Lost Tribes

of the Honorable Orion Trading Consortium

In the beginning, there were only six super freighters per race…. No, I’m not going to do that :-)

I allied early with the Empire who were to my southwest. Initially, I gave him MBR’s for free so he could expand his empire. I got a few SSD’s later in return. These were absolutely key to my successful expansion plans. I would estimate at least 25 of my bases used to be someone else’s. The Rebels were to my northwest and started sending Falcons against me early. I decided they needed to go. Soon after I started moving against him, he quit for other reasons. George Ianev took over and a stole a few more ships from him. George decided they were a little too much for him to manage and Carl Hendy took over from him. Carl started using classic anti-privateer tactics against me. He used many small minefields and left his ships set to beam up fuel to foil rob/tow capture efforts. I ended up losing an MBR this way to him right away. This being bad for business, I started to let up a bit and I didn’t use any wolfpacks – yet. I did ally with the Fascist at this point as they were north of the Rebels and I figured I could use a little help on the other side.

The Empire offered me a boon in the form of a Starbase on his western border – a border shared with the Borg. I immediately moved over a dozen MBR’s to the area and started building them at the base the Empire gave me also. I scouted six Borg planets and they had a lot of ships to rob, but I waited…

At the same time, I was working my way behind the Rebel minefield screen with a dozen MBR’s. I stumbled upon a nicely stocked Rebel Base. I waited here also…

Why did I wait? Well, patience goes hand in hand with Privateer tactics. The Borg didn't know I was in his area yet, and the Rebels were building up mines on our border. Finally, the mines let up a little and the Borg moved more ships in for me to take. I ended up robbing an Anni, a Firecloud and a Super Freighter from Big Dave’s Planet and brought in an SSD and took the base next turn. At the same time I moved the Anni into position to begin sweeping Organia 3 of mines in preparation for the next rob. John was kind enough to transport one of my MBRs to Organia via a chunnel – thanks JohnJ This gave me two MBR’s there – enough to tow the Bio and Anni both to the Anni I had waiting.

Also at this time, I managed to rob three Falcons, a Gemini and two Patriots from the Rebel base at Wood’s Planet. I miscalculated the distance and the MBR towing the Gemini slid back into the gravity well and both went down in flames. The next turn, the two Patriots went flaming into the base and took out a Patriot he brought in to help. I also had to avoid an Ion storm that had moved in – which ended up happening every time I had a juicy target in my sights. I think I lost as many ships to Ion storms as minefields :-( .

I moved another SSD into position to take a Rebel base and got ready to take position of another SSD to help with the Borg.

With the help of the Feds in the west, the Borg were getting mopped up rather well. Borg pulled back a lot of their ships to Korium – fortunately for me, he also chunneled a half dozen MBR’s and two SSD’s. I promptly took Korium and stole two Fireclouds and two Super Freighters. He destroyed a few MBR’s and captured two as a result of a Refinery ship being in orbit. Most of the Fireclouds went to the Empire after that :-)

I continued to steal ships and bases from the Rebels and continued to try to mop them up. Northwest of the Rebels were the Colonies and I started operations against them. I stole a Virgo using Wolfpack techniques and I planned on getting another soon. Unfortunately, the Rebels were not cooperating, nor were they going down quietly. I pulled back all ships I had going after the Colonies to go after the Rebels. This was probably a good move as the Col was starting to mine the hell out of the area. With the help of the Fascists and the Lizards (whom I allied with to help with the Rebels), we took care of most of the Rebel scum. Unfortunately, by this time he had captured an MBR or two and had gone to ground. It would be approximately 50 turns before the last Rebel was hunted down and killed.

By this time, the Formerly Borg area was firmly in my hands. John (Borg) headed north to find a friendly port. He had two MBR’s and approximately eight Fireclouds. He gave all but one MBR to the Colonies around the time I blasted his last base. It would take a long while to find that MBR (damn things move to far to fast).

I now could concentrate fully on the Colonies. The Fed was moving on him as was the Empire. They were also going against the Fascists. I moved a couple wolfpack groups up through old Borg area and some up through the old Rebel area – both to go against the Colonies. This was a big mistake splitting my forces as I couldn’t make a decisive move against him due to all the mines. The Fed and Empire started hitting him hard and also sweeping mines and I consolidated my forces in the old Rebel area. I had six LCC’s, two Anni’s, a Bio, and six Virgo’s by then to sweep and steal with. Once I got them all together I split the area down the middle with the Empire and started rolling up the Colonies. Before it was all said and done, I had acquired a total of eleven Virgo’s and a lot of bases. In the last two turns I took ten of the Colonies planets and after that I was going to turn my attention west towards the Crystals as most of the fleeing Colonial ships were going to his area. They would have been a hard nut to crack, but I believe with the amount of sweeping/robbing power from the Virgo’s, Anni’s and Bio’s, I could have made a pretty big dent in them. With the Fed and the Empire helping, we would have reigned supreme :-)

Ultimately, I was successful due to diplomacy. My alliances were geared to taking out the Borg and the Rebels. Unfortunately, when I finished with the both of them, I had too many alliesL In the upcoming conflict with the Colonies/Fascist, I had to declare myself neutral against the Fascist. I would have liked to have had the challenge of taking out the Fascists, but I didn’t want to do that to Rob Wells :-)

All in all, it was a great game. My thanks to all the players in the game (all eight players that finished the game were original players if I remember correctly). Special thanks go to Bowser who took over from Rob Wilson when work got too much. Special thanks also go to Carl Hendy and John Labadie who stuck with it even though they only had one ship for many turns. Even though they ran the three empires that ultimately went down, they played admirably.

Yeah, this was a little long, but the game went over 100 turns ;) this was one of the first games to get established when I started the site.

Pick - July 2000