Blind Blitz II

For this Game there are two write-ups:
by George Ianev as the Colonies (winner)
by Ramautis Giliauskas as Borg (placed as #3)

This report is coming to you late. I apologize for this. It has been hard for me to re-adjust from the happy stream of my work and plenty of free time to having no free time per se as school and internship searches have extended a heavy toll. But enough of this bickering. Let’s get down to the game.

Most of the players were the usual suspects – Gil, Dirk, Doug and Harry. The rest were loose cannons. That meant that I had a 33% chance that both my neighbors would have been the "loose cannons" type. Hence, I was expecting that at least one of my two neighbors to be one of the sharks.

I played for the Colonies – a race that I love and revere. According to the rules, HWs were in a circle around a random point. The game started with the usual trash, but through such unusual diplomacy, I was able to get quite a bit of useful information. In the first 5 turns I knew the radius of the circle. On turn 7, the death of a ship by the name of "Glittering Gem" was destroyed to my right. It was a gem indeed, as it gave me the info that the ship belonged to the Borg, while the race that destroyed it were the Crystals. A faithful Muller (i.e. Cobol) was dispatched immediately to beat the path to the Crystal HW. I wanted to use the same strategy that worked so marvelously in BB1. Namely, to kill my neighbors one at a time. I did not plan to enter alliances or be friends to anybody – just get there deliver the kill, move to the next target. How dumb of me!!! I did not even realize that this strategy worked well in the first game, BECAUSE I was the Lizard, had an extraordinary early advantage in capturing an MBR, and could sneak in a fleet without anyone noticing. Well, this is a bit tough to do when playing for the Colonies!

In any event, on turn 11 another ship’s death south of me revealed my other neighbor – the Lizards, bordering to the Priv. Battles in the following 5 turns revealed pretty much where every race was. Starting from my right, the circle was: Crystal, Borg, Fed, Empire, Rebel, Robot, Fash, Bird, Priv, Lizard and then me.

By now you, the reader, have probably read Gil’s report and know that he had all this information by turn 5, while I only got to it by turn 15! Well, what can I say!?! Difference in class! But I am learning :-) What was important in this game were points. So when I discovered my southern neighbor, the Lizard, I did a quick feasability study (i.e. how like was he to die young) and determined that (1) he could probably kick my ass this early in the game, (2) or could at least damage my economy (my priority #1 in the early game) and weaken me significantly, (3) so even if I ultimately won, I would have fallen an easy prey to his other neighbor – the lovely Priv! Sad news. But, such is life, and rather than dispair, I cursed, coerced, threatened and screamed the Lizard into a non-aggression pact with ship trades :-) For 2 Cobols, I got an LCC + a Loki! You just can’t beat this trade!!! Along with the Virgo I built on turn 9, I started cloning the LCC and prepared to strike the Crystal.

It was a sad joke of faith, that during such time in the game I entered the full speed of dating an evil, sinister, mean-spirited woman, who did not understand my passion for the game. She wanted to go out, have fun, and do things, and I just did not have the time to devote to BB2. It all culminated in a disastrous trip to the Canary Islands. Thank God for Yara! He was too good of a friend to allow the race to stay idle, and he took it upon himself to continue my command from turn 14. And continued he did! For the many resulting turns, he cloned countless numbers of LCCs and Lokis seperated by exciting other builds like small freighters and weak lady roayles. Upon my return on turn 24, the game was a mess! The Borg has overpowered the Crystals and was reaching towards the few good planets I had to my North. An LCC was lost, with another one stuck in mines. My only Virgo stood no chances against 3 Borg Annis. I did not have a single money producing planet. The happiness on my HW was 40, minerals were exhausted. It was clear that Yara was overburdened with playing 4 of his and 4 of my games, and he just didn’t have the time needed for this particular game.

About the single greatest asset Yara left me was an alliance with the Crystal. It was actually he who schmoosed and oozed the Crystal into signing an alliance and joining forces against the evil Borg. Unfortunately, he did not capitalize on the alliance – it was signed on turn 19, but Yara never sent a serious warship to protect the Crystal. Instead, 6 LCCs were roaming the Crystal planets looking for a Firecloud to steal.

