What Style of MP Game? This sort!

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Dafedz
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What Style of MP Game? This sort!

Post by Dafedz »

Thunder asked the question in here recently: what style of game do you prefer in MP?
thunderchero wrote: 1. cut throat
Do any thing you can to eliminate the other human player

2. Friendly game
both player work together to wipe out map of 3 remaining races with final combat with remaining ships

3. Capture the flag
human races selected, then a target race is selected. objective is to be first human to occupy target race home world.
I can offer a 4th kind to this List.
4. The Long Epic

For your interest, entertainment, delectation - and for posterity - I present the "Gaming Zone Epic Deathmatch", between myself and RM_Dillinger; a true epic MP struggle as serialized on AFC back in the day (which has since been lost). I used the wayback machine internet archive to retrieve this ancient post, dated Mon, June 14th, 2004. I even dredged up the original screenshots that accompanied the post in the old 'After Action Report' sub-forum, used to describe the many great battles we used to have in MP. In the second post, I will copy/paste RM-Dillinger's reply and rebuttal, also taken from wayback machine.

(screenshot of original post)
Image

So here it is. The original post, describing and detailing the Long Epic style of multiplayer game that I personally prefer.... Enjoy. And all feedback welcome and encouraged.

(Unfortunately, owing to crashes this game was never finished, and the final battle remains unfought. I may even have the old, very old, .SAV file lying around somewhere...)

**********************************
:::Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 9:41 am Post subject: Zone Deathmatch Epic - Me Versus RM_Dillinger:::

Zone Deathmatch Epic 1v1

capt_picard_5 (me) versus RM_Dillinger
-Large, Irregular
-Impossible
-Many Minors
-Planspac

This was truly an epic game, a real game that spanned several days. It wasn't your common smash and grab affair where you try to get as many Destroyers over your buddy's home system by turn 50. No this was a proper game that went all the way.... and I took screengrabs of the action. Check them out.

We decided on a tech 2 game. Dillinger played the Ferengi, I the Federation (as is most common).

Surrounding Space.
Things started slowly. There were a few interesting systems to colonize in the immediate area, but no minors. In fact, from the default long range boundaries of the home system I found no minors at all. It wasn't until I took the Archer system, built an outpost, and explored further south, that I found my first minor: Angosia. As had been established from the first turn, Dillinger was on the western side, I on the eastern - this information we both imparted, so we knew we had quite a while to grow and develop before we met. As it was, Dillinger had all three AI majors to deal with in the early game. I never even met the Cardies or the Roms in this game. Soon after seeing the 'This will be a day long remembered, the Romulan Empire has fallen' pop up message appear, the same occured for the Cardies. They were Ferg fodder it seemed, and Dillinger was growing exponentially, and expanding in both territory and economy. I stepped up my game.

Moving further south I soon came into contact with a few more minors in a nice little grouping. In the first cluster I found the always angry Talarians (which, bless them, had a number of warships already), the Chalnoth (they would have to wait until I turned my attention to them), and the spineless Mizarians (who I turned down for membership immediately). Looking a little further west I came across some strategically important systems, both territorially and in resources. Pyris, Farius, and Turkana. Turkana, as it turned out was the key system, which I was very glad to take. Not only was it large, (large M-Class, pop 485, with energy and food bonuses, but it had Dilithium!, the first such uninhabited system I'd found).

Meanwhile, a Science Vessel had made contact with the Mintakans, and soon after the nearby Klingons. They were immediately hostile, but soon became a little more responsive after establishing the obligatory 25 turn non-aggression treaty. I gave into one (very small) demand until they offered a friendship treaty proposal. I accepted, for I already had a few systems capable of sustaining trade routes, such as Oniaka, Angosia ( my first member), and Otar. On first inspection they had some impressive systems, and at once my gaze focused on the massive 600+ Trill. That would be an ideal acquisition, I thought. Unfortunately, whilst concentrating further south, I neglected to spend as much time moving east, and stealing the Mintakans from under their nose. This system was big, 550+, but they hadn't fully popped at this stage, so I held out. But the Klings moved in and recruited them (yes, they didn't even bother invading...) One sector away was Takara, another useful research race, and a nice sized system (420), and well placed. So I quickly recruited them, installed a subspace scanner, and they soon became my most important westerly outpost, for the rest of the game.

