Well, @Dr_Gaming crushed me in our round and took his victory like taking candy from a child.
I had previously been experimenting with a ‘Fast Start’ approach, beginning with Range 2 and building several warp gates at the start to speed ships to the front and explore backwater star regions. There’s something there but I can’t get it to work. Although I lost in rounds against @kinghuang and others with this approach, instead of wisely learning my lesson and playing more conservatively, I decided to double down with MOAR WARP GATES… and lost much more quickly. I built three off the bat, while Dr Gaming started with terra 2 and invested his funds wisely like the Warren Buffet of NP2. I did reach a 10 star lead on him for a moment, and was attacking across the map. I was over-extended, however, and he launched a big attack on a key star that I would lose. I placed two warp gates to get a fleet there in time to defend it! Although I kept that star for a while, my fateful and foolish placement of a total of FIVE warp gates before I even got terra 2 destroyed my economy to a pitiful level. The rest of the game played out predictably as Dr Gaming outmuscled me in every category and pushed me back across the board.
As I said to him in the game chat: “Warp gates are so fun, and in this turn based mode, they have this instant effect that is kind of addictive, so I am drawn to experimenting with them. But they just rarely seem to actually work or be a good idea. And they hold such risk that I tend to delete them before I need to… Also, keeping up with your opponent’s infrastructure building is so important in this mode. It is so clear in this match that I’ve blown a bunch of credits on warp gates while you’ve been investing your funds more wisely. I don’t know how to get around that fundamental disadvantage you get into by building the warp gates… the tactical advantage brought by building the gate has to somehow be worth it, like you deliver the killing blow that knocks out the other player. But that doesn’t happen often.”
Nothing further needed (just your flag ideally :p) - if @Azo does not sign up within 24 hours, you can jump into the game against @blank1.
Thanks for the offer! I like to let 1v1 newcomers play against each other first in this format when possible. However, if @OinkBark is interested (who didn’t get to play much this round), I could set you two up for another LLL game!
Our game is over, I claimed the win. Interesting map, basically a fairly dense middle but with plenty of stars on the wings for tempting flank attacks. The random gates formed a perfect parallelogram around the center of the map, and by getting scan and range first I was able to claim them all, and held on for dear life. I built just one gate, on my hw, and was able to get plenty of ships where I needed. Once I had enough range I focused on ind and manu, and kept a ship count lead the entire game. Which I needed as @Skilly146 contested fiercely every round!
I just conceded to @Solfyre. I took an early lead in ships and science, but had poor expansion defence, leading to Solfyre making great gains on the front line stars. I never managed to claw back, with Solfyre managing to predict my every move, make constant gains, and end up matching and exceeding my infrastructure counts.
Thanks for playing @BelSon ! It was a fun match. You had some nice moves early on that flummoxed me. The warp gates were my friends which I think is what swung the game.
Me and @gaz123 'S game has ended with me coming out on top. After a rocky start on my end, I managed to claim the high resource center stars with some well placed/convenient warp gates and stick out by playing primarily defensively
@spymort, if you’re interested in a little reading on this point - I had a similar feeling after my first 1v1 match a year ago and suggested ‘crazy expensive’ weapons research settings - here’s the initial after action report from @GluteusMaximusII suggesting more weapons and the response from @HULK saying why they haven’t implemented it.
I agree it would fun to mess around with a game with unlocked weapons though. But I have developed an appreciation for the tactical restriction of no weapons upgrades.
Congrats to @sarcophagus for finally grinding me down! Well played! I thought I might have one more trick to try, but the writing was on the wall. A tip of the hat to you!
Thank you @AvacadoGuy for the very pleasurable game and for being a commendable opponent! Well-matched and you certainly made me work for it. I wish you luck and hope to share more games with you in the future!
