Homecoming Game on PBW: Debrief

[sparhawk]

We need a replacement player for Home Coming
We are now in 2400.7, so you have still a good change to make this empire working.
The former owner skipped 3 turns in a row ( so he did some pre-building for this empire) whithout noticed.
All the empires are still in the building up phase, so there is plenty of room to win, also if you take in noticed the speciale winning conditions: Victory conditions: Team that has 300% more points than second team or team that colonize their home planet (see description of your race) with a space yard, mining miner-, Organics Farm- and a Radioactive extraction facility, both after 8 years.
Because this game is a team based PBW game, we need a player that will not quick because of a small backdraft!!!!!!!
and are willing to play till the end....of allmost till the end .
If you want to join, you still have some hours to fill in your turn.

Have fun!!

Sparhawk

[sparhawk]

We are still in turn 2400.8, and due to the game rules you always have a partner, therefore this game is also usefull for newbies.

Any one interested??

Sparhawk

[Stone Mill]

Homecoming Debrief
Many years have passed since the Mercator and Whatsit races have splintered into colonies far off in the reaches of the galaxy. Rumors inspired hope of finding their homeworld Premius in a hidden system called Narcisston.
Driven by new technology, the Mercator and Whatsit empires reunited and forged the road home. But this road was blocked by other empires with similar aspirations. Galactic war raged for many years, but cheers echoed when new warp technology opened the way to Premius. In year 2409.2, Premius was established with a space yard, mineral, rad, and organics facilities, declared soverignity over the quadrant, and sued for peace.

Sparhawk / Geo, if you would verify that the victory conditions have indeed been met, I believe this game can be ended.

I want to thank all players for making this really fun, and for simply being excellent and responsible pbw gamers. You have pushed me to think hard, work hard, and combat some tough competition. If interested, I would like to suggest a game debrief where we can talk about strats and how this went.

SPECIAL THANKS
Geo- PBW rocks, thanks for the setup help.
Sparhawk- Great game concept!
1FSTCAT- Pootopian empire poured it on early, and never let up. You forced me to stay on my toes and try new things. Devastating campaign against my partner late game.
Debate- Angora Fish grew extremely huge, and were quite a threat. Massive battles!
Dinglehopper- Welcome home, Whatsit. Great work, partner!
Gandalph- Good sparring against Whatsit.
Hiruu- Haradun kept our treaty until very late, when unfortunately we had to break all relations.
Ironchickens- I really like your shipset!! Unfortunately, your partner was the Poo and they were putting heat on me big-time. I am sorry to have attacked you early because of this. Your race was Organic/Religious, which would have been a nightmare had you expanded and grown with your partner's help.

Good Game!
Stone Mill- Mercator Orbis

[sparhawk]

Yes, It was a great game.
I don't know if it was a close one (well me and my partner were not even close to our homesystem), but it was certainly a great victory for stonemill and dinglehopper.

about the game: Early in the game everyone was just friendly to each other, untill I had contact with whatsit (stonemill). He was really starting to play hard game just from the beginning(I like that! ) and I had no time to prepair myself for his forces .
For me it went down from that point, got first beaten by 1fstcat and had to wait for 20 turns before I got some planets running.
During that time I also was allied to hiruu (because two players quit), and because we were first enemies (turn1-20) and now allies, we layed somewhat behind with the other teams.

For me it was fun to play, first knowing that you have to coordinate the colonization and exploration to find your homeworld and partner.
And secondly that the game can be won, even if your are not winning (well, stonemill and dinglehopper were winning on both terrains) the game by force, but also if you colonize your homeplanet.

Thanks to all the players and Geoschmo for making this game a great experience.

So who is ready for Homecoming 2 (Version SEIV 1.78)

Sparhawk

[1FSTCAT]

That was definitely a good game. I feel sorry for people like Sparhawk, that were locked away in corner, for the most part, with no room to expand (He was to the Poo's northwest).

I made the decision early-on to go after Mercator, just because of his position. He was where I wanted to expand. I was able to seize a few worlds and stop him from creating a few new colonies, but I didn't fully understand the scope of his expansion until I started exploring some more. Then I found he'd been pretty much moving EVERYWHERE and colonizing everything in his path.

