Best Alliance Pair?

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2749 days, 21 hours, 24 minutes ago

Best Alliance Pair?

Based on complimentary capabilities (CV's/FF's; Cloaking; Speed extras; Economic or Other Special Abilities; Intelligence Gathering; Ground Assault), I would propose the following as the best alliance pairs in the game.

Lizard & Evil Empire
Lizard & Colonies
Fascist & Evil Empire

Thoughts positive or negative? What about weakest pair?

2749 days, 15 hours, 11 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I don't give an answer now. Just a bet that this thread will be a loooooong one :)

Btw: As with single races an alliance's strengths and weaknesses depend on the opposing races /alliances.

2749 days, 13 hours, 19 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Ok, let's go!

Deadly combination: Privateer + someone who isn't decloaked by Lokis.

Who is the best someone?

1. Fed:
+ economic problem is solved
+ you can build many ships before the limit
+ webs and normal mines can be adressed by refitted Heavy Phasers
+ Nova owns all torp races

2.Lizard
+ economic problem is solved
+ Lizard MBR survives a mine hit / popper
+ the alliance hasn't to fear losing bases by ground attacks

3.Birdman
+ Resolute as a robber with large tank
+ can tow out ships that hide in ion storms

Which two other races would you choose to best beat a Privateer/Fed alliance and how? Anyone has an answer that doesn't include the Klingons? Crystals seem helpful but I think that webs can only slow down such an alliance but not stop it in the long run.

From Tom's suggestions only Klingons&EE have a chance on the battleground. But economically it is the poorhouse of the cluster.

2749 days, 6 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

A Crystal/Cyborg alliance would defeat a Privateer/Fed alliance. Webs trump cloakers. Huge borg economy would provide enough web torps to overwhelm Heavy Phasers. Crystal/Borgs would be on the offense. Borg SB would be costly for Privateer/Feds to take. For every planet taken in one area with Heavy Phasers concentrated by P/F, 5-10 planets would be taken in another area by C/B.

2749 days, 6 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Priv/EE is deadly in the early game, I have seen many a HW taken by a quick MBR/SSD sneak attack. Plus who doesn't like speed gorbies.

2749 days, 0 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

we assume they are neighbours, right?

apart from privateer + crystal or robot
- how about something exotic: fed + klingons?

2748 days, 15 hours, 26 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Hi mjs68508!

I don't think it is so easy for Borg/Crystal to avoid being robbed if they attack a Priv/Fed planet. There is a max web field radius and if you have enough beams to sweep this you are safe. It will be decisive in this matchup that the Priv/Fed is well prepared in the area that is attacked. I agree that this is a difficult task regarding the chunnel ability of the Borg/Crystal alliance.

2748 days, 13 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Pirates can be extremely powerful if allowed to grow and the Fed/Pirates are a great combo.

Actually I think the Borg/Crystal ship(s) could possibly get robbed and captured after taking a Fed/Pirate planet. Especially if they did not set up their attack patiently. But there are some Crystal web tricks to help ensure that both the captured ships and the robbing ships don't get away without being drained of fuel and captured back by the Crystals. Of course, Pirates have tricks of their own.

Also, note that even one web minefield at max 150 ly would take 7.5 Novas with 10 Heavy Phaser beams each to eliminate the web minefield. Or alternately, 19 MCBRs with 4 Heavy Phaser beams each to wipe out the max web minefield. And if/when the Pirates have that many MCBRs with Heavy Phasers in one place, then perhaps it is time for the Borg to chunnel an attack fleet to another area of the galaxy.

The key for the Crystals in this instance is being able to be continuously supplied with torpedoes to continuously fill up the Crystal Emerald Battlecruisers with 510 torpedoes each to lay the web minefields -- and indeed the Borg is best suited long-term to provide both the MCs and resources necessary to build torpedoes to do so.

A fun topic to discuss the Best Alliance Pair. Many combos work very well together. I will try to gather my thoughts of who I think can best rule the galaxy....

2748 days, 13 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I go with Liz / Borg as the best combo.

Liz provides the best starting ships and can aggressively defeat the first neighbours while the Borg grows and becomes unstopable. Together, they have a massive econonomy (the best in the whole universe), Lokis, Cloakers, Badass Ships, millions of Clans on every planet, the best ship for logistic purposes in the game (FCC) and a terraformer.

Worst Combo? Hmm.. hard to say. Maybe Bird & Fascist? Weak economy, medium ships... yeah maybe I'll go with them.

By the way, I think you overrate the EE intelligence skills - if you can build cloakers, you don't need them that much.

2748 days, 3 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

150% damage Cubes are also an intriguing thought in the Liz / Borg scenario :)

I still maintain that the most powerful combo in the game must include the Crystals.

Crystal/Borg is deadly. The ability to chunnel in massive amounts of webs anywhere you want, that's very difficult to deal with. Web mines protect the invasion space, the Cubes steam through and kill everything in their path.

Also a huge fan of Privy / Crystal, that's a fun one for sure. MK7 MBRs in the Crystals hands.. OUCH!!

But if I must put the Crystals aside for whatever reason, we can have fun with things like:

Privy / Colonies. Aside from Webs, there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to protect your ships. Yes you can have Lokies, but who cares, there aren't enough Lokis in the game to detter the Privy's, and if by some chances Lokis do become a problem then send in the 160 lyr per turn Virgos!

I know the Fascists have Glories, but I wouldn't bother stealing any Fascists ships, I'd just send in the Virgos at that point and just annihilate everything in their path.

How bout Privy / Borg? How much fun can you have with that. Chunnel out enemy ships to your wolf pack. All of a sudden your wolf pack doesn't have to be mobile anymore. You tow enemy ship to firecloud, who chunnels out to your wolf pack.

Or you can just tow the enemy ship out to your firecloud who chunnels them out to your Cubes who have the luxury of decimating your poor ship with no shields to boot :)

Feds / Privy... could be interesting, one less Loki race to worry about and Feds can refit any ship the Privy steal.

I don't like Empire, but Empire / Liz would basically almost guarantee that at least one if not two immediate neighbors don't survive 15 - 20 turns. That gives you a LOT of real estate early on in the game. Then later you have the 150% damage Gorbie to deal with.

2745 days, 9 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Borg + klingon. It is the overall best alliance in the game. The past 2 turns I have blew up 18 Rex/mad losing - a pop ship and 2 cubes. Real game, real players no bull. Absolutely glorious. On the defensive to boot!
Push comes to shove, the borg+klingons come knocking for a planet and they're going to take it. There's jack all anyone can do about it, delay them, yes, with webs and mines and whatever shenanigans but stop them? Not going to happen.

There are many good alliances but all things weighed against each other it's the best.

2745 days, 6 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Don't underestimate webs! They can be a nightmare. Good luck coordinating pop ship maneuvers when Webs can basically spread your fleet apart.

Now granted, Chunnel is probably the most effective method of dealing with Webs, no arguing that, but you'd also have to consider the Crystal ally and whom that might be.

2745 days, 6 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

For casual play I definitely agree webs can be a pain but there's a way to never have your fleet spread apart as the borg against the crystals but we'll just ignore that tidbit for today. I haven't used it in any of my games on Nu so don't bother looking. ;)

What ally were you envisioning? You get your pick - cloaker or big ships, either way - check and mate.
Crystals are a great race, don't get me wrong, they look poised to win the championship match by my reckoning. Borg is their counter race and their webs are simply not up to the task.

2745 days, 5 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

It would have to be some type of cloaker race.

Probably Privy's. The goal would be to draw in the attack and then surround the enemy forces with webs. Once the enemy fleet is burried in webs, you go for the firclouds and take them out.

The point is to make the advance painfully slow, and the Crystals can certainly do that no matter what. You can build a wall of interlocking webs, small ones, that are easy to sweep, but you have to go 1 at a time, and anytime you sweep one another one comes up right next to it.

Its a war of attrition, basically waiting for a mistake to be made. Any opportunity that comes up to take out a Firecloud with cloak intercept is then taken.

2745 days, 5 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

That is standard good crystal strategy, with or without the ally.
I will simply move it in a straight line towing a cube filled with fuel. I put X kt of fuel on the firecloud and advance. That firecloud, after it hits the webs becomes a target for another firecloud with whatever I want to bring along. I utilize my stronger economy to counter-mine with a high pressure large area field to snag your web layers and force you to sweep. I will inexorably reach my goal, I divide your forces attacking from multiple directions, it ends, you perish.

Nothing is impossible in this game, you can potentially beat the above scenario, it's just very very hard to actually do.

2745 days, 5 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I feel like the only way to keep your Fireclouds safe is to make sure they never have fuel at the end of a turn, which to me sounds very difficult to do when you don't know exactly how far you'll be traveling before you hit a web.

I would try to drop a web in your path and cloak intercept the firecloud(s) in the same turn.

I ASSUME that a pop ship with "trg" set would not explode in that scenario since the ship is not really cloaked anymore.

It seems to me as if a more viable strategy from your end would be to tow your fueless fireclouds around rather than have the Fireclouds do the towing.

But then if you stand still to receive a chunnel, then that is very dangerous, unless you do have a "trg" ship sitting there as well, which obviously also becomes a prime cloak intercept target.

Tow chunnel would probably be more effective, but either way, at least one firecloud will be exposed to cloak intercept.

It would be costly for sure, I'd have to drop regular minefields as well to ensure clear passage for the cloakers to do their business.

Then of course you have the situation where you have to eventually hit a planet, at which point you could lose a number of ships. A wolf pack is not even necessary, one MBR can peel off a cube or something valuable to a web pack 160 lyrs away.

Once the Privy's have some cubes in their posession, things change dramatically, and yes I understand the value of the Borg's ability to attack form different locations, but at the same time, those Fireclouds are still very succeptible to cloak intercepts, and when you are in danger from 1602lyrs away as opposed to just 81, it should be a bit tougher to advance like you plan.

Either way, would be a fun battle, would be a LOOOOOONG battle if fought well by both sides.

2744 days, 22 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

from the shiplist i'd go for borg-crystal. the borg would need more merlins than average though

2744 days, 22 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I would agree with a previous player. Your alliance is as strong as allied communication, the knowledge of your races and the enemies knowledge of their races as well as your race. That is where the key is.
With that said, as a Lizard player, i'm not afraid of races with good economies, I will out produce them. I'm not afraid of races with big ships, you can eventually take them. I'm not afraid of cloaking races, you can out maneuver them. I am afraid of one thing... webs ;-) And let's face it, no matter how big a Lizard gets, he still only build weak Lizard ships, lol.
I just finished a game where I allied with the Borgs, and it worked out great. Of course you need to prop up the borgs at first and protect them. So, you would need to be near him before he builds up. You even need to give him planets and refinery ships. BUT, once they build their first two dozen FCC's and a few Biocides, then they are golden. They can bring your ships up from the back, supply you with clans and given a 150% damage Bio, you can take alot.
But what about those dang webs? I wouldn't pair with the Crystals because they have nothing to offer for the end game. You can have a frontal assault and sweep with 30-40 heavy phasers, but the key to any lizard is to pop around at the flanks and destroy the economy. Some players/races recover faster then others. But while they are gathering in one place, you hit another. And whenever you can pop back home and gather up another 1000 M7 torps, that's handy for laying minefields.
I choose Lizard/Borg. Otherwise I have to kill the Borgs quickly ;-) All other races are good as well if used right and this combo will fall if ganged up on before the mid game, so you need to give concessions. But if they make it through the mid game, if they don't win, it will be very difficult to root them out as you advance on them.
But, I still hate webs!!!!!!

2744 days, 22 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

BTW, there is no weak pair. When you think that, dig your own grave. If a duo plans and works well together, they will be formidable. "shiver" I'm scared even thinking about it....

2744 days, 6 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Really the Borg just need someone to give them some help at the very beginning.

You don't even really have to be that close to eachother, how long would it take for the Borg to send a probe to their allies?

1. Send probe towards Ally
2. Ally is rushing to build a 2nd SB that can get tech 6 hull
3. Probe arrives and takes the SB by ground attack
4. Borg builds Firecloud in ally's territory.

Now the alliance is linked via chunnel. This can be achieved in 3 or 4 turns from the start of the game.

Borg is now protected, especially if Ally can provide Loki or web mine support.

Game is going to be a long one for everyone else :)

What about a Borg / Rebel combination?

I dread to think the expansion power of the Borg if they had Falcons at their disposal as opposed to the somewhat limited probe.

The % of the galaxy that can be assimilated with Falcons increases dramatically vs that with the basic probe.

Also those planets that are a bit shy of minerals to build the SB + Firecloud can now be easily supplied with the necessary minerals by the Falcons.

I don't see how you can stop that type of expansion, it would be on a massive scale.

And then you also get the free fighter building ability to boot!

2735 days, 17 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I let my mind wander about this question in the past days (I walk 25 minutes to work each day ;) ) and I think that the Borg maybe the best race as a partner for everybody.

What the partner of the Borg gets:

1. An enormous push to the econony.

- You can have loads of colonists everywhere you need them. I always have the problem of "overstretching", meaning on my far borders I have way too less clans to be effective. Borg will solve that easily.

- Furthermore you have the Firecloud, the best ship possible to help you with your economy. You will have absolutely no neutronium shortages.

- With a fighter race, you do not need any Bovinoid planets.. you just need to find a planet with good temperature and a lot of natives. Problem solved.

- You have access to two of the biggest warships in the galaxy and you are able to move your fleet fast and with nearly no fuel costs

I'm sure you can find additional advantages...

What the Borg gets:

This depends on your partner, but most importantly he gets protection in the early stages (unless you ally with the EE... as stated this would be the worst choice I guess). And after that, there are endless possibilities you gain. Just make sure you get something to counter the Privateer. So main ally partners should be Fed, Liz, Fashist, Crystal or maybe the Robot.

EDIT: or the Privateer, of course ;)

2734 days, 18 hours, 39 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

This question so depends on the two races your facing off against or the other three two - man teams your facing off against.

But...if I have to go in blind, choose first, not considering any of the other two-man teams you might be facing....

I'll take the Borg / Lizard any day all day! In my opinion this combo offers the fewest solution combo's to actually having a chance to defeat them. (Zero - LOL)

-Admiral Star

And P.S. Borg / Lizard owns the Crystals with numerous options for 10 heavy phasers and massive minefields of their own with THE TWO BEST Economy's in the game. It's all Economics baby, and NOBODY matches the economics of the BORG/LIZARD! Sorry.... it is what it is and what this game is, IS ECONOMICS ! Ain't nobody building more ships, nobody building more starbases, and NOBODY laying out more clans, than this NIGHTMARE DUO. A pair of GOOD BORG/LIZARD players OWN the universe. blah blah anything you like, but you will be out starbased, you will be out shipped and you will be dominated.

And P.S.S. No Borg/Lizard Combo need put MK 7's on ANYTHING...It's all MK 8's, and don't speak to me about the cost of laying minefields - blah blah, because if you can afford it, and THEY CAN, you build MK 8's for increased damage in combat.

2734 days, 11 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I agree with Rudel... The best race for a team is Borg + anyone. After turn 25 the only solo race that can stop Borg is the Priv. Remember we are talking about race talents not players style or skill.

Best team
Borg + anyone that can stop the Priv.
I prefer the Lizards and/or Priv as a team mate.

Borg vs Crystal = Firecloud tows Cube and walks from planet to plant channeling in more FCC and fuel when ever needed. Attack from all side and the Crystals cannot lay enough mines to stop the Borg. If I find myself next to the Crystals I attack with HYP ships very early and make him lay webmines. This hampers his expansion very early. I then build defensive Starbases on the edge of his space. The Crystals must then build war fleets to advance and this hampers mine production.

The very best thing about the Borg is they can deploy their entire war fleet on the offensive and recall it at any moment to defend. Fireclouds are by far the most powerful ship in the game and they suck in combat.

2734 days, 11 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Rudel/Vacco and others -- you are assuming the Borg team is allowed to grow in strength. That would be a mistake to allow them to do so. They must be hit hard early in the game when they are at their weakest. Borg are relatively weak early and relatively strong late. Why would anyone wait until late to attack the Borg? If they do wait, then yes your examples above hold true.

In individual games, I agree that by late game, an equal-strength Crystal will usually be overpowered by an equal strength Borg that is allied appropriately. That is why it is so important that most races including Crystals make sure that the Borg (and Privateer) do not grow to an equal or greater size. If players allow the Borg or Privateer to prosper early in the game, then they deserve to lose during the end-game. The one game here at Nu where my Crystal alliance did not win (and deserved to lose) was when the Borg grew large and his alliance eventually won the game (he was in NW corner of the galaxy and I was in the SE corner of the galaxy).

Now in team games, the same theme applies -- the team with the Crystal Confederation and his/her team-mate must apply military and diplomatic pressure early-on to thwart the growth of the team that includes the Borg. And in Nu -- where there are 6 teams of 2 starting in a 500 planet galaxy - then the first priority of all the 2-player teams is to hit the team with the Borg (and the team with the Privateer) fast and hard so they don't grow to have multiple Cubes/Fireclouds or large-size Meteor Wolfpacks. If the other teams do not hit the Borg/Pirates early, then once again they deserve to lose, which they most likely will.

2734 days, 10 hours, 4 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Which is why the Lizard is the race for the Borg. The Lizard is a fast early game race and can shorten the amount of time to the first Cubes, as well as out gun anyone from turns 1-25.

Agree that the Borg is a mandatory race in any BEST two man team.

A Case can be made for the Borg/Crystal as the Crystal can provide the protection needed for the Borg from turns 1-25, but IMHO, the Lizard mining / Loki / Downloading / Hisssss (Which makes the Borg Probe in middle and end game extremely useful when they are otherwise just strategic recycling ships.)