It wasn't long before the Klingons, obviously intimidated by a growing fleet presence at Takara, offered an Alliance proposal. Playing as the Federation I was all over it of course, and accepted at once. If the Ferengi were as large and powerful as I was beginning to suspect, (having devoured the Cardassians and Romulans with ease it seemed), the Klingons would be a useful ally (even if they were AI)

Middle Game.
Image

The image shows a screengrab of my view of proceedings on turn 179. I'd reached starbase technology about 30 turns earlier, so making use of this I immediately fortified my systems on the Klingon frontier.

The image shows things as they were soon after establishing the new colony of Gamelan. I had about 80 ships positioned at Gamelan, and Bolarus below it, just waiting to detect the first Ferengi intruders. You'll also notice at the bottom, Vulcan, another important aquisition, and a couple of other minors, such as the (potentially critical) Ktarians, Edo, and industrially huge Bynars, with a 500+ population. By now I dominated almost half the galaxy.

Most of my systems were in place now, and my terriotroial boundaries established. I still only had 5 Dilithium sources though. My key ship-producing shipyards were located on Sol, Takara, Mizar, Bynaus, and Vulcan, all operating in the 3,000 to 5,000 industry bracket. I was producing many Destroyer II's on three of them, waiting till I had about 20+, then scrapping them, to fund immediate purchases of Heavy Cruisers, and Heavy Destroyer II groups...

First Contact
In the 190s contact with Dillinger occurred. If I recall correctly a Ferengi Explorer wandered into my territory to have a sniff around. We both agreed to suspend hostilities for the time being, and concentrate on benefiting from each others vast economies. We established a Friendship treaty (and this permitted us to each have a look at 'what the other had'). I at once singled out the Zakdorn as a key Ferengi system, and cursed my luck for not getting them myself. He also had 8 dilithium to my dismay (having just taken the Trill from the Klingons - another boost for the Nagus..)

Image

Soon Ferengi ships were cutting through the Klingon empire like a scythe through corn. Selay, Rigel, Trill, and Qo'noS soon followed. But The Klings still had some 40 or 50 active Battle Cruisers floating about, a formidable battle group, but controlled by the AI they were no match for what was literally a glut of Raiders and Light Raiders, all at Vet level it seemed, supported by a smattering of Strike Cruisers and Marauders.

Turn 235

Image

Here you can now see the last death throes of the Klingon Empire. Only Pythro remained. I viewed things now with growing desperation. For the last thirty turns I had been sending them huge and unreasonable demands, hoping they'd terminate the Alliance. For the Federation to terminate an Alliance and declare war all in one go would've been very damaging. Now I regretted that I hadn't. I should have muscled my way in there and taken Mintaka and Qo'noS at least, preferably all systems extending as far west as Trill.

Now it was too late. The Ferengi now had this beige patch of sectors and systems protruding right into my territory, and they had some big, powerful systems too. Trill was 610 just by itself, Borka was 450, and had Dilithium too (as did Trill and Qo'noS of course).

What with the Klingons losing those systems that granted range to my deep space Science Vessels, one was trapped behind Ferengi lines at Straleb. Its days were numbered (it had originally been deployed to spy on the build up of the Ferengi fleet, particularly in what Dillinger was doing at Zakdorn...)

In the end I had no choice. I declared war against the Klingons and went for Pythro. If I could be the one who finished off the Klingons it would serve to boost my morale. The image below is Turn 257, the Klingons have gone, and you can also see that that my treaty with Dillinger had expired.

Image

By now an Intel game was coming into effect. behind me I had the Ktarians, Bolians, and Ullians, he had the Yridians and Betazoids, and the combined resources of his assimilated races. I was on top initially, punching out a good 6,000 to 7,000 Intel points. Espionage reports arrived by the turn (including at one point a very useful one - the precise figure of the Ferengi fleet). Sabotage came into being as well, I think I recall stealing two Raiders from him, and destroying one or two other ships.

The Malcorian Problem
One of those niggly little bugs cropped up to haunt us. The Malcorians were originally a Cardassian system, but seeing as the Cards were taken out of the game they were kind of left in diplomatic limbo. I hadn't met the Cardies or established any treaties with them, so when I landed in the Malcor system they appeared in the Diplomatic list of known races without any problem. I started sending them money, I wanted them on my side, for territory, and for thier propulsion research as I moved towards Defiant tech. But strangely, every time I sent a Frienship proposal, the message came back the next turn saying 'The Federation withdrew a friendship proposal...' Dillinger had a similar problem, but the Malcs didn't even appear in his list, so there was no means to declare war and take them that way. So there they had so stay, unconquerable and unrecruitable until the end (I at least could declare war on them, but there was no point for now, I had other concerns).

