw) and was getting ready to go through the warp points on the next turn......my sun exploded!

Needless to say this hurt my expansion and nearly caused the collapse of my empire, now whether this was a Nova bomb or just a natural disaster I don't know but it sure was a pain.

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

WOW, I can't top that one! And I thought that having a warp point opened in a back sector was bad. I'll take that easily...

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Worst defeat I've ever inflicted? That would have to be the 7 warp openers and 30 star destroyers deployed simultaneously in PBW game Shattered Hopes.

For something not involving stellar manipulation, there was one battle in the RTV Dertran game where I was attacking through a warp point with 200+ ships against another 200+ ship armada. I completely obliterated the enemy force and lost only 12 ships. Yay for an enemy that kept using missile ships for far too long http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Sadly, the ONLY minesweeper in my fleet was thoroughly crippled and took two turns to get to the head of the repair queue.

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Worst defeat I ever inflicted on someone was an AI that sent 300 battleships and dreadnoughts through a warp point that had a sphereworld with 100 heavy weapons platforms and 20 planetary shield generators on it.

I also had 6 orbiting starbases loaded with weapons and shields plust a defense fleet of 50 base ships.

The poor enemy lost all 300 ships while inflicting only "minor" damage on me in return (minor being I lost my entire defense fleet and one of six starbases but 300 ships in return is hardly a bad exchange)

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Star Destroyers..... That says it all....

Spread a group of about 10 star destroyers - cloaked through 2 oppenent empires after achieving Mega Evil status... Star Destroyers were in back woods out of the way systems where all production and population centers were... not many ships through and denotated them on the same turn. Whole fleets of enemy ships disappeared shortly after that and I was never again threatened in the game.

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It was something like turn 25 or so and I got a message that m sun was unstable and the very next turn..... BOOOM.

My ally begged me to send a huge fleet into X system to meet up with his so that we could jointly attack an enemy. Upon entering the system, my ally blew up the star and then invaded opened a warp point to my home system and invaded my homeworld forcing my surrender. It was a crushing defeat.

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The biggest *** whooping I ever dished out went to a PBW player who sent his fleet into my home system. I had taken over the empire and had only played about six turns when this huge armada of ships appeared through the worm hole. I do believe if he had had the movement, he would have invaded my homeworld on that turn. I was lucky, I had another population world in the next system along with a crap load of orbital ship yards. I was one turn away from producing about 20 dreanoughts.

Knowning that his fleet, something in the area of 400 ships, including troop transports, was not stopped, it would take the entire system, and the next and my Dreadnought would not be able to stop it.

I was growing very depressed when I noticed one little ship sitting by the sun in my home system. I thought it was there to protect the sun from attack but no, it was a sun killer ideally named, Peacemaker.

In most universes what I did next would be considered genocide, I even wrote a short story about what I did and posted it here.

I blew up my own home systems sun just to kill my enemies fleet. I also sent him a message stating that all of my system had star killers in them and much to my suprise I had a few in systems he controlled. I detonated them and told him in the message that I would destroy all of his star systems if he did not surrender.

As unlikely as it might seem, having lost his fleet and being *****ed back to sixth place or something, he gave up with an angry withdraw from the game a turn or two later.

So I like to think that I won.

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Ouch. That seems a little underhanded to me. I could never do that to someone, even if it is just a game! I like to play fair when it comes to allies!

My biggest whipping was in the Shattered Hopes game Douglas talked about http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif I was on the receiving end of a significant number of those star destroyers. I was in either 1st or 2nd place, but after that one turn, I had one system left where douglas's star destroyer had taken the wrong path. However, as you can imagine, that system didn't last long either...

Was fun while it lasted, and I must admit, it was a fun game, even how it ended for me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

I learned early on Shields 10.

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The largest defeat I ever dished out was against an A.I. In one game, the a.i. seriously had me outnumberd (were talking a three to one ship ratio here). I had myself botled up, defending my warp points with fortress worlds. What's a fortress world? It's a sphereworld with nearly 40+ null space gun weapon platforms, 200,000 points of shielding, and a two hundred ship defense fleet.

Anyways, the Kaelons (the a.i. I was up against) sent something like a five hundred ship fleet through. The battle took me nearly and hour and a half to finish, but I ended up winning.

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Worst defeat? well, i few weeks ago, on a PBW game i'm still playing so i wont give much info, basically i tought the enemy ships would take longer to arrive, ofcourse that didn't happened they wipe out my major fleet and most of my empire planets are now undefended (and my income is negative right now, min & rads), the rest of my fleets were on the other side of my empire, so, by the time they arrive (if they do, because they're being disbanded because lack of resources) there wont be much left.

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Hahaha, that's brilliant. You never know what bluffs can do http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Interesting how this thread suddenly flipped over from 'worst defeat you've ever suffered' to 'worst defeat you've ever inflicted'...

Apparently people really hate to talk about their own defeats. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Hey I talked about my defeat!

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

For me, I'd have to say the time under P&N, where I sent 200 battle ships plus a battlemoon to attack a huge breathable, rebel norak world.
I had biocrystal armored ships, but they had a full planet-load of massive APB platforms with talismans.

The fleet was wiped out, and the battlemoon sustained plenty of damage.

