The people who have gone through from the first round are:
@Golden_Ace
@Unicycle247
@Rosslessness
@MajorAwesome
@Dysp
@HULK
@JayKyburz
@kexsel
Congratulations everyone!
I now turn to my good friend Random.org to draw the next round.
Next up we have!
Golden_Ace V JayKyburz
Unicycle247 V Dysp
Rosslessness V MajorAwesome
Kexsel V Hulk
If we could have the following tweaks to this round Jay. I think a lot of good points were made in the previous thread but I don’t want to change the format too much from the first round just to be consistent.
Start on Wep 3
Experimentation V Expensive.
Sweeet, lets do this! 
Yea, just waiting for a game link … ready for some SMASHING kexsel?!? 
Heck yeah, ready to smash some Hulk!
Neptune's Pride Golden_Ace V JayKyburz
Neptune's Pride Unicycle247 V Dysp
Neptune's Pride Rosslessness V MajorAwesome
Neptune's Pride Kexsel V Hulk
Be careful Kexsel - you don’t want to make me angry … 
I’m in on the game (thanks Jay for setting up - params look good - well done LDG) and looking forward to a fun battle … may the mightiest Big Green Monster win!
I’m in, let’s do this! Best of luck to ya.
Good luck everyone, keep me posted on how your games are going 
Alright, I’m in! Progress can be followed from:
stats: http://bit.ly/1Bn5Ivw
map: http://bit.ly/1Bn5JiV
After less than than a full cycle, Kexsel and I are doing some serious SMASHING of each other!
One thing I was worried about with W3 and the small/close stars, is there’s a strong temptation to do an initial ALL-IN assault (and completely forgo Science) … which can easily decide the game very early on. Remains to be seen what is going to happen in our game, but just an FYI to others that is certainly a viable strategy - take a look at Dysp’s map which is even tighter than ours!!!
I’d be curious to see if the parameters I suggested will produce a longer, more nuanced/interesting game - any chance @JayKyburz you can create a mirrored game to test this out? Pretty sure that Kexsel would be up for doing with me … and we can report back for future duels.
I.e. exact same parameters as games above with these changes:
- Double the number of stars - assume easy to do by changing 16 to 32.
- Change distance from Close to Medium if the above change keeps core same distance.
- Increase starting cash to $1,500
P.S. I’m also trying to think of some way such that Warp Gates can be used in a Duel.
Smart move LDG having NONE to start, but the game has develop more before those are useable.
@HULK Yeah I had indeed seen that as a viable option, however if we could keep commentary of matches left till the end of a match it would be appreciated since now I feel that perhaps it is not such a viable strategy.
Sorry Ace, I’m not really going to be able to play much for the next few days. Things are crazy busy here at Iron Helmet HQ.
thanks for the game Jay. Hope all is well
Yep, Ace kicked my butt!
I was aggressive early but made a few missteps and Ace was able to park large fleets on the doorstep. I was unlucky in tech and only received experiments in experimentation, sanning and I think range.
I conceded defect because I was basically pinned on the my homeworld. Things were stabilizing but I was behind on both tech and two fairly good stars, and a whole point of science. Even If I played well, the numbers were against me, he would slowly grind me down.
After an extremely hard fought battle, I prevailed over kexsel - very enjoyable mano-mano game against a skilled opponent - fun stuff!
I still think these duel games would benefit from a larger galaxy for more nuanced play - below is a screenshot of the final techs. As I mentioned earlier (and obvious from looking at the small maps/parameters), there’s a temptation to just forgo the Science aspect since the fighting is fast & furious with the game being decided fairly quickly.
Note that the Experimentation Dice Gods didn’t do kexsel any favors by finishing Range … which is almost worthless in such short-lived games. Jay’s “unlucky in tech” comments also tie into this … a longer game would smooth out the randomness and allow different strategies to emerge. Plus we might actually see Warp Gates used as a strategic tool.
Just squeaked past the major. Fantastic map with homeworlds almost in scanning distance of each other.
Ok just Dysp and Unicycle to go!
If you’d like to do a random.org pairings and I’m not playing the winner of Dysp/Unicycle, be happy to get started on my game if my opponent is up for it. I’ve got some major travel starting the 2nd week of February.
This has been a blast LDG - thanks again for organizing and everyone for playing.
The Reign of Awesome has ended! Long live Rosslessness! Thanks for the game, such a different experience in that galaxy with everything almost on top of everything else.