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3501-12
+.+.+.
EoD counter-attacked in their suspected Home System with another 103 ships or 312 SSD. This was more than expected but was anticipated as my reinforcements arrived in system while the battle was in-process. All ships belonging to EoD were destroyed. Consolidation and repairs on my First Fleet continue. The first round of the DESTROY went down and it is unlikely EoD will be able to stop it.
As I wait for the inevitable conclusion of this destroy, I have started deploying war ships to my colonies – destroyers (7P/3;;/21-14) to my colonies. This had the effect of catching several of EoD’s harassment fleets and destroying them. I also have re-started my shuttle runs to increase PI production.
In anticipation of EoD’s demise, I have built and am in the process of deploying 50+ freighters to colonize his former colonies. I expect some of these to be contested by the two remaining empires. However, once I have the charts of the systems, I will be able to dispatch escorts to the most favorable ones. I plan to start an aggressive scouting campaign to identify where the current boundaries are and perhaps enjoy a period of refit, production and expansion.
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3501-13
+.+.+.
It is over. The last battle with Dave has been concluded. I have received the notice from my fleet that we have destroyed the Empire of Dave.
We captured most of their data processing (if you can call it that) intact – and now have the star charts for the Empire of Dave, which when added to ours gives us charts for 92% of the galaxy.
I am putting my colonies back on-line this cycle from the attacks by Dave and the rest of my bigger ships are finally going to arrive and join the battle fleet. I have dispatched numerous colonizers and started to redeploy my Raider fleet to secure the systems that our battles have won for us. The fleet continues to grow.
Refits, repairs, and some reorganization time. It will take 5 cycles for my main fleet to reach its new jumping off point…
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3501-15
+.+.+.
Peace seems to have broken out in the Galaxy. There were no combats this fortnite.
I have been adding systems to my empire at an accelerated rate. While Colonizers are still going out, I have managed to put my original systems back into operation and repair all the damage suffered from the Empire formerly known as Dave.
This turn I have been tied up getting new colonies online and sending out scouting ships to the far reaches of the Galaxy. The masters may very well return by the time my ships get anywhere useful.
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3502-06
+.+.+.
Peace is underrated. I have continued to expand rapidly and now have most of the Galaxy under control. My fleets have started to move in on new targets, but distances are daunting.
Last cycle, I finally achieved a scouting report of the last system I had not obtained one from. It took 9 scouts (//30-20) to finally tell me that the Polity has built up his home system to an impressive 2,000+ SSD. However, he does not appear to have tech equality with me – I have destroyed most of his defensive fleets in his colonies and have found no evidence of any Tech 2 designs.
I have ignored the other Empire to the South of me, the Prog Orthodoxy.
Per the Masters report, I have over 92% of the galaxy charted, 68% of the galaxy owned. I have 3,000 SSD in ships, and it will take time to consolidate my fleets. Time I have…
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3502-10
+.+.+.
The last 4 cycles have been eventful, I have destroyed the PROG ORTHODOXY. I was planning on ignoring it but leaving an Empire of unknown capability on the other side of the Galaxy was contra-indicated.
I am no longer fighting a two-front war. This will free up my southern fleet to join the northern fleet on the borders of POLITY. I have seen little activity from them (it?) and continue to close in on their home world.
Per the Master’s latest status report, I have 96% of the Galaxy charted and 78% of the Galaxy owned.
My fleet gathers in the North – 600 SSD is already at the jump off point, with 600 SSD joining it next fortnite. The fleet from the South will add another 400 SSD in two cycles. In addition, smaller groups of ships are heading that way from across the Empire, another 400 SSD…
I continue to bring colonies on line to assist in the build-up. I have gained sufficient PI to replace my fleet or purchase tech 3 – I will continue to let it build up until I am ready for my final confrontation.
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3502-12
+.+.+.
More time spent just moving fleets. I continue to bring together all ships for my final battle with Polity. I have decided to make an attack in force.
My last scout was 8 cycles ago and that means Polity has earned at least 800 PI since then, probably more like 1,000 PI assuming some shuttles got through. He had approximately 2,000 SSD of Ships at that time based on my aborted scout attempt and could have built more stations, possibly up to another 800 SSD of ships. This was not a good scouting report, just a quick estimate which could be off 500 SSD either way. That could mean either 2300 SSD or 3300 SSD.