I still think it is a game of Economics and the better Economics generally wins. Economically the Borg/Lizard is an unmatchable pair. I also like the Offensive capability of a Borg / Lizard way better than a Borg / Crystal. It's just faster with LCC, which has to be one of the TOP 5 ships in the game. A fleet of LCC can devastate an enemy and with Borg clans everywhere, well....ouch.

Borg / Anyone but the Crystal and Lizard can be wiped out early.

-Admiral Star

2734 days, 9 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I just have to agree, the borg are your best friend in VGA always and forever. ;)
Lizard+borg is a great combo, one of the best in my opinion.
The loki is however not an all-around cloak defense, fed, lizard or romulan cloakers make it through
undetected.
They can be hampered by crystal + romulan, or similar pirate + fed, pirate + romulan.
Still at advantage if cards are played right but it's not be all-end-all.

Everything loses to Borg + klingon. You control the cloaking with pop ships. You control the big battles with pop ships. You hyper-pillage. Ill-wind is the mid-ship early game killer. Vicky is a decent front ship. You threaten clan drop, cloak. You control information - nothing can hurt a fuelless klingon probe. There are lots and lots and lots of advantages some of which I won't discuss because I want to actually have a real game with it someday. (Almost did, as emork knows, but that fell apart.)

Aside from borg alliances one which hasn't been mentioned but is very strong is crystal + colonial. Don't ever doubt the positional strength of such a team or they will rock you.,

2730 days, 20 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

1st choice: Liz + Borg.

My 2nd choice is off the beaten path. The offensive strength of the Xtals plus any good cloaker will be seriously under estimated by most, especially if the alliance was off the radar until the first sudden attack. I'd pick Liz for this too for the ground assult, mining and hissing but the other cloakers also work well.

2727 days, 8 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

How bout Liz + Rebel.

The more I think about this strategy the more I want to try it.

I've mentioned it before I"m sure, but the scenario is as follows:

1. Move LCC over enemy planet and drop your 290 clans. If that is not enough to take a planet then move LCC to outer edge of the warp well.
2. Send Falcon to meet LCC and ressupply with 120 clans.
3. Move LCC back over planet and drop 120 clans.

Repeat this process until the planet falls.

I'm curious if someone can find a way to stop this strategy.

Only the Borg, Crystals and Fascists can combat this tactic as far as I can tell.

2727 days, 7 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Capnkill, you will run into fuel problems if you base your main assult on HYP ship resupplies but I have seen this tactic used with some success.

Better Tactic Borg-Liz team using only LLC. Lizards drop troops and capture planet, Lizard's pick up troops and passes race worlds to the borg. Using the Borg LLC he drops troops, takes planet from lizard and then resupplies troops to Lizards. I seen games won by building almost nothing but FCC,LCC and LDSF. Big warships end up sitting on boarder worlds for defence. You win by killing off the entire population of all races and advoiding space combat... The Fascists are the only ones that can defend against this with glory devices but he cannot stand up to the Borg or Lizards war shps.

2727 days, 6 hours, 28 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Rebel-Liz is very strong. Fuel supply for Falcons is no problem in this rich universe.
Rebel-Privateer is even stronger I think. With the Rebel in your team you don't need Lizard Ground Attack. With Rebel Ground Attack you don't get the base but the planet. The most important thing is to destroy enemy bases and ships without losses ot at least with a better PBP-result than your enemies. This way you build more ships in the long run. If you have 500 you win.

2720 days, 12 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

One of my favorites is a Borg - Romulan alliance. You get all the best ships, early protection for the Borg, a great economy, overall a really good team.

Best counter would be the Privs, but that's why you trade for or otherwise acquire a Loki from the Lizard or Fed. (Either an Annihilation or a Darkwing equipped with disruptors and gamma bombs can capture many small useful ships like the Loki, Cobol, MBR).

2720 days, 0 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Romulan is the second slowest race, behind only the Borg. How do they provide any kind of protection?

2720 days, 0 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Yah similar thoughts here... the last thing the Romulans want is to have to defend someone at the beginning :)

I think the toughest alliance to probably stop when played well is Borg / Crystal or Borg / Lizard.

With Borg / Crystals you get the early defense, and you have the ability to chunnel in the deadly webs right into enemy territory, and then ressuply those webs with fireclouds.

Imagine a Firecloud comfortably surrounded by web fields as a center hub right in the middle of your territory. You can't get to it, it just sits there and Emeralds just come right through to do as they please. It becomes a mobile web laying platform that you can't touch. Good luck with that.

Biocides aren't even necessary in this arrangement, Ahnialations will be more than enough to take out fleets that will undoubtadly break apart as they deal with Webs. That's the last thing you need while trying to sweep your way out of a mess, is a stack of Ahnialations hunting your arse down.

Borg / Lizards is the same idea with the early defense / economy, but now you can afford the fightters and 150% damage Biocides are probably the last thing anyone wants to see.

And hell the Lizards basically get unlimited clans anywhere they want to go. GOod luck with that one as well :)

If the Borg can't ally with either of those two, then next in line would be a fighter race, like the Robots.

2659 days, 7 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Me with me ?

2659 days, 5 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Plague yes this is true. Unfortunatelly it is all too easy that someone decides to cheat. And just takes a second account. He then takes the race that drops out and can then play 2 races with one aim. That is a huge advantage...

2659 days, 5 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I'm just about to finish a game with Fascist / Colonial alliance, and it feels like a dream offensive alliance. Few things can stop the juggernaut that is Virgos & Vickies supported by pop ships. No fear of mine fields, no fear of cloakers or even running out of fuel.

Crystal webs might slow them down, but even then the multitude of beams and fuel will overcome.

2659 days, 4 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Colonial/Fascist seems interesting, mines shutdown glory intercepts pretty thoroughly, so taking that out of the equation and having a virgo/vicky combo after the glories would be deadly :D

2658 days, 8 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Privateer & Tholian is everyones nightmare.
I think that is best combo of the game. They both rob ships with tow.
Emerald is one of the best middle/low level ship there is and MBR in tholian hand...
That can end your supply runs fast.

Then comes Federation with everyone else.
Cos of Federation super refit. They can just fill ship slots with "sh1t". And later fed upgrades them.
+ with federation money they can lay huge minefields.

2658 days, 4 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Both are great races but I would pair them with a partner that can clone to take full advantage of what they capture.

Xtals + any cloaker

Priv + any big carrier ship race

My vote is still for Borg and Liz.

2657 days, 22 hours, 34 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

This game starts with economics, it is the foundation to any victory, and there are no two better economic races than the Borg/Lizard.

Many have mentioned that any best pair must include the Borg. (Agree)

Borg/Crystal would be my 2nd choice.

But for sheer blow out the game economics and overall kick your arse potential my vote has to stay with the Borg/Lizard. I just can't see a better pair.

There are many interesting combo's and fun combo's but this folder is best and best has to be the Lizard/Borg.

-Star

2657 days, 16 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

The game is won by who has the ability to constantly gain more (and better) ships than the opponents after the ship limit is reached, assuming the victory condition / setup is so that the two race combo needs to fight before the game is won. There is no "unbreakable" combo.

The game is not won by races or combos, but by choosing strategy suitable for the situation/setup and executing it with superior effect.

Borg/Liz would be strong in many situations, but couldn't handle well early assault for example from Robot/Liz or worse Priv/Bird.

2657 days, 13 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@valhalla
Well usually you dont got time to cln ships, cloaning ends when there is 450 ships in the game? Or has that been changed in VGAPNU ?

2657 days, 12 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

In my experience, if cloning ships is part of your plan from the start, you can usually find a way to make it happen.

Your mileage may vary. Offer not applicable in Puerto Rico.

-V-

2657 days, 12 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Yes, it can be done between allies and dedication. But stealing something of worth and cloning must happen way before turn 30 if you're against anything worthy. Sure you could clone something nice, but anything that would change the balance of the game. Doubt it.

After the ship limit you can't clone. Period. Unless the game is practically done.

2657 days, 12 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

A couple of falcons and you can:

Refuel your pillaging or ground assault ships safely.

Move money, those last few minerals needed for that next build before the cue, etc vast distances quickly

Move pop to those remote corner human planets for a fast pre ship limit SB build

With 2 fireclouds and you can move your entire fleet vast distances for 50 fuel.

A single SSD and you can have all kinds of fun.

A few cobalts (hard to capture, I'll admit) and most of your fuel issues are solved.

ANY crappy HYP ship and you can get to your alie faster. . .

I'm not even going to mention the huge amount of fun and possibilities a few MCBRs adds.

The best part of all this is that your enemies will often not be expecting or be prepared for these new toys. A few captured ships can open up a new world of creativity. . . I play cloaking races - we make our own luck. Ship capture may be a lot harder and more luck based for the big carrier races. If that is where you are coming from, you have a point about it being less likely and less of a game changer.

In this ideal 2 player borg and liz team, one member cloaks, hyp ships and fireclouds exist. Ship capture can be a real and meaningful part of the plan with this and many other combos.

-V-

2657 days, 9 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I'm not sure if you can beat a Borg / Liz combo.

Liz offer early game protection and financial boost.

Borg can offer unlimited clans far out into the galaxy.

And then you have the 150% damage Ahni / Bio combo.

The only annoying part is having to buy fighters, but for an economy that combines Lizards advantages with Chunneling I don't think that would really be much of an issue.

2657 days, 8 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

capnkill i think you give too much credit for that combo.

I would play agaist your Lizard + Borg with Fed + Tholian.
And u will loose hard.

Or that we both can control of those 2 races in same game.
And i show you how they loose, ez.

2657 days, 8 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I think the Fed/Crystal combo can be quite fearsome. I also must state for the record that it is the players not the race that makes the difference (as well as well placed luck).

But I must also add, that I have played the Lizard/Borg/Colonial combo against a Fed/Crystal/Empire combo, where the Fed group had us out numbered in both ships and planets when they decided to go to war and we had to quickly create an alliance. We eventually had them hemmed in so bad that they couldn't move and gave up. It is a scary combo to go against. They are powerful. But they lost. Could they win with other commanders and a little luck their way? Sure. Would they make the Liz/Borg combo lose hard? Not so sure.

2657 days, 8 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You are giving way to much credit to web mines. FCC alone trump webmines and between the feds and Crystals you have no big war ships. Biocide with 150% damage buff and Heavy Phasers will smoke anything you can muster. That is in addition to Borg/Liz producing 3 to 1 ships to everyone else.

2657 days, 8 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@dragondejhi, The discussion is about the best possible race combos without the human element. If you had the perfect player playing each race what combos would win bases only on ships and race skills.

2657 days, 8 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

understood... consider me scolded ;-)

Borg/Liz - ship list is weak, race advantage is huge. This will trump.

2657 days, 8 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Borg/Liz accualy have a very good options for ships.

Probes Hyp
Echo- Hisss and Temp
FCC - Channel
LCC- Good Cloaking minelayer
Loki- Decloak
T-Rex - Cheap Battleship
Biocides- Big Carrier
Anni- Big Battleship

2657 days, 8 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@ vacco blixx
"You are giving way to much credit to web mines"
Do i?

I stop huge numbers of T-rex and Federation and EE and my old ally Privateer.
But its just me.

In remit i got 5 fronts and i start that as subtitute player.
Im loosing that game, but lets see how long it takes.
In that game i got everyone as my enemy (substitute lizard come to aid) after i killed the orginal lizard. And most of them are for 40-50 rounds.
That lizard is good player, but he got some other duties aswel.
So he came cos i ask. And he is only player here who got access to my account in case i cant make my turns.

In Karelia system i got EE+Klingon allied or how you would put co-operative with Tholian and Colonist + that privateer who wanna act as my friend.
Just a matter when i go down, but there is like 20-40 rounds. And they need 5 players to do so.

And u think u can fu(k with me all by yourself ?
^^ Think again.

2657 days, 7 hours, 52 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@Plague you need to stop looking at what you have done in the past and your example does not factor in Fire Clouds. Channeling makes webmines very weak. A fleet with 100 Hvy Phases will remove webmines faster than you can lay them. All you can do is lay small web fields to slow the borg/liz but you will never drain a ship of fuel and you don’t have the big carries needed to win the war. That is not saying webmines are not useful. They will slow the approaching ships and will stop the enemy from using intercepts but you cant beat a channeling network with webmines alone.

2657 days, 7 hours, 52 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Plague, you are playing against noobs. The Crystals (and Borg and Privateers also) lose a good bit of advantage when the opponents are good players with experience fighting them. Everyone gets pounded by the Crystals until they figure out how to beat them. Then it is just a matter of economy and logistics.

2657 days, 7 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Taxes with the Borg/Liz will net 5k per 10,000,000 population planet. It is not to hard to have 6 or 7, 10mil population planets by turn 30. So building 200 fighters a turn is very possable with a channel network setup and it only take 1 turn to resupply a Cube after combat.

2657 days, 7 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@ daniel payne.
in all his wisdom say - "Plague, you are playing against noobs"

U were once my ally, and i see how you do things. I can say, that you are total noob.
You might be forum tiger. But what comes to calculate VGAP you're nothing.

So take that vacco blixx with you di/k sucker and go skiing.
(If i think more course words, i let you know)

2657 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Plague,

I too thought Web Mines were unstoppable until I played as the Borg, and realized, that it is the Borg that are unstoppable if they are allowed to thrive.

The Lizards would ensure that the Borg is allowed to thrive early, and once that happens, it is a done deal.

Web Mines, as much as I love them and appreciate their power, are completely worthless against advanced Borg.

Bios / Ahnis / T-Rexes with 10 Heavy Phasers (this is easy for this combo, since money and minerals are absolutely no object.

No web mine can stop this, the Borg / Liz will NEVER run out of fuel, the Borg have more fuel around they they know what to do with, they hardly use any. Anytime you run low you chunnel in more fuel and continue to sweep. The Crystlas cannot keep up with this. The Feds can't really do anything to help either. The Borg / Liz can systematically move through the webs and sweep them with impunity.

All you need is enough Heavy Phasers to kill 150 lyrs of webs, which is 57 Heavy Phasers.

That's 6 ships with Heavy PHasers, and any Web field that is dropped is gone instantly.

I don't think you understand the power of the borg enough based on your comments in the "First 10 turns for Borg" thread, or whatever it is called.

When you suggsted that all you need is 3 or 4 SBs as the borg, I instantly knew that you do not understand the build cue power that the Borg can have over a game.

So while the Borg / Liz combo sweeps up all Webs with no effort they also begin to control the ship cue.

Staying ahead of the build cue with any race other than Borg is very challenging if not close to impossible, but with the Borg, and the chunnel ability, you can ALWAYS be ahead of the ship cue with minimal effort. There is absolutely no reason for why the Borg can't have a SB on every single planet they own, with very little effort.

You choke the build cue and you enter a war of attrition vs Web Mines, that the Crystals and the Feds absolutely cannot win.

Web Mines are no good.

Fed / Crystal ships don't stand a chance against Cubes, let alone 150% damage Bios / Ahnis.

This is just a brutal combination of power that I just don't see how you can stop. Even a 3 team alliance would probably fail.

2657 days, 6 hours, 40 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

capnkill ask Ubik.
Do i got skills to stop huge fleet with webs.
BTW do you call ubik as those so called noobs?
That is just example.

In remit i have played since turn 9 agaist multiple races.
Now its turn 120+ and im still alive.
If i would be you, i would listen what i have to say.

2657 days, 6 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

All I know is that you don't understand the full power of the Borg, you've said it yourself in the other thread.

TRUST me, I know what webs can do, I've played Crystals many times, but there is no denying that Chunneling is the trump for Webs.

Maybe if you had enough cloakers you can cloak intercept all teh Fireclouds, but that doesn't work either, because only one Firecloud needs to have fuel, the rest can be empty and decoys..

I mean, you say you can use webs to stop the Borg / Liz, but you don't say how. 57 Heavy Phasers and the biggest web you got is gone instantly.

You can saturate your space with little interlocking webs, that I understand, and that would only slow down the Borg... but they have all the time in the world, because they control the ship cue.

The question I have for you, is how can you make the Borg run out of fuel with Webs?

2657 days, 6 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

"Web Mines are no good.Fed / Crystal ships don't stand a chance against Cubes, let alone 150% damage Bios / Ahnis."

Another brain strom from Daniel.

I can say that even kitty hawks kick living sh1t out from your biocides.

2657 days, 6 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Alright, playing devils advocate here. I also agree Borg/liz is way to go...

BUT.... there is a lot of assumptions here.

It does no good having 57 heavy phasers if only at most the first 10 work. They need to be placed correctly. How to chunnel them in if they can't get to the center. I state this because although I love the Borg/Lizard combo and firmly believe in it, I also helped destroy a Borg/Lizard combo with the power of the Crystals. This was against EXPERIENCED players. It WAS the crystals that did this. You catch ships by themselves. I am not sure what world had 6-10 giant ships that can travel in packs all the time. And if they do, fine, just move and come back after they leave.

And yes, the Feds money can keep the Crystals supplied. The crystals weakness is that they are limited in economic and logistics ability. If you have another race to help and supply those things, they are scary indeed. Even to, in my opinion, the better Borg/Lizard pair.

Sorry, I am sure this will continue the debate, but let's not get silly emotional.

2657 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Captain"noob"

I got only 1 working SB.
Like i say earlier, tiny is massive.
I stop like 20-30 T-rex and sh1t load of federation Novas, Missouris etc.

That lizard gain in 60 turns like 100 ly of space.
Do the math how much its per round.

I respect his fleet and i think he respect my defens.
If you Daniel wanna come after me, prepair yourself to real war.
I dont die that easily.

Fucking paper tiger.

