The Kif (Mark the Merciful) vs The Primitive Horde (Primitive) turn; 2406.5

(Standard K.O.T.H. settings)

Primitive surrenders...



Purple is my home system, orange is Primitive's home system. Blue are my colonised systems, red are Primitives Colonised systems. Yellow is the contested zone in which we did most of our fighting, and white are empty systems.

I saw from the start of the game that if I could get to certain choke points first, I could gain a bigger share of the map. Then, when we came into contact in the Eastern half, I kept up a policy of agressively minelaying, colonising and skirmishing in Primitive's space, which set up the more or less permanent contested zone.

After our initial skirmishing, Primitive's Carrier fleets were looking pretty dangerous. My first Light Cruiser fleet was wiped out with the loss of some of his fighters. However, he then made what would have been a series of laudable agressive moves, but which relied on gambling that my minefields were small. They weren't, and he lost 12 carriers to mines in the next couple of turns.

By then I was fairly confident that my newer ships with better sensors would be able to pick off the fighters from range, and so it proved. I started clearing Primitive out from the Easternmost of the contested systems, while he launched a sudden raid through the central warp point to the empty system, and turned right, deep into my space. The system he turned up in had my single biggest concenntration of blue mining (about 60K in total), and was a gateway to several unguarded systems in the heart of my empire. I had a defensive fleet, but it was not clear that I would win the battle, and if I lost that fleet, all those systems could be doomed. So while I felt I was ahead over all, I was still feeling nervous and started playing very conservatively so as to avoid any sudden disasters.

So, my defensive fleet danced around and avoided combat while I tried to get new production in to reinforce it. Meanwhile, I pre-emptively destroyed most of those blue-producing planets, and Primitive captured the one that was too big to abandon. And back in the East, I cleared Primitive out of another of the contested systems and destroyed a defending fleet with moderate damage to mine.

Finally, I plucked up the courage to attack his raiding fleet, and put a second fleet into the contested zone. His raiding fleet was easily destroyed, and he only had one remaining fleet (that I could see) to defend again my three (and a fourth in building). At this point, Primitive surrendered.

I really enjoyed the game, and although I was ahead, probably, from quite early on, it was tense nearly all the way through.

So, it's time for the big one.

(edit: five times to get the image in properly - grrr - and once for spelling)

[ July 14, 2003, 23:07: Message edited by: Mark the Merciful ]