Mark the Merciful (Kif Hegemony) vs Slynky (Trithian Empire) - 2404.5

May as well post a report while we're waiting for PBW

We're playing in a small spiral galaxy, and our home systems started out next to each other - something Slynky, having chosen Ancient, realised quicker than I did. He had a chance on turn three to bombard my planet with a missile armed ship, and with a bit of luck could have done enough damage then to end the game. Slynky decided not to. Very gentlemanly, but the wrong decision I think; this is a competitive tournament.

Pretty soon after that we both had the connecting warp-point blocked with defenses, and were trying to expand elsewhere. However, my homeworld sits between Slynky and most of the rest of the galaxy, and he's had to either fight his way through or wriggle around me in order to find colony space. Which he's done far too well for my liking, but I think it's been a big disadvantage to him.

Thanks to some poor race-design and early research decisions, my warships tend to explode as soon as they come within scanner range of his. The successes I've had have been with minefields (Slynky tried to send a 12 ship force into my home system in around 2403 and didn't bring enough sweepers...), kamikaze ships at warp points, or overwhelming numbers. The Last twenty turns have been very tense, because with a couple shared systems and no definable front-line, it's a completely different game to the Last one we played.

I've now put together a force of 16 ships, which was strong enough that his superior ships couldn't beat it, and had enough sweeping capacity to get through his minefields. So far it's glassed a couple of his expansion colonies, and is looking for more...

But I'm sure Slynky's got stuff I haven't seen (what's he been building up in his home system?), so nothing's decided yet. More news, as soon as it happens...

Mark

[ June 06, 2004, 11:22: Message edited by: Mark the Merciful ]