2657 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

>> Sorry, I am sure this will continue the debate, but let's not get silly emotional.

Im with full <3 in this game.
Sorry :)

2657 days, 5 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@dragondejhi, You use 1 FCC to tow a Cube. You place only enough fuel to move X light years. Keep a good amount of supplies on board the FCC. Keep the Cube on Sweep and transfer fuel to the FCC each turn. Once you reach a large webfield you channel in the reset of the fleet and sweet. If your towed Cube runs low on fuel just channel in more fuel. With 4 or 5 FCC all towing a cube from different direction and a fleet bouncing between them webmines are little more than a speed bump.

As the Privs are the bane of the Borg, The Borg are the bane of the Crystals.

2657 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Yea, I know all the tricks. Did it many times. You are correct. This works.

But on the other side, how many FCC's do you have? Endless amounts? Forget the Cubes. Cloak intercept the FCC's and trade a cloaker for the FCC. Tow the FCC away, any endless possiblities. This turn my Crystal player will capture a Bio, the 9th carrier this game because they have been stranded. Yes, you are talking Feds/Crystals. But what Crystal player will not trade or use diplomacy to get their hands on cloakers? And yes, that is part of the game play. I agree Borg/Lizard wins. I would always choose this, but there ways around the best attacks. And Crystal/feds have this ability. LOL, I have both seen and been there. I'm a true Lizard player. Which means I act brave in the heat of any situation...... but am scared of everything ;-)

2657 days, 5 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I always run my tower out of fuel so that the Emeralds fight the heavy ship instead. Fireclouds are about the only trick there is against webs, but it sure is a good one. I have had it used on me and it sure seems strong. The hardest part about invading the Crystals is that you can not afford to make a mistake. With Fireclouds you can actually be aggressive because rescuing ships from mistakes is simple.

Also, I love getting under Plague's skin. Plague if you are so much better than me, why do I win my games while you do not?

2657 days, 5 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

The Borg build only Fireclouds and Cubes after a certain point, the Borg should have more Fireclouds than they know what to do with.

You can chunnel in 10 fireclouds without putting in much of a dent into your supply. You only need fuel on one of them.

You can't cloak intercept that way, its too risky. You have 1 in 10 odds that you hit the right one, even then, as mentioned, the Borg player can have his FC run out of fuel upon arrival or web mine hit.

57 Heavy Phasers is nothing. How hard is it to have 6 Bios with HPs when the Lizards and Chunneling power your economy?

I don't see how you can lose, I really don't. If someone loses with this setup they ahve made silly mistakes, experienced or not, we all make mistakes.

You don't have to fly far, you can fly slowly, but any web field that covers you up is gone the same turn, so no effect. You can place webs in front of the armada, but that's fine, so the firecouds that are towing hit the web, big deal.

Whats the risk, the webs best damage is to split apart big fleets so the Crystals can isolate and kill piece meal, but that doesn't work either.

Lets say you move 6 Cubes and 6 Fireclouds all at once. All 6 fireclouds move about 20 lyrs, everyone is sweeping, lets say Crystals put a web in front just out of sweep range so the fleet hits the webs at random places over that 20 lyrs span.

Ok, then you can just use ID chunnel, you can chunnel the trailing fleet to a far away Firecloud who relays the chunnel to your lead Firecloud / Bio group, and there you go, in one turn, everyone has caught back up and the pack can advance again.

It should be IMPOSSIBLE to capture any ships from Borg / Lizards. If Crystals capture a Firecloud / Bio group from this scenario then that is a mistake made by the opponent. I don't see how a Bor g/ Liz commander can possibly lose ships this way.

Oh I'm low on fuel, time to chunnel in some more, or I can chunnel out and get some more, its so easy, I don't see how you can lose.

2657 days, 2 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Wow, you guys filled my inbox. I guess I must reply.
Expert Borg will universally annihilate expert crystal. It is one of the most one-sided race matchups in the entire game. You need an almost trivial amount of resource expenditure as a borg to force immense resource expenditure from the crystal player and the crystal's only real hope is that you somehow royally screw up (not impossible).
If you consider the game as a whole, that is to say from start to finish, with nacent and well developed economies, with or without trade between races, I would personally say it's the worst matchup. A well developed pirate for instance can take on many of his nemeses, a well developed borg presents a threat even to the pirate but on the flip side the crystal at any stage remains essentially powerless in the face of the borg.

The corollary is borg crystal is a good alliance so there is good reason for the crystal to cozy up to the cubes.

2656 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I'm with Dungeonmanster on this one.

In any sort of Xtal+Fed match up between two 2 player teams, the Xtal team has until about turn 20-30 to kill the borg. When I say kill, I mean totally eliminate every last borg planet and ship; the borg are the only race that can lose thier HW and get knocked back to 11th place AND STILL WIN. It is damn hard to kill all of a race with probes that can assimilate if they are played by a competent commander.

As soon as the Liz get a probe back into borg space the borg will will have LCCs, hissers for cash, 100 % mining and Lokis (for those that want to try Xtals and Priv). . . Borg may start slow, the Liz doesn't suffer from that challenge.

Sure web mines are great. And I agree that the Xtals are often an underrated race and a pain to fight. However, it is much easier to simply contain a Xtal/Fed (or whatever) alliance and expand elsewhere then it is for the Xtal/Feds to break out of that containment. Breaking out, even when successful, is a slow process. Cloakers plus chunnels are powerful tools. While the Xtals/Fed are stuck in trench warfare the borg start to ramp up cubes with tech 10 beams and it is soon all over.

If you are going to team with the Xtals, grab the borg or give them a cloaking partner. Cloaking web mine layers convert one of the most defensive races in the game into an offensive powerhouse. Which leads me to. . .

There is a way to at least partially screw this up Borg/Liz vs Xtal/Feds: lose an LCC to a web mine well before the ship limit. A good player is not likely to make that mistake. We all have off days but hoping for one seems like a lot to hope for to base a strategy on. . .

-V-

2656 days, 23 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Dungeon master,
Aint that option would be nice where you can set-> do you want forum notifications or not :)
And yes Borg would kill Tholians cos of that FCC and Borgs endless fuel runs to the attack fleet.
(that is 1v1 game, not 11 player game)
U dont probe tholian planets, or all of your probes will stay there :)
Crystal thunder would be my choise for Tholian capital ship.

Otherwise it would be Emerald with heavy phasers and mark8 torps in this game.
Cos mark7 torpedos are not calculated correctly in this game.

Ugh, chief has spoken.

2656 days, 22 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

>> In any sort of Xtal+Fed match up between two 2 player teams, the Xtal team has until about turn >> 20-30 to kill the borg.
U start strong, then you flip. U talk first Fed + Tholian and then talk only tholian.

2656 days, 22 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Dear Daniel
"Also, I love getting under Plague's skin."

U dont get there :) But u try harder.
).)

2656 days, 22 hours, 27 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Close the case file ;-) It's Lizard/Borg as "best" alliance pair !

Tom Graves asks in his very last sentence, the weakest pair? The pair everyone runs over...

Off the top of my head ... Bird/Fascist...with a bit of cloaker redundancy, no ship stealing power of anykind, and no end game might.

I'm not as sold on that one as I am the Lizard/Borg.

-Star

2656 days, 22 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

And in last words...
When game gets over 100 turn, you see who are allies.
And there is pattern.
I dont got any respect for player named orsen, garvon (who for so long enjoy my shared intel with his ally and was man who didt help his Main ally EE)
Garvon i wont ever ask your alliance again.

What i will respect is Kukala that little Hitler sorry Fascist is one tuff cookie!

2656 days, 22 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Tom Graves asks in his very last sentence, the weakest pair? The pair everyone runs over...Off the top of my head ... Bird/Fascist

Do you wanna c Resolute what pillage your planets? There is no "weak" combo.

There is no absolute winner like that what you say Gorn/Borg. --- PFFF

Into the end game only PBP matters.

2656 days, 22 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Take some stardust :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Bdw2USpPk

roll up your bills and take it.

2656 days, 21 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Robots and there ability to lay mines is a big advantage for any alliance.

2656 days, 21 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@Plague

True. I view the Feds as a minor annoyance. Here is why:

The Fed retro fit is nice. Their big ship is alright but it is no carrier. Their mining is a penalty - 70% vs 200% (Liz) and a ton of pop (Borg).

One big plus on your side: with an Xtal alie, Liz ground assult will be minimal to avoid the threat of LCC capture. The best thing you can say is that the Xtal/Feds take out the main way the Liz usually fight. Then again, the Liz don't usually have access to cubes. . .

Vs the mid to late game what the Feds do just wont matter; they are going to get steam rolled unless they kill all the borg. They should have been pinned down early and at best are expanding slowly. Your team will be behind in planet count (you don't hyp) and will have to attack in the mid to late game. Your space will likely be lit up with web mines so everyone will know where you are. Meanwhile the borg has hyped all over the place and the Liz also have expanded explosively.

Borg/Liz simply beat the Xtals/Feds economically with a combo of assimilate, hiss, chunnel, and HYP.

Your best fully retrofitted Fed Novas are now facing Cube carriers with high tech beams. At this point, the Liz have more money then they know what to do with and have also hissing borg planets with the obsolete probes used in the early expansion. Liz have 100% mine bonus so they have lots more minerals. Borg have pop and can build more mines than you. So both races are beating you with mineral production. Plus the Borg can also chunnel merlins around to harvest supplies and get that 550 moly. Chunneling by itself is a game changer. Maybe you can do better at generating cash?

The Anarchy natives are paying 100% (they are all borg now) and the good natives are run by Liz with plenty of pop from the borg. So there are no bad govt natives in your opposition empires. All this and hissing to. Pop for Liz, assimilation of low govt natives and hiss are 3 reasons your team doesn't have the $ your opponents have. Maybe your Fed ships are better in fights?

You, my Fed friend, are looking at a fleet of cubes vs your expensive retrofitted tech 10 torp throwers. Not a good thing - try it in some sims. Likely, due to more planets and a better economy, they have more Cubes then you have Novas - Double ouch. Fewer big ships that are lower quality isn't looking good. The pain only gets worse. Imagine 10 of your big ships vs 10 Biocides. Now imagine those 10 Biocides with a Liz 150% combat bonus. . .

So, less $, less minerals and less kick butt ability.

Order now and you will get to fight fully loaded SBes for free!

Borg/Liz can also "put a Starbase in a bottle" and install it where ever they can chunnel to - that will be the planets near you. So if you are able to somehow invade their planets your fighting fully loaded SBes and/or ships set to scan your web mines over bases set to refuel. . . You, the Feds are fighting bases and cubes every step of the way with your tecked out torp thowers and some kitties or what ever you think makes you great. You pay dearly for any planetary gains. Your opponent is earning more PBP than you are from your advance.

But wait, there is even more:

The borg/liz have installed a Firecloud or two somewhere ahead of your advance, they don't have to fly around at w9 and deal with your allies web mines. They chunnel in and out. . . That makes capturing those cubes damn near impossible.

-V-

2656 days, 21 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

>> Their mining is a penalty - 70% vs 200% (Liz) and a ton of pop (Borg)

Kitty hawk cost almost nothing from mineral part and federation got money ;)
Then you put there, dip, missouri, nova as minesweepers.
What can 5 kitty do and they are backed up with minesweepers like those torp ships?
5 kitty is 20 PBP. Biocide is 18 PBP to build.
Think about that for moment. Who will win?
And then slow nebula comes there with 350kt of torps :)

Im way too bad :D

2656 days, 21 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@ valhlla wrote in drunk :"Borg/Liz simply beat the Xtals/Feds economically with a combo of assimilate, hiss, chunnel, and HYP."

U just compare to end game. What happends after 25 turn?
Federation got huge numbers of empty hulls what it will refit after the ship limit is full.
And he can give ships away like they are berries.

Can GORN or BORG do the same?
Fed got time to mine those minerals rest of the game.
Do GORN or BORG got time to for that?
No, they dont.

That is just one example how i broke up that alliance.
And i think even better combination would be Priv + Borg.
Cos priv with MBR can tow that FCC to the distance location without notice every1.
Then borg chunnel fleet there and start attack. Another part of cluster is taken.
In meanwhile they do that thing in some other part of the cluster.
and chunnel their fleet in that location.
Like i say, i have played with borg earlier.
Well i have played with all races. That why im not expert of any race.
Im good with everyone of them.
I know their strenght and weaknesses.

2656 days, 21 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

OK, you build any 5 ships you want from your fleet and arrange them in any order you want. And you put anything you want on them.

I'll tell you what I'm going to build so you can plan. I'll be building 5 Biocides and I'll handicap myself by merely put Disruptors on them before turning them over to the Liz.

Lets see who will win?

If you think this is "unfair" then you may be missing the considerable economic advantages you would be up against that allow Borg/Liz to build cubes while your building kitties and whatever. We can see who is still standing and look at PBPs too.

2656 days, 21 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Vallahalla what you dont get?

And if on Rush cost me 14 PBP i have give to him more than 100 worth of PBP.

So valhalla, dont noob fuck with me.
I will respect my ally, but i piss on you.

--- edit too much rally talk ---
ps. free the noobs from cages!

2656 days, 21 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

" Well i have played with all races. That why im not expert of any race.
Im good with everyone of them.
I know their strenght and weaknesses. "

Maybe so. I've been playing on and off since 95. However, I am not one of the top players here. I have not played all races and I freely admit that the Feds are one of the races I know very little about. I'm pretty sure I have never played them. Perhaps you are an expert and are new to Nu - there are lots of people here like that. Right now your profile isn't showing a string of successes showing that you are good with many races. Time will tell.

I've got enough on my plate right now otherwise I'd challenge you to a Borg/Liz vs Fed/Xtals game.

-V-

2656 days, 21 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

>> Maybe so. I've been playing on and off since 95.

I have programmed since 94 :D
and trust me i got some help from my "shit" to calc this game.

2656 days, 21 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

One Lizards xray warp1 Biocied will kill 5 KittyHawks. And any good player would just pick apart your fleets with LCC and tow them to waiting Cubes.

The Borg/Priv would be my 2nd choice. The mobility of the FCC fleet is scary. With wolf packs popping in and out, backed up by real fire power.

2656 days, 21 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

"So valhalla, dont noob fuck with me.
I will respect my ally, but i piss on you."

OK OK LOL You are right. Borg/Liz would die. Especially if they fought against someone talented like you. You made your point so I'll back down.

Yes Donald, those 4x mines are a pain and free fighters and ship list are damn nice too. If I had a 3rd addition to my doomed Borg/Liz pair, the Bots and Xtals, both layers, would be top considerations.

2656 days, 21 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

"Right now your profile isn't showing a string of successes showing that you are good with many races. Time will tell"

To me my profile looks empty. Dunno why, but it does.
Programming error or they gonna ban me again, when i finish my games :)

Neither way, i calc and i calc.
I see future with those calcs. That why im so pain in the ass.
Just like in chess :)
Why i dont get wins? Cos even in here is inner circle.
Who wanna be admirals.

I got my real life military rank and im fine with that.
I dont need virtual dick.

But if you fuck with me, i will answer.
That much i can promise. :)

2656 days, 20 hours, 52 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

"Yes Donald, those 4x mines are a pain and free fighters and ship list are damn nice too."
Untill u find yourself middle of Colonial and Tholian fight.
Col just sweep of your mines and tholian lay web :)
Its currently happening to me... Cylon dont got any change.
Best minesweeper is Merlin with 8 beams... then comes Refinary and Golem.
no 10 beam ships... Loose. But it will take a while until they get total victory.
Im not leaving, even i know i get my a$$ handed to me. It takes 20-40 turns until im dead.
Depends how hard they come.
=)

2656 days, 20 hours, 7 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Plague, please...

I sometimes share this game and these boards with my son (who is learning how to play), can you please filter the nasty innuendos and the hardcore profanity? I realize your excited over your positions on the subject, but I know someone as intellegent and articulate as you are can find suitable words for all audiences that might read and play Nu.

Please it would be greatly appreciated.

-Star

2656 days, 20 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

"Plague, please..."
When you talk your mom or dad you say please,
When you talk to me, u say sir.

2656 days, 19 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

"can you please filter the nasty innuendos and the hardcore profanity?"

That can be done with one radio-/check Button.
But im not programmer in this site.
So perhaps you should foward your message to the upkeep.

2656 days, 19 hours, 50 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

And mister Star... i will not change what im or how i talk becouse of you.
Im sorry about that, but that it is and going to be.

-plague

2656 days, 18 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I feel this whole discussion is making wrong assumptions about how the Crystals should fight. Surely the Crystals will be toast if they just build Emeralds, Rubys and Opals, but that's not the way to win. Case in point, in my Crystals game I currently field 12 Crystal Thunders and 34 Diamond Flames out of 147 warships. A Firecloud-Biocide minesweep combo like described above would simply get a DF and a CT or two thrown at it. With any luck, the Firecloud was out of fuel after hitting a web mine and is now mine.

Stealing enemy ships with web mines only works if the opponent doesn't know what he is doing. If he doesn't know, you'll win anyway so that option is not worth exploring. If they know what they are doing, dropping excessive web mine fields is just going to be a ridiculous waste of resources. The real value of web mines is limiting the mobility of the enemy fleet. They will enable Crystals to choose where to fight and when. And that is possible to do with relatively few resources.

A good battle groups consists of 2 CTs, 4 Diamond Flames, 1-2 Emeralds and a handful of Opals. That will take down 2 heavy carriers and a max defence star base should you hit a defended enemy world instead of and undefended one. Aim towards enemy planet clusters, move under cover of small webs. The key point: You can't be intercepted! You'll be able to choose which planets to fight. Preventing an invasion of this kind will tie down enemy resources massively. To surely take your fleet out, they would need to place 3 heavy carriers on any planet in striking distance. Thanks to the web cover, you could even bring 2-3 fuel carriers along to make sure stripping plants of fuel doesn't stop you.

