Posted to
and best viewed from the old forums! http://planets.nu/discussion/the-sagittarius-war-1 Ok fellow
commanders as promised below you’ll find some thoughts and comments from Halion
the Commander of the Federation in the Sagittarius War. Apologies in advance
for the length and likely poor quality of prose/spelling/grammar but this is
what I have for you as I sit typing while on holiday and I wanted to get it out
before the final turn and so Mentar has the final word J First
things first! Congratulations to Mentar as a very worthy Emperor!
Mentar made the early moves and maintained not only a masterful hold on
diplomacy but as you will all likely see in the turns a fantastic logistical/tactical
display spanning the entire map. This game ran for 1 year almost to the day and
he has shown focus/discipline throughout. General observations
about this game, it’s players and reflections on myself:- I have had
mixed emotions as this game went on. I found it frustrating to be investing
this much time and energy at a championship level game to suffer from multiple
critical player drop outs, players not performing as I would expect or entering
with non premium accounts with ongoing 3 turn drops etc. This did affect my
motivation and I certainly can look to periods of the game where I suffered de-motivation
coupled with my increasingly busy travel schedule and planets time was less
than ideal. Looking
back (and I will comment later) I made certain decisions on the basis of ‘what I
would be doing if I was in their shoes’, I relied on others to make game
shifting movements and was often disappointed when they did not materialize or
people dropped I was relying on. In the end
and final analysis I think I have learnt a lot about myself and what I need to
improve in these games, for as much as I can point to outside factors and other
players (non)action ultimately it was down to me to take control of my destiny
and I do not feel I performed well in this game in reacting to the changing
landscape. In contrast
of course as has already been commented Mentar managed the shifting sands
perfectly and was dominant through-out. Anyway
on to some game analysis.
Going into
this game I had a couple of learnings from both my first champ game and the Championship
win by DM that had some excellent discussions and analysis afterwards. [if !supportLists]1.[endif]I already knew that diplomacy was
key, I was normally pretty ok at that aspect and was sure as the FED I could
attract at least one meaningful/powerful ally. [if !supportLists]2.[endif]I knew from my champ experience and
DM’s assessment of Othrym sharing Intel for 1 turn that I did not want to get
into Share intel relationships unless absolutely necessary. (this would prove
to be an ironic goal!) [if !supportLists]3.I knew from the lessons Spacesquad
taught me that I needed to be ruthless about when relationships were no longer
needed and be prepared to take tough/bold decisions even if diplomatically difficult. [if !supportLists]4.[endif]Of course I also knew that it was
imperative that we locate and destroy the Borg quickly for obvious reasons as
we didn’t want to be the contenders that let a 2nd Borg commander become
Emperor.. Heavens No! J Early
Turns:- Not a bad starting
cluster but the further planets were quite stretched out and would result in an
inefficient expansion which I didn’t want as so far extra fuel planets were
limited. Turn 9 sees
me identify the EE to my North East and Robots to my South West.
Great 2 carrier races, not easy to fight toe to toe but good news if I can get
one of them onside to ally with me… Due to
aggressive expansion in the south and some misdirection on my HW location I
managed to agree a very nice border with Robots. EE gave me a decent border as
well so I was happy.
[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]
[endif] Turns up
until Ship Limit:- EE were keen
to trade for a minelayer and I wanted probes so we had a deal. Although EE
never managed to prepare a base for multiple cloning so I ended with a better
deal on the probes over time. Robots did
not seem keen to trade ships and despite running a non premium account were not
showing the excitement of being next to FEDs for Refit that I had expected.
Rebels and I discuss the trade of falcon for a loki building base to counter
Jalokes early invasion. Falcons and Probes meant I was going to be well placed
to expand and manage the less than ideal shaped planet set-up. Turn 22 I break
my rule on Share Intel. Being an ex EE player I was addicted to Dark Sense
intel so agreed to SI with EE to see his full position and benefit on Dark
Sense. Quite disappointed to see he did not have many probes out and limited
racial placements identified. I did however now have a better view on the
north/north east of the map. I have
encountered crystals in my rush to the centre and quickly establish a central
frontline pushing up against both lizards and crystals. We have
Borg to the north east. Must kill on sight! Mentars diplomacy campaign is in
full force, reaching out to everyone and building personal connections through
in game and out of game messaging. The ‘borg must die’ coalition was difficult
to ignore especially after DM’s victory. Mentar
played it very well to keep everyone on page even if on the side there were
little hints of others thinking to change sides. I have a
trade base agreement setup with mentar. Cobols for lokis. Both are happy to get
the resulting ships and it gives mentar a further hook in to me to keep an eye
and ensure alignment.. I was ok with that right then as I was in need of fuel
especially if I went against the crystal later. Ship limit
hits on turn 23, I had expected it to be fast after the last champ game, for
some others I think the rush was a surprise. Overall I was pretty happy.