It was clear to me I stood no chance against the Borg. With only 1 Virgo against 4 Annis, he would have torn me up as easily as a pig tears a newspaper. So I decided to follow Sun Tzu’s principle – when you are small make yourself bigger! I moved my only Virgo in open space close to the Crystal HW. Every turn I would also show an LCC or a Cobol, making my presence be known. Had the Borg known that this was my only Virgo, that the highest weapon on my Cobol was an X-Ray and NO tubes, and that none of the LCCs had torps, he would have killed me immediately. BUT he did not know that!

While dangling all the battle ships I had in front of the Cyborg, I was busy rebuilding the economy. Two great money planets were settled, groomed and taxed. All intruding Borg probes were captured all killed. 6 LDSFs + Supers were busily transporting clans to planets (thank God for that free fuel for the Colonies!!!) and were collecting supplies and minerals. The result of this economy devotion paid off, and 4 turns later, turn 28 marked the birth of my 2nd Virgo, and the chain production of Virgos on my HW. Of course, there was one problem – I barely secured minerals for building the Virgos, and hence had no minerals to build fighers. So I sent the Virgos (in tow of course – they were all engine 1) hopping from a planet to planet towards the Borg, building fighters along the way.

Just about then, something bizarre started happening! My LCC that was hanging over the Crystal HW noticed that the Borg DECREASED his colonists on the Crystal HW and complitely vacated it. I took it over the next turn (turn 30). The Borg, clearly the leader in the area before, suddenly started withdrawing so quickly that my ships barely kept following him. It took me 29 more turns and many discussion with Gil, before I finally realized that his withdrawal was not a trap! To this very moment I still do not understand why he withdrew then!

In the meantime, I was in heavy negotiations with the Priv/Bird super-alliance about a ship trade. For 2 Cobols (one of them well-armed) + an Aries, I was going to get a crappy (easy to clone) MBR + BR4. That is when the Priv started messing with me. Although it was all seemingly friendly, his screwups delayed the ship trade to a point that it was obvious to me that I would not be able to clone his ships. To adhere to the truth, I have to point out that I also screwed up on the transfer – it was due to my inability to deliver on time as I have overpromised just to get them hooked to the trade.

By the time of the trade, my economy was red hot. I produced 2-3 Virgos per turn, had 3 Merlins busily converting supplies, and, by a strike of luck, the Lizard captured an MBR! I talked him into quickly cloning it, and by the ship limit he had 6 MBRs. I got my fair share of 4 MBRs from him in exchange for a Virgo with fighters.

By then my plan looked simple to me. Under the lame excuse that I was looking for the Borg, I amassed 4-5 Virgos at the top of the map (the map used wrap). Right above the Lizard, I had another 7 Virgos in the safety of the Crystal web. I brought in money and minerals for the production of 1000 torps, to be transferred to the Crystal for mines. The idea was to wait until the Priv/Bird took the Lizard HW, then to attack, throw huge minefields, capture their ships and capture the HW, all while the second group of Virgos in the North (army North) attacked the Bird. Had I not have principles, I would have carried this plan. But I could not dump my newly found friend, the Lizard, plus Dirk would have been really mad for my breach of promise not to cross my northern border. So instead, I invited the Lizard onto my territory, transferred to him all those lady roayles that Yara had built and he was happily hissing over my planets, bringing much money to me. I let him fight the war against the Priv/Bird, but of course, under the protection of the Crystal webs. Nobody knew (although many probably suspected) that the mine laying ships as well as all the torps were transferred to the Crystal by me.

In any event, the result was astonishing. In just 5-7 turns, the Priv/Bird lost almost a third of their fleets! I had no trouble moving some Virgos to capture the Priv HW. As it also turned out, Dirk wasn’t even playing, so I took advantage of the less-skilled play by Mike Renken. By the time Dirk returned, I was a turn away from his HW! Only Dirk’s extraordinary diplomacy skills kept his HW intact. For all of you playing against him – watch out. The man know how to talk you into doing almost anything for him.

For the rest of the game, I tried unsuccessfully to overpower the Fed and to successfully overtake the Empire HW. It seemed like Gil tranferred all his Bios to the Fed, who had outfitted them to the end. Each of his Bios ate 3 of my Virgos and did not even budge!!! So I gave up on this silly undertaking. Aided by the Crystal (whose economy I helped rebuild) I took over the Empire HW.