A few strike fleets like this, and suddenly your opponents don't have all that many resources for invading you. The crucial point is that you will be able to take his planets 2-3 times faster than he will be able to take yours.

2656 days, 16 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

If i got heart... but i dont.
I just rip yours out of your chest.
We take what we want if you start to fuck with us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCpTmMPWg94&feature=branded

I try to be gentleman. Then i get my RK (assault riffle) and shoot u.
That is what i feel.

When diplomacy ends Plague starts.

2656 days, 12 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Sir SMN,

I like what you wrote and have a strong gut feeling that you know exactly what you are doing. However, I am not quite getting a small portion of your strategy.

I agree that stealing ships will be very hard vs an experienced opponent, XS web mines that just sit there and rot are a waste in many cases. I also agree that the battle groups you outlined are very versatile and quite effective. You could make a good PBP argument with those battle groups.

Interestingly, we both have made points about mobility so I understand what you are saying but I lose you when it comes to implementation. How would an Xtal/Fed combo expand enough to keep up with a Borg/Liz combo that has Hyp ships and chunnels? If both sides have competent commanders, I don't currently see that happening. Part of my argument is that once the Borg/Liz have a planet count advantage, the Xtals/feds have to attack and those attacks will likely be in a limited and predictable places. Borg/Liz mobility allows them to chunnel in "bases in a box" in addition to big ships.

This assumes all 2 teams. With other factors in a full game anything can happen - like a "lets all get together and kill the borg" campaign. Which is common. The Borg and Priv are public enemies 1 and 2 and are often ganged up on in normal games. If that happens, all bets are off as we aren't comparing apples to apples anymore.

-V-

2656 days, 12 hours, 35 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

It's a nice theory SMN....but NO. The amount of Moly your going to need to build a fleet big enough is astronomical, every Diamond better have Heavy Phasers, because the Borg/Lizard will make you think they are the Robots laying fields. Your dealing with a pair that has as close to unlimited resources as it gets. I have never swept a Crystal minefield without cover of my own Minefields, layed in both the Borg and Lizard names. Your not just trotting out to destroy anything by intercept. Why is this..because Crystals don't put beams, and why, because the Moly Costs will bury your production. Even if you get the Bov's to do it, or the Fed Refits your entire fleet in Heavy Phasers, the Lizard/Borg never has to leave a Firecloud/Bio combo for more than a turn by itself. You do the sweep math and your 4 light years off the planet with your entire fleet in a few turns. Then it's LCC time...the Fleet never has to land...and hopefully there is a starbase, because it now belongs to the Lizard/Borg.

To be honest..I don't even tow the Bio with a Firecloud, I swing the Firecloud in when I'm 4 lt years off the planet...I tow a Bio with another Bio or a Madnonzilla or T-Rex. It's mathematics, if I have enough Heavy Phasers to sweep a full field, I don't need the firecloud as an escape option, because you can't stick me.

And on your offensive...Logistics kill you. The Lizard/Borg can be everywhere, the Fed/Crystal simply cannot...and you better pay the 10 bazillion Moly to have the Heavy Phasers on those Diamonds, or your attacking fleet will eat more minehits than you'll believe possible..because over a planet in defense, you can lay mi2 mi3 mi4 mi5 etc etc. in defense.

Web Mines are a pain in the ass...they are, but great players with Heavy Phasers own Web Mines.

You just cannot build a bigger fleet by ship-limit than Borg/Lizard and after the limit, who is going to have more starbases to jam a queue than Borg/Lizard. It's economics, logistics, and power.

While your refitting your ships to Heavy Phasers, the Lizard/Borg is already all over your space. Hell the Refit time itself is a game breaker.

I love the aggressive Crystal style SMN, I really do, but NO, Fed/Crystal does not defeat Lizard/Borg.

I don't even know why the Crystal would want the Fed...to fly Crystal Thunders? If I'm a Crystal I'd want the Borg and if I'm a Fed I'd want the Borg or Privateer.

When your spread across 1,000's of light years of map...Fireclouds for the win.

-S

P.S. Plague - Your an asshole.

2656 days, 12 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I'm not exactly advocating Crystals/Feds as the best combination around here, my point is there is plenty a Crystal player will be able to do on the offensive and you can't just assume they are toast based on the impossibility to overwhelm an enemy fleet with webmines. Faced with a too high minesweep capability, the webs need to be used to cover own fleet movement and prevent enemy fleet movement. Pick only fights that you will win.

Valhalla, we have to assume a reasonably contested galaxy - if other players are clueless, the Borg/Lizard will have 250 planets before the action even really starts.

Star72066, it's not like an invading Crystal fleet would need to plunge full speed into enemy space. Slow down, sweep, carry loads of supplies in the Emeralds to repair the minehits your Diamonds take. 2 ships with heavy phasers with a few disruptors and heavy blasters are plenty enough to make the enemy economy bleed heavily. Sure you can stop this kind of an invasion fleet if you commit enough resources to do it - but isn't the whole point to tie down lots of enemy resources while using relatively few of your own?

2656 days, 11 hours, 31 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

It is SMN..and I love your aggresive thinking concerning the Crystal - I really do, but against the Lizard/Borg it's hopeless. Logistics are a killer... fireclouds. If you went on the offensive, I'd wave to your fleet and continue my offensive, atleast until you got close to something I wanted to keep, such as a heavy Neut. planet...then I would simply chunnel back to defend the fuel or tow chunnel you back to my offensive fleet with LCC and keep on sweeping.

I can tell from reading your posts, your a seasoned Crystal and you know what your doing behind those Diamonds and Thunders.

-Star

2656 days, 11 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

star wrote "P.S. Plague - Your an asshole"

Thnx man :)

2656 days, 11 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Plague has apparently spent too much time around people who have to call him sir. He does not let something petty like facts stand in the way of what he "knows" and expects us to take him at his word.

Yes, sir, sir Plague, sir. Deny my own experience and get on board with your guesses. Got it.

I am reminded of professor Weiss, whom I despised at the time. But who taught me that conclusions based upon anecdotal evidence are worthless. Fireclouds own tactical warfare. Just because your previous opponents were unable to capitalize upon that does not make it untrue.

2656 days, 11 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I just deny you... shit, Daniel payne.
Im not your father :D
And you forgot that sir.

2656 days, 7 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Dont come to the danger zone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvk6DJu26gI&feature=related

Cos then interceptors are coming after u.

2656 days, 4 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

So now that we have definitely determined that either the Fed/Crystals or the Borg/Lizards would rule the cluster. Everyone seems to be only talking about a fully developed pair of empires. I really wanted to talk about a more holistic game long view of the pairings.

I will still put in a plug for Fascist/Colonies as a strong contender. Pillaging/Popping/Ground Assaulting/FF/Mine Sweeping/Long range logistics/Cheap ships/cloaking. Lots of capabilities

What two races are the absolute worst paring?

Tom

2655 days, 22 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Got ya SMN - I like the way you think! To be honest, the Xtals are in my top 3 race choices (right behind Liz and Borg!). Unlike those top 2, many players overlook the Xtals. They can be quite powerful. Besides, a well played Xtals is typically the last race I want to be fighting as they are a royal pain to deal with. Even winning against them is a trench warfare slog if they are played well.

Anyone else with friends in the military? How often to they swear when discussing something as trivial as different views in a civilian game? And how frequently do they bring up the fact that they are in or were in the service to back up their points? For those I know that are in or were in the armed serves, the answer is almost never on both accounts. Apparently, some people disgrace themselves by making false claims, like this "gentleman": http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/04/ap_faker_040208/

With 7 billion people, it takes all kinds. Sad.

Worst races: It would be two races with a lot of overlap. Maybe Bird/Fasc or Liz/Fasc or 2 carrier races. I was in a team game where one team of 3 consisted of only big scary carrier races. This made them damn vulnerable to cloakers of any sort and one big farm for the privateers.

2655 days, 20 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Just to get all on the same line here. I am assuming everyone is talking a best possible alliance pair in a regular 11-player team of equally skilled (and leaning on more experienced) players, where teams either start the game in alliances of two or early in the game setup the alliance. I would wish to unaccount for the sneaky alliances, as they are imo diplomatic part of the game. The players in alliance would be starting in random places. The ship limit hits around 25-30 and there are no quitters or unregistered players in the game.

Cherry-picking games for good starting clusters or HW locations is a no-no.

And discussion is which alliance pair would win most games in the long run.

Agreed?

My point is that I think Borg is heavily overrated because of the beneficial setups of quitters and unskilled players. Borg trumps in the endgame as FC is simply superb for the logistics, if they can get to endgame with a fleet usable for war. Lizard on the other hand can play unopposed start in almost all setups, as can xtal, robot and maybe even fed. Attacking a skilled player playing a race with defense capabilities will not usually end in your favor, if you can't bring joined forces with your ally.

In a game where everyone is hungry for victory, the early capabilities and (early) economical boost weight more than some simulated fleet battles where you put two best imaginable fleets in VCR and let it decide who will win.

2655 days, 19 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

valhalla, agreed. Stealing and cloning HYP ships is something you can almost guarantee with a cloaker and they are nice addition especially for bringing money to front lines. Fireclouds on the other hand are harder, but possible and can be game changing. They can be took even with x-rays if you have an opportunity, but to get cloned fast enough isn't easy. SSD I think is only possible with xtal/priv.

All of that still doesn't help you when the blasters start to heat. SSD is the only one that can give pbs in fleet to fleet battles as when attacking bringing it can force your opposing carriers to right side.

2655 days, 19 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I got bag full of fire.
There is not good / bad races.
Or commanders behind them.
If you wont ally with me, fine. Then i open the gun ports :)

Your choise!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGKfm2rr06Q

2655 days, 19 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

plague, what is the point of you making these ridiculous, vague and empty threats?

"I just rip yours out of your chest."
- ridiculous

"Dont come to the danger zone."
- vague

"Then i get my RK (assault riffle) and shoot u."
- empty

You wish to lure someone down to your level, where you win with experience?

2655 days, 19 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

>>What two races are the absolute worst paring?

I would say Klingon with Birds.
They can be devastating at the first, but they both lag middle and end game.
This is purely taken about PBP point of view.

Bird what they can do when
Automa, Gorbie, etc heavy ships start to come in their way ?

2655 days, 19 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@kosmonymous wrote to piss me off.
"You wish to lure someone down to your level, where you win with experience?"

Im not some random noob, what you can kick when you like it.

i kick you, hard.

2655 days, 19 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Also EE + Borg would overlap heavily in their strengths. Even thought they wouldn't be weak.

2655 days, 19 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I know you are not some random noob. You are plague and again that's an empty threat. What is the point?

2655 days, 19 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Kos...

Im empty threat, so be it.

Im no1, just ignore me :)
I just talk cos i wanna some fresh air in my mouth.

2655 days, 19 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

ps. now you play my game ;)

2655 days, 19 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Good enough, I'm all for role-playing and thrash talking, but let's try to keep that in the respective game threads.

2655 days, 19 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Anakin the anger will lead to your destruction.

;)

2655 days, 19 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Kos...

Dont give me any advice/rules.
I dont play with them.
=)

2655 days, 19 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Luckily you need the fear before the anger ;)

2655 days, 18 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

It is a suggestion and we know both very well that nothing will happen if you do not follow it, like nothing will follow from making threats. And anyone can give you as much advice as they wish. It is up to you to follow/not to follow them. They are only effective if you make less threats and thread-jacking from now on.

2655 days, 18 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

see where that out burst lead you.
I dont giva fuck, so who you are talking with ?

2655 days, 18 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

this talk was just like Tholians play the game. First they invate you to their land.
And then they lay huge web and pick up your ships :)

Even now i put seed in kosmonymous head.
Everything i do is for reason :)

Have a nice day.

2655 days, 17 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

What about Crystal-Colonial?

Strike groups that sail through mines, have unlimited range, can resupply all ordnance and can't be intercepted.

Still loses to Liz-Borg in resource buildup and large-scale logistics, but has awesome tactical control of battlefields and can pretty much pick their fights.

2655 days, 17 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Would still miss the benefit of cloakers. So striking against well supplied planets would be hard and cost many units. Virgo ain't that good when it must strike from the right. I am of course thinking carrier opponent.

2655 days, 17 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

>> What about Crystal-Colonial?'
Bad ass.

Endless fuel and figtehrs.

2653 days, 6 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Plague you'er BAD-A$$.

I like Bunnies!! \0/

2653 days, 4 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

The two races that have not (or hardly) been mentioned are the birds and the rebels.

Personally, I find a bird player that had the chance to develop a fleet of dark wings pretty intimidating. I faced one of those recently and it took a lot of planning to be sort of victorious. Super spy almost never seems to be used, but that may just be my view because I play strictly fascists (strictly come pillage). I don't believe they're useless.

And the rebels have the ground attack, which can be devastating, and they don't get attacked by planets. I know from my experience (again, fascists), that the immunity from planets gives you a lot of tactical options.

A lot has been said about the borg mobility, but I find that to be a double-edged sword. The borg have a tendency to overstretch themselves, trying to protect all their little island-empires. In the end, this makes them weaker as they try to defend too much. Of course, this depends heavily on the strategical situation.

2653 days, 3 hours, 52 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Super spy is used all the time, but there's two parts to it:

1. After movement where you get detailed info no the planet (this is used a LOT by Bird players)

2. Before movement to change the FC of the planet (this is probably not used as much, since the Ion cannon thing).

But I think the idea is that the Birdman catch you by surprise, and use the super spy to deadly effect before you know what happened.

Maybe to gain control of your minefields and in the same turn take out your HW with 2 DKwings..

or just steal all your hard earned MCs at the worst time, right before they move in... things like that.

Or maybe just steal some fuel or something. Its definitely used.

I can certainly see the appeal of a Resolute with RGA capabilities though.

Also the appeal of towing enemy ships to awaiting Rushes as well.

The major problem is that both races don't have financial benefits... so they don't complement each other very well in that department.

2653 days, 3 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Dazdya, I was using it all the time against you actually. Since your economic zone was so far from the action, I never had much use for "bum" against you. But there is no downside whatsoever at using Super Spy when arriving at a planet from deep space (and none when arriving from another planet when X is the first character of your friendly code). So you get into the habit of knowing a planet's info, especially defense posts. I can decide when to attack with Swifties against planets and when there is a SB, I can get a guess on if the player likely spent cash on fighters when I have a Resolute.

Also, and this is new with NU, you get a strange new piece of info on planets you have previous info on. By comparing Super Spy info with the previous data you can estimate how much fuel is on the surface. This is an issue since Super Spy does not differentiate between mined and unmined.

You don't really know what Super Spy is doing as the enemy because it happens while cloaked. It is still a weak ability though since SBs prevent theft, which is really dumb. Bird ships with fuel should be immune to surrender outright.

Also, the Birds are pretty strong against the Fascists, Dazdya. They are weak against really big ships, as they have no good solutions for Golems, Biocides, Annihilations, and Gorbies. IMO you took the only good option you had, and it worked. I had the fireower and the tactical advantages. But I was never going to have the resources to beat you with mine fields. My hat goes off to you for recognizing that.

I actually want to play Bird/Feds and spam empty DW hulls with Bird builds ands Fed clones. Then get the Feds to refit them and both teams go to town. The tactical advantage of so many DWs alone might be enough to lay waste to lots of different opponents. Very few players have an appreciation for all the nasty things The Birds can do when they have the upper hand because they so rarely do. But lots of Dark Wings is pretty hard to defend or attack into.

2653 days, 3 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Birds supplying Feds!

Way back when I was always in at least one 5 vs 5 game, one of those games we had the
Bird building darkwings and sending them to the fed. It's a blast to have an obscenely large
number of darkwings with heavy weapons.

2653 days, 2 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

The DKwings biggest issue is the fuel consumption, I just started playing Birds for the first time ever, and while I appriciate teh DKwings abilities the fuel consumption is killer!

You definitely need Resolutes around and even Swifties to fuel up those gas guzzlers.

Hell I'm almost considering towing around DKwings with Neutronics :)

I agree that it is frustrating that you can't steal form a SB or at least the risk is just too great to attempt it.

You can still "BUM" a SB though without negative impact I think, well aside for the ion pulse.

There is also a negative impact of the normal super spy, in that there is a 20% chance that the enemy discovers your spies and reports it.. It would be nice if that didn't happen.

What would make super spy much more useful, and don't get me wrong, I find it very useful already, is the ability to perhaps get info on how many beams, fighters and defense the SB has.

2652 days, 20 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

People under estimate the fascists. In a recent game i saw them desecrate an attacking colony fleet i had hemmed in with webs at a low fuel planet. i can't remember if it was 4 or 5 glories but there was not many virgos left that weren't scrap.

2652 days, 19 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

jamie, that is how its done with the fascists.

Problem tho is that if you have big carriers and you are defending against fascists is that you only need one for defence with supplies and others can wait their turn in planetary warp wells and soon fascists will run out of glories for they need three for every carrier and still you will take out a viccy or two. Also laying minefields will be fun pastime for their ability to sweep is hindered while towing those poppers. After the glories are gone the party will start. Against fascists if you are already around a planet you can't afford to lose, you have already lost. Whatever happens, never let those glories ravage other than single big ships. If they have glories and viccys to take out four single big carriers, the fifth big carrier will start to gain the PBs back, and so on.

2652 days, 19 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

jamie, I misread your post. The colonies were attacking. That changes things. I would need to carefully consider the defending force strength and setup, attacking a alliance so strong in defence I would need at least twice or thrice the firepower for victory, its not like I could win a war of attrition versus cloaking xtal, without having anti-cloaker capability myself. Getting stuck in web mines is definately wrong way to do it ;) It can happen tho with those D7's in xtal hands.

