Acts of Vengeance

Fraser Stewart

At the start of this game, I was quite concerned that we were going to be in trouble. We got the last team pick, and were left with Borg + Empire, and given the lack of cloakers or anti-cloakers, plus the fact that both these races are usually quite slow starters, I was already worrying about crashing out of the game early. Then the team positions were picked, and we ended up with Rebel + Lizard on my side, and Colonies + Birds on Jeffs side. IMO Rebel + Lizzie is the strongest team out of the 5 possible, and this was about as bad a start as I could imagine. I spent ages worrying about how to deal with cloaked lizard cruisers performing RGA on planets with no ships guarding them, and couldn't really come up with anything, apart from obviously trying to stop them getting in position with mines.

So, to say I was in a defensive frame of mind for this game would be very true. We got the game under way and I started trying to develop my economy, since I had decided that the ship limit would be hit fast, so I would try to build as many Biocides as possible, and not worry about loading them with fighters until the ship limit was hit. In the event, the limit was hit around turn 25, and by then I had 15 Biocides built, but hardly any fighters.

Jeff and myself didn't really coordinate the beginning of the game very well. Apart from me sending a couple of 10,000 cash probes to him, we didn't help each other as much as we should have. Jeff had to go on a business trip for a short while, and so I was left doing both turns. During this point I tried to get both economies performing a little better, although the turns were taking several hours each time. In the future we know to work much closer in a team game. Throughout the game Jeff supplied my defenders with many fully-loaded Gorbies, plus the Empire-SBs on my side produced enough fighters that only a couple of times was I getting short.

There were some minor skirmishes on my left flank around turn 30, as the Lizzies ground-assaulted a bovinoid planet I had recently taken. They held it for 10 turns or so, until I could get 4 Bios over there and hold it long enough to assimilate all the natives - I couldn't let them have a bovinoid so close to my space. But nothing really happened until the mid 50s. At this point, Jeff had sent 4 Gorbies plus escorts moving into the Colonies space, and was capturing starbases like crazy, with unopposed SSDs. Then I see 6 Rebel Rushes coming at me from the middle. I had mined the area quite heavily, and to my surprise I see them charging at max warp through 4 overlapping fields. They managed to take a couple of border planets, but a few turns later I cleared them out with some Biocies and Gorbies - I don't think they really recovered from the minehits.

Around turn 60, I see many ships flying straight across the gap from the Lizard space towards me - Rushes, Madonzillas, a couple of T-Rexes. They have obviously noticed how well Jeff is doing in the Colony space from the scores, and decided enough is enough. I managed to clear out the existing Rushes in my space before these ones can come to reinforce them, and start dropping minefields like crazy. This is where the Borg economy comes in handy - with many planets producing 400 supplies a turn, and some Merlins changing these into minerals, I was able to lay large amounts of mines very easily. The Rushes ended up sitting outside minefield range, waiting for some reinforcements I think. I had enough Bios/Gorbies in place to match them one for one numerically, but they were Lizard owned, and would come out better in a standup fight. The big fight never came though.

Jeff captured the Colony homeworld in turn 66, and the Birds the very next turn. From this point, it was simply a matter of me buying time through minefields for the win. The game finally ended in turn 78 or so, at this point I had 20+ fully loaded Biocidies/Gorbies and a vast array of mines, I think the Rebel/Lizzies knew they weren't going to be able to get to my homeworld in time.

This was a game that we should not really have won. If the Rebel/Lizzies had attacked us early, things would have been very different. Or, if the Colonies/Birds had had some ships defending, the Empire SSDs wouldn't have ravaged their space so quickly. I can only imagine all their fleet was occupied fighting the Fed/Crystals on their other side. It was a fun game though, and I enjoyed the feeling of backs to the wall as I saw all those Rushes coming at me, but being able to hold them off in the end. My thanks go to Jeff for being a cool team-mate, and the other teams for what was a very interesting game. Given equal skilled teams, however, I think it will be very hard to get any invasion points with this map.

