Invulnerable Challenge - Warning... Spoilers!

[Erax]

2415.0 (minor spoilers regarding AI tactics)

After I killed the 50 or so ships they sent at me, they stopped opening WPs into my side of the quadrant (but I believe they opened some more on their side). They tried sending some ships at me (no more than two at a time), then apparently gave up. I am now on the offensive, capturing some of their colonies. They still have a lot more ships than I do but they're not trying to stop me, so I'm basically up against their unarmed or lightly-armed support ships.

They've converted the atmosphere on all the colonies I can see and built at least one system grav shield. I'd say their economic build-up routines are working very well.

Right now I still have five unexplored systems on my map, one of which is their home system and the other is a colony system. I'll probably narrow the options some more this afternoon.

[Asmala]

2411.9

Those storms... I lost about 100 base ships to them. I haven't yet figured out how the storms actually work. My first little fleet took no damage when it moved to the storms but this big fleet got destroyed entirely. Looks like a random damage However this cause many extra turns re-building my ships.

[Stone Mill]

Originally posted by Asmala:
2411.9

Those storms... I lost about 100 base ships to them. I haven't yet figured out how the storms actually work. My first little fleet took no damage when it moved to the storms but this big fleet got destroyed entirely. Looks like a random damage However this cause many extra turns re-building my ships.

[spoiler] Yes... I don't have a very good handle on it myself. Damage appears to vary with every encounter. The one variable I will volunteer has something to do with your designs. Did your first wave have different components?

You have BBegemott to thank for the storm concept. I was waiting for folks to express a bit of frustration with it. Of course, it was not as much trouble for him.

[ July 20, 2003, 00:36: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]

[Narrew]

When I wrote my Last post, I was feeling confident, well it is 2416.9, I went through their Last warp point, I think my ship designs did well, I had just under 400 ships and when the dust settled, I had no ships left but they have 4 planets, 25 SB's, 6 ST's, 8 LC's and a few transports left (some have alot of damage). Man, if I just had a few more ships. Oh, I glassed all their planets, no capture for me...

It is damn late, so I am not going to do any more turns until tommorow. Should I save the combat files for this turn, or are you getting alot of them.

[Erax]

2417.0 : Got two colony systems to go before I reach their home system. It's slow going because I'm capturing instead of glassing. Most of their ships are in the system I am currently invading, so ship counts for both sides will probably drop a lot in the next few turns.

They have three times as many ships as I do in this system, but I'm counting on superior design and strategy to win the day.

[Ragnarok]

Curse you and your challenge!
I finally got some time to knock down alot of turns tonight. (before I was only doing 1 or 2 a day)

-----POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW-----
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I made it to 2409.6 of game time. Looking at the score screen when I first began the game I knew it would be tough just to survive out here; so I took a different route then most players would. I build a warp opener/closer from the start and I have now cut myself off from the Sharks. I had made first contact 9 turns into it! After closing off contact I continued my expansion process colonizing all available - oh and I will have me a ringworld in a few more turns - when I get a message saying that one of my planets has been destroyed by the Sharks. I'm thinking, "what the heck?!" I didn't even see a ship in any of my systems. So I think well no big deal and I continue on; then it happens again! After 3 more times such as this, losing planets without ever seeing a ship in any of my systems I finally build some sats that can detect cloaked ships; but to no avail! I have them in all my systems but for the next 3 turns I lose planets!

I finally have to start abandoning some of my planets because I do not want to lose them. So I do so and I continue my search for whats doing this. I lose yet another planet and I decide to take another step; put mines on all my planets. So I do so and 2 turns later...BOOM! I finally caught the little son of a beach. I still, down to this turn, cannot figure out how he was able to get under my sensors and get to my planets without my seeing him at all.

But the problem is solved and I am happily growing once again. I haven't seen the Sharks use warp point openers just yet but I'm sure it will be coming. Great job so far on the callenge Stone Mill and I look forward to continuing this game onward. Speaking of which.....

[Spoo]

ARGHHH... blackholes.... where my beautiful systems used to be

Ruthless.