2650 days, 16 hours, 42 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Silvanos-

Privateer/E.E. is devastating for any target races without Anti-Cloaking, but it's hard to see any two man team leaving themselves no anti-cloaking.

Without Anti-cloaking, MBR/SSD is only stopped by minefields, thats not a defense I would be comfortable with.

I just robbed a SSD in a pirate game and I cringed for my enemies when I thought,,,,..what can I do with this thing? MBR/SSD is an Assassins' combo. VGA Planets is a bloody mean game.

-Star

2648 days, 11 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

kosmonymous wrote:

All of that still doesn't help you when the blasters start to heat. SSD is the only one that can give pbs in fleet to fleet battles as when attacking bringing it can force your opposing carriers to right side.

===============
Could you elaborate on that?. And I assume "pbs" means priority build points?

2647 days, 19 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

chas, we were talking about what ships to steal for benefit. I argued that stealing carriers for cloning purposes do not matter much for you won't be able to clone enough of them to make a difference in the big battles and probes matter not also.

But assuming your alliance already has big carriers and so does opponent. So when you get even one SSD you can start to enter opposing starbases with fleet consisting of carriers, a torper up front and SSD and all without Kill-mission, PE or numeric friendly code (torper with numeric of course). Lets assume the opponent has a fleet waiting with similar strength and a starbase. They will need to set PE's or they lose the starbase to either torper-carrier or SSD. If they set the PE or KILL, your big carriers automatically get the left side and you will gain a victory without losing the SSD. Now, rinse and repeat. Which will lead to profit. So my opinion is that SSD could be the single game changing steal, is proven to some extent. PBP-wise you can't win carrier battles from the right.

Having even one SSD will enable your fleet to go on the offense and win the attrition. Not to mention if you use cloakers to scout SB's and when you are absolutely sure there can be no opponents you bring that SSD in alone and take the base.

2628 days, 6 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You can try your preferred "best alliance pair" in this teams of 2 game.

If someone needs a side-kick I might be interested.

2625 days, 4 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Birds / Lizards.

Could be a very good pair.

Birds can show Lizards exactly how many clans they need to take a planet.

Lizards can scrap the gas guzzling LCCs for the superior Resolutes.

And 150% damage DKwings can be a serious threat.

Lizards can also eliminate the financial handcuffs off the Birdmen. This could be a very deadly and well oiled machine when the combination is played correctly.

2624 days, 17 hours, 52 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Borg/Liz is also my favorite. Maybe Borg/Bots.
Bots can provide good protection against Priv and fill the Bios with cheap fighters.
Overall the Borg are an extremely powerful race not only in end-game, but also in mid-game.
Take a look at this game:
http://planets.nu/games/34696
This game is almost finished. As a Bird I'm not the best partner for the Borg, but he's of course the best partner for me. He's built several Bios near my HW and with these Bios I'm currently smashing the Liz. Lost 1 Bio and destroyed nearly 10 T-Rex and some LCCs so far just with these Bios... ridiculous!
Early in this game the Borg had some minor problems with the Priv - that was the time, when I put massive pressure on the Priv and smashed him in a few turns. After this "incident" the Borg was unstoppable.
Best thing is, you don't have to be a superb player to handle the Borg (although Rudel is ^^).
If you do it right (build a lot of Fireclouds, Probes, expand aggressively, build Cubes fast), then there's not much to fear. With a good ally on your side in early game, you'll survive the short critical phase in a game and then you rule. Point.
As Rudel said: as a Borg, nearly any other race will work just fine together with you.

2624 days, 15 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

We should also not forget, that many games tend to be a planet-race now and end before turn 50. So it's not just about economics (=> Borg/Liz).
Which races are best for quick expansion (and are able to hold all these planets for at least some turns)?
There're of course the Rebels with their falcons with large cargo. And again the Borg with their probes and assimilation. But the quickest race might be Priv. Let's combine for example Priv and Rebels. Both races are able to deal with Borg in early and mid game. Unfortunately both races (especially Priv) will have problems with Liz and other cloakers.
It definitely depends on the starting-positions. If Rebels/Priv start without cloakers as neighbors, they can expand very fast. They could concentrate fully on expansion (focus on "safe" planets at the rim). The Rebel should just build SBs and falcons to improve expansion-speed. No need for Rush Carriers or any heavy ships, because the plan would be to end game, before the big battles start. If done properly, such a planet-race could be done in less than 40 turns. The Priv builds MBRs as usual. Maybe he can rob some ships, but his focus should be also on expansion only.
Would be an interesting alliance, that I would like to test sometime.

2624 days, 8 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I disagree, I think you do really need to be a good player to get the most out of the Borg.

Perhaps you don't have to be very good to survive as a developed Borg, but if you want to win in a big game with good players you really need to know your sh1t. The tactical possibilities that the Borg allow are limitless, so picking the best ones is key!

2624 days, 8 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

The strength of the Borg lies in peaceful builder neighbours and slow expanding players that are afraid or do not care to declare war early on to annihilate the Borg plague before the first cube is out in the open. By the way, I strongly disagree that the Borg are one of the strongest races (therefore granting them the least benefits in the new .nu system). In a game with 11 strong players, the Borg are in most cases the weakest race. Unless they got some protection early on. Which is pretty unlikely as everyone who helps the Borg in the beginning will not end the game in the 1st place. This will not happen in i.e. a championship game with only one winner I guess.

2624 days, 7 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I don't think I would say the Borg are the weakest in a game full of good players. But they are significantly hindered by competent players who know how to handle them and understand what the endgame looks like. I also reject the common proposal that the Borg are the best race. The Borg are the best noob stomping race. If you expect two or three other good players and then 7 noobs, you have two choices if you want a huge advantage over the other good players. Borg or Pirate. That scenario plays out here on NU over and over for exactly the reasons Rudel said.

2624 days, 7 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Dp

2624 days, 5 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I think the Borg are probably the best race when fully developed.

So if all races are allowed freedom to reach maximum peek by the time the ship limit hits the Borg are the most dangerous.

1. You get the best ships

2. You get the best method of travel

3. You are the ONLY race in the game that can consistently stay ahead of the build que and put a SB on literally every planet you own.

4. You are the only race in the game that can effectively battle 2 or 3 opponents at once and still have a good chance of winning.

No one is arguing the fact that the Borg can easily be the first race eliminated from the game most of the time, and they wouldn't have much say in it.

2623 days, 16 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

capnkill worte: I disagree, I think you do really need to be a good player to get the most out of the Borg.

I've played the Borg and nearly all other races (I played also some planets 3.x games) and the only thing you really have to understand as Borg is, how to chunnel (not too hard to undertstand if you ask me). The rest is pretty straight forward in my opinion. And chunneling is far more comfortable than doing all the logistics the regular way.
Other races (all cloakers) have to think carefully, where and how to attack, while the Borg just chunnel his brute-force-fleet in and beat the enemy in a simple, direct way.

I think, where most players in planets fail, is diplomacy - not so much in mastering their race.
But I agree, that the Borg is vulnerable in early game.

2623 days, 16 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

daniel payne wrote: If you expect two or three other good players and then 7 noobs, you have two choices if you want a huge advantage over the other good players. Borg or Pirate. That scenario plays out here on NU over and over for exactly the reasons Rudel said.

True words!
Unfortunately Officers-games don't solve this problem, as there are still a lot of noobs in them.

2623 days, 15 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You can go for Senior Officers games.

Although the main problem imho is the structure of the leaderboard. It favours quanity over quality. I encountered several players with no rank (1st or 2nd game) who played really well, while others did not at a higher rank. If you check those players, you'll see that they started 7-8 games with the same race resulting in a higher rank pretty quickly.

If you would use an ELO based ranking, proper matchmaking would be easier to achieve.

2623 days, 14 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Yes, that would be nice. I don't have the time and I don't want to play so many games to get the required rank for Senior Officers Games, but I think, I would match the required skills easily.

2623 days, 9 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

There's more to the Borg than just how to chunnel...

As I've said, the Borg is the only race that can suffocate the build cue past the ship limit, but would someone that doesn't know how to play that well take advantage of that?

Also getting the Borg through the early stages of the game without dying takes some serious skill as well, and a bit of luck.

2623 days, 9 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Right, yes, cap. Nothing easy about winning with the Borg. The Borg give you the tools to dominate, but the path is not advertised in neon lights. For starters, you have to understand the queue completely. You must know how to manage quite a lot of disparate details to make it all come together. Tri and Dur from here. Moly from there. Cash and fuel from over there. Minelayers, cubes, freight, fighter transport, etc...all arriving in proper sequence every turn. And furthermore (the biggest part), you have to be able to visualize your grand strategy. It is true for all teams, but there are so many interlocking parts to the Borg that it is particularly demanding. You have to recognize the full power of the chunnel, which lemme tell ya, is so vast that it is impossible to truly appreciate it unless you have actually been there. If you have not played the Borg successfully, and you think you have your brain wrapped around the breadth of its power, you are wrong.

Powerful =/= easy to win with. (and as I have said, debatable on power anyway)

2622 days, 18 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

This a off-topic, but... whatever.
I've played the Borg only once several years ago and it was an easy win. Can't remember, if the skills of the other players were high... I think, it was a "normal" planets-game (some good players, but most players noobs).
Right now I'm playing a game as Bird with a complete network of Fireclouds (thanks to rudel, who played Borg in this game). It's just wonderful to work with Fireclouds. I don't see anything demanding in it - it's just plain simple/straight forward and enjoyable to make your logistics, expansion and warfare with fireclouds.
And yes: if there were only skilled players around, the Borg may have a tougher time... but that's only guesswork. I'm not so sure about it. Unlike the Priv, the Borg is able to defend himself pretty good. The Firecloud is not the best warship, but it's not so easy to smack down the Borg in early game as many players in this forum say (have they ever tried or are they just talking?). And don't forget the power of diplomacy. The Borg has a lot of good ships to offer (=> a lot of potential allies). And if the Borg loses his HW, it's not over for him as long as he has built some probes to raise new HWs. No, I don't see the Borg too weak in early game - not significantly weaker than some other races.

2622 days, 18 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Would be interesting, which race people would choose, if a game is only played by skilled players (skilled in all fields like diplomacy, economics, warfare...).
I guess, most players would still choose Borg - at least, I would. ^^
My second choice would be Priv (far more dangerous to choose, because with the "wrong" neighbor almost dead instantly)
Third choice a "slow", but powerful race like Bots or Colony. Maybe Liz (although I don't think, aggressive gameplay will be succesful in a game of only skilled players).
Races I definitely would not choose: EE, Xtal, Bird, Fascists and Fed (although I like to play Fascists a lot - THIS is a demanding race, pure fun to play, but without any chance against races like Bots or Borg IMO).

2622 days, 12 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I agree that fireclouds are amazing little ships. Being able to chunnel merlins, war fleets, 5 W1 LDSFs is awsome. Being able to "put a star base in bottle" and deliver it anywhere you can get a firecloud is good fun.

As for the borg in the early game, almost every race has a mid sized ship that can easily kill a firecloud. Resolute, Emerald, LCC, MCBR, a tiny 1 engine patriot, etc etc etc We have tried and are not just talking. The borg have nothing of use to build for a fight between their weak firecloud and expensive cube.

Sure those cubes kick butt but the 550 moly, the rarest mineral in the game, needed to build them is not trivial. The Borg need those fireclouds (and LDSF and merlins) to build their otherwise overpriced tech 9 and 10 ships.

On top of that, good players know that the borg are a serious threat in the mid to late game - I think of them as a "light switch race" - if they are near you there are only 2 viable options, work with them or kill them early on. Newer unaligned players often get in trouble in the early game by throwing weight that they don't yet have around in diplomacy - this tends to get them killed fast (most quit fairly quickly).

While the borg are one of the top races. All races have weaknesses and the early game is the borg's Achilles heel. This early game weakness is ameliorated with a good allie - like the lizards.

2622 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@valhalla: I think, it depends on many things, if the Borg is vulnerable in early-game or not. Of course I agree with you, that the early game is the borg's Achilles heel. The question is: in how many games is this a problem for the Borg?
First of all, you've to find out, who's your neighbor. Let's say, you're playing Lizards and after some turns of aggressive expansion, you find a Borg-planet. You think, that it would be a good idea to kill the Borg in early game.
Now you still don't know, if the Borg HW is near you, because the planet could be settled by a probe. But let's assume, you find the HW of the Borg empire some turns later. Luckily you're doing all the scouting with a cloaked LCC and the Borg has no clue, that you've found his HW.
But to destroy the HW, you need to build bigger warships, that can't cloak and now the Borg knows, what's going on... of course he's also teched to hulltech 10 and simply has to build some Annis. No need for Bios (would be better, if he has enough cash for the fighters). Because he's spent not too much moly so far (probes and fireclouds are cheap to build), his HW is full of moly and he can easily build 2 or 3 cubes and awaits the Lizard.
So where is the problem in this scenario for the Borg? He's all the time in the world, jumps with his probes to other places and raises new "Homeworlds", while the Lizard is busy with moving his LCCs and T-Rex to the Borg, who's already active in other regions and don't care anymore of a Lizard, besieging ONE of his HWs....
I think, we've all played too often against noobs and smashed their HWs too easily. A skilled Borg-player has some time to make preparations and knows the right answer. Generally it's not so easy to kill your neighbor, if he has some skills.

2622 days, 11 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

If you find the borg HW early enough as the Liz (or any cloaking race), you can pretty much stop all production coming out of that starbase. For quite a long time, there is nothing the borg can make that you can't kill. While this is going on, he is more or less pinned down and trying to run his economy with a few probes he manged to get out - this is very difficult - they don't hold much cargo or fuel. . . You build your T-rexes and if he hasn't quit by now, take his pinned down empire out. Game over for the borg. This is what I mean by a "light switch" race.

Here is a better answer for your side of this argument:

What really helps trump this is what is already happening in many more advanced games; the borg has a secret reliable pre-game allie and has already sent a probe to their HW. . . They shelter and help grow the borg in exchange for fireclouds and late game power. It is all about protecting the borg in the early game, if needed, for late game power.

2622 days, 10 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

From his last few posts, it seems to me that omegamann has not considered that firepower is not even close to the only factor here.

The Fascists can sneak a Coldpain/Specula combo in and pillage the Borg right out of the game with almost no investment.

The Privateers can do pretty much the same by picking their pocket over and over.

But then even with firepower,

The Feds can and often do build a single Missouri (which is about 10 turns faster to produce and arm than any cube) to bring down the Cyborg homeworld, and then their entire presence in that region. This has the effect of dampening their development significantly by ship limit time.

The Rebels can send in a few Patriots and RGA the Cyborg homeworld and surrounding planets to death.

The Empire can dispatch two Super Star Destroyers and a support ship to take them out fast.

The Robots can use an Instrumentality for a quick kill like the Feds do.

The Cyborg do not have any way to prevent these simple tactics by themselves.

2622 days, 9 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

MR. daniel payne

For that short time, u played as allied of mine as subtitute player.
U were more than SH1T.

Its in forum talk about fleets than actually produce them or even control them.
So i think your most fu(ked up ppls in here. U think and think.

I Know they wanna kill me, and they got good reason for that.
I talk shit, but im like 100x bettern than u Daniel Payne.

2622 days, 9 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

One Dark Wing can render the Borg HW useless..

You can sit in orbit and just destroy whatever he makes, or you can just take out the HW with 2 MK4 DKwings.

People can say what htey want, but the only defense early Borg has is mine fields, and those will not be suficient most of the time, so really theonly defense the Borg has is to get his probes out of there ASAP, every direction.

If I play Borg I look to build a 2nd SB as soon as I can for probe production. The quicker the Borg break their HW dependency the better. That is their only reliable defense, aside from diplomacy.

2622 days, 9 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Capnkill say -"One Dark Wing can render the Borg HW useless.. "

Witch one of them?

--- ADDED----

May i add, yes i can..

Usually borgs best planet is not its HW... Get it?

2622 days, 9 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

We're talking early game Plague, so THE HW.

We all understand that it just takes one probe to find the right planet for the Borg to essentially make a new HW, but it still sets them back a significant amount.

As I've already said, the best early game defense for the Borg is to send out his probes and render his HW inconsequential.

Don't be a douche when you really don't need to be :)

Remind me again what happened to the Borg in the 1st Emperors Game?

2622 days, 8 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

capnkill said all in his wisdom: -"We're talking early game Plague, so THE HW. "

So im i. Borg got HW everywhere he got natives.
I dont start to teach you how to play with BORG.
But i can say this much, Where BORG start game, is his starting point not HW.
Borg dont got HW. They just assimilate and assimilate.
So soon they got for others like 10 HW.

>>"Remind me again what happened to the Borg in the 1st Emperors Game? "
I was not there.
So plz refresh our minds. What happend in that game?

2622 days, 8 hours, 52 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I have a pretty good idea of how to play the Borg Plague, not sure about you though, I still recall a comment you made where you suggested that 1 SB was enough, but maybe you meant something different.

I believe in the Emperors game the Borg was located quickly and wiped out, but maybe I'm wrong.

But its hard to argue with the ship limit.

Yes Borg can have lots of HWs, but it takes time.

1. You need to be lucky enough to quickly find planets that can build a SB + Firecloud

2. It takes time for those planets to develop to that stage

How many turns will you behind everyone else in ship building if you lose your original HW quickly?

In games where people are experienced the ship limit hits very early, so by the time you get some new HWs and maybe some Cubes in the cue, you are already very far behind everyone else.