60 planets (somehow the leader I think due to my nice border negotiations with
robots and the access to Falcons)
10 Bases, a solid start given the distances once I was outside my HW cluster. 5
diplomacy,8 falcons(a good trade with Yosh),4 KittyHawk(not enough) 8 Loki, 5
Nebula, 8 Missouri, 6 Nova and 1 Thor. Once refit I had a decent starting fleet.
Although not
enough to defend all 3 frontlines and make a thorough attack on either of the
carrier race neighbours! Moving fleets to either border would leave me exposed
elsewhere. I had 650 LY between south and central and 450 between central and
east frontlines, I simply could not cover all angles at once. Paranoia(assuming
EE/Robot as planning an attack) and game theory kick in on deciding what to do!
It was clear Lecko didn’t have much fleet (but likely some painful to break
bases) while Robots were amassing their fleet despite a small planet count and
seemed content to sit and wait. Would
either of them step in if I began to commit against the other? Turn 32.
Unexpectedly after not really being forthcoming about what his intentions are
the robot commander decides to share intel with me! As expected
he has a decent sized fleet but very instrumentality heavy, all clumped together
in his HW area. Good news is they are not massed on my border. Bad news is it
will take a significant force to defeat the robots, which I don’t have in the
area. Anyone
doubting my original intention to not engage in much SI sharing please read my
diplomacy at the time. I requested we moved back off SI as it would be easier
in the long run… Looking back on everything I am not sure if that decision made
a difference but that’s what I did anyway. Turn 40. ‘Rush-Gate’
people on the forum might recall an outraged Yosh talking about the deceiving Fed
commander. Here is one of my first big decisions. For me in a
Championship game you have to have allies and trading partners but it is an
uneasy relationship. For allies you always need to have mutual assured
destruction i.e. defend your common borders and don’t make an appealing target.
Tom Graves showed me his fleet disposition and lack of Rush’s in the first
Champ game and it forced me to initiate a successful invasion (Rebel suicide) In this
game sadly the Rebels again had unbalanced the ship trading. By ‘gs1’ 3 Rush(I believe
his only 3) to me all at once yosh has unbalanced things. Not only did I have 3
rush but he handed me one full of fighters! The trade base I was given had
3500k of fuel on the surface. I saw an
opportunity. I took the 3 rush and remaining loki, all fuel and fighters and
set off for my central cluster. Thus securing a formidable fighting force for
my centre and denying these ships from the hands of the privateer eventually. Unfortunately
for Yosh the exchange of Loki for Falcons was fine. The refit (in good will )
of Rush’s was fine but handing the entire fleet all at once with fighters and
fuel to me was a reckless move at this level of play and taking lessons from
SpaceSquad I decided to be ruthless in this instance. Turn 45
onwards I start to receive the refugees of Mycroft after Mentar’s betrayal. I
had high hopes to foster a beneficial relationship here and provided bases and resources
to Mycroft to start rebuilding including some refitting which I honored! I of course
was hoping over time to acquire cloakers and eventually I did get one however
in the end Mycroft succumbed to the crystal incursions that I couldn’t stop.
(more on that later) Turns 50-70
I start getting aggressive with Nitemare trying to push his central webs back. Together
with Mycroft we make some progress. However the drop of Dines has thrown things
into disarray diplomatically and Mentar knows he needs nitemare more than ever.
He begins to exert influence over my movements and threatens support to
nitemare and minesweeping if I do not stop. I continue
to persist as I have to make progress in some direction and centrally felt like
the right approach. I was getting nowhere with ‘planning’ with the robots and
Lecko was too busy playing on the fence between Borg and Lizard/Colonies to
keep himself alive. During turns
65-70 mentar was at his best with his bullying and angry messages keeping
working hard to negotiate with him over his requests. He was sweeping mines and
moving ships into the central theater.
All the diplomacy caused me to make a serious blunder in the center of
the map. I had
focused on pushing ships and gaining ground. I had forgotten to notice the
incoming ion storm from the east right across the middle front! Turn 68 when I hit
the first hidden web mine I realized my mistake! I was going to lose my entire
central fleet if nitemare played this correctly. With mentar moving in I could
see the implications clearly. I did what
I had never wanted to do. I agreed to
fully join the coalition. Granting Safe passages to both privateers and
crystals so they could move on the borg positions. I in turn secured safe
passage myself for my stranded ships back to relative safety.. I was now in a
crazy situation. Friendly
but ineffectual relations with a robot player I could not afford to conquer. Friendly
but ineffective relations with the EE but did not want to defeat them as I
would remove a barrier to the inevitable incoming borg/colony/crystal depending on who won. And now I
had become friendly to the central power base of privateer and crystals. I had
become switerland…… Not a good position to be in when playing planets I think! The next
many many many turns are mostly meaningless for me as I try to keep myself busy
stocking my bases for defence, messing around trying to get hold of an empire
SSD which I eventually capture. All the time waiting for the game to turn on
the status quo so I could act. But who to work with…. I am stuck.