---

Or, perhaps the game that my Exodus scenario is based on...
One little log message, and suddenly my whole empire is on borrowed time.
The stars go nova, and the whole hermit empire is reduced to nothing more than three tiny colonies, one unmothballed dread and a garrison of fighters.

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

How is it even possible for that many novas to happen so rapidly http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

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Pre-Gold PBW game. The original Dark Nova game. I engaged a fleet of psychic ships. I out-numbered him nearly 3 to 1 and my ships mopped the floor with virtually anthing that came against them. What i didn't know was thay my enemy ships were armed with computer virus's and allegiance subverters. I attacked him so he got first attack. This was just after the final pre-Gold patch that 'corrected' ship placement during combat. My fleet started at point blank range. After the first round, nearly 1/3 of my fleet was subverted. For those who don't remember, in pre-gold there was no delay in firing weapons on a captured ship. Round 2, my remaining ships were too busy firing on my captured ships (who were firing back) and the next turn another Massive number of my fleet was subverted.

After that, it was a running retreat as I not only had to try to cope with my loses but I had just boosted my enemies numbers in a huge way.

That was my last Pre-gold game.

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Suicide Junkie writes: "For me, I'd have to say the time under P&N, where I sent 200 battle ships plus a battlemoon to attack a huge breathable, rebel norak world...The fleet was wiped out..."

Bottle ships? Itty bitty ships in little bottles? Ha, that's nothing! Just recently I had an entire fleet of 10 light cruisers wiped out by an AI force that also glassed--

BATTLE ships?

Uh, never mind... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Bottle ships: The scourge of the spaceways! At least, if you're in a thimble!

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Some very interesting and also OUCH worthy defeats there, any others come on you've all been playing for years surely you've had a FEW major defeats that are noteworthy and memorable http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

My second worst defeat was this time I was stupid enough to send a 180 dreadnought fleet through a warp point WITHOUT minesweepers well I ran into enough mines to kill about 50 dreads and disable so many of the others that when the bad guy came in with his 200 full health ships he turned my DNs into wreckage.

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Much more rare and probably quite interesting would be your biggest stalemates.

In CB#1, I once had a big defense net of satellites and ships on the enemy side of a warppoint. An Alliance force attacked with 30 ships, which at the time was about a quarter of both our militaries (small quadrant).

Roughly 30 on 30 at the start. I had way too many missile ships, and the Alliance force had way too many point defense ships http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
After that turn was finally processed, we both had 25 ships left in the sector... according to the supply drain, my forces had fired almost a thousand missiles, and had run right out of ammo.

The enemy fleet had suffered some damage to most of their attack ships, and had to fall back a turn later.
My forces had to fall back for repairs as well as for desperate resupply as soon as the enemy had backed off.

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Well, I've been defeated many times but not in a single, huge dramatic battle or event. Usually I'm expanding my empire and doing well and then I get into a war with the Tessellates or some other powerful empire. Then slowly, my empire gets whittled away in numerous battles as I gradually get overpowered and I lose a planet here, a planet there, and getting into a downward spiral until finally I'm down to a couple of planets and a few ships. If I choose to continue playing, well, in several more turns I'm wiped out.

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I don't know if you could count this as a military defeat but during one game I had a trinary sytem, two stars were aready fully sphereworldized and fully populated with a total of about 128 BILLION folks.

I had a defense fleet (which I thought had cloak detector III but it was really a II) and 11 construction vessels building a 3rd sphereworld.
Add to that a transport fleet and colony ship with a total of 18 BILLION people and your talking about a major investment in resources and people.

Well that all went to hell in five seconds when the next turn all that was there was a blackhole.....I thought I would literally cry lol.

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With their deadly payload of messages those bottle ships are a lethal opponent to be sure.

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Yes! Fear the papercut!

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And the really rude words in the message. I've never seen such language!

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Well in the Invasion! Official 0.41 game I had closed all but one of the warp points to my territory so I started to grow week on updating defenses because I thought I was fiarly safe but then one day Sivran the Space Monster opened 3 warp points into 3 of my home systems. I lost 5/10 homeworlds and countless colonies before with the help of 2 large allies I was able to beat him back. He even killed the colony on my ringworld http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Then there were the CarrierBattles games I played against SJ where all of my plans were usually excecuted 1 turn to late and on multiple occasions he destroyed whole fleets of my ships without me giving much of a fight.

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And at least once, you were only half a turn too late, CW.

Both of his carriers were in the sector for the combat, but they hadn't yet regrouped. One started in the middle, and one started on the edge of the combat map, while my carrier + ships came through the warppoint and were able to fight the defenders one at a time.

Re: What\'s the Worst that could happen?
 

Kamog writes: "Well, I've been defeated many times but not in a single, huge dramatic battle or event."

Me, too. My greatest victory was annihilating an AI fleet of 20-odd CR/CL with a comparable fleet of my own. The greatest defeat (so far!) was losing a planet and 12 LC. To date my overall AI campaigns have proceeded a planet or two and/or a few ships at a time. I haven't stuck with an AI game long enough to get really decisive stuff like sun killers, warp openers, sphere worlds, and super-fleets of dreadnoughts.

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Get some TDM AIs they're lots of fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I've got my super dreads and more with that AI and have been rather enjoying myself.