I understand that losing your HW early is not nearly as significant for the Borg vs everyone else, but it can't be ignored, it is still a significant setback that would be difficult to recover from vs experienced opponents.

2622 days, 8 hours, 50 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Ooh. Ooh. Mistah Kottair.

The Borg got AssAssinated by the Orkin Man who understood how to deal with infectious vermin of that sort.

Also, I love Plague. The empty threats. The ridiculous demands. The English apparently learned from watching Jamie Kennedy on YouTube. The guy who finishes poorly in all his games telling the guy who finishes well in all his games how much better he is. Plague is the complete package harlequin.

2622 days, 8 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Dear Captain Kill.
I have never say that with only 1 starbase BORG will win.
But at first that is what launchpad what BORG got.
What you would build?

1. Large Deep Space Freighter
2. Medium Deep Space Freighter
3. Firecloud
[ ] What, your choise?

2622 days, 8 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

"Also, I love Plague. The empty threats."

Say man who is so noob.
That give advises to the 3 races, while all what HE do is fu(ked up.
And i was one of those races.

Daniel, dont pick up your nose for blood.
If i want it, i take it.
And u little noob cant do sh1t.

2622 days, 8 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Hey if any wanna test that any of this in 1v1
Im open for it:)

Lets do that in real game, not in chat.

Contact me.

-Plague

2622 days, 8 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@Plague: If you need a partner for a 2-player team game, I'm in (this topic is for the best alliance pair after all). You take the Borgs, I'll take a support class.

Daniel and Capnkill can then try and take you down ;-)

2622 days, 8 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Sir Turssi.

"@Plague: If you need a partner for a 2-player team game, I'm in (this topic is for the best alliance pair after all). You take the Borgs, I'll take a support class.

Daniel and Capnkill can then try and take you down ;-)"

I take Borg, and im honored to play with you against those 2 thugs.

But i think they don't wanna go against us.

sad but true :)

2622 days, 8 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I remember the last time Plague angrily challenged someone to a 1 v 1. I wish there was a search function on the forum. Lots of fun.

Who was that Plague? What was the excuse you gave when the Privateers pounded you?

2622 days, 7 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Mr. Daniel

I remember how noob you was when we was in same game.
Perhaps you Daniel wanna talk about that.

Or shoud i just do. I think it is better it came out from your DANIEL.
Cos u still think you are good.

--- ADDED---
Privateers pound on me?
U mean that privateer who was allied with KOVALAINEN?
That annuchi or something like that?

What is that for you Daniel, u was not even there.

2622 days, 7 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Plague my first builds would be probes most likely with Fireclouds peppered in. I'd let the ship I get initially to start scouting out the nearby planets, but its all about the probes getting out there and breaking your HW dependency as soon as possible.

What is a 1 on 1 game? Blitz game?

What is a 2 on 2 game?

What is the main argument here?

Borg are weak in the beginning, true or false. I assume Plague thinks that it is false.

We're talking about a 11 player game scenario.

In a 2 vs 2 game the Borg would have no problems.

In a 11 player scenario the Borg are weak at the beginning, this is a fact. If the wrong neighbor is there he is in trouble, although this applies to many races, not just the Borg.

If Lizards are next to PRivy, Privy is in trouble. IF Lizards rae next to Feds.. Feds are in trouble...

Robots next to Privy.. .not good for Privy.

The bottom line is that the Borg have no special defenses against anything and no economical bonuses, so they are as vanilla as the Empire, so if the neighbor for a Borg is Privy or Birdman or Lizards, they are in trouble

2622 days, 7 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

No, no, Plague, I mean the time you challenged a player here on NU to 1v1. I think it was a blitz, though I am not sure. He beat you quickly and you made up a bunch of pathetic excuses in the thread. It was my first introduction to your atrocious, yet entertaining personality and the fantasy world you live in.

I wish I could remember who that was or search up the thread.

2622 days, 7 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@Plague. Please refrain from swearing and name calling. Everyone else, please refrain from responding to plague. He appears to have no self-control, even though we've determined he's an alright guy.

2622 days, 7 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Joshua, i know you are one of the top dogs in here.
Im sorry if i offend you.

But forrest call if you yell there.
And i wont back down.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sir.

2622 days, 7 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

And i dont call just random to names.
just few of them, what in my mind deserved it.

Who are they to pick fight with me?
Do you even ask that to yourself?

2622 days, 7 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Oh come on Joshua, that's the fun part :)

Its all in good fun I think, just having a discussion, I think we've all learned to filter out certain things that Plague says by now :)

2622 days, 7 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Perhaps we should stay in attention!
Anthem Of Canada :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBoItR59REQ
"while lock&load"

Im not the enemy.

2622 days, 6 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Mr. Joshua.

They all can fuck with me?
But i can just take it?
Is that swearing or it is just the message what this "name" carry?

Dont you swear in Canada?
Or do you just act like better than rest of us?

perhaps you should translate this.
Vittu, mä en ymmärrä neitejä, jotka ei kiroile.

Have a nice day, sir.

2622 days, 4 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I think Joshua's point is that you are demonstrating an unfortunate level of immaturity by cursing endlessly. It doesn't do anything to improve your PR, mostly it makes you look like a petulant and anti-social 14 year-old. He was just being too polite to say it like that. Being a Canadian, myself, I'll freely tell you that you are being an ass.

2622 days, 4 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

lol, I would think that Plague has long given up on trying to improve his PR, if he ever did in the first place :)

2622 days, 2 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Right now I am not sure if we can play a good 1-on-1 private game, since the victory conditions call for 50% of planets. It would be nice if we could have 60%, 65%, and/or 70% control of total planets, also.

Please, please, please, pretty ple-e-e-e-ease!

Squeek - squeek - squeek.

2621 days, 20 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

capnkill, u dont know me at all.

I dont want that first place. It comes if it comes. But do you want it?
It seems so, cos in every game i play against multiple races.
That makes you tought, hard and more skilled :)
U dont learn nothing to go win to win.

And yes i do things very differnly than you main streamers.
That way u cant predict what my next move is.
Dont fuck with me ;)

That you dont take me so seriously, and cry at night wondering im evil or just evil. =)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI8srmk8iUk&feature=related

2621 days, 12 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

When Plague has cable, Plague's cable goes down.

When Plague's cable goes down, Plague goes on the internet.

When Plague goes on the internet, Plague posts on threads in Planets Nu.

When Plague posts on threads on Planets Nu, Plague says things that are tough.

When Plague says things that are tough, others have to poke him with a stick.

When others poke him with a stick, Plague gets mad and starts cursing.

When Plague gets mad and starts cursing, Canadians (of all people) tell Plague he is an ass.

If you don't want to end up having Canadians (of all people) call you an ass.

Don't get cable.

2621 days, 12 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Can you tell more Tom?
U seem to know me.

Perhaps i didnt get tittie as much as you?
=)

2621 days, 12 hours, 31 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

One of the functions of the Lizard is to protect the Borg early and make sure he makes it past the "Take the Borg Out early" scenerios. Also, the good player theory works on both sides of the coin. Because players know to take out the Borg, and are skilled enough to know how to do it, doesn't mean the Lizard player isn't skilled enough to stop that from happening, and to offer safe ground for the Borg to materalize or that the Borg isn't skilled enough to hide himself as long as possible and colonize in area's he knows he will have time to utilize later. Skill works for the strong as well as the weak.

I'll still stick with the Lizard/Borg any day all day, all things being equal, but I think we can all concede circumstance and we can all debate circumstances forever and never get anywhere concrete. In fact, it's one of the best flavors of this game, the different circumstances we find ourselves in, in the different races and games we play.

As far as Plague goes, the entire back and forth with him and the community, and the hijacking of this thread and other threads, it's played out already. It seems to be the same pointless, uninformative, unenjoyable, and incoherent banter thread after thread. It's past time to ignore it. His record and his inconsiderate dribble speak volumes.

-Star

2621 days, 12 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Star how you manage to write that stuff out?
That is writen in battle manual what was released in the 90's.

And what comes to me... have you ever say something nice to me?
U get what you deserve.

I just answer to "your" community.

2621 days, 12 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

And if you wonder this ...
How much crap we can talk about this subject?
Best Alliance pair?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Endless.

Ppls got so various needs and skills.
So its pointless.

If i say FED + EMPIRE
there is always some1 to say, no.
I think is that and that.

so wtf is even point of this?

2621 days, 11 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Final word.
Lone Ranger - Human Blue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPArkjVjkg

U can think what u want.
Im still be me, not some forum shit.

2621 days, 5 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

After being subject to a star72066 Liz/Borg combo in Perots World, where I play Bird, I have to admit that the combo is very strong. In particular if allowed to build up in relative peace until ship limit.

In that regard, one issue I do have with the current planet version is that the FCC tilts the game somewhat, providing an outsized advantages late in the game.

I would however add that the beauty of planets is that experienced players will tend to make up for racial imbalances. I will aggressively attack a Borg neighbor and also a Lizard early in the game (unless I partner up for victory). Whereas a Fascist might be allowed more peace and time to grow.

One problem with Perots world was that star and his ally was at the other end of the cluster :-(

2620 days, 21 hours, 12 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I agree Carval, the firecloud is a huge weapon in end game and combined with LCC, it has been critical. However, Perot's is a real bad example of the power potential of the Lizard/Borg.

The Borg in Perot's was boxed in, dogged, and seriously limited early by the Crystal. You don't need to take the Borg out to reduce their capability. The Crystal effectively destroyed the Borg economy and it wasn't until my Lizards arrived on the scene that the strangle hold was released This led to 2 major problems against the Evil Empire: 1. The Empire had more starbases, more Gorbies, and the economy to produce more Gorbie's than Bio's. and 2. The Borg was getting no PBP's because the Lizard was driving the warships. (This is only a factor when the Borg economics is weak.)

# 2 is a BIG factor with a weak Borg Economy, as replacing Bio's becomes a major issue.. We found out quickly that trading Bio's for Gorbie's wasn't going to work, until we could reduce the Empire Economy and build the Borg's, and when the Empire pressed the matter, collecting 4 and 5 Gorbie's in packs, I was forced to dump a million Lizard warships to destroy them, just to keep our Bio's in play. The Lizard has carried the show end game, except for the Fireclouds, which is really an indication of how much more power this pair could really have, with a STRONGER Borg.

It's a credit to the Crystal for his ability to stall the Borg, reduce the Borg, and seriously hinder the Borg Economy. If the Crystal could have found an ally, the Borg might not have survived.

In all, it was the Lizard Economy that held us up, the Lizard plethora of war ships and LCC's that bought us time to repair the Borg and ultimately reduce the Evil Empire (Who built and incredible Economy), and the Lizard Economy that layed the endless minefields that saved our ass against all the Darkwings and Resolutes. That shouldn't be the case end game in an ideal Lizard/Borg scenerio, it should be just that much more with a healthy Borg, who can really control end game economics and ship building ability.

We feel like we have brought the Borg economy to equal with the Evil Empire now, and it should make things easier on us, going forward.

All in all, your alliance of the Evil Empire/Bird/Robot had the game won, and if not for the Colonial/Privateer/Federation alliance tying down half of the Bird and the Robot, even the mighty Lizard/Borg pairing wouldn't have stood up against you in the long run. The Evil Empire was simply producing too many Gorbie's compared to the Borg Bio's and while my 60+ T-Rex's and Mad's sound like a large number, against Gorbie's it really isn't.

In all, Perot's was a terrible example of the Lizard/Borg power but yet a good example in that with merely fireclouds (Which your right about being the difference makers) the Lizard was able to single handedly hold up the pairing for quite a while. Now that the Bio's are really starting to kick in and fill the queue's with a decent number of Borg starbases, the total power of the combo will start to be realized. (But pushing turn 100 - Thats way to late IMHO, but better late than never.)

Perot's was a great learning experience for all involved I think, Carvel. The battles were many, the tactics many, the turns were long, and the war even longer and it still rages. Although, I think we both see it winding down...I almost have the Empire and his Gorbie making machine that he built, under control. No offense, but your Birds are going to seem like a walk in the park comparatively, if the game lasts that long.

My sole focus has been on reducing the Empire Economy and fending off wave after wave of Gorbie's. (That is one mean ass ship) "Hestetyv" deserves an extreme amount of credit for the Evil Empire he built and the war that he fought and is still fighting. I figure 8-10 Gorbie's left...and for the first time in the game, I think we have more Bio's than Gorbie's.

-Star

2620 days, 16 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Hi Star,

I have enjoyed Perots world a lot although I have known since turn 40 or so that I was likely to lose it. This was my first game for 15 years, and first playing Bird, so I am forgiving myself. But the game has been interesting, and thanks for that. I have learned a lot, including changing FCs from "mkt"! (btw all that use of friendly codes is a left over from Tim Wissemans limited programming skills in the early 1990s, it is absurd we still have it in the game). One problem with many of the games on this site is that there are many inexperienced and unstable players with lots of drop outs. In Perots world everybody left in the game (8 races at turn 96 all with meaningful economies!) play well. I think this was a great aspect of this game.

Also, while Borg might have been limited by Crystal in the early game, I am quite sure that Hestetyv (EE), Anathesos (Robot) and I (being Bird) would have been limiting him even more aggresively in the early game, had we been close to him.

This game ended up being a fun game diplomatically with Bird/Robots teaming up early and trying to take out Fed, which unfortunately then with his Priv ally persuaded Colonies to switch from neutral to supporting, effectively stalemating that war. In the meantime Liz/Borg got time to kill a weak Crystal and grow.

There was an important diplomatic point around turn 45, when we almost persuaded Colonies/Fed/Priv to go for a truce in order to deal with the otherwise inevitable Liz/Bord steamroller victory. Colonies was game. Unfortunately Robots changed his mind. That was a mistake on his part, which I think lost us the game, and I thought so at the time.

From then on the game has been less interesting to me to be frank. Hestetyv has done magic in terms of economics, but EE has so many weaknesses. Little minelaying capacity being one obvious.

You are absolutely right that I stand no chance once Hestetyv has lost. Bird is not a strong race in the late game!

In terms of mistakes the most obvious ones I made were

1) Reading diplomacy in the south wrong

2) Reading Fed geography wrong (had to fly 200ly through undeveloped land to reach HW, means advertising your arrival pretty well!)

3) Not being aggressively enough in terms of integrating economics. EE and Robots both got some of my bases. But they should have had most of them!

That being said, I still think the FCC was a mistake on Tims part.

2619 days, 19 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

carval wrote: "That being said, I still think the FCC was a mistake on Tims part."

Interesting statement. I think, you're right with this assessment on one side. There're some race-advantages and ships, that are just over-powered. We had a lot of discussion here about balance and after all I think, no one would say, that planets is a well balanced game. Nevertheless people seem to like this imbalance and I've to admit, that these people are right. Planets is not only about fair competition, but also about "could I do this with that race..." or "They have all the advantages on their side, but maybe I'm able to...".
It's like a huge simulation and how far you can get with your (dis)advantaged race or (dis)advantaged starting position. Beside that, diplomacy is more important than firepower quite often.
In StarCraft2, where everything is perfectly balanced out, gameplay gets pretty boring very fast...
So... finally I'm appreciating the imbalance of Planets, too :)

2619 days, 19 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Yeah, imbalances aren't necessarily a bad thing.

Somebody above (couldn't find it in the middle of the nonsense) wrote that he wasn't able to get to the Borg in time. That was my main problem in a game, too. We realized fairly fast by checking the scores that there were only 4 capable players in that game (based on rate of starbase and ship building) and split into two teams. But we were on opposite of the galaxy and the game was decided at that point. Because everybody knew that we were too far away to stop the Borg and his neighbours were just a bunch of newbies. That was at turn ~15 and it took another 35 turns for the fleets to hit in the center with us realizing that it's not possible to beat the Borg anymore.

So, maybe the Borg gets a little bit TOO strong at the end. Maybe at least the tow chunneling could be taken out off the game, it's such a huge advantage and it just seems that Tim originally did not want to include it into the game (just by looking at the mechanic).

The major advantage of the Borg is the size of the galaxy. I know that Planets is meant to be a "slow" game, but if you need to get your fleet from the lower right to the upper left you need like 3 months for that. This is not only pretty boring, it just benefits the Borg very very much.

2619 days, 18 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@daniel payne: I think, you're a skilled player and therefore I really don't understand statements like this from you:

"The Fascists can sneak a Coldpain/Specula combo in and pillage the Borg right out of the game with almost no investment.
The Privateers can do pretty much the same by picking their pocket over and over.
The Feds can and often do build a single Missouri (which is about 10 turns faster to produce and arm than any cube) to bring down the Cyborg homeworld, and then their entire presence in that region. This has the effect of dampening their development significantly by ship limit time.
The Rebels can send in a few Patriots and RGA the Cyborg homeworld and surrounding planets to death.
The Empire can dispatch two Super Star Destroyers and a support ship to take them out fast.
The Robots can use an Instrumentality for a quick kill like the Feds do.
The Cyborg do not have any way to prevent these simple tactics by themselves."

