Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Slynky:
Yeah, I thought 300,000 points for intel research was a bit much especially considering the food contamination successes (which hurt a few turns every time you killed of all the pop on a planet but I had 4 frigates stationed with pop on board that could get places fairly easily). You might have been better off putting those 300,000 toward Ice (or Gas) tech and those intel facs to research and resources.

Yea 20/20 hindsight. I have used Intel quite effectivly in a couple KOTH style games. The problem this time is I seemed to run out of facility slots. Also I perhaps should have pulled the move I pulled once on Rags. That is start 11 food contamination projects at once and let them all finish on the same turn. hehe Now that hurts. But this time It seemed I wouldn't be able to build enough facilites to make it work in time.
I don't know if it was the same for you but I just didn't seem to have the facility space I was expecting. Maybe it was just the map or just me.

Of course another big reason I probably lost was underestimating you. (which is entirely your fault. All those "oooo I'm playing the guy 2nd on the standings thing". hehe. Being 2nd in the standings mostly just means I've played a lot of games.

I actually thought about making the KOTH program do the standing by won/loss percentage. (but then I would drop down. hehe got to be some perks for writing the program )

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 ]

[Slynky]

Originally posted by Mark the Merciful:
The Kif (Mark the Merciful) vs The Primitive Horde (Primitive) turn; 2406.5

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

Primitive surrenders...

Now, THIS is one place a map helped! Not sure I could have followed all without it.

Fighting on 2 fronts is always nerve-racking. All those questions: Should this newly-built ship go here or there? Does he have more coming at me here or there? Should I go through this warp hole or defend at it? (etc.) Much simpler with one location .

Congrats on your climb, Mark! Somehow, I knew when I played you (and got beat), you had the stuff to go high on the hill!

[Slynky]

Originally posted by DavidG:

I actually thought about making the KOTH program do the standing by won/loss percentage. (but then I would drop down. hehe got to be some perks for writing the program )

Of course, for people who like statistics, if you should ever make another change, you might think about adding a column to the right of the Loss column with win percentage listed. Of course, it would skew the win percentages for people who have played one game and won it. So, you could consider only computing it after, say, 3 games. Of course, leave it in its current sort so that the win percentage just becomes another item to look at and not the major sort.

(don'tcha like people who are always recommending additonal work for you? )

[sparhawk]

KOTH Phoenix-D vs. Sparhawk

The Spar Alliance is victorious ones again.
Please put me one up and Phoenix-D likes to have some break, if I'm right.

sparhawk

[Asmala]

Originally posted by sparhawk:
Please put me one up and Phoenix-D likes to have some break, if I'm right.

Phoenix-D, if Sparhawk isn't right let out a yell and I put you back to the hill

[Cheeze]

Asmala,

Move me back down and put Roanon up. I look forward to play someone as soon as possible.

[Slynky]

Originally posted by Cheeze:
Asmala,

Move me back down and put Roanon up. I look forward to play someone as soon as possible.

Wow, Cheesey One! Any other words, like a description of what happened?

[Slynky]

I see Roanon and I have been paired.

Roanon, I prefer standard KOTH settings (but if you have a proposed deviation from that, we can talk).

I'm EDT (Atlanta) and will be able to knock out several turns tonight if you're interested.

[Roanon]

KOTH Roanon vs. Cheeze

We met very early, our home systems being very near together, one system apart on one side, 2 systems in between on the other side. We both had one other exit from our homeworlds into uncontested systems, but by sheer luck I had the largest part of the galaxy behind my back while Cheeze was nearly pushed in the corner.

In the initial struggle I had the edge shipwise but kept loosing battles anyway and lost several planets in my home system. The game was finally decided by mines, which I barely got in time to defeat his ships in my home system. Luck again, one turn later and I would have lost I guess.

After that, I managed to box him in his home system plus exit into corner/edge while I could expand through the middle. Funny, nearly all of the planets breathable for me were in his quarter of the galaxy while I encountered everywhere lots of planets that would have been good for him. Luckily, as I found out later, there were very few of these in the systems that he managed to seize.