About mid-game, after he pushed me out of the sector we were fighting over, I decided that he definitely had the edge, with more planets in his possession, so I built large fleets, blocked my borders, and focused on the research necessary to open warp points. I didn't find my partner (Iron chicken) until about this point. He was in a fairly bad position, fighting with the Whatsits AND the Mercator. Unfortunately, he had less research than I did, and I asked him to focus on Spaceyard research while I was working on Stellar Manip. He did, but I still only had Space Yards 1, when I began production of the warp point creator. After about 5 turns, I noticed new warp points appearing in Whatsit territory, so I gathered all of my fleets together and began my raid! I was able to destroy all of Whatsits colonies in 1 sector, and a few in the next. I split my fleet up, and sent several ships to another sector, who were all successful, until I ran out of supplies. This caused a "raiding delay" of about 5 turns, and by that time, the Mercator had assembled a defense fleet for the Whatsits, and they were easily able to destroy my fleets. (My ships were only equipped with level 2 ECM and level 2 sensors -- never researched shields or Phased Weapons)

At some point after I sent out my fleets, Sparhawk's substitute player decided "now" was a good time to take back the planets I took from him, earlier in the game. I only had 4 systems, but this, of course, shut down the entire system with rioting, which really put a dent in my capability. Early-on I made the decision to go after him after I looked at my scoreboard, and after the Mercator repelled me out from his territory, and saw that Sparhawk's empire was REALLY poor, with only a few planets, and no "units". Unfortunately, I didn't know it was Sparhawk's empire, or I probably wouldn't have attacked him, as we've played well together in other games!

Anyway, this was fairly near the end, as I discovered the Whatsits and the Mercator, purely by accident, at their soon-to-be home planet. My ship wasn't equipped with weapons, but it did have cloaking detection, stealth armor, and the ability to deploy fighters, mines and satellites. (Unfortunately, it had none on board!)

As the message I sent out indicated, I rammed the Whatsit ship, but it was 600kt, and mine was only 400, so I didn't expect a whole lot. Unfortunately, the ram only did 47% damage, and his ship was at least 70% cargo containers.

This was pretty much the mid-point of my downhill slide. After The Mercator defeated my fleet in Whatsit territory, they sent another fleet into my northernmost sector, which broke through after a fairly large scuffle. Only 20% of his fleet made it, but that was enough to multiply the rioting that I was fighting off with Sparhawk's attack, and basically the end of an empire.

I made peace with Sparhawk but it was just too late. I built a small repulsion fleet to try to keep Mercator out of my next sector, but they failed too, since he had spent a little time to allow new ships to rendezvous with his attack fleet.

The End

Overall, I was really impressed with Mercator's play. He was shifty, he was slick, and most of all, hard to kill!

I didn't really run into anyone else, but from my perspective, the Whatsits had a ton of room for improvement. For the most part, they didn't use mines, and didn't have any planetary defenses. I saw fleets that looked like they were coming at me for an attack, and then they'd turn away because he would miss a turn or two. Then they'd come back, he'd miss, and then they'd go away. It was hella-confusing.

How'd it go for everyone else?

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by 1FSTCAT:
That was definitely a good game. I feel sorry for people like Sparhawk, that were locked away in corner, for the most part, with no room to expand (He was to the Poo's northwest).

Hmmm, really? I spent a lot of time setting the map up to prevent anybody from being locked in anywhere. I would hope his lack of expansion was due to the superior play of Poo rather than some screw up on the map on my part. I tried to make everyone more or less equidistant from their partner (Unknown at the beging of the game) and there home system (unconnected to the rest of the systems. It was a lot more complex than anything I had tried before. I hope everybody feels they had a fair shot at finding both.

Geoschmo

[ November 27, 2002, 14:24: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[1FSTCAT]

I definitely had a part in "locking him in". He had an escape to the west and south, but I believe there was another empire on his borders that way. We'll have to hear from him, on how that went.

--Ed