And you as a Borg would have NO answer to these threats? I don't believe you! ;)
First of all, any attacker in Planets has always the disadvantage, that he has to travel, while the defender can use these turns to produce more defending ships and lay minefields to the last turn, when the attacker arrives. It's a simple calculation: The attacker builds for example a T-Rex and then this ship needs about 8 turns to reach the enemy HW. The defender sees the T-Rex coming (at least for some turns) and if he has ANY skills, he'll make arrangements. Even the Borg can defend himself - not as good as other races, but he can.
Things get only dangerous, if the attacker has cloaking ships and the defender has little or no time to react. In other words: Feds, Rebels, EE and Robots are no serious threat for a skilled Borg in early game.
As a Borg you've to think about Resolutes, LCCs, MBRs and maybe D7. MBRs could be very nasty - that's a platitude. D7 can at least tow away your Cubes.
But it's the LCC and the Resolutes, that you've to look at seriously! Birds and Lizards are the Borg's nightmare. A pack of Resolutes can destroy your HW. They can tow away your cubes from HW and then attack the HW.
But... if you're so damn afraid of Birds and Lizards (and Priv, Fascist, Fed,... EVERYONE!), then just build some Fireclouds to lay small overlapping minefields around your HW. I woudn't do that, because that's the best method to say "hey, I'm here!".
But at least you're well defended after some turns. Build some more fighters at your HW. Raise SB/planet-defence to maximum (costs nearly nothing compared to the fuel-costs for sending a Missouri). Now let's see, what the Missouri can do against a well guarded HW - nothing.

But the worst thing for the attacker, who really wants to bring down the Borg is, that he has to put in all his effort, resources and warships, if he wants to have a chance to succeed.
Smashing the Borg (or any other race) isn't for free. The attacker certainly won't win the game, because other races use the time to build up their economies, largen their empire and safe their warships. The attacker will lose a lot of warships and... time!
And there's no way to finish the Borg completely. He might be angry for a long time and after 20 turns of recovery he's back to have his revenge ;)

As a Borg you HAVE to (and any skilled player will) scout your neighbors with probes. You HAVE to know, who are your neighbors. Then use diplomacy and do everything, what's necessary to survive early game. Apropos: every race has to do so...

2619 days, 17 hours, 53 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Carval -

I believe your dead on about the Firecloud - it's the most powerful ship in the game by far and without it, Perot's would have been lost.

Perot's was my first game back also...and I also agree on the mistakes, I made quite a few myself. Nothing like the "mkt" thing...I have been setting "mkt" and force surrender against cloaking races for as long as I can remember, and NEVER once had it worked, but like a bad habit I kept doing it. Well wouldn't ya know...it does work. Darkwings and Resolutes to our side when the game was still in doubt, was a nice boost for morale. I feel almost guilty to tip the scales in such an unfair kind of way and I don't think I'm going to keep doing the "mkt" / Force Surrender thing anymore. It just felt so "cheap" after it worked when we got all those free Darkwings and Resolutes.

My mistakes...

1. Not realizing much sooner that the Evil Empire was part of your alliance. (I tried to coax him to our side for many many many turns and he played it out just right, giving indication that it would happen but never committing. Along with the rest of the game he played, Hest's diplomacy was very skilled also and by the time I was close enough to see your ships intermingled in only a way that could mean alliance, you guys were 10 planets from victory.) We only needed to sleep a few more turns and you three would have punched the clock and won the game, without anyone even realizing you were allied, until the five turn count down.

2. Not recruiting the Crystal instead of smashing him. Even though he was one of the smaller races, there is no way to "hurry up" thru web mines. It took far to long to take him out and in hindsight, those web mines would have been sooo useful. It was a blatantly horrible miscalculation, there was no way he would have refused an alliance...he had none, and everyone else was full up except us. I had the economy and the million T-Rex's to inundate the cluster with web mines, and had I to do it over again, DUH.

3. Not coming together with the Borg sooner and helping his economic woes and his problems with the Crystal. I also wish I would have broken off a peice of my stellar economy and handed it to the Borg as soon as we became allies. The Fireclouds were nice, but BIOCIDES would have been nice also. I should have propped up the Borg. Yes, my one million T-Rex's were nice for laying mines but the Borg was more important in end game, especially going against all Hest's Gorbie's.

These were the three real bad mistakes on my part that could have been game busters.

Tactically, I have no complaints after such a long lay off. I fought a good war and was pleased overall with how that part has turned out. Fireclouds were indeed a HUGE help, but we don't make the rules, we can only take what we have and utilize it in the best ways possible. I did a good job with making the firecloud the huge advantage that it is. Jumping North and South when the weaknesses presented themselves.

It was a fun game, and a good learning game, but a very long one. I almost want to send it to vote, because I don't want nor believe Hest deserves the "zero" he is headed for. If there was another choice, but I can't allow him to continue to make Gorbie's and since every planet he has practically is starbased, he has to be zero'd. I know you guys want to take it to vote, but I don't know about the other alliance.

-Star

2619 days, 12 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

" there were only 4 capable players in that game "

A game with only 4 capable players and/or lots of drop outs is nothing like what I consider a normal old school game with 11 fully competent players. Of course in such a game the Borg's advantages would be greater then normal. However, this is not how planets was meant to be played.

2619 days, 11 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I know, but this is reality at vgaplanets.nu at the moment. In every game (excluding the championship game ;) ) there are at least 4 races where the player

a ) quits or

b ) manages to build 3 ships until turn 10

If those guys are your neighbours as a Borg, it's a freewin. Of course this is not how the game was meant to be played. But this is how it is played. :P

EDIT: And that's why the Borg are considered OP.

2619 days, 11 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Sad but true.

The Nu teams games are much better. Balanced even teams and much lower dropout rates.

As long as there is a revolving door policy with regard to joining and quitting as much as you like, normal games will continue to suffer.

The Priv and Rebles, two other fast expanding races, should also do better here.

2619 days, 8 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Well I am all for ending Perots World, as the outcome is now pretty clear, unless the Colony/Fed/Priv changes their mind. But we attacked Fed so they wont.

As you say, I am set to be a walkover. I have a large mount of space and pretty limited Firepower at this stage. Bird is not strong past the ship limit, and it is not my favourite race to play. This game has not been much fun since about turn 50 for me.

I agree that Hestetyv deserves a better outcome than zero (he is my ally!).

Couldnt you ally w Fraack or Handsomecam for instance and just reach the required number (250?).

If need be, you can take a slice of my area in the middle.

I would like to invite you and incanus to play a team game after this. I am sure Hestetyv will join as well. Then we can see how a Liz/Borg will manage against a ..... Liz/Borg :-)

Finally, an apology to everybody else for spamming this thread with a discussion that rightly belongs in the game specific forum!

2618 days, 13 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

@omegamann, I think I see where you are coming from. I am speaking from generalities. Sure the Borg can gain knowledge of an incoming attack and prepare. They can use minefields to defend and have cubes to ward off potentially devastating threats.

But all players have tools. And generally speaking, the Borg are worse at defending themselves in the early stages of the game than any other race. So if you made the same defensive argument for any other race it would be a stronger one. Put another way, the Borg are heavily disadvantaged by an agrressive opponent like the ones I described - moreso than any other race. So unless your argument is "early offense is generally unproductive" or something similar that we can discuss independently, your position really does not hold water.

The Borg can come back from an early route, yes. But if the other players are doing well, the Borg will never reach that critical mass of crazy powerful. And that is what we have been discussing anyway. That is the entire point of pounding them out of your area.

2618 days, 9 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

We wouldn't be having this discussion it it weren't for the high number of quitters and game hoppers.

Sure the Borg can grow to be all powerful, but they are not going to get out of trouble by laying minefields in the early game while pinned to, and restricted to the resources at, their homeworld. It almost impossible to win an economic war while pinned down and restricted to probes for moving pop and minerals.

Also, any player of a cloaking race who is worth more then a dead roach is going to come in cloaked and with multiple ships. The Borg may know they have a cloaking neighbor but they won't know where his/her (are their any hers here?) ships are. If I'm that neighbor we are back to the light switch theory - I'll either alie or destroy the borg. Due to what the Borg can become, there is no middle path.

If the borg are pusy/bossy (issuing threats, etc) in the early game, and therefor not played by someone I'd want to team with, they are either played by a noob who will soon quit (most likely) or they already have an alie who is close by (time for some scouting). Usually a bossy borg in the early game is a dead borg. That may not always be true here in Nu if many of the players quit or are new and are afraid to attack the Borg early on, when they are weak.

2618 days, 8 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

As one of the oldest Borg players I can say I have never been pinned down. Not saying it cant happen just getting to by HW before turn10 with a couple of cloaking war ships is not all that easy and by turn 25 i have 6-8 Cubes up. But I would like to point out the one thing everyone keeps over looking. You dont have to kill the cubes or planets to stop the Borg. You need to kill the FCC... If you can stop the FCC you can stop the Borg... The Borg thrive by being able to connect a vast empire in one turn. We need massive amount of cash and mats to build warships and we relly on FCC to move them to the battle. A really great Bird player can bring the entire borg empire to a grinding halt. You just have to know how the borg move and build.

Vacco Blixx

2618 days, 8 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Vacco Blixx

FCC done its job if he delivers 2 cubes in round 10-15 to nearby enemy land.
That enemy is done or fu/ked up at least. If borg play his cards right, he got soon starbase at enemy land, where he try to connect that with FCC to his own empire. If that happend... total victory over that enemy.

But stealth is Borgs main weapon. Why?
Tell me?

2618 days, 8 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Accualy I use that tactic a lot plague. But not so sure about stealth. I start out moving my FCC by planet hopping until I find my 1st cloaking race. I then only move my FCC to warpwells and chennel in Cubes. I will then use low ID ships to tow FCC to the next well. I try to never let an FCC touch a planet out side of secure space. Never more in streight lines so a player can predict the end movement for an FCC. I dont want cloakers to hitch a ride back to my core worlds or to kill my FCC.

2618 days, 8 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

>> Accualy I use that tactic a lot plague. But not so sure about stealth

What i mean about that stealth... is that i wanna take planets with probes, what is in range, what got natives and where i build first 25 dfens post.

Stealth. you cant scanner sweep those you dont see my probes or FCC.
But suddenly there is massive cube army.
Ready to attack on who ever is agaist that otherside.

That stealth, im talking about.

2618 days, 8 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Vacco Blixx

This old player once had the priv locate and campout over his Borg HW on turn 5. A few probes made it out but that was it. Any FCC I built was towed off and either killed or captured - his choice. It was not possible to build an FCC and lay mines before the ship was stolen or killed. I'm sure he wanted me to build a cube so he could steal it - so I didn't.

I maxed my HW defenses in preparation for the inevitable final blow that never came. I stopped building ships for 10 or so turns since there really was no defense at that point. I tried to look like I wasn't doing anything although my 2 probes were still moving around. I dropped to 10th place. 11th place had already lost his HW and quit.

Eventually I won this game. Only the Borg could come back from something like that. Their mistake was not finishing me off. I can assure you that if a cloaking race, especially a stealing cloaking race, finds your HW early on you are in very deep dodo and w/o a lot of options unless you have an alie close by. I didn't. If he had stayed there would have been very little I could do. My probes did find some good planets but planets with natives that have all the minerals needed to build a SB with mining rates fast enough to accomplish this prior to the ship limit are rare.

I do agree that Fireclouds are the Borgs strength and their weakness. Almost any mid sized ship can take them out. The borgs answer to this weakness is to build lots of them but that takes time. As does building 550 moly cubes and outfitting them.

I actually also agree with the post above, which is a first. I generally play cloaking races and the Borg as stealth is important for both.

-V-

2618 days, 8 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Vacco,

I'm missing something. How do you tow from planet A (or the warp well of planet A) into a warp well of planet B w/o being pulled to the planet?

-V-

2618 days, 8 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I am not making it into a well in 1 turn. Tow to 4ly of the planet and step in the next turn. I meant that I never accualy allow an FCC to pull up in orbit once I find a cloaking race.

2618 days, 6 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

OK all you valhallas, vacco blixxes, daniel paynes, capnkills, tom graveses, rudels and kosmonymoseses!

Now it's your chance to sweep the floor of the Echo Cluster with Plagues Borgs: Just join this 'teams of two' and blast away! (3 teams still open)!

2618 days, 6 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Tempting, but it's a Stellar Cartography game. :-/

2618 days, 5 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

What limits? Can teams work with other teams? Better decide that now before the game starts otherwise it will surly happen and some teams will gang up on others while other teams will assume that such activity is hitting below the belt.

Also, LOL, can we assume that all teams, are playing to win? Or will we be listening to the usual bs and excuses for poor performance by certain players should they find themselves loosing?

Not sure if I'm going to jump in this or not but either way, I think you want to sort out the above ASAP.

Good luck and have fun.

2618 days, 5 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

That's what I thought! Yeah!

2618 days, 4 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Stellar Cartography - not exactly a bug free vanilla testing platform.

Those of you playing the Borg can chunnel entire enemy fleets to their instant death! While I like playing the Borg, that sounds a bit to much unearned power so I'm going to pass this time.

Have fun!

-V-

2617 days, 19 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

daniel payne wrote:
"And generally speaking, the Borg are worse at defending themselves in the early stages of the game than any other race."

And I totally agree with you. My point in this discussion is, that this weakness of the Borg isn't a problem in maybe 90% of all games.
Theoretically, the Borg won't survive too many early games, but fact is, that Borg survives most early games very well. Why?
Because most people play Planets to win. Why should they sacrifice themselves by eliminating the Borg plague in early game, so other players can win the whole game?
Even in a game with only skilled players (BTW: I don't think, we'll ever see such a game here), it's irrational to try to kill your neighbor in early game with full force, ignoring development of your empire.
Every player, who wants to have a chance to win the game, has to take care of many things. He has to build up his economy for example - if he just builds warships and sends them all to the Borg HW from the beginning, because fortunately EE has told him, where to go, he may kill the Borg by turn 10-15 and maybe he does it with nearly no losses, so maybe he has an advantage of this early rush, but this is only a theoretical scenario. In how many games have you seen such a successful rush? And if the rush was successful: was it because of the attacker's skills or was the Borg just a noob?

I would like to quote vacco blixx
"As one of the oldest Borg players I can say I have never been pinned down."
His stats speak for themselves.

2617 days, 6 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Skilled players know that they can't win a game if the Borg is allowed to survive, so as in the emperor game, they knocked him out quickly.

It's like taking one for the team, but I don't necesseraly think that taking out an early Borg would really be that detremental since there is not much defense to deal with.

We're really just talking 2 MK4 DKwings... that isn't too difficult to slap together, and then a Resolute for refueling purposes.

Then the Resolute can be used to tow away a Cube if one exists.

Privy is the best, mmost likely two MBRs can take out the Borg HW, which is probably not going to be well defneded in the first place, and two MBRs can potentially be there by turn 5. Some guidance from the Empire would be useful in this type of mission :)

But I think what this argument has morphed into is that the Borg may be weak early on in the game, but not weak enough to offset how powerful they become when allowed to do their thing.

There is probably some truth to that, however I think removing the tow chunnel ability helps here. It really eliminates an entire layer of possibilities from the Borg attack.

2601 days, 12 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

http://planets.nu/games/42421

Team 3 just bailed out on turn 11/12.

Crystals rank 11 and Rebels rank 1 available in a teams-of-two game!

2594 days, 10 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I got feeling that soon they all drop dead :)

2594 days, 10 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Captainkill you haven't seen my BORG.
Its not same than bash some noobs with your experience.
Im bad with every race.

I have played BORG vs Fed + Priv
i have also played Priv vs BORG.

I won first one, lost secound.
why? Simply cos PRIV at the end game dont got minesweepers enoght.
And robbing fully fueled and armed bio/annhi is task even for privateers.

Best races against BORG in early game are.
Klingon.
Bird.
EE.
perhaps federation if he builds Diplomacies.

2582 days, 9 hours, 50 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

http://planets.nu/games/42421

Team 6 (Lizards & Privs) dropped out. Feel free to join in to accept a challenge.

They are rank 7 and 11 now on turn 22.

2564 days, 6 hours, 3 minutes ago

matthew newberry

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

What about Liz/Bots?

Liz have the economy and mining plus Eros. Automas and Golems that can take 150% dmg are more economical than any of the other big ships. Cheap fighters and cheap mines from the bots means they have great advantage with the economy. Eros can maximize all you bovi planets to keep the minerals flowing in the end game.

Very dangerous combo.

2564 days, 5 hours, 31 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

After the mid-game it's all about efficient fighting. Many people don't consider the combat effect of chunneling. I gained more experience during the last months and even tow-drop-chunneling was removed meanwhile I agree to DM now: Borg-Klingon is the best overall combo. Of course the commanders have to be good to survive the early attacks and should like to plan a lot later.

2564 days, 4 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Agreed. Channeling is a huge combat benefit.

But I'd also say that it is a huge econ benefit that lasts the full game. Supplies usually cost to much fuel to move but with chunneling merlins that all changes. And you can chunnel a "starbase in a bottle" in front of the build que as well.

Ground assult + free assimilted pop is also a big plus.

I think the top combo must have borg in it. What ever considerable advantages the Bots bring are not enough to beat the borg.

I would not want to go up against DM's klingon and borg combo. He can rock your world with both those races. However, for my money, Liz and Borg are still my personal top pick in any sort of normal game.

2548 days, 7 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You still dont get it :D

2547 days, 8 hours, 40 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Best races against BORG in early game are.
Klingon.
Bird.
EE.
perhaps federation if he builds Diplomacies

----------

You forgot the Rebel ! A good Rebel is owning my Borg growth, his Falcons dust my probes, and if I do manage to find a planet his Falcons haven't been too, He just RGA's it till it's his. He got all over me early and often and has seriously stunted my growth. Throw in his Bird ally, who is unfriendly close, and I'm quite sure I'm being schooled on how to handle the Borg early!

I'm also quite sure, I'm a terrible Borg, but regardless and not to take away what they have accomplished, it has been quite the pain in butt.

-Star

2547 days, 8 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You need to start jumping out of there, double jumps, get your seeds planted away from that mess

2546 days, 6 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

>> You forgot the Rebel ! A good Rebel is owning my Borg growth,

Say what?

What in rebel arsenal will win FCC?

Or how much damage can mark4 annhi make to the rebel?
Rebel need multible different ships. That is their weakness.

But what i know about rebel forces, right.