I toy with allying with the Borg but know it would mean having 3 races
willingly descend upon me at mentars direction. I also still had the ringing
warnings of DM’s win in my brain and Andy had proven to be a fantastically formidable
player. I still cannot believe how much military power he put out to stop the
early lizard/colony attacks. Andy44’s will be the first turns I go and review
to learn how to be an effective borg in early game phase… If I supported him he
clearly still wanted to win.. could I handle a resurgent loki protected Borg? I am
frustrated as I try to engender a sense of mission from the Robots but can
never seem to get definitive commitments or movement. I try to explain to EE
the impending doom of his position and propose methods to save his area. Including
my favorite but somewhat cheeky plan to have EE give me most of his ships and
planets so the soon to be approaching colony/crystal/fascist fleet could gain
nothing as I was a ‘friend’… that might have changed things but never got past
a diplomatic message. I am forced
to rely on less than substantive suggestions from fascists and crystals that
once the borg are destroyed they will turn on Mentar. All fine in
principle and definitely a change to the game which I was confident to do well
out of. However the
rest as they say is history. Turn 92 a
borg FC appears out of nowhere (there is still some kind of bug with SI as I never
saw it in EE’s territory) and Andy proceeds to brow beat me into working with
him as he will destroy me with his fleet if I don’t. I was at this stage
getting pretty bored of being other peoples punching bag to be intimidated
however in fact I had been toying with this alliance on and off so this gave me
the visible reason to agree to support him with mentar’s ‘awareness’. This being
of course the long long long shot of trying to turn things around at this stage,
especially with the sneaky Firecloud on the edge of the northern map.. Happy Turn
100.. Robots Dropped and privateers and crystals position themselves to take
the fleets, I manage to salvage a good chunk mostly thanks to robots still
having most ships on mkt or lfm! Phew! We have a standoff
in the south with jaloke/nitemare preparing to attack me instead of preparing
move ships and attack mentar! What are we all playing for again? Turn 127 -The
last straw, Nitemare is declared dead and the only last chance of a turn around
flies out the window. Mentar may have had plenty of good beam ships but it
still changes the landscape especially if fascists went rogue as well as the
crystals and privateers. I really
would have liked to see that play out. Even though it would have been unfair on
Mentar given the effort he had put in at that stage. The final
turns are more of the same with last ditch efforts to begin an attack on
Mentar. In the end his frontline stretched too far and he had too many warships
and there was no way to make a tangible dent once he started rolling in all
areas. The most
noteable events were on turn 148 at planet 121. A turn where mentar must have
been very happy seeing the VCR’s (as he had correctly guessed my fleet movement
and caught me semi prepared.) I was very sad to see the VCR’s but over joyed to
see the actual map. I had managed to leave force surrender on a starbase mentar
orbited and fc=lfm. Mentar in a momentary slip managed to surrender 4 fully
battle ready virgos and his only 2 poppers to me at that base! Mentar’s message
to me was classic and the best one I got for many turns. Sadly the
need to deploy my forces into the frontlines was hampered by a nicely placed
minefield that took out my only MCBR towing a Firecloud. That delay in delivery
meant the difference to me never getting my main battle fleet (and new virgos)
into action. If this has
happened sooner it might have turned the tide somewhat at least in the eastern
front. However the
planets counter was soon ticking. Concluding remarks and self assessment :) So for
those who managed to read all the way through well done and thanks. A year of
your life is quite an investment, even more so when you look back and realise
there were quite some mistakes made. In the end looking and blaming others for
not doing what you wanted or thought they would do is not a suitable conclusion.
In reality in the circumstances I failed to take action, drive the agenda of
the game in the right places and times and therefore created my own predicament
of frustration. I clearly still have plenty to learn from this game we all
play! (which I guess is a good thing) Rest assured
these lessons are taken on board and I am preparing new battle procedures for
future games and will be coming back for
a 3rd attempt at the championships with more battle scars and
learnings than this time! So congrats
to Mentar again for a splendid victory, you have deserved it almost from the beginning
as apparently nobody else had the gumption to counter your approach apart from
Andy who was in a fight almost the whole game one way or another whether he liked
it or not! | 
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