The game is over. I lost. Congratulations to the winners!
I started this game as a rehearsal game, of course looking for a win, but I mainly emphasized on building lots of Gorbies. After I built a lot of Gorbies I realized that this is not a winning strategy for the Evil Empire and reflected this in this great activity feed thread by @Talespin: https://planets.nu/#/activity/4258202
In the beginning I noticed that my other neighbour was the Fascist and the other was the Crystalline. I noticed that the Fascist had a slow beginning so I decided to crush him with a Gorbie before he becomes an issue with his double beams and cloakers. I succeeded in that. Then I started to cooperate with the Crystalline (which was easy as he was attacked by the Bird, so help was welcome) and I decided that it is all the diplomacy I need to do in this game: I get the anti-cloak webs and I'm good. That was a mistake: I saw early on that the Federation is about to be encircled by the Lizard who ate the Borg and the Privateer who ate the Rebel. I should have contacted Fed earlier and helped him by building Gorbies - that could have bought us time.
So the problem was that I was too slow. The Lizards and the Privateers were able to take all the planets needed for victory from their side of the map. I also had only webs as defense against cloakers and little money. So I needed to bring the battle to their side, as a defensive measure and to stop them from winning, so I sent all my Gorbies to attack. But as I had to do this ASAP and everywhere, I lacked proper minefield cover or supply lines. The idea then was just to prevent my opponents from getting the 250 planets for victory and buy time, before I get to take proper hold of the planets and build solid defenses and supply lines there. A bit of a maskirovka strategy: attacking in multiple locations with force, binding the enemy and thus masking my true long-term attacks. It worked at first but then it didn't because maskirovka requires ability to keep building fresh troops and sending them to the front. I could not, because my opponents built huge amounts of starbases and blocked my ability to build through regular builds. Well done!
So, I'm happy with the result: this was a good game, I learned a lot, succeeded at times, experienced a challenging situation and even though I lost, I lost to players who were better than me this time. It was a happy ending!
Thank you @Crystal+Planet for your cooperation, without webs I couldn't have gone as far as I did. I should have asked you to build bases to my front earlier with my resources. If so, then we could have stopped their advance earlier with larger webs from Emeralds. But I didn't do that because I felt I lacked the resources to keep up my infrastructure and attacks. Well, I kept those up and lost the game.
Congratulations to @Kelmi, the race for the 3rd position was tight (1 planet!), you would have deserved that just as much by having fought hard battles with Colonies and still managed to build an impressive Robotic fleet.
@Rellik and @Slayve I've congratulated and complimented enough already in my previous messages - after all, even though this was a happy ending, losing always stings. And that's the way it should be:
"I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed."
-George S. Patton |
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