2546 days, 6 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

"But what i know about rebel forces, right." - Poopy Pants

Not much it appears.

Cygnus will waste a FCC most of the time as will a Patriot.

Falcons can be a huge problem for Borg probes and remote colonies that can be RGA with no defense what so ever.

And a Rush would shit all over an Ahni.

2546 days, 6 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Captainkill your poop.
You still dont see the big picture.

YOu just see this game like 1 ship agaist 1 ship.
You act that way you talk that way.

Well annhi with mark1 kill both of them, ez... see?

2546 days, 6 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You said, what rebel ship will win FCC?

Cygnus, very cheap, maybe not worth building? Ok, Patriot, Rebels build lots of those early on.

You build according to your needs. If I'm Rebel and Borg is next door, I might build more Cygnus than normal, because its very cheap, and a very good trade off ... Borg will hate to lose FCC to Cygnus, bad deal for him.

As a Rebel I would build lots of Falcons, regardless of who is around me.

As a Rebel I would certainly build Rushes at some point, no hurry though, but if Borg brings Ahni, then that is the response.

What ships do Borg have that they use? Probes, FCC, Ahni and Bio. Rebels can build better in most cases:

Falcon >> Probes

Cygnus/Patriot >> FCC

Rush >> Ahni

In the early stage of the game, it seems to me as if the Rebels have a good advantage, do you still disagree and if yes, explain?

And don't tell me how I see the game, I see the game based on who I'm dealing with.

Do you think if I'm Birds and I fight teh Colonies I say.. OH NO!! Virgo >> DKwing!! I lose!!

No, I say 2x DKwings >> Virgo and I get more BPs, so I win!

2546 days, 6 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Captainkill

perhaps you wanna Rebel vs Borg with me?
And lets see your cygnus...

OK idiot?

2546 days, 6 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Is that your response to any argument?

Lets fight!!! YEah!! FIGHT!!!! Cause I can't express myself through logical thought and coherent conversation.

2546 days, 6 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

What is logical?

That you can get close to FCC with your cygnus?
And you think there is no minefields or Annhis or even BIOS?

you just come and kill all FCC with your cygnus?
Is that right?

2546 days, 6 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You asked this question:

"What in rebel arsenal will win FCC?"

I gave you an answer.

You did not like the answer.

Next time, don't ask the question, or be more specific.

2546 days, 5 hours, 28 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

It's amusing to see people trying to argue seriously with our plague :)

2545 days, 10 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

sir Emork Wrote "It's amusing to see people trying to argue seriously with our plague :)"

You are not alone, sir.

2545 days, 10 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Valhalla asy "My vote is still for Borg and Liz."
That team in game where you were challenged to be.

Borg and Liz are practicly dead, even that Borg give all minerals/money to the Liz.
Borg has left the game and lizz got what he got and i got 90 PBP's now. From one battle :D
I got there 4 Bio more that means atleast 12 of your T-rex.

I cant get all credit from that, cos my ally helped me with money to buy fighters... and he is a FED.
But no can he, cos his ally give that man almost everything.

2544 days, 21 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

And hey, one more thing to BORG+FED ally where you were all invated.
Now our total ship count is 207...

Most of the enemy players have left, dead or going to be under the hammer.
its turn 38.

And yes i dont play nice with you noobs...Cos most likely you do that 5vs1 attack when max ALLY is 2. See what im against here?

Throw those restrictions to recyclebin, if you can handle them.
I said it earlier, i play by the rulebook, i dont bend it, i play with it.
-----

If game say 1 or 2 ally... when you cross the line if you're dealing with multible races?
Make pacts with them etc.
You ally with 1 or that 2, and make pact with 7 more... is that OK ?

When i got game limit of allies, i stop there. Rest are enemies. So simple.
But you who wanna be rank 1, that is just a start.
Then you start to make other offers and deals with others.
This is how you gain wins. I try to get that with pure power.

So who is right? And if its green light for that 1 ally game you got 1 ally and eg. 10 friends...
why we even fight for ?
We are fucking big happy family!

AND PEACE IS IN THE NUNIVERCE!

* changed ship count *

2544 days, 16 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Lets make this simple.

you can choose from 2 option.
In other hand i got.
1. Daisy (flower)
2. Assaultriffle (Sako, 7,62)

Witch door you wanna open ?

Koff rules !

2544 days, 15 hours, 57 minutes ago

matthew newberry

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Diplomacy is a large part of this game. You have "hard" alliances for rule conditions and "soft" alliances to combat a larger threat.

“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight”
― Sun Tzu

2544 days, 15 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

"Diplomacy is a large part of this game"

I have heard that before. But host like mr. Joshua say that is limited, then its limited.
There is no room for diplomacy after that.
iF GAME IS FOR 2 ALLY... thats it. You cant have 4 ally.
see my point ?

2544 days, 15 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

And plz dont quote Sun Tzu to me.
Have you even read the whole book?

have you been military?
Where i come from that is madatory.
And yes, i got gold on my sleave.
In peace time that dont mean nothing.
But when war start, i can get you on firing squad.

see my Sun Tzu.

ps. im open minded. But i dont tolerate shit.

2544 days, 15 hours, 39 minutes ago

matthew newberry

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

If that is so, then why do you have options for intelligence sharing, allowing non alliance races to fly through you minefield with peace agreements, Ambassadors for open communications. These are all forms in one way or another as soft alliances.

Trade, weather it be intel, ships, fighters, and yes fighting a common enemy are all tactics that you can and should use. The winner is the one that uses these tactics the best.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

2544 days, 15 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

even i dont got any friends here.

I bet there is ppls who respect me.
That is all i want.

I dont need fony allies, who say what you wanna hear.

"I will fuck you up"
- Plague

2544 days, 14 hours, 48 minutes ago

matthew newberry

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Actually, I have read the whole book and yes, I was in the Air Force for 8 years. Air Base Ground Defense was my job.

2544 days, 12 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

>> I was in the Air Force for 8 years. Air Base Ground Defense was my job.

I stand corrected then, sir.

Im dont know jack shit about that.. Im navy man, From missleboat Raahe.

2544 days, 9 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You been plagued

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Evu8L2pF7w

Aussies rock!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

2538 days, 11 hours, 16 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Ok - Let me explain ! It's not my home region that the Rebel is owning, it's my probe colonies him and the Fascist are destroying before they get going ! I never got a colony going past one probe jump and those were only saved by running FCC's out. I also had the Bird who is allied with the Rebel, as my neighbor. I was able to NAP with the Colonies, my other neighbor or I wouldn't even be alive at this point. There have been no drop outs and the Evil Empire is instructing the Fascist on my colony locations I was able to start away from the Rebel. That pair is allied. I have been harrassed in almost every way Daniel has described. It works...I had visions of this enormous monster cube producing colonies all over the map machine that I have seen the Borg become. Good Players - Good Tactics - Control the Borg - Credit them it works. I'm not that machine.

My point is...the Borg can be contained early just as Daniel described. I just lived it.

But...They didn't kill me, I was still able to make 8 Bio's and 2 Anhi's fairly quickly, destroy the Bird H.W. without a colony outside of one probe jump. I don't think I'll be super Borg like the pro Borg players, but I'll likely survive this one. I have never played the Borg...SO

I have no idea what to expect from here...I'm sitting in 3rd with no ally in a game with no quits, thus far. Just keep on plugging...

I can tell you this though, there was no defense for my long range colonies from Fascist pillage and Rebel RGA. I was never given enough time to get a starbase up before they had the colony. For those that believe there is a defense for these early assaults on your long range probe colonies...please educate me. The only saving grace was I assimilated some damn good natives that will never be utilized by other races and I was able to probe out some cash in some instances before they moved in for the kill, so I guess it wasn't a total loss.

Oh - and I also own some Falcons...that got too close to home. Borg Falcons are nice...three jumps instead of one.

-Star

2538 days, 10 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You are going great. There is no real defense other than trying to get more probes out faster then they can find you and away from the races that do find and kill you. Smart players are going to target you. Your other option is to find a good ally. You have a lot to offer.

2538 days, 9 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Correct, no defense, just luck. Your goal as mentioned is to send out so many probes that you'll find enough areas that will not be contested.

I usually get 2 SBs going very quickly so I can send out two probes per turn...and that 2nd SB just needs tech 1 1 1 1 1.

It should be nearly impossible for the races to prevent you from establishing at least one external colony if you send out enough probes.

Never stop sending out probes.

2538 days, 9 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Probes what can take only 80kt fuel = oneway ticket.
So what you would put inside of that probe?

And yes 2 bases, borg can make fast-"yoda"
How many probes you will give up to the enemy?

Captainkill you get 1st rank with borg. Did you do it alone, i dont think so.

So who was your ally and border agreements?

2538 days, 9 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

It was my first Borg game, so mistakes were made.

No early game allies or border agreements. You can view the game yourself its public if I'm not mistaken.

I had Colonies next to me, Federation and Empire.

It wasn't a strong game, Empire was weak, Colonies were not aggressive enough and Federation was too far away.

My first ally was Robots far away from my HW, then Birdmen asked for help vs Lizards so we managed to get a chunnel there just in time to repel Lizards. After that it was me Robots / Birdmen vs Colonies, Feds and Fascists.

Fascists was the strongest player in the game other than myself but he was too far away to do me any damage.

If he was my neighbor at the start it would have been a challenge.

The idea is to get 2 SBs quickly, you can send out 2 probes per turn, find those 1 turn planet hops to refuel and move out to different parts of the galaxy... look for planet clusters, naturally, so you can move with the probe under normal power, and plant seeds in at least 3 or 4 planets within 1 turn distance between having to jump out.

Luck is definitely a part of it, no argument there.

On the probe I forgot what i put... some colonists and supplies, if I run out of colonists, I just double back and get some more from a native planet.

Borg is a lot of fun, very interesting to play, but until the UI is enhanced to help make chunneling less of a cluster fuck I will not play them again.

Actually now that Tow Chunnel is removed, it might be a bit more straight forward to work with.

Taking control of the ship cue is the best part. I think I had SBs at almost 80% of my planets, maybe more.

2538 days, 9 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

i ask simple guestion.

So plz return the favor. Response simply.
Who was your ally, and how much you make arrangements.

I dont wanna go look that game to find out.

Cos how you talk, you can do it everytime. We both know that is not the whole trueth.
Dont we.

plz dont talk about chunnel we all know that borg can do.
basic stuff.

2538 days, 9 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You can read though right? I think? Maybe not, but its all there, but here's the summary:

1. No border agreements

2. First ally was with Robots who were next to one of my far away colonies

3. Second ally was Birds, we helped him defeat Lizards.

That's it. No other agreements. Never had a border agreement with anyone in that game.

Does that answer all your questions?

2538 days, 9 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Yes,

First ally, secound ally and so on.
If your so good with borg, why you even need secound ally?

2538 days, 9 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I didn't, he asked for help, it seemed like a fun challenge since he was far away and nothing else exciting was happening.

Sent a probe, he gave me a SB, I built FC, and chunneled in fleet 1 turn before Lizards was going to wipe out his HW.

2538 days, 8 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Ok then... cos it seems to be FUN.
Mark my word, i dont play as your ally even for FUN.

2538 days, 8 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You don't play for fun?

2538 days, 8 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

What i think i should finnish my BORG round :)

2538 days, 4 hours, 25 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Cap-

Excuse me, I'm not experienced with the Borg. What do you mean by tow chunnel?

-S

2538 days, 4 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

There was a way to move a firecloud and then chunnel, but you can't anymore.

2537 days, 23 hours, 13 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I still tow chunnel'd...three days ago. You run the tow'er out of fuel on the firecloud and tow the Gorbie to it...been doing it iin a Lizard/Borg game for weeks. Even a Lizard Bio can't beat a Gorbie without stripping shields.

Is this a yesterday change or somehing.

2537 days, 22 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

As far as I know its a month old change, but maybe it was only applied to new games starting then? I dunno.

2537 days, 21 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

!Intermission!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpH4JFyhqLs&feature=autoplay&list=PL1CF5005C1F1A194B&playnext=1

2537 days, 21 hours, 37 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Tnx Capn - maybe your right. It only applies to new games.

Is that what you meant by tow chunnel, or was there another trick I don't know about?

And can you still tow a carrier to a waiting firecloud that is set to chunnel out but not being tow'd by your own ship?

-S

Currently I can snag a Gorbie from 160 lt years away cut the distance by towing the firecloud and running the tower out of fuel..it's a pretty OP weapon IMHO.

2537 days, 21 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

You cant tow chunnelling FCC, well you can, but then FCC dont open the chunnel.

Allied or enemy ships with warp set, don't enter the chunnel
But your own ship can enter the chunnel with warp set on.

Before it was that every ship enters the chunnel. when the jump point is set.
That was more fun :)

You can ride free with cloakers with those FCC. That was nasty.

2537 days, 21 hours, 26 minutes ago

star72066

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I guess word is you can't tow chunnel anymore, but you can definately tow a firecloud with any ship and Tow a Carrier to that Firecloud and chunnel out. You just have to run the Tower of the Firecloud out of fuel at the destination point, so it drops the tow on the firecloud.

-Star

I'm still doing it in a game...so I guess that applies to new games.

2537 days, 21 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

that why most FCC are with low engine...
Cos they are just transports. So what is the fuss?

2537 days, 20 hours, 44 minutes ago

echoclusterveteran

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Ugh, I could have tow-chunneled last turn in one of my games and it would have fixed a big problem I was having.

In the host order, towing ships move first, non-towing and hyperjump ships move second, intercepting ships move third, and chunnel happens after all that. So I think the specific question is whether the host terminates the mission (tow) on a ship that has run out of fuel after that first step of movement.

Does anybody know for certain (1) what the original way was on Nu (2) whether a change was made, (3) when the change was made and (4) if it affects all games right now or only some?

2537 days, 20 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Sorry.

2537 days, 18 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I believe that in recent games the tow chunnel has been removed, but in older games that started before this thing was changed it still works.

2537 days, 18 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

I sence strong finnish presence here :)

Kohta lähetään saunaan ja otetaan pari finlandia-vodkaa.

2537 days, 17 hours, 34 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Guys, tow-drop-chunneling was removed some time ago. Read Josua's comment 99 days, 15 hours, 56 minutes ago in

http://planets.nu/discussion/chunneling-and-movement

Addition: "We're going to make it a setting flag. Games in progress will not be affected. This rule change will only affect future games."

2537 days, 9 hours, 39 minutes ago

echoclusterveteran

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Thank you Emork!

So it doesn't affect Cheeseball :)

You were not supposed to read this, Mr. Lizard King, since you happen to be the enemy against whom I'm needing to do this tow-chunnel stuff....

2537 days, 7 hours, 59 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Yes, you do. ;)

2527 days, 3 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Ok back on subject.

I still maintain, Rebels / Lizards.

LCCs get in and Falcons resupply the LCCs with non stop clans in the warp well until the planet falls.

You cannot stop this unless you are the Crystals.

LCCs don't even need to have clans to get to their target, they can be maxed out with supplies to repair mine field damage, once they arrive in the warp well, it's game over, the planet will fall, there is absolutely nothing you can do.

Lizards won't have fuel issues with their mining rate, and all you really need is a bovi with a refinery to make more fuel when needed to supply the Falcons.

Only planet immune to this is the HW, but everything else will go down regardless of how much military you have.

Ok ok, obviously Borg are immune as well, and the Fascists can defend.

And a Lizard Rush is a nice perk as well.

And Rebels get Loki protection.

2526 days, 12 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

completely disagree capn.

The fuel logistics of what you suggest would be an absolute nightmare, not matter what rate you pump fuel out of the ground.

You would completely fail against a borg/fascists alliance and you are left with nothing else to do against them. Your lccs are useless against the glory device.

You may get one or two planets like this, but resupply will be very very difficult. And all the time you spend managing the fuel logistics, your enemy will be positioning to attack your planets. Its really about rates. How long does it take you to take 1 planet down vs them to take 1 planet down?

Certainly its a powerful alliance, but borg/fascist alliance would eat them up.

2526 days, 6 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

If you manage your fuel wisely and get some refineries up you are fine.

Most planets don't need more than 200 clans to take down.

Yes I know, Borg / Fascists is bad business, but in that scenario you use Lokis to defend against Fascist cloakers and 150% damage Rushes to fight the Borg with. Not saying its easy, but with Lizard cloakers you can at least pull borg ships to the Rushes while the Fascists wouldn't be able to do that if you have Loki protection.

Liz Rush kills Bio usually, and LCCs can cloak intercept Fireclouds. So its far from a done deal if the war comes to trading blows.

There's always a bad matchup for every combo, but I feel this one can cause serious issues. Perhpas not the BEST alliance, I'd still hand that over to maybe Borg / Crystals or something like that.

2526 days, 5 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

that sounds like a challenge then :)
Could be fun. I could be on the other side of the rebels for change haha

2523 days, 19 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Seveith... its not fun.

In here these player who got high rank, dont play by the rules.
They got multible allies when host say only 1 ally.
etc.

And they think they are so good... they are not.
game what i was just killed off, they needed 5 ppls and 105 turns.
And i didnt even got my last turn, i got some lame e-mail notification.

That why, if host want that we stick with the rules, more those games where is cut of communications and when you join you are with that ally for rest of the game.

And rest games are free for all do what you want, ally as many ppls as you want.
Cos that "ally with 2 player" dont just work...
ok.

If i pay for this shit, take months effort and do what host say.
And most high ranking players use this wrong to get internet name on VGAP.
That is fucking sad.

Im wrong here?

2516 days, 18 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Best Alliance Pair?

Perhaps our host can make private game wher we can play multible race.
And i take any of you down with my borg + fed :)

Have a nice day.