Now, a fortuitous event occured. Monitoring the Ferengi build up, I counted somewhere in the region of 150 ships, and Dillinger seemed to be deploying them more and more east. An invasion was imminent. I pulled all that I had to meet them head on. I brought my fleet up from Bolarus and Gamelan, and west from the shipyards at Mizar and Bynaus.

The First Strike
But he struck before I could position everything. He went for my starbase at Takara. It was Ferg fodder, judging by the force it faced - 90 Raider IIs, mostly at Vet level. The battle was quickly over. Then my fleet arrived, and instantly I took 12 Marauders out of the game, but I was focusing on those Raiders as the chief threat. He had them on intercept, and in sector N6 we met head on. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depends how you look at it,) my system crashed, and I was thrown back to the Zone lobby.

Image

It was a 300 ship battle, so I wasn't surprised. Dillinger played the rest of the turn before realising I was gone. In my absence the battle had not gone well (for me), I lost half my fleet before the AI retreated with what was left. I wasn't going to accept that result! It seemed fair (and Dillinger was kindly quite considerate in this matter), we decided to continue from the last Save.

This though took us back some ten turns, so we had to play them all again. But I approached them differently this time. Looking at my research capabilities, I was almost 9's across the board. Soon I'd reach Defiant technology. :grin: There was only one thing for it.... I was not going to win a military contest against his ships, even though my Commands outnumbered his by some way: all mine were Green, his were Vet and Elite (I had just not had time to train taskforces at Sol. When they were built they were all sent to the frontiers on immediate duty, this was a mistake).

At once I halted all ship production and threw everything on research. For instance at Vulcan, 5,000 industry units were reassigned and put to work in the 20+ type 8 Science Labs... Everywhere research was the priority. Immediately I had exceeded 10,000 GRPs, and the research sliders were concentrating wholly on attaining Energy 10, Propulsion 10, Weapons 10: ther requisite tecnology levels for Defiants, and the one remaining thing that could swing this game.

I pulled all my ships from the frontlines. I took half of my fleet to the shipyards at Archer, and the other half to Turkana. I withdrew and left my borders open, I couldn't adequately defend them anymore anyway.

The Scrap
As soon as I reached Dreadnought II and Heavy Cruiser II tech I scapped everything. Yes I scrapped my ENTIRE FLEET. This was the breakdown of all ship types scrapped:

20 Destroyer II's
38 Heavy Destroyer II's
40 Light Cruiser II's
9 Command Cruiser II's
12 Heavy Cruisers II's
6 Dreadnoughts II's
12 Troop Tranport II's
10 Alien (Talarian, Ktarian, Vulcan)

In total 147 ships were thrown on the scrap heap. What did this do for me? I suddenly owned a goldmine. The scrap generated a total of over 900,000 credits, pushing my bank balance up to 1.1 MILLION.

Of course for a while this meant I had no ships, no military at all (except for 1 Science Vessel, and 1 Colony Ship - which Dillinger had the audacity to sabotage and destroy with his growing Intel strength!) But if only he knew my weakness... If he had chosen to strike now, I would be helpless.

Defiant!
Then it happened. Turn 262 - Defiant tech. I had over a million credits to play with, but unfortunately I still only had 5 Dilithium sources, meaning I could only build in five systems at a time. I ordered 12 Defiants in Sol, Talar, Bynaus, Vulcan and Ullia. By turn 274, just those 12 turns later, I had 60 Defiants. A formidable fleet.

I still had money in the bank, and was still pulling in some 3,000 per turn. I continued to buy Defiants at reduced cost when half completed in the queues, (remember they are 18,270 each) and in places like Mizar and Vulcan I could build a Defiant automatically in 3-4 turns. Immediately every Defiant built was dispatched to Sol for training. This was the crucial factor. They were not going to be any good to me at Green level.

