Monocerotis VII - 1v1 - Preview.

This series of posts will cover the 1v1 match Monocerotis VII and the aim of the series of posts will be to provide an introduction to a match format a lot of Solaris players don't play regularly and share some basic tips or things to think about. These matches have no diplomacy and are a straight shoot out between two players on a mirrored match with all randomness removed.

The rules

These rules may and hopefully will change in time.

Starting stars - 6, including a 20:20:4 capital. This beefy capital makes Space Docks viable.

Starting ships - 600 How you use these ships is extremely important. It will take your starting industry 120 ticks (6 cycles) to produce another 600. With new industry that number will come down but this force will still represent most of your fighting capability for the first 3-4 cycles. It's essential that you get all of these ships to somewhere useful (a front line), as fast as you can.

Starting tokens - 10 A generous amount but choosing how to spend them will be a big decision.

Starting Credits - 2000 very generous and means you can be gung-ho with carrier creation and early infrastructure purchases. I spend it all on the first cycle.

Ticks per cycle - 20 Fairly standard but importantly for real time this means the cycle end will rotate through the full day and both players will eventually have cycle ends falling during their sleep window.

Weapons level - Fixed at level 3 Meaning attacks need to be well executed or supported by tokens. Favours the defender throughout the game and makes early game Infiltrators deadly in defence (a force of 50 ships can defend against a force of 100 ships due to combo of the Infiltrator dropping enemy weapons to 2 versus your 3+1 on defence.) 

Specialists level - 3 (can be increased) Means you'll be getting a steady supply of new tokens and so can risk spending more of your starting tokens. Makes the jump from Spec 3 to Spec 4 only a 33% uplift and less essential in the first 2-3 cycles. 

Banking tech cheap, Manufacturing tech expensive. Makes banking more viable and really makes you think about when to take your manufacturing up.

No experimentation tech. No great loss :) 

The map

All of these maps have '30 stars each'. Winner needs 40/60 stars to win. 

The first thing I do in a 1v1 is draw a big line down the map separating the stars I can reach first and the ones my opponent can reach first (excluding use of specialists, except maybe pathfinders.) 

Then I look for key features such as very close front line stars [Pink Squares] or stars far from others (the band of stars I've referenced in Orange and labelled 'A')

The next thing I look at, using the line that I drew, is the attack times across the front line stars (red lines and times) in a turn-based you worry about anything that is below your turn length here (and worry slightly less about anything below your turn length using a smuggler/coward) in a real time game like this match I worry about anything that is less than 7 hours, because I have to sleep sometimes.

The final point is the reinforcement times to front time stars (blue lines and times.)

So initial thoughts on this map

• Starting star NR is low (50,27, 17,14,13,11) this makes Mineral Extractors slightly more tempting than usual but I think I'll have more pressing needs for the tokens. It will mean I can't go for my usual Terraforming2 -> Banking2 -> Banking3 cycle 1 tech strategy though as the amount of expense for the science necessary doesn't sit well with me. 
• Both players start fairly close together in a map that seems to be more orientated N/S than E/W.
• If borders get split 50/50 there are 7 front line stars each. From my perspective, 2 in the North. 2 in Centre North. 1 in Centre South and 2 in the South. 
• It will be easier for me to attack in the south and easier for my opponent to attack in the north. This is because if you look at Centre N, my opponent has one frontline star that threatens two of my frontline stars. All else equal, this splits my ships and any specialists on defence because I can't scramble between these stars to respond to an attack without using warp gates/specialists which themselves comes with costs.
• Whilst attack times are longer in the North/South it will also be harder to supply these fronts both because of the longer transit times and also because of the potential of cutting them off. The stars in these places also have longer resupply times. This will create opportunities and because the attack windows still fall within a normal sleep window my hot take is that the easiest breakthrough will be found in the South, and I'm most at risk in the North.
• To get the 4 stars tucked at the back I need to create an Explorer. Timing this purchase and weighing it against other potential tokens will be an early consideration. 

The strategy

In my opinion it's better to carry out an average plan than to play with no plan at all. My plan will change depending on what my opponent does but it's good to have an early idea.

1. Tech strategy is Terraforming2 -> Banking2 in Cycle 1. 8 Science would get me there in 20 which is too slow since I want Terraforming first for cheaper upgrades mid/end cycle. 9 Science gets me there in 18 ticks. I'm going to buy up to 8 and then take it up to 10 halfway through the cycle when I've captured some higher NR stars. In the second Cycle I'll try to take these to 3 and 3 respectively which will take 300 NR demanding 14-15 Science.
2. Specialist strategy is a Space Dock (2 tokens) on my capital to help provide an industry boost which will be essential for holding my desired borders in Centre N and Centre S. Then a Smuggler (5 tokens) to surge south with 100 ships and try to carve out a star advantage in the south. My opponent will need to commit a fast spec of his own to counter it. I will hold 3 tokens in reserve for an Infiltrator/Colonel to counter any early attacks effectively. This means I go without an Explorer. This shouldn't be a big problem in the early cycles. In 1v1's expansion is critical but front line expansion stars at the back are less important early on.
3. I'll barely upgrade my poor initial stars, I bought 8 carriers, 4 science and 2 industry and I'm currently sat on 1353 credits. I will spend upgrades on front line stars and on the stars serving them. Yes, I could start building up ships sooner if I bought industry sooner but ships being produced 12 hours from the front line are not as useful to me as ships being produced on the front line and I'm willing to burn some hours of production to get them where I want them. When you start factoring in carrier transit times it balances out anyway.
4. My goal is to get more than (or failing that, at least) 30 stars out of the expansion phase with the extra 1-2 I think coming in the south, the circled star in the image below is my prime target. Firstly, it will take me 12 hours to reach this star on my chosen path which my opponent can only match with a speedy specialist of his own or a pathfinder (and I'll know if they used a pathfinder in time to abort the attack... more on this later if it happens) so there is a real good chance I'll get it. if I do get it, I probably also get the two south of it and then to the North/East of it there are three stars I'll threaten. The two images below show the danger of this.

Here you can see the front line stars if I capture my target star. Notice how in this scenario the star count is 31-29 in my favour but my opponents connection to the two stars south of it is broken and I am threatening multiple points, this will make launching an operation to re-take the star dangerous and further losses possible. If I get this star without losing my own version of it, I'll have achieved my expansion phase objective and I will put that 31-29 (soon to be 33-27) advantage to work like a python.

As for what I'll do if my opponent does the same (I'm not committing the specialists north required to counter this strategy deployed against myself) I'll come to that if it happens, but in short I'll be pragmatic about it. I'd still do this in the south and be willing to cede those 3 stars in the north. This would lead to a new border that looks like this.

Now all I need is an opponent. I'm hoping I get an experienced opponent to challenge me and make the blog more interesting but I'll cover the game end to end whoever I face.