If his fleet is still at Tech 1 and I have seen nothing to indicate that Polity has gained Tech 2, this could be an even battle; if he has Tech 2 – this will be a terrible loss of material. In this case I hope to still get a combat report and gain vital information on what type of ships and tech level Polity has. I am sending in over 1700 SSD of my older Tech 2 designs.
Regardless of the outcome, I continue to bring all of the captured systems up and increase my economics. I have purchased Tech 3, and now own 85% of the Galaxy. My economics alone will allow me to replace my fleet faster than Polity can replace theirs and it is unlikely Polity will be able to match my tech advantage.
Time will tell…
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3502-12
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It is over. I decided not to wait and attacked the home world of the Polity with what I had available…
I was successful. I destroyed everything Polity had in the way of defenses and have started destroying the Home World.
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The Masters have returned!
Excellent! You, through your superior military skills, have scored a monumental victory. You faced many worthy foes, yet you alone emerged triumphant. All others around you are destroyed. Hail the Victor!
Etc.
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Random thoughts as the Polity player...
I got lost in the data after a few turns. I tried exporting to spreadsheets, but it seemed like commas weren't escaped and I was always fixing the files up by hand and that took too much effort. I think that mastering the maps would have helped, but by the time that became obvious I had to concentrate on some issues at work. Never really had the heart to come back to it after that.
I ended up building a huge fleet that never left the home system.
I never really understood how to manage shuttle routes and keep the supplies flowing. Some of that was from being overwhelmed by the data. Some of that was not knowing how to design ships with the range needed. Much of it was just never being sure what routes had been assigned, which shuttles were assigned, and working out the timing so that two shuttles didn't arrive at the same time and having one exit the system with empty holds.
Some 80% of this would have been avoided if I'd played some practice rounds. I got excited and jumped in too early.
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I'm very sorry about that! I love to answer questions, too, so there's always that option.
My apologies about escaping commas - I didn't think that was a problem (I thought I'd quoted all strings) so I'll have to check into it.
Getting lost in the data is easy when you first start. After a bit of practice you can comfortably spot the raw data you need directly in the report, but it's not particularly easy to put it all together. That's why I built the GTac Assistant (back when I was just a player; the first versions were even before Windows). It helps you manage that bounty of data (both current and historical) much more easily.
One really major part of GTac is the mapping system, of course, which lets you see nearly all that data in a graphical way. It comes with some built-in maps for the basics, like where your colonies and shuttle routes are, but it also lets you design your own (from those basics or from scratch). With custom maps you can combine bits and pieces of other things together into a single view and helps you with organizational and strategic planning. You'd be amazed at what you can show with it -- for a simple example, how about the location of all your warfleets bigger than 500 SSD and boxes around each of them showing how far you expect them to be able to move in a turn. Double-clicking on stars also gives you access to location specific information such as the history of what's happened there, ships located there or nearby, ranges to other locations, and other such details. Right-clicking on the ship lists gives you access to a menu of various commands that you can issue directly to that ship without having to type in anything - which can be very helpful for beginning players. And of course you can save your map definitions so they update themselves with fresh information every turn.
Another helpful piece I called the Empire Status Report. It looks really trivial at first but packs an awful lot of information in a little bit of text. For instance, it lists all the shuttle routes that you've defined, what colonies aren't being shuttled to at all, what shuttles don't have enough cargo space to pick up everything on that route, where you've got overlapped or missing ships on each leg, where the ships can't get from place to place in single hops, etc. It tells you a lot of information about the very things that gave you problems, and that's just one aspect of this report.
Of course, you're allowed to enter and edit your orders directly on your PC (with prompting assistance) and have it upload them to the web site for you. But before you do always run the error-checking process on the turn to tell you where you might have made any number of mistakes, from syntactical problems and typos that refer to significantly wrong ships or stars, to mis-designing ships or running out of money to spend in a particular location.
In general, with just a little practice it can really help you play the game and in less time and with more enjoyment.
You still have plenty of free play time available on the site. I'd like to suggest that you sign up to play in one (or more) of the currently-filling galaxies out there. They'll be a while before they fill up enough to start and you can use that time (as your New Year's resolution, perhaps?) to start up a solo game and try out some of the fun stuff whenever you have time to give it, since solo (practice) games don't run on a fixed schedule. Once you get used to doing things in the game system and using GTac to make your play easier you'll be able to start creating and trying out both economic and military strategies that you think will work against future human opponents.
Do you think you might give it another try?
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