NecriaSolaris

This was probably the most 'boring' 8 player game I've played. If you look at my day 0 strategy I more or less just followed that and that means I never got effectively challenged.
AFKs and starting position neutered the two experienced players (Dust and Denizen) that could have most effectively challenged me and whilst Ktocs position had latent potential when Dust quit, I got in there first.
Ktoc might have won this game if he had negotiated more evenly over the Visya wormhole. I was initially prepared to cede this and only dug in when he was very demanding. I underestimated the importance of it and I should never have negotiated it.
The war against Ktoc was correct strategically but took so long. Too long. I need to look back at this and assess what happened. A potential mistake was attacking when I did and not allowing Ktoc to send his ships at Darrow first, but if I'd let him take Dusts stars I'd have struggled so its delicate.
Denizen did well to survive, and I think this was a sloppy war from Anita/Gilgamesz. With the ship count differences this should have been easy.
Gilgamesz did some successful expansion but my message to them would be, be more aggressive and cut throat next time. You had the potential to win this by attacking Anita OR throwing your full weight into Denizen
Inerz also suffered from being a bit too passive. They did launch a big attack on Anita successfully thru their wormhole but never really went further even when Gilgamesz went afk.
Would love to know why Darrow never spoke. Darrow being unreachable diplomatically probably helped me a lot. He was a potential strengthening ally for inerz or ktoc.
Whilst i schemed against Anita most of the game (mostly unnecesarily) it wasnt personal but strategic. I felt Anita held the keys to a Gilgamesz win. Anita was quiet but friendly via chat.
I hope Gilgamesz would agree I was a good ally until he quit. Did i do some low level scheming? Sure. But I never attacked or considered attacking him even when I knew his east flank was weak and always intended to ensure he finished first or second.

All in all, a bit of a cruise - but that is how I like my games to go. I'm not going to make things more difficult for myself, but I'd have been ready and acted swiftly if required.

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Trani - Mar 04 7:30 - Tick 352 Cycle 17

Gilgamesz went inactive last night, the third player to do so during the game. I had been counting the hours since his last activity and immediately launched an attack on his western flank.

The situation as per last night. 11pm

And the map this morning

Strategic

Plan now is clear a pressing attack into Darrow who is barely active and Gilgamesz who is inactive.
There was a danger of another player with unknown motivations taking over Gilgamesz and potentially allying Inerz so Ive acted fast to eliminate that threat. Anyone taking over the empire now will do so whilst under a multi pronged attack from the east.

Diplomatic

Ive messaged the galaxy telling them its over and that I'm RTQ whenever they are. Ive said my forces will capture enough of Darrow/Gilgamesz stars to win in 2-3 cycles. Lets see if we cant wrap this up sooner. This is the least interesting part of the game.

Tactics

At this stage of the game tactics are relegated and its all about the unstoppable snowball.

Trani - Mar 03 08:30 -Tick 306 Cycle 15

Victory in jephardy as Darrow returns and mobilises.

When I checked the game at 10:30 last night I got a shock. This is how things looked at that point. Darrow re-appeared and immediately began moving against the stars I had captured. I fired off a rapid "Hey I didnt know you were coming back" message to the silent communication void and immediately gave orders to withdraw my General and Saboteur. This would be something to reflect on and plan around in the morning and neither had enough strength to hold the initial bridgehead. I wasnt prepared to lose 15 tokens worth of specialists.

Which brings us to the morning. Now I have to solve this problem.

Strategy

My broad strategy remains unchanged, defeat Darrow, nibble Inerz and win. The situation is more difficult now though because I'm much more exposed to a 2/3/4v1. Inerz and Gilgamesz have longer to rally than they did because even if they ally when I'm halfway through Darrow I will have to deal with those threats whilst holding Darrow whereas against an AI I could just withdraw from that front to combat Inerz.
The combination of my hubris and a pressing war against Ktoc meant Northern Command had ships in all sorts of strange places. My first act was tidying up Northern Command's waypoints to get good flows of ships to the front lines via the extensive warp gate network I built in the latter stages of the war on Ktoc.
Strategically my high level plan to defeat Darrow involves a massive attack from multiple fronts using heavy hitting Specialists and my higher Weapons technology to obliterate his eastern flank. It's not the most nuanced plan ever, but sometimes a sledgehammer is the right tool for the job.
I've reinstated some of the waypoints in Southern Command to resume flowing ships to the wormhole. Time is the priority here, the faster Darrow falls the better.

