Bandit Lords

as the Cyborg Commander in Bandit Lords

Host : Lord Firefall's Lair (firefall24@centuryinter.net)
Game : Bandit Lords (04.11.1999-02.02.2000, 35 turns)
Scenario : Invasion, 30 points
My Race : Cyborg

Allow me to start by thanking all players in the Bandit Lords. Special thanks to George Ianev who proved himself a loyal ally and a worthy player. As my English is rather poor I have asked George to translate this short memoir – more special thanks to him for this service.

I played the Cyborg – wanted to try playing this race for a long time. My neighbors were the Fascist, Bird and, somewhat farther, the Federation … may they rest in peace :-J

The first and major error of my neighbors was that they allowed me to see where their home worlds were by flying out of them with waypoints of more than 1 turn. Needless to say, it would have been a lot more difficult for me to guess where their home worlds were have they flown to a point in space.

The Bird began spoiling my life, killed a border base which was building Fireclouds with Mark 7 tubes. Then, suddenly, from the side of the Bird came the Privateer. The game became dangerous – it seemed obvious that someone wanted me dead :-J

I was in dire need of a Loki to feel a bit more secure. Turned out though that the Fed and the Bird were friends in real life, and that there was no way to get the Loki from the Fed peacefully. Lizard agreed to trade a Loki but then killed my Firecloud that came to pick it up.

So I had to get inventive to survive. In the meantime, in the north, one of my Fireclouds made it to the Fascist, who played very poorly and was killed by only 1 Biocide (host note – Lt Bowser took them over about 5 turns after the Fascist homeworld was taken – Lord Firefall). Robot agreed to lay mines in my area and produce fighters for me in exchange for fireclouds. Before he arrived though, I laid my own minefields and merrily watched 3-4 MBRs find their deaths there. Upon the Robot’s arrival he threw several large minefields around my home world and made it a little more comforting against those pesky cloakers.

I still needed a Loki though, so to capture it I built a special ship – Annihilation/Transwarp/Gamma-Tubes/X-rays. That ship truly paid off – it captured a Loki! The Loki was sent for cloning while I took the home world of the Fed – I was in the neighborhood anyway, so I thought, "why not do something useful?"J Armed with Lokis I stopped being afraid even from the Privateers and got a bit more aggressive.

The most elegant operation was carried out while taking the home world of the Bird. With the help of a tow-and-chunnel (i.e. when a ship tows a Firecloud to a place in space or to a planet with exact amount of fuel so when it arrives there it has none – in this case the Firecloud can open a chunnel or another Firecloud can chunnel to it) I took to my home base all Bird ships in cloak and with 0 warp, where a Loki and a couple of Biocides were waiting for them. Without losing a ship I killed in this way 3 Darks and 2 Resolutes! In the same turn 3 Golems of the Robot arrived at the home world of the Bird and since they did not have warp 0 were not chunneled to my home world. Losing only 1 Golem they killed all of the Bird ships on mine sweeping missions and the home world of the Bird.

Tow-and-chunnel strategy is truly an ace in Cyborg’s hand and should be used at all times and everywhere possible.

My War Hall had several additional trophies – Nova & Darkwing – both surrendering without fuel to my home after just being built in their fallen home worlds.

Approximately 10 turns before the end of the game I practically stopped developing the economy and building ships (with exception of cloning Lokis) as I knew I did not have the time to capture more home worlds. The ships built before (15-20 biocides) were more than enough to hold the captured home worlds.

To summarize, the main factors for my victory in this game were (in decreasing order of importance):

1. strong economic development (3 Merlins by turns 20-25)
2. alliance with the Robot (fighters and mines)
3. knowledge of precise locations of the home worlds of my neighbors (the possibility to make one targeted blow)
4. constant use of tow-and-chunnel
5. capture of Loki with the special ship (to Bird’s detriment he was not immune to Loki)

I would like to apologize to all players in the game for ending it so quickly J J 35 turns is too little for a real game.

I would also ask others not to get disappointed from my huge and quick success J J -- it does not mean that YOU are playing poorly, but that I was luckier! I wouldn’t like to boast here but it would be fair to state that I have already a dozen games in which I finished 1st and only in two games of those I have played I wasn’t on the podium.

Once again, thank you all very much for the game – it was very pleasant to see everybody play every turn even in the last several turns when the outcome was obvious. Separate and very special thanks go to Pick, the game master, for organizing this game. He was always very responsive and gets no objections but loud applause!

(Host note – I would also like to thank everybody for sticking with it. There was rarely a turn missed – Lord Firefall)