Fergs Fergs Everywhere
About this time Dillinger did finally declare war. My frontier world of Takara suddenly detected an enormous fleet heading for it. 203 ships in total. The breakdown was:

122 Raider II's (mostly at Vet level)
54 Marauder II's (mostly at Vet level)
9 War Cruiser II's (mostly at Vet level)
18 Strike II's (mostly at Vet)

But the Federation, to Dillinger's eyes, had not been entirely idle during this quiet period. I had built up a significant defence at Takara, totalling 51 powered Orbital Batteries. But even against this monster fleet that would not be enough. I was hoping though to knock out a few of those Marauders, even though I was resigned to losing Takara.

Image

No such luck. I had thought Dillinger would attack with only a portion of those vessels (and there were Troop ships on the way too), but no, he attacked with all of them. Talk about overkill. Takara's 420 population was reduced to 19, and not one attacking ship was lost...

Soon Babel and other nearby Starbases and Outposts were falling (let him take them I thought). I had a vast Defiant fleet growing by the turn, and I already had one whole taskforce of Veterans. He was going to receive a shock.

Image

But Dillinger was encroaching deeper and deeper into my territory, and I couldn't build forever, and as it was, my bank balance was down to 5,000. It was now or never. It was turn 307, and I now had 90 Defiants at Sol, frantically training. About half were at Vet level, the rest at high Regular level (about 1,000 points). It was time to meet the Ferengi head on, and say hello....

Image

Counter Strike
Dillinger positioned 122 of those Raiders in sector S5 (in striking distance of four Federation systems - Raiders have a galactic speed of 3), while a nearby Outpost was being built to extend their range. From Sol, out of range of his sensors (but not for much longer), I moved them in, striking at those Raiders from afar - I could get there in one turn, taking him by surprise. He knew my fleet would arrive imminently, we had kind of agreed to have a big battle, but he had no idea I had Defiants, and he'd have no warning of their approach (Defiants of course have a galactic speed of 4). He was no doubt expecting a desperate, final throw of the dice, with the last flagging remnants of my Light Cruiser and Heavy Destroyer groups, with maybe a few Green rated Dreadnoughts. More Ferg fodder. But no. A tremendous battle was about to ensue.

Battle occurring in Sector S5
122 Raider II's
90 Defiants

Image

In the first exchange a few comments were passed back and forth via in-game chat, such as '&*@$ wow!!!' and 'lmao at Defiants' and 'I thought you didn't have any Defiants..!' etc. This is what, to me, makes this game great. Fine, you guys who like to play command and conquer at tech 3 or tech 5 inside 50 turns, have a ball. But this is the real galactic strategy game at its finest: two huge, mature, expanded empires going at each other with the best technology in the game - the finest versus the finest.

Image

Immediately Dillinger set his Raider groups to Evade, I charged in phasers firing. Not a great deal of damage was done initially, a few yellow Ferengi explosions but nothing too damaging to him. Over the next couple of combat turns he continued to Evade, while I mixed Charge, Evade and Harry maneouvres trying to get in behind him, and it was working (though I was keen to keep my distance, I didn't want to lose any ships to any cheap ramming tactics). On the penultimate turn I was postioned at medium range, whilst the Raiders were all over the place, facing multiple directions as they desperately attempted to Evade the worst of my assault. I charged in and finally did some serious damage, he was now probably 30 ships down.

Image

Another Crash
Then, inexplicably he retreated, losing another15 ships or so. I realised that Dillinger had been booted, and the cowardly AI taking over for him had retreated his ships. The final result was 45 losses to him, 13 to me. We met back at the Zone lobby and tried again (resuming from our initial save before the battle, so we were starting from scratch). Crash. We tried again. Crash. We tried again. After the fifth or sixth time we had to give up, the system just could handle this scale of battle. It may have been to do with my rather slow Athlon 900 system (512 MB memory, GeForce II MX).

For now the game is unfinished, with things roughly even, with me in ascendency I think (more Defiants are coming, chaperoned by a Dreadnought II group).

I've backed up the Save and we shall try again when I upgrade my machine (hopefully some time this summer). But for now people, be inspired by how far an MP could, and realistically should, go. All the way. Dispense with the quick games and have an epic every now and again, and KEEP to the continuation, rather than start new games all the time. Enjoy it.
Last edited by Dafedz on Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What Style of MP Game? This sort!

Post by Dafedz »

**
RM_Dillinger's Reply, Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004:

I must concur, fantastic game. Heres my side...