Diplomacy

One advantage of Darrow returning is I now have a good excuse for not joining the fight against Inerz/Gilgamesz. I was at the early stages of attacking Darrow and he's annoyed about it and is fighting me is both the truth and an
I haven't actually heard from Darrow.
Ktoc has 900 surviving ships and 1 star. He's been sharing tokens/credits with me and I've told him any stars he can take from Darrow will be his. I'll leave him a path to take a couple. I mostly don't want to have to deal with these ships unless I need to.
Gilgamesz is less active the last few cycles, checking just once/twice per cycle. To try balance things up in the West I've told Inerz this. Hopefully this allows the under-strength and under-scienced Inerz to punch above their weight and hold out longer.

Tactics

So obviously the first tactical move I made was ensuring I kept my Saboteur/General alive.
Next planning the attack. I'm thinking I'll have 3 attacks each utilizing specialists.
A Since the General is going to take some time to get back I'm going to just put General Bison on defensive duty. Saboteurs pair really well with Colonels anyway due to the same movement speed so Saboteur Horse will get a new companion - Colonel Crab and they will attack the Warp Gate that was my initial springpoint into Darrow with the aim of seizing the Bacia Asteroid Field.
B Colonel Cockroach and Saboteur Slug, fresh from defeating Dust will attack and seize the other Asteroid Field.
C Colonel Octopus and Infiltrator Cat (or possibly a new saboteur) will attack together.
All in all it will take around 10-11 hours for everything to be in position to start this attack. That's a full cycle and a long time in a game like this, but Darrow has considerable forces 5800 ships to my 9940, and those stars are well defended. I need to attack together and I need to attack hard. I'd rather sacrifice one cycle and hit him with a hammerblow than bite away and lose a tonne of ships. I'm burning Weapons research at the moment and flooding ships to the front line.

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Trani - Mar 02 19:30 - Tick 280 Cycle 14

We're now into Cycle 14 and victory is getting closer.

Stars: Necria (45) Gilgamesz (37) Inerz (29)
Total Ships: Necria (6587), Gilgamesz (6160) Inerz (5313)
New ships: Necria (112) Gilgamesz (99) Inerz (58.5)
Cycle Income: Necria (2525) Gilgamesz (1823) Inerz (1542)

Strategic

A scenario I am taking slightly more seriously than I was a day ago is Gilgamesz and Anita making quick work of Inerz. The infrastructure gap has started to rise and Gilgamesz ship production is now far outstripping Inerz. There are also signs that Inerz knows the fight isn't going well. Darrows worlds are all also very well fortified. His ship count is not insignificant and is only a little shy of Inerz. I should be able to make fast progress but it would be a disaster if Inerz was for example, to quit. If Inerz actually quit (stated themselves defeated) I'd offer a RTQ to Gilgamez and Anita and I'd give them a full cycle to respond to it and agree to it.
I've made sure I have high Scanning (6) to give me lots of notice of any hostile fleet movements.

Diplomatic

Inerz has contacted me and said they would accept 2nd place with me in 1st if I'll help them against Gilgamesz. As this will involve betraying my game-long ally I can't accept this. I need to think about my response though, I don't want them to lose hope yet.
Now is very close to the time to reach out to Gilgamesz and start talking RTQ. I don't think he would accept yet and I don't think I am 100% winning yet. There's still paths to defeat (though most involve a very unlikely Inerz/Gilgamesz 2v1) that are slowly thinning each tick.

Tactical

Ktoc has downed tools and surrendered. His final worlds will be captured shortly bar one. My forces will be leaving this area

Colonel Cockroach and Saboteur Slug will be capturing and eliminating Dust's final world.

There's no real tactics to talk about against the AFK Darrow but General Bison and Saboteur Horse are working as a team to capture worlds with minimal losses. Reinforcements are flooding to them and I'm going to deploy the Roach and the Slug for a second pair.

Trani - Mar 02 14:30 - Tick 270 Cycle 13

Half-way through this cycle and as you will see from the headline stats below I'm on path to win and Gilgamesz should finish second.

Stars: Necria (43), Gilgamesz (37), Inerz (29)
Total Ships: Gilgamesz (6060), Necria (5566), Inerz (5235)
New Ships: Necria (106.7), Gilgamesz (82.5) Inerz (58)
Cycle Income: Necria (2134) pre Economy purchase Gilgamesz (1730) Inerz (1270)

Strategic

I think I'm now very very likely to win this game. I've done a few things to try ensure that happens.
I've stopped the carrier flow at several stars in the south to the Wormhole. I'll now naturally let the ships on these stars build up as a wall against Gilgamesz. In total we're talking ~30 of my Industry so a significant percentage.