Fraser D. Stewart fraser.s at blueyonder.co.uk

"We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master."

Here is my side. (Jeff Payne)

My first thought on seeing our starting position between Reb/Liz and Bird/Col was that we were going to need a lot of mines. To this end my first build was a frigate with mark 7 torps. This ship survived the game, and was my main minelayer till the end. The first part of the game went very well. By the time the ship limit was reached (turn 25) I had four Gorbies. But I also had about forty small freighters and probes to recycle later. By the end of the game there were more Gorbies than Biocides. There was a lot of talk about there being only four Gorbies attacking Colonial space. To be honest I used nine through the course of the game. Four of these did not make it to the end. The first wave of four got to colonial space and I quickly lost one to a virgo. There was only one guarding against me coming over. Which I do not understand as I was receiving taunting messages from the bird the whole time I was staging. After the first Virgo I sent out a wave of SSDs in front of my Gorbies. I lost a few of these, but managed to capture about six SB's. That was when the Virgos and Darkwings arrived. The first set of attackers was three Virgos. I had three Gorbies and escorts. On the turn they came I laid three overlapping minefields. These damaged them enough to give me the edge and I won both places that he attacked. Since I was sitting on SB's my Gorbies were repaired, refilled with fighters and attacking the next turn. I got two Darkwings and another Virgo that turn. That was the last of organized resistance. The first replacement Gorbie got to the front line at this time. There were still Darkwings and Resolutes harassing my SSDs and frigates. I set a trap for them by leaving a SSD on a planet and setting two of my Gorbies to intercept it with PE set to bird. This netted me two Darkwings and a Resolute. That was the end of the harassment for a while. Using Darksense I sent SSDs to SB's and Gorbies to the rest. Buy the time I reached the Colonial HW my second reinforcement Gorbie had arrived. I sent one of the six I had with a SSD to the Col HW. I was willing to lose the Gorbie but figured to get a full SB out of it. About this time the Reb/Liz were throwing everything including the kitchen sink at Fraser. I must say that his expert use of minefields is probably what saved us. Seeing this I realized the time for subtlety had ended and thorough two of my remaining Gorbies at the Bird HW. This was to cost me my third Gorbie. There was a five turn or so breather before the Fed and Crystal attacked. The first Fed task force consisting of a Nova, Missouri, and two Automas came from the center. The second came down the spiral arm with one Virgo and one Crystal Thunder. When the central task force showed itself I set my remaining four Gorbies for a preemptive strike. I put them out in space were he could see them and within striking distance of his task force. He then came in at the Bird HW taking a planet that was between the Bird HW and the Col HW. His Automa took two mine hits on the way in. Instead of intercepting him I went for his minelayers. The total was one Fed Nebula, one Crystal D7, and one Crystal Emerald. This gave my frigates free rein to lay minefields. The cost was to get all four Gorbies and two SSDs stuck in a webfield. At the same time my last two Gorbies arrived from the home systems. These were set to guard the Bird HW. The first task force then hit the Bird HW. It cost me one Gorbie and damaged the another. Two more Gobies managed to get free from the web and were sent to defend the bBird HW. The same turn the second Fed task force hit the Bird HW. The Fed Virgo and Crystal Thunder went up and I did not lose a Gorbie. The game ended the next turn.

Let me start by saying that we won this game because of two things. First and foremost was just plain good individual play. I can count the number of mistakes Fraser and I made on one hand. The other thing that helped us was the perception of our team. The fact that we would be slow to start and at a disadvantage. This was the main reason for my early success in Colonial space. To give the Bird player his due he was still making a total nuisance of himself with his last few darkwings till the end. My thanks go to Fraser for putting up with me during this game:) This next game should prove to be very different.

"Veni, vidi, vici"

Jeff Payne at Jeffp5000@Yahoo.com