First of all, Good game everyone. Thanks for playing; it was a lot of fun.
I noticed a lot of questions were being asked during the game, some of which I didn’t want to answer while playing for obvious reasons, so I thought I’d do a little post mortem detailing the events from my perspective and what my thought process was.
At the start, I had never heard of this game. So, I figured it would be best to know what I was getting into and read the website’s tutorial. It was helpful, but I stumbled upon
this link . The biggest things I took from that link were:
1) Expand as fast as you can. Not for the purpose of winning (i.e. gaining 90 stars) but in order to have more ‘fresh’ stars to upgrade, seeing as its cheaper.
2) Diplomacy is a must. Forming “alliances” and non-aggression pacts could be helpful, both to prevent attacks against you, but also lull other players into a false sense of security.
3) Technology trading is important. Utilizing an alliance to research technology and trading it with one another will yield you higher levels much faster.
4) The core two technologies to research are Weapons and Speed.
5) Perhaps one of the most important: Always leave one ship on your star. Always. When you’re defending, you go first. This way you inflict maximum damage to your opponent’s fleets with minimum losses to your own. If someone comes at you with a fleet of 30 and you have 20, it’s to your benefit to give up your star, leaving one ship behind. Repeating this until you can win.
There was a lot of other good information in there (though some outdated) and really put me in the mood to play.
Chef, the last “player” to join the game did so at 11:30pm. I got the email, but was too tired to log in and went to bed instead. When I woke up the next morning, I was a little behind some players (Lizard Dude and bobman are the only ones I specifically remember but I’m sure there were more). First thing I did was look at my area on the map and see who was around me and where I needed to go.
I did get lucky and got a corner of the map, but that doesn’t come without its own problems. In my immediate area there were a fair number of stars to grab, but in order to expand outside my starting area at all I had two choices:
1) Research Range and jump westward directly into Toad’s territory.
2) Push south into BirdPerson’s area.
Both had their risks. It would take me longer to get to Toad, and he had less stars in his area. And for BirdPerson, I would be weak after fighting him, and would now be open to the potential threat of Bobman, Paperluigi and Jim.
I decided I’d push through BP after taking the stars in my area, so the next step for me was to message people I was interested in.
The first message I sent was to Lizard Dude. I offered an alliance with him because he was on the complete opposite side of the map and posed no immediate threat to me. That made him perfect for trading technology within a mutually beneficial alliance.
Second, I sent Toad, my neighbor (though separated by a large empty ‘space wall’) proposing a non-aggression pact
while our expansion did not conflict with one another. I added the bold part in the message to feel better about when I’d eventually need to take him over.
Lastly, I sent Bobman a message offering an alliance as we had mutual threats of Toad and BirdPerson.
Toad was the first to respond and agreed. Followed by Lizard Dude who also agreed and brought up Technology trading before I had even mentioned it.
At this point I should mention that my first thoughts were: Economy is immediately the most important to me, followed by Industry, and lastly Science. With more Economy, each payday I could buy more. However, I didn’t want to fall behind in Industry, and needed more ships, so I would pump that as well at a slower rate. This became my strategy the entire game until I had around 90 in Economy.
In regards to Technology research, I went with Speed first because I was racing to get more stars as fast as possible, and war with BP was still awhile away.
Because of all this, I was pleased when LD offered to do Weapon Tech and I agreed to work on Speed.
Bobman didn’t respond to me for about four days, and I took his silence as a bad sign. So during that period, I was giving Toad some advice on which stars to grab first to help prevent Bobman from expanding in his direction (as eventually I wanted to get as much of it without warring with Bobman immediately).
Bobman eventually agreed to work in an alliance, and at this point the game had progressed quite a bit. I accepted, and a day or so later he told me he had an alliance with LD as well and that we should all work together. This benefited me greatly, so I agreed completely and Bobman started focusing on Scanning with the occasional Range tech thrown in.
