[Lemmy]

In my new game i wanted to make sure that i didn't share any system with allies. That usually ends up in war, so i made a bloodthirsty race with 5000 racial points and all five special tech areas.
There oxygen-breathing and have rock as home type

Here are some game settings i can remember :
no mods
large spiral galaxy
not all warp points connected, but i generated a map with all the systems connected.
warp points located anywhere in sytem
tech level low
tech cost medium
AI difficulty hard

I started in a system with only one warp point and four rock planets. So i started colonizing and exploring. The system next to me was a destroyed star with several asteroid fields around it and three warp points, one of which leading back to my home system.
No problem i thought, there should be plenty of planets beyond the asteroids....wrong, one of the warp point lead to another destroyed star with asteroid system, and the other to a nebula, so now i've discovered 4 system, and only my home system has planets.

then through the nebula warp point a Phong ship arrives, i quickly destroy it, before it finds any planets i want to colonize.
After i put some ships on the warp point to prevent any of his ships to sneak through. Now with that warp point secure i decide to explore the other side of the second ateroid system, which has only one unexplored warp point (you still following this ?). Finally a planet system, with , again, one other warp point, but that leads to another asteroid system with no other warp points.
So i have 2 systems to colonize and only one warp point to worry about, the one leading into the nebula. After colonizing all of the available colonies i decide to try to take over the Phong planets lying beyond the nebula, through the nebula and find that his home system is right next to it, with one other warp point. Beyond that warp point there are two other planet sytems, both with Phong colonies in them. After a long time of war and non-agression pacts ( i had to sign one, he was about to glass one of my key planets in his systems ) i finally have driven him out of the system, while still maintaining 2nd place. I've also met the Xi'chung (?), those insects.
2nd place with 170k points sounds ok, but the number 1, the terrans, have 790k !!and with all the nebulas and asteroids, my outer most sytems is 5 sytems away, with two warp oints leading away from my, one to a nebula, that is also the only way the enemy can come through (Xi'chung), and one to a black hole, it's a normal warp point and it brings you 2 sectors away from the center of the hole. In that system is another warp point but that one is weird, so i don't think i have to expect anyone coming through that one

so the morale of this story is, share the systems, and then when you're absolutely ready to take everything over, declare war and take everything fast.

[This message has been edited by LemmyM (edited 05 June 2001).]