Maintaining a diplomatic justification for not yet attacking Inerz/Gilgamesz with each of them. As their fight ramps up I'm hoping they'll become more and more consumed by it.
Pressing an attack into Darrow to seize his Infrastructure.
Once Ktoc is completely defeated I'll shift my military posture further to an assumed rest of the galaxy versus me type posture whilst an elite specialist force slowly chips away at Darrows stars. I don't think this will happen, but I'll begin war planning it. As a very high level summary my plan will likely be to deter any Inerz/Gilgamesz 2v1 by diplomacy and if that fails to hit one of them (likely Gilgamesz) with an overwhelming attack whilst fighting a defensive retreat against the other. The aim would be to capture territory and infrastructure faster than I'm losing it on the other front.
I'll keep an eye on the Inerz/Gilgamesz war. I don't want this to go too decisively one way or the other but I expect Gilgamesz to win it due to his tech edge and if he starts to struggle I'll intervene. If he starts to win, I'll intervene (to grab stars first.)
I'm not a huge warp gate fan, I think simple carriers well organised can do the same job with good planning and they create a defensive liability, but as the snowball stars I am putting some infrastructure in place to move forces quicker to where I want them to be.

Diplomatic

Gilgamesz is really holding out on sharing tech with me, but my own Science now outpaces his and Anita's combined and it's not an issue. The tech will just stop flowing from me to him if this isn't rectified soon. I'm not making a point of it because the only thing I really need from Gilgamesz at the moment is him to not attack me for the next 2-3 cycles and allow me to consolidate. After some pressing he traded me his Specialists tech (7) one tick before he went up to 8. It is what it is. I don't hold it against him. I understand what he's doing.

Tactical

I've seized Dust's mega asteroid (16 industry, 4 science!) and dispatched a force to take his last remaining star for the extra infrastructure on there too.
I made a bit of a mistake hiring a Saboteur (Horse) before I had enough Hyperspace Range to deploy it where I wanted it to go in Darrow's territory, this has slowed me down there and cost me a couple hundred ships. Better to make mistakes when you're winning and learn from them.
Ktoc is trying to hold on to his last worlds and is building War Machines etc to do so. I'm skirting around them and trying to claim as much of his infrastructure as possible. I'm happy to let him turtle on a War Machine until it dies and then attack it.
Attack on Darrow has begun. Aim here is to use the Saboteur/General to combine and take stars with as minimal force commitment as possible. There's some nice Asteroids etc I want to get.

Where are the specialists?

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Trani 2 Feb 07:00 -Tick 255 - Cycle 12M

Gilgamesz and Anita are fighting against Inerz whilst I close in on Ktocs remaining stars, and with them the game.

Me v Gilga tech infra etc. He hasnt bought econ yet to maybe +20 there.

Strategic:

I'm going to win this game. Ktocs resistance is collapsing and its turning into a steamroll over there. General Bison and Infiltrator Cat have left Chothi to start causing havoc in Darrows territory, the only two players capable of defeating me are now at war and neither of them will attack me and both understand I cant intervene yet.
By the time this galaxy rallies, if this galaxy rallies (I dont think the remaining players are scheming enough) it will be too late.
My plan is clear now. Wipe out Ktoc who has fought nobly, attack Darrow and seize his Eastern worlds - probably with the assistance of a new Saboteur. Attack Inerz when Gilgamesz cant wait any more or is struggling/starting to clearly win himself and then request RTQ with me firmly in first place.

Diplomatic:

Gilgamesz and I had a good chat and he understands I cant/wont attack Inerz until after Ktoc falls. Hes still holding out on tech trading (hes now ran up a close to 250 credit debt) but I'm not tok troubled and not going to push it. My science advantage is now growing every cycle and hes now more dependant on me for tech than visa versa.
Inerz asked me for a formal alliance and I've politely declined and called it a partnership which it is. I get a NAP whilst I conquer Ktoc and start conquering Darrow and Inerz doesnt get 3v1d.

Tactical:

Sweeping attack into Darrows lightly defended stars from General Bison and Infiltrator Cat

Saboteur Slug and Colonel Cockroach will seize Dusts mega AF

Phased conquering of an on the back foot Ktoc who has in real terms 1240 ships (750 existing ships + ~490, 40 ticks of new ships) I have 750 ships on front lines with an additional 500 coming up not including those attacking Dust. Colonel Octopus is participating in this attack

NecriaSolaris

Pages

Saturday, March 5, 2022

Trani - Posts in Chronological Order

Friday, March 4, 2022

Trani - Tick 384 - The game is won