Duelling Tournament - THE FINAL

Ok everyone, after 3 rounds of epic battles the final is upon us!

Dysp V Hulk

If @JayKyburz could set us up one last match. Place your bets now folks :smiley:

Dysp: Iā€™m traveling until Tuesday, so I wonā€™t join the game until then.
Looking forward to our match ā€¦ and thanks again LDG/Jay for organizing.

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Good luck chaps, I want to see a good clean fight :smiley:

Dysp is a classy/experienced player so Iā€™m sure it will be a fun game ā€¦ but doubt it will be ā€œcleanā€ game ā€¦ much more likely to be brutally bloody! :wink:

Here is the game

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@Hulk No problem, I might actually not join until Friday as Iā€™m traveling too. But after that Iā€™m up to lightning fast turnsā€¦

Will be very interesting match coming up. Only a fool wouldnā€™t be afraid to go against the Hulk!

Thanks @JayKyburz for setting up - any estimate when we can create our own mirrored games?

LOL @Dysp - you have SMASHED the Gentle Green Giant many times ā€¦ :wink:

Just jumped in so if you have time to do so, the game is ready to start for 'ya.
Per the screenshot below, Iā€™m going to guess that it is mirrored vertically and you are below me ā€¦ if so, itā€™s going to be a brutally bloody battle for control of the middle!

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Alright, sorry about the delay and letā€™s get smashing! I just got back from a vacation and am totally fresh to take on everything the Hulk can throw at me.

Stats and map replay are available at:
http://bit.ly/1DGq4Ey
http://bit.ly/1DGq8Em

Good luck bothā€¦ donā€™t know if Iā€™m more excited about this or the 6-nations rugby this weekend =D

As suspected, the map is mirrored vertically ā€¦ this is even better than I thought since there are possible attack paths from both sides ā€¦ so itā€™s not just a slog-fest in the middle.

P.S. Thanks Dysp for post your excellent Stats/Map links.
And as I said in the game, good luck ā€¦ but not too much! :wink:

I have seen HULKs playbook up close and personal, but have only observed Dysp from afar. From what Iā€™ve seen, this match should be one for the ages! Definitely too close to call! Good luck to you both!

It quite a battle ā€¦ and interestingly enough, two different approaches taken from the start. I went a bit heavy on Industry while @Dysp went big on Science - Dr. Bruce Banner did not approve of my lack of investment in Science ā€¦ :wink:

After the 1st cycle, I made an aggressive move to grab a Dysp border star ā€¦ and succeeded. About a Cycle or so later, Dysp made an great play to regrab it ā€¦ and only a fleet of 8 ships arriving just in time saved me barely. I just made a play to advance the front lines, but he timed an arriving fleet to chop my attack in half and then wiped it out before I could get a Scan behind his lines - Damn Dysp!!!

Iā€™ll add that his investment in Science has paid off ā€¦ he started with 3 Science and did Banking ā€¦ and got a Banking hit on the 1st cycle finishing that. He then switched to Terra ā€¦ and got a Terra hit on 2nd cycle ā€¦ finishing that. Fortunately, whatever he is working on for the 3rd cycle he did NOT finish with an ā€œEā€ hit ā€¦ otherwise, Iā€™d start to think he paid off @JayKyburz to bias the dice gods in his favor! :wink:

Iā€™m worried he is doing Weapons since I wonā€™t be able to catch him in tech.

We are currently at Tick #78 and itā€™s very balanced ā€¦ but in different ways - see Dyspā€™s excellent Stat tracking for info. In a nutshell, I have a few more ships than him (and edge in position) but he has more Science and Industry. My lead in Econ is balanced by him having B2 versus my B1.

Place your bets on who will win ā€¦ right now, Iā€™d say itā€™s dead-even.
Feel free to add/correct anything I said @Dysp.

P.S. This has been an extremely enjoyable game - Dysp is a top-notch foe (and classy player) ā€¦ and I know that if I make one mistake, heā€™ll pounce.

Good luck Hulk and Dysp! Iā€™ve enjoyed my games with you bothā€¦and I want in on the next duel tourney :wink:

@Valhallan : glad to have you (or anyone else) be part of the next tournament ā€¦ @JayKyburz has to setup the mirrored games and @LDG did a great job coordinating this tournament, so maybe that dynamic duo can start the next one while @Dysp and I try to SMASH each other.

Weā€™ve played 6 days game-time in about 36 hours real-time ā€¦ itā€™s a pitched/even battle - check out nifty Dyspā€™s tools or the screenshot below.

