Well, I doubt that there will be a civil war, with having heared about the other match.
But, let's have a look at Omega's and my match.
I took rom again and Omega choosed the cardassians.
Well, first load I had a big 300+ second and without having told Omega about he requested a restart cause of his bad systems.
So we restarted and now I got shit. A 130 and a 145 population system both without dilithium. He got a 165 and a 180 2nd, one with dilithium.
It's not that much of a difference in total, but keeping in mind cardassia already has more population than romulus, he has been in economic favor and that can make much of a difference in such a close match we had.
I expected him to run for me and begin sabotaging me, cause card is superior in intel, but my start position in middle top hasn't been a good place for hiding, so I powered my security up in beginning and tried to figure who's around me. Additionally I watched out for more dilithium systems.
This time I buyed not only destroyer but also two HC in beginning to get better fire power. In a few turns, I got in touch with all the ai races and already feeled in luck not being the cardassian neighbour, but I also saw him having met the ferengi. I havn't been sure if I should try to stop him, but with my bad economy and bad intel I thought I'd better give it a try to conquer the federation instead.
Might have been a bad decision, cause he soon declared war on the ferengi and it's systems fell one after another.
I wondered that he havn't met the klingon, cause he has been below me in bottom middle and soon figured he must be on top right, actually being a very close neighbor of me. I even didn't found the combat drone when he began talking about. But race connections told everything about.
That has been a big shock to me, cause I know the ferengi is always falling the fastest and always is giving great training and moral targets and I saw him conquering the right way, like the klingon or borg normally are suspected.
Around turn 25, when I just began conquering the federation, the ferengi empire already has fallen, so I felt like already having lost.
My economy has been shit and although I managed to colonize two dilithium systems and have been raiding two big klingon systems, it hasn't been enough to compensate. My destroyers had nearly no experience cause ai didn't gave me the necessary targets and so I didn't get mone. Anyway, I continued conquering the federation and hoped for some big faults of him.
I managed to conquer remaining federation systems in the next few turns and immediately had to sent my fleet back to their home, cause Omegaleader did show up. He jumped around in my systems with one and a half fleets of hc and a few scouts and more and more additional hc joined up.
I did build as many ships I could and as fast as possible and also did build one attack cruiser, but soon I've been in deep minus and had to scrap a ship ever few turns.
My attack cruiser has been too slow for catching his fleet while he jumped around, but I wanted to keep it in fleet cause it already has been an unsure and very risky fight. He bombed one of my dilithium colonies down and managed to join an additional fleet of tts. And I knew one of my second sytems has been in range of him so this would be his target.
A few turns later we got in fight:
I just hoped my mainly unexperienced destroyers would do the job and had no choise. I had to defend my systems!
I expected him to attack my fast attack so evaded with them in 2nd turn. But afterwards, I expected him to concentrate fire and ramming on my cruisers.
But using charge for my fast attck in that turn has been a bad idea cause he kept targeting them instead.
Now both our fleets have been decimated but last turn really has been like a bad joke:
My single attack cruiser survived and, of course, became legendary! ROFL
We both had to rebuild after that fight and I knew his economy has been better and additionall, from time to time his sabotage began passing my security. But what choise did I have with just having the attack cruiser and two new hc out of the box left.
I had to rebuid and concentrated on hc this time and only did build some few destroyers to raid the klingon again. This time they could get at least some few experience cause the klingon grew up in meanwhile, so I could get some good money on quo'nos and one big 2nd.
But, anyway, Omegaleader produced hc like a factory. I couldn't keep up, no chance. I have expected to loose by now, but then, with having rebuild a fleet of 25 cardassian hc he even upgraded them to hc2!
When that happened, I have been near giving up. Anyhow, I maximized my research, disregarding intel and fleet buildup, to get hc2 as soon as possible. With 3600 research I still would need above 10 turns, but I didn't want to waste my fleet on a suicide attack.
So I let him pass to my one 2nd system in his range and bomb it. My orbs have been weapons tech9, so he got some damage. I thought I could ram them off with some few fast attack, but didn't know that having equal hull isn't enough. All his hc survived that suicide attack and Omega told that has to do with the factory research.
I don't have any screens from that battle and there's nothing spectacular anyway.
The only luck I had is that he couldn't reach romulus and my remaining 2nd 2nd. Loosing two or three colonies and my first 2nd has been bad but gave me some time and he didn't improve his range by colonization or subjugation but just bombed my systems down.
When he bombed my last colony in his range my hc finally upgraded and I have been in luck that he didn't enlarge his fleet of 25hc2 in meanwhile. He didn't even have scouts or tt this time!
Now my legendary attack cruiser and my 19 hc2 and a fleet of fast attack cought him and changed the whole desperate situation again!
I just set everything to charge and used group targeting.
After cloaked turn, 9 of his hc have been vaporized and many others were heavily damaged! *hrhr*
I kept charging, just charging, vanishing him off.
Although he tried ramming me, I only lost one single hc. I have checked this and couldn't believe, but yeah, cardassian fleet is gone and mine survived without of noteworthy losses.
Omegaleader gave up afterwards and although he had better economy, I doubt that he did stay a chance with me still having whole fleet alive.
On the map, created with -Mudd afterwards, you can see my fleet again. There's only one single cardassian scout of omega flying around in his space.
The stats show again how close our fight was, we both fell down like 50% after first major battle and grew up equal till Omegaleader upgraded his hc.
In beginning, I believe the minor population difference as well as Omega's luck with having the ferengi next to his front door, with all systems in range, made the difference.
But whatever, I have to express my respect to Omegaleader, not only for his great performance but also for his incredible fast turns!
Thanks for the great game man! You came out of nowhere and showed how to play this game, I'm sure you're one of the best players around here. Thx again.
I have to say....congrats to Carcher who played a flawless game and good luck in your next game!!