Things started a little slow... minors seemed to be a little sparseand colonisable planets were non existant so I built an outpost to explore north where i had already encountered a Romulan scout. As it turned out Romulus was 6 clicks from Ferg land. I also found Zakdorn! Now anyone who plays Fergs will know the importance of Zakdorn. Not having a home world training facility is the 1 weakness of the fergs. Obviously the Romulans also had designs on zakdorn as they were only 3 clicks from Romulus. luckily for me they decided to declare war and not try to member them. I quickly built a few war cruisers and sat them over zakdorn while I waited to built an outpost there. In the mean time I worked on affiliating them with all the spare cash I scrapping most of my fleet to fund it. Luck was with me and they grew early and they grew fully. by turn 40 I had them membered. as it turned out my gamble with the fleet had paid off and i weathered the initial attacks from the cloaked destroyers without too many losses. Again I spent every penny on getting the Training facility up and running and with 30 type 5 industry structures i was able to build light cruisers in 1 turn. I built a raiding fleet and sent them to Romulus with a backup of a few war cruisers and slowly but surely depleated the Romulan Fleet.

The Romulan Campaign

I turned all my resources to research while slowly building an army of tts. other minors started to pop and by the time I reached tt2 tech I had Yridia and Deneb and had met a couple of other minors of no major significance. Then I came across Bajor. Luckily for me Bajor was situated far from any other majors as far as I could tell and Bajor had potential. 650 max pop so I waited for them to grow. I started my offensive on the Romulan systems. Unfortunately I tried to take Romulus too early. even thought I had reached tt2 tech the turn before I was repelled and lost 10 tt2s and 5 light raiders! I think it takes a couple of turns for the game to realise they are tt2s and not tt1s. I frantically built another 6 tt2s which proved plenty to take Romulus (go figure). It was at this time I met the first Cardassian scout.

I signed a non agression with Cardies because ideally I wanted to deal with them 1 by 1. within 10 turns Romulans were Ferengi and the Tal Shiar was no more. Bajor grew at this time but to my dismay they grew only to 350. I was in a comfortable position, unable to use all the dilithium I had due to lack of industry planets and I was making about 2000 credits per turn so I decided I would wait for Bajor. Cardassia was becoming a pain as the Intel hits started coming every turn so I used the newly membered Acamar as a staging ground for my Cardassian offensive.

The Fall of Cardassia

From Acamar I could reach Cardassia with My tt2s so I decided to break the back of the Cardassian Intel first and headed for the Homeworld. Surprisingly I met little resistance and concluded they must have had a battle with the Klingons which, I had ascertained, were not far to the right of the cards. I settled over Cardassia after destroying the usual outpost and set my fleet to attack. Just at that moment the cardassian fleet decided to make an appearance and landed on Cardassia on the same turn I was to take it. The battle was hard. I was outnubered by cruisers to light cruisers and war cruisers and to make matters harder i had to try and protect the tt2s that were in the process of attacking the planet. 2 tt2s died in the initial melee which made my ground force borderline wether they could take Cardassia. I used my war cruisers to draw the fire while my light raiders dived aroud the back of the cruisers.i lost all my war cruisers taking cruisers 1 for 1. I thought i was doomed. I had ess lights than Cardie had cruisers but my initial play proved vital. from behind the cruisers I got 2 free shots without cardie being able to fire a shot as they had to try and turn round. after this they had only 2 cruisers left which would have been no match for my lr2s even if they hadnt tried to run. A glorious victory but 'nothing left to salvage'. My luck held, Cardassia fell and the Intel hits stopped Imediately. From here it was a relatively quick and simple task to subjugate the rest of Cardassians on scattered colonies in the area and they couldnt put up any sort of resistance. Unfortunately before I could take Malcor from the cards they declared independance and because I had met them due to a peace treaty they were not in my list and therefore in Diplomatic limbo. Shame because they grew to 550 in size and malcorians tend to be quite advanced.

An unsettling calm

After the frenzy of the last 30 turns the ensuing calm seemed to make the game take forever as I battled against an empire with 50% of systems being subjugated majors. Minors where popping and my spere of influence growing. and still I waited for Bajor. having reached raider tech I started churning them out on Zakdorn and Imediately setting them on training. I already had 9 war cruisers and about 18 strikes training there, and was scrapping enough ships to take care of all the upgrades on all the systems I needed to. A lone klingon scout wandered into my space near Cardassia followed by a swift declaration of war. I sent all ships other than my raiders to the klingon front where i came across Trill, an impressive 550 system, unfortunately under klingon control. And still I waited for Bajor.

