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

[DeKaye]

Thanks Glyn for your support lol. Shhhh, you gave away my underhanded plan of KOTH hill domination.

All Hail Queen Fuzzie!

*Uhummm, did I say that out loud.....?

[Slynky]

The game, in its infinite wisdom about spacing empires equally, started us side by side and I'm in Khryon's home system at the completion of the 2nd turn.

Given the possibility Khryon might not like the difficulty of playing such a game, AND the willingness of some help from the French in re-gening a game, I'll offer him a restart.

[Alneyan]

Like the French would help anyone. They do like to ask for help, though, and so shall I. Renegade has departed the fled, hunted by the wrath of his unhappy settlers (our fleets ensured the peaceful demonstration against Renegade). Shame, the tickling was about to fall on their homeworlds.

So, I gather you have decided to go along with your game, and I would need someone to create Dex Solo vs Alneyan.

[Khyron]

I haven't played a game where I have started this close to another player, much less in a one-on-one. It is quite educational, for instance I'll have to remember to negotiate the removal of mines. The indignity of having my side of my home system's WP mined with no sweepers.

[Slynky]

Khyron said:
I haven't played a game where I have started this close to another player, much less in a one-on-one. It is quite educational, for instance I'll have to remember to negotiate the removal of mines. The indignity of having my side of my home system's WP mined with no sweepers.

Starting beside each other is a tough game. One problem is there is, in my opinion, a chance for some sort of "rock, scissors, paper" thing where guessing wrong by one person loses the game. In a evenly-spaced game, that is less likely to occur.

I looked at the map and decided mines were an immediate necessity because the map was much smaller than usual. At most, having seen all the map but one system, you could have been no further than the 5th hop from me. Assuming we headed toward each other, we would have met in the 3rd hop. That mandates mines!

The game looks better now, for me, than the start. It was touch and go there for a while but I feel safer. In addition to the (somewhat) unlucky start for me--you have MUCH better planets in your home system than I did--I lost my only colony to your daring attack early on and had to deal with warships in my home system. Luckily, I had mined the hole the turn you attacked and that gave me time. To make matters worse, I sent a colony ship off to the north and had the bad luck of finding a single-fac planet as the only available one to start a secondary buiid-up since my home system was under attack. So, I went on to the next system...settled the planet and WHOA! I forgot to put pop on the darn thing and it couldn't build. So, I had to build a ship to run up there with pop... .

Anyway, to comment on your embarrassment of being mined, having the opponent move all the way around the map to block you in to two systems ranks right up there... I was really surprised to see you hadn't expanded around except for one system.

[Renegade 13]

Ah, I apologize Alneyan, I should have mentioned earlier that I wish to be removed from the hill for a while. Thanks!

[Khyron]

I play much better in larger games, where I have time to get some sort of economy going. I have been forcing myself to play smaller games to break myself of some habits that are detrimental in faster paced games.

I had forgotten about the ship you are blocking my other system with, though it is heavily damaged if I remember correctly. After the buildup to boot you off the warp point in my home system, then the buildup after that to prevent you (hopefully) from coming back I still haven't fully developed my home system (mainly the planet you colonized and I had to sterilize to remove you).

We shall see how it goes, if nothing else this will be a learning experience for me. Now I just have to stay alive long enough to learn some more.

[Slynky]

Well, Khyron, it has made the whole game exciting instead of the boring buildup that goes on for 20 turns in other games.

Yeah, that ship is damaged down there but more are on the way and you don't have anything moving south, so she'll be OK. She's still capable of moving...I'm just trying to watch a bit.

[Rathar]

Off to Mexico for a month+! See you folks in a while!

Rathar

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Bye for now!