Sparhawk's Empire (Sparhawk) -vs- Kif Hegemony (Mark the Merciful): 2403.7

(standard KOTH game: 1 medium starting homeworld)

First contact was around turn 21, when one of Sparhawk's armed scouts turned up from a direction I wasn't at all expecting (it turns out there's a warp-line across the middle of the spiral galaxy). As a result, he managed to glass a high value breathable planet before running into a hastily deployed minefield.

In the next few turns, we met all along the front. Sparhawk had clearly sent off armed scouts in all directions, while I was pushing forward agressively with Colony ships. In one direction my lead colony ship was able to ram his scout out of the way and continue the mission. In another his scout managed to kill off three colony ships before I finally got the bugger.

It's a complex map. There are no real bottlenecks, and never less than four warp-points connecting our two halves of the galaxy. There are also cross-connections and dead systems (nebulae etc) to further complicate the issue.

At first Sparhawk's wave of armed ships slowed down my aggressive colonisation efforts. However, minefields mostly prevented him advancing into my space, and some hastily-built ramming frigates have enabled me to get rid of his scouts and push forward again. There are now two systems which are jointly colonised, and possibly another to follow.

It's a very fluid situation.

Mark