Announcing the 2005 PBW Open Tournament

[Will]

Thermodyne said:
Is the round two map more or less the same size as the round one map?

It's quite a bit denser, actually. The first I would describe as "Balanced Midlife", with each system having 12 medium planets of each combination of atmospheres/types (excluding None atmosphere).

This one, from the currently greyed out view of the system map, looks kinda like a flower, with a round central hub expanding out into petals full of systems. Not sure what the connections will be like, but thats what it seems like to me for now. The sytems themselves are still "balanced", but instead have 14 planets (again, combination of every type, including None this time) of varying sizes. So, more variety this time around. You still know exactly how many colonizers to send into an unexplored system, you just won't know how big the colonies will be.

[geoschmo]

Guys, don't be too specific about the map k? Everybody else in round two will be using it as well and we don't want to give away the secrets.

It was created using balance mod 2.0.

I had Fyron create it for me since I am still playing in the tourney and didn't want to have a veiw of the starting positions.

My only request was that there be some space between starting positions, but not neccesarily in opposite corners. It sounds like he accomplished that.

I have come to the realization over many koth and tournament games that starting on opposite sides of the quadrant may not be the ideal starting position for a two player game. First of all, if you know the map has manual placement and you are in one corner, you know pretty reliably that your opponent is in the opposite corner. Secondly, people expand at different rates so typically the faster expander can trap his opponent into one third to one quarter of the map and choke them off. And finally it can just take forever to meet you opponent sometimes, which is a little boring in two-player games.

My thought currently is that the positions should be about halfway from the center to the edge of the quadrant map. This still gives you half a quadrants distance between you, but allows you to have a little space "behind" you to colonize once the borders are established. This also allows you to be a little more flexible on exactly where you place the players so it's not so easy to predict where they are. You could be both in the same hemisphere when viewing the map from one perpsective, but still half a quadrant away. That can make a significant difference in the direction to your opponents homeworld.

[geoschmo]

Round 1 is complete. Nomis defeated Blueoriontiger to move on to round two against Tiberius.

One of the round 2 games is already up to turn 60 or so. The rest of the round two games have yet to start. I will start pushing things along a bit now that everybody is into round 2.

If you haven't got your empire uploaded, please get it done.

Geoschmo

[Slynky]

Ready for round 2 here! See, we're obedient empires

We have agreed upon some strange and interesting parameters for our game, so "listen up"...

There will be NO:

PD
Religious Trait
Carrier ships (e-agreement, 'cause there's no setting)
Mines
Stellar Manipulation
Intel
Shields
Armor

All else is as per the tourney. We used 2,000 points for racial traits.

Finally, we agreed upon 3 GOOD homeworlds.

(if I've forgotten anything, I imagine I will be corrected)

[geoschmo]

No armor, shields or PD? You guys are going to go through a lot of ships.

Just so I am clear, when you say no carrier ships, you mean no ships of the carrier hull-types? I assume you are allowed to build say a light-cruiser and put fighter bays on it? Or am I assuming too much?

[Slynky]

geoschmo said:
No armor, shields or PD? You guys are going to go through a lot of ships.

Just so I am clear, when you say no carrier ships, you mean no ships of the carrier hull-types? I assume you are allowed to build say a light-cruiser and put fighter bays on it? Or am I assuming too much?

Yeah, we can put bays on any kind of ship except carriers. This was to avoid the 800Kt ship after researching fighters.

[Will]

Slynky said:
Yeah, we can put bays on any kind of ship except carriers. This was to avoid the 800Kt ship after researching fighters.

Yeah, GrandpaKim just hit me pretty hard with an approximately 20 ship fleet of 800kT Light Carriers. Combination of fighters and heavy mounts overwhelmed my fleet of about 30 destroyers and light cruisers.

I had used that strategy vs. the AI before, but I don't think I ever quite got that big of a fleet of carriers together this soon. Seems to be very effective.

[Parasite]

I have surrendered to Slynky in our game of the Tournament. I held out for 75 turns, but there is no more light. In the interests of my people and those of his race following my banner he is the winner. Let there be no more death.

I think we both played very well. His empire was set up for more long term play while mine was a little better on the shorter game side. Once I became unable to break through his ships, he could win by attrittion. He also realized that and played it to a tea.

I have reasonably complete game notes. I hope to clean them up a little and post them here. I can't figure out how to make the system names mean anything. I will just have to wing it.

Coming soon, how to not win against Slynky

[Slynky]

Slynky said:
Ready for round 2 here! See, we're obedient empires

We have agreed upon some strange and interesting parameters for our game, so "listen up"...

There will be NO:

PD
Religious Trait
Carrier ships (e-agreement, 'cause there's no setting)
Mines
Stellar Manipulation
Intel
Shields
Armor

All else is as per the tourney. We used 2,000 points for racial traits.

Finally, we agreed upon 3 GOOD homeworlds.

(if I've forgotten anything, I imagine I will be corrected)

Well, it's a very interesting game!