A good day to die

I had made an error. I should not have gone to the front near Trill. The klingon fleet showed itself near Cardassia where the scout had first been spotted. I was too far away and had left myself open to a flanking attack. I sent my fleet of war cruisers and strikes up to cardassia but they were too late Cardassia had fallen (again). several turns of cat and mouse followed while the klingon fleet tried to avoid me (or catch me im not sure which) during this time I had managed to bring up about a dozen tt2s from acamar (tt2s i had been scrapping until the klingon invasion) i tempted the klingon fleet by moving my tt2s to cardassia on their own knowing they would go for them. It worked they headed for cardassia to be met not by a dozen helpless tt2s but my far from helpless fleet of wc and strikes. I dispatched them with ease as my ships were now on elite status, and cardassia was mine again soon after. and still I waited for bajor. Trill had to be my next target. it seemed to be the centre of klingon production (even tho subjugated). I concentrated on liberating them. BAJOR GREW. After declining about 10 membership proposals from the Bajorans my patience paid off. I membered them with type 8s and a total industry of 5500, with enough population left over for nearly 1000 research. I built the forum and the obligatory holo cinema and then set to work building a raider every turn. After liberating Trill (surprisingly easy) they soon offered me a membership treaty which I of course accepted. JACKPOT. type 9s and lots of them. I built a couple of extra industry structures to eradicate waste and I was suddenly able to build a Marauder every 2 turns. 7700 industry. Fantastic. Now my fleet started to grow at a serious pace. I was buying a raider every turn on zakdorn, building a raider every turn on Bajor and a Marauder every 2 turns on Trill. Luckily I was making 6000 per turn otherwise I would not have been able to support them! as my per turn income started to reduce I turned Bajor to research and built a lr2 every turn for scrapping I held off Raider2 tech and worked on M2 tech while I completed my fleet of raiders. During this time I had Taken most of Klingon space including Qo'nos and mintaka, both strategically positioned for the game to come.

All Good Things...

With only pythro left of the Klingon Empire I turned my attention to bolstering my intel and reaching m2 tech. I had built intel centres on all my captured systems (a strategy I use because industry is almost useless) and after a few minor hits and a couple of lost ships to the mighty Federation I started hitting back with close to 12,000 intel. Overkill I know but i had seen ktaria, bolarus and betazed and thought the Federation Intel would be massive. at the same time I was also pulling over 10,000 GRPs working on level 10s for M2 tech. the timing was coming together. I moved my veteran raiders to Qo'nos and sat them on intercept, 108 of them. I took out a few rogue fleets the federation were foolish enough to send too close and then it all happened at once. I acheived R2 tech and M2 tech within 6 turns of each other. The time had come. I had seen a couple of heavy escorts moving arround and knew I had to start my Federation campaign in earnest before they built too many Defiants for me to handle. Little did I know I had missed my Ideal window of oportunity. The starbase at Takara fell without loss to me entier fleet. and a swift raid of takara yeilded almost 5000 credits of Federation cash. There was 1 obstacle on Takara. 50 orbs. That is a mighty defence. I had no interest in subjugating the Takarans at this stage and decided it didnt matter if I wiped them out so I hit them with my 50 M2s and 18 tt2s. Overkill if ever I saw it but I was determined not to lose a ship to the orb masses. Takara fell, big time. I killed all but 19 pop without the loss of a single ship. I sent my M2s on to the next planet while my r2s stayed to patrol the border for incursions. Again, this could have been a mistake. I should have kept my fleet together, but I had no clue as to the frenzied activity that had been going on behind federation lines. Suddenly my 108 r2s were attacked by no less then 90 Defiants. After I had picked myself up off the floor, I set my entire fleet to evade. I was out gunned. My r2s stood no chance. My tactic now was to take as many with me as I could to give my M2s a better chance. It was looking very tit for tat for the first 2 turns, with me taking slightly higher losses but still on course to take the majority of the fleet with me. Battle crash. The air turned blue. My wife covered her ears. we tried again. Battle crash. we tried a few times more changing