However, I was extremely wary of this alliance as I know Bobman and Lizard Dude are pretty good friends. If it came down to us three, I completely expected to be the one eliminated first. As such, I had to keep my prospects open.
About this time, I had done well enough with Industry and was running out of stars to take. I still couldn’t reach my northern stars (which were also close to Toad) so I was very interested in getting there quickly, but it was time to push into Bird Person’s territory. Unfortunately for me, BirdPerson had logged in at this point and was now actively playing. Little did he know that my ships were already on their way.
My fight with BP went pretty well. I wasn’t interested in taking all of his stars right away; I was going to aim for his high-yield stars that had industry and economy invested in them. Both to bolster my forces and cripple him.
I ended up taking a lot of his stars in the process, since they were left open and were required footholds to get to his home-star. He had more ships than I would have liked though, and sent them back at the stars I claimed. I had made sure to leave one ship on each, and moved my fleet away as necessary weakening his fleet.
Somewhere in the middle of the fight, I sent Luigalaxy a message. I proposed a non-aggression pact with him, since we were nowhere near each other. I chose Luigalaxy because he had the most Science of all the players. I thought I could start up another Tech trading alliance outside of my LD/Bobman alliance. Luigalaxy agreed, and I suggested he do Range (because I really wanted it). He did so, and when it was completed I sent him a Weapon Tech level, as LD was starting to attack him. However, he never sent me the Range tech, despite saying he would twice. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
Paperluigi had sent a fleet of 10 up into BirdPerson’s stars while I was attacking and took two of them (which I avoided). I noticed this and sent Paperluigi a message saying something along the lines of “Hey, we’re going for the same area, and since I’m fighting BP I don’t really want to fight you. I see you’ve got competition with Warp and Jim down south and maybe fighting a third person (me) would be bad for you.”
I didn’t want to make an alliance with Paperluigi at this point because he was my clear next target. He was busy with Jim and Warp and his area was both larger than Jim’s and it would give me an expansion further away from Bobman if we ever came to duking it out, in addition to giving me a way to expand even further.
Fortunately Paperluigi agreed and moved his fleet back into his territory. (And also told me he was allied with Turtlekid) BP seized this opportunity, and took over the captured stars (all but one I think) but had done almost no damage to my fleet whatsoever. I think he made a comment about gaining momentum, but at that point I was diving straight into his home-star’s heart, with strong reinforcements on their way.
Lizard Dude had been providing me with Weapon Tech, as promised, and I was up to Level 3. Some of the other players had invested in Science though, and were ahead of us both. Turtlekid has a weapon skill of 4 here, higher than everyone else. I sent him a message, requesting he trade it to me (Noting I had nothing to provide him now, but if he wanted something in the future I could pay him back). Turtlekid eventually complied and gave the skill to me, popping me up to Level 4. I also went and gave this to Bobman and Lizard Dude on the next payday, hoping to limit the amount of wasted research LD would be doing on Level 4.
BP had a large number of ships on his home-star, but was going to lose to my fleet. Fortunately for me, and to my surprise, he moved them all away, giving up his star. I was very happy at this point, as not only did I not have to lose any of my fleet in a fight, but he had sent his ships westward at stars owned by both Bobman and Jim. That couldn’t have turned out better for me.
Paperluigi noticed BP had taken the two stars he had captured and asked if I needed any help. I told him I was fine (since I had only been letting BP take stars to weaken his fleet), but Paperluigi sent his fleet anyway and took those two stars back. I wasn’t happy about it, but finishing BP off was my main goal and was going to deal with it later.
BP’s stars were all mine (except for the two Paperluigi had taken) and his stats were thus crippled and effectively eliminated him from the game. Previously, Bobman had been expanding eastward towards BP, which made me nervous, but Jim had shot upward and seemingly cut Bobman off. I took this to mean BP and Jim were in an alliance, seeing as they are good friends, but I later found out that this was not the case. I guess BP attacked Jim earlier? Maybe they’ll talk about it.
At this point, I sent Paperluigi another message asking if his seizure of those two stars was a declaration of war. I again tried to convince him that fighting with me would be bad for us both. He returned me a pretty strong response, about how he wanted the stars back and wasn’t worried about attacks, but before I could respond he sent me another message saying he changed his mind and doesn’t want the stars anymore. He warned me that his strongest fleets were standing at the border though.
I decided to try to defuse the situation a bit. I did take the stars back, but offered a non-aggression pact. I threw in something like “as long as our goals are the same” or something so when I inevitably had to attack him I wouldn’t feel as bad about it.
He agreed, and eventually moved his fleet out. I turned the discussion to fighting Jim (and I was genuine about doing so at this point) so we discussed it on and off for a bit.
Meanwhile, Bobman and Lizard Dude were both getting pretty strong. Bobman had begun expanding into Chef’s territory. I was in need of some fresh stars, so I began moving my stronger fleets up to the open stars on Toad’s and my north. At this point I had gotten the Range tech needed from Bobman and was getting ready to take out Toad.
Meanwhile I was getting messages from Luigalaxy about LD attacking him and he was requesting tech from me. He promised to send me the range tech (Despite the fact that at this point all of my techs were higher than his) and asked if I would give him some help/tech. Having had been burned by him earlier and the fact that Lizard Dude was far ahead of him at this point, I decided to just ignore the pleas. (Sorry bud! It’s the way the game goes.)
I think at this point Toad began attacking Bobman and Bobman requested help (not knowing my fleets were already on their way) but quickly turned back on that and decided he had it covered. It was too late for me to turn back, and I wanted as much of the Toad pie as I could get, and took over Toad’s home-star and some surrounding stars. Bobman managed to claim a northern star and some of the ones on his border before I got to them. Ultimately this was a successful move, as I did not lose many ships and got the majority of the stars. I wasn’t sure how Bobman was going to take it, but he didn’t really bring it up.
Having expanded as much as possible without getting into a conflict with Bobman, I had to make a decision of where I was going to throw my lot.
Paperluigi and Turtlekid or Bobman and Lizard Dude. Luigalaxy at this point was all but defeated, Chef an AI single-star master, Glorb was poking around the same six stars he had the entire game, Warp had been roughed up by LD and was on a single star and Jim was cornered to one star by Bobman, myself, LD, and Paperluigi.
I ultimately went with Bobman and Lizard Dude. The three of us were far stronger than the other remaining players in regards to Economy/Industry/Science and Technology and I wasn't convinced I would be able to take them out with the other alliance.
I didn’t really want Jim’s home-star, as it would’ve been a pain to get and then even more difficult to keep come end-game, so I stalled for a bit. Paperluigi eventually sent his fleets in and I saw my chance. I didn’t really want to double-cross him, but LD was cleaning up everyone in the south and Bobman was taking Chef’s stars so it was my only chance to keep up.
So I did. I sent some pretty strong fleets into Paperluigi’s territory and quickly took most of his stars while his main fleets were out. Paperluigi kept the two stars his two big fleets were on and didn’t make much of a move to get his stars back, so I decided I would keep going south.
I sent my fleets into Turtlekid’s territory, but right about at this time LD was getting his fleets over there too. So, in order to try to get as much as I could, I captured TurtleKid’s stars that bordered with LD, to try and cut LD off. It worked pretty well, or LD wasn’t that interested, and I managed to snag a fairly large portion of Turtlekid’s stars.
At this point, Turtlekid revealed he sent me tech early on, which I would’ve rathered he not, but no one made any issue about it (perhaps because I sent it to them?).
We were at a bit of an impasse here. As I recall, everyone’s situation was like this:
BirdPerson: Out
Toad: Out
Luigalaxy: Out
Captain Jim: Out
Turtlekid: I took his stars, but he took one from LD and had his final fleet en route to Warp.
PaperLuigi: Two stars near Jim’s old home-star.
Glorb: Holding on to one star after his rage quitting.
WarpRattler: Still holed up on his one star with 180-200 ships and his Unlimited Blade Works.
Lizard Dude: Had more stars than me, and roughly similar Science and Industry. I was leading in Economy by a sizable chunk, and tried to keep ahead in Industry. For the most part I did, but he got it up there in a hurry.
Bobman: Had more stars than I did as well, but his stats were lower than mine. Still, he had the best position to attack me from.
At this point, I got a message from Lizard Dude about attacking Bobman. I was very skeptical about it, and there was something about the wording of the message. Here it was:
Sent: May 3rd 02:51
Subject:
It’s About That TimeMessage:
The Alliance with bobman proved very useful, but he has grown too powerful and there is little non-Ally blood left to spill. Let us strike him before he strikes us.First, the message seemed like something he could send to either of us by just replacing the name. But what I found odd was the choice of wording “he has grown too powerful”. Seeing as at this point in the game, my stats were over double Bobman’s and higher than LD’s it seemed like a weird choice of words.
However, I noticed that LD had sent both Bobman and I the next Weapon Tech level about six minutes after sending that message. I knew something was up, but wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it. LD and Bobman were pretty good friends after all, so this was about what I expected.
I responded to LD with something like “Sure that sounds good. I have more ships on the East border than my Northern border so I’ll attack Bobman from there.”
Which was completely false. I was far better fortified on the Northern border. Outside of that most of my ships were still in Turtlekid’s old territory. (I forgot to mention, Turtlekid did the same thing BirdPerson did. I had a larger fleet going for his home-star that had a large number of ships but destined to lose. So he sent all of his ships west and attacked one of LD’s fleets and then crashed into Warp. I couldn’t tell you how happy that made me.)
I noticed Bobman had begun moving fleets up towards his Northern border with me (Toad’s old area). Bobman had also sent LD the most recent Range tech but did not send it to me. I decided to take a gamble here and sent Bobman a message. I also sent LD a Speed Tech level, to keep the illusion up, but not until I was over halfway along to the next level.
My message Subject to Bobman was intentionally the same as LD’s message to me (hoping he had used the same message) where I told Bobman what I thought about LD double-crossing us and waiting to pick up the pieces.
Bobman agreed to take LD down, while pretending to be fighting one another. We exchanged a few stars while moving our fleets to areas to attack.
The next morning we set things into motion, and dove into LD’s area. There’s not much else to say at this point. We were traded our tech with one another once we began the attack on LD and I switched to Weapons because LD was starting to pull away from us (since he was the Weapons tech guy).
I tried to get Warp to attack LD, but he wouldn’t do it until Glorb was out. I asked Bobman if he could take Glorb out, but he said it would be funny to see Glorb last longer than LD. I agreed, because it would have been funny. I just told him to keep in mind if we needed Warp, we’d have to take Glorb out.
Things progressed, and then I noticed I had 81 or so stars. I decided it would be a good time to get the rest, so I just set the course and went along with it.
The game ended, and here we are.
I felt bad a few times, such as taking out Toad and Paperluigi, but they both took it well, realized it’s part of the game and I respect that.
Someone mentioned the strategy of hoarding on a single star, but I disagree that that is a good strategy. The cost to upgrade would become far too high, and you would be outpaced by those who are expanding. It might seem like it worked for some people, like AI Chef or Warp, but the fact of the matter is that they could have been taken out at any point. Very early in the game Bobman had the ships to take out Chef, but decided not to for fear of being attacked by Toad and/or Jim. I had the ships to take out Warp while I was there (and LD did as well), but it wouldn’t have been beneficial at that point to do it. The same with Glorb, where having enough ships to be a deterrent might let you stay in the game longer but you’d be giving up your chance at winning.
I was disappointed by the anti-climactic ending, but all in all, it was a blast guys and thanks again for playing!