Similar to the @Dysp versus @Golden_Ace epic semi-final battle, the middle star (see arrow) is strongly contested and has swapped hands a couple of times. I failed several times to expand on the sides - my guess is we might see more of that from both players (plus perhaps attacks to other stars in the middle) - itā€™s a super map for a duel-off.

I just finally caught up with Dysp in tech ā€¦ but heā€™s got a head start on (presumably) weapons although now Iā€™ve got two more Science ā€¦ plus more Econ. But he has more the lead in Industry and (unfortunately for me) more ships.

Dysp got perfect ā€œEā€ hits the first two cycles - Iā€™m hoping his scientists are not doing as well because mine certainly arenā€™t - the HULK is smashing their test tubes in rage! :wink:

Nobody has made any big mistakes (except my failed side attacks plus I squandered an expansion North - darn!) and itā€™s just a great game.

I really enjoy these smaller games. This tournament has reminded me how exciting they can be. I have been playing a lot of 64 players games because the diplomacy is more interesting. Iā€™m feeling like the future of the game is in the smaller games. 8-16 players where every star and carrier matter.

Well darn, I was doing quite well but accidentally hit the QUIT button ā€¦ so itā€™s a TIE! :wink:

For the humor-impaired, that was a joke ā€¦ :wink:

Dysp got the upper hand and I offered to concede to wrap it up ā€¦ and now the game is apparently ā€œstuckā€ (thereā€™s some quotes for 'ya @LDG !) as Dysp says he canā€™t claim the victory, but I can no longer submit or concede again. So if @JayKyburz can use his super-powers to award the victoryu to Dysp, itā€™s well deserved.

Iā€™ll do a game wrap-up with some ideas for the next dueling tournament in a bit.

How come he canā€™t claim victory? Is there a bug?

Thank you everyone cheering and following the match. And especially thank you Hulk for great commentary and truly a great game. Really enjoyed playing with you! You got a pretty good wrist lock going on me by some very crafty early aggressive moves. I was lucky to hang in there, hit some good exp hits and luckily my all-in move at the end worked. This could have very easily gone quite the other way. So thanks again, it was very nice playing with you!

@JayKyburz Yes, seems so. There is only Concede defeat button available even if Iā€™m the only player left in the game.

Dysp: Hit that ā€œbuttonā€ for me will 'ya! :wink:

So when I last wrote at Tick 144, I was actually feeling pretty good about the game even after Dysp got ā€œperfectā€ Experimentation hits the first two cycles. I had a stronger position (lots of ships at the front line and ready to launch an assault on his core at Tick 174) plus two more Science since Tick 120 (6 vs 4) ā€¦ increasing to four more Science at Tick 168 (11 vs 7) , so I was gaining fast and by my calculation (ignoring Experimentation), I should get W4 done about the same time he did ā€¦ but I those damn scientists ā€œcontributedā€ to my demise!

At Tick 174, Dysp launched a devastating all-in attack ā€¦with W4 ā€¦ CRRAAAPPPPP!

Just to be clear, this is not a ā€œsour grapesā€ post - Sh*t happens. I got an upper hand early on, but Dysp defended well (even after saying he was ā€œfeeling pretty desperateā€) so I couldnā€™t strike a fatal blow, and then he made a great offensive move when the opportunity presented itself.

He graciously shared his tech data afterwards:

                        HULK                DYSP
   Research order:      S-M-T-B-S-W         B-T-M-W-M
   Exp hits:            M-T-R-B-E-T-S-W     B-T-E-S-S-M-W-W
   Finished Tech:       M-T-B-S-W           B-T-M-S-W

At the end, I had 72 (unused) points (out of 288) in Exp, Range, Scan, and Terra
Dysp had 72 unused points in Exp and was finishing Manu.
I was actually ahead in Weapons due to the dice gods finally giving me Weapons at Tick 196 - game was well over by then! As you can imagine, Dr. Bruce Banner is in hiding as the HULK is on a rampage right now in the laboratory - broken glass test tubes everywhere!!!

While Iā€™m a fan of the randomness that experimentation provides, I think it is too strong in this small of game. My thoughts are for future duels either disable it if a small galaxy (see my post here on how that can be easily done) ā€¦ or if you start with a large galaxy and more money, the effect of experimentation is reduced.

I think a larger galaxy has some advantages in that it allows more nuanced play - once again, Warp Gates never came into play.

Otherwise, the parameters are great - look forward to the next tournament ā€¦ and next time before I play Dysp, Iā€™m getting some extra Gamma-Ray irradiation! :wink:

Great battle Dysp, great tourney LDG, and great game Jay!!!