Overall, the game was incredibly fun. The ultimate prize goes to Gil – the man who could have it all but somehow gave it all away! The honorable mention goes to Harry, the FireAss who was the leader and the person to beat, and to Dirk who game back into the game and started such intricate plots that the rest of us turned simply into pawns. My thanks to the Lizard and the Crystal – without you guys the game would have been different and I would have lost!

And now a few words on playing the Colonies… The economy is the king. If you are like me – very weak tactically, with unclear goals and purpose – you can still win because the Colonies are very forgiving race! You have the cheapest of the large fighter ships. Whereas everyone is feeling the fuel shortage and ferring colonists is all but impossible in mid to late stage of the game, you alone have the ability to take a full Super+Super combination and send it to a long voyage (short of the chunnelling Borg, of course). By pairing Cobol+Virgo you can deliver a deadly punch at any place you want without ever stopping to refuel! Next time you have a nasty neighbour just send 3 of those combos into his back planets and watch him turn green with anger.

With this, I bid you farewell. Should you have any questions, my dear reader, get me at joro_ianev@yahoo.com

By the completion of turn one, myself and several other players had deduced where all the homeworlds might be. Also, I had now planned the destruction of both of my neighbours using the principals outlined in MAXIMS. On turn 4 and 6, I discovered the identity of my two neighbours, they were Crystal and the Feds.

Over the next twenty turns, rhetoric and misinformation flowed across the forum and within the messages of the game. Having played the Crystal race in a previous game I was thoroughly familiar with their weaknesses and this race had became my first target. To conceal the type of ships I was manufacturing, all my probes had only stardrive 1 engines and no beams. They showed up as freighters on the scores, were cheap to manufacture and were useless to most other races if captured. Some of my fireclouds were also "freighters" with no torps, no beams and transwarps. These were used for chunnelling and towing Annis. I placed heavy beams on my cubes and towed them deep into the web fields with the fireclouds. The Fireclouds had just enough fuel to tow and if they struck a mine they would be empty of fuel. Also, they carried supplies to repair damage and be ready to tow further the following turn.

Minesweeping was easy and rapid, with the Crystalline HW falling to me on turn 20. The countdown to game end had begun! Rebel captured the Evil Empire's HW on turn 22. In analyzing my turns I later realized I could have captured the Crystal HW on turn 17 and had I been more aggressive as early as turn 14.

During this time, Feds (Tim) had been offering assistance and now, I was unable to turn on him. Since Rebels had demolished Empire, Feds was next in line and then me. At this point I transferred a Biocide for cloning to Tim. In time the Fed Biocides slowed Harry's Rebels down and secured my flank.

Now my main concern was Colonies. Instead of using my Biocide and and Annis, I wasted time in trying to convince Crystal to join me against Colonies. I felt properly laid webs would slow and allow George's Virgos to be easily captured. Bad decision! I guess it is hard to make an alliance with someone who destroyed your HW. The remainder of the game was spent waiting for the Crystal/Colonial alliance to take my homeworld.

The Privateer/Bird alliance vs Fascist was probably the most enjoyable part of the game. In an early strike which almost took out the Fascists, the battle swung back and forth for the rest of the game. I supplied ships to both sides. First to Privateer and Birds in exchange for some MBR's and then as I saw George's Virgos getting closer, I gave most of my fleet to Fascist. Why? In a battle against the Virgos my Annis would have been destroyed with little or no damage to the Virgos. That would have been a waste, so I past the fleet over to Doug where they would be used effectively and more ejoyably.

Conclusion:

I hadn't realized how powerful the Borg were in the early part of the game. Instead of capitalizing on the strength of the cubes and moving them forward against George after the fall of Crystal, I waited until I was stronger. George's economic output far exceeded any gains I made in waiting. The strength of Borg lay in having the most powerful torp ship before any other race and then having the most powerful carrier before any other race. By using these Cubes AGGRESSIVELY before the other races are stronger the Borg can dominate the Echo Cluster easily. George played an excellent game, and it reflected with his win. Now, we have have to work on getting him to obtain the same results with a fraction of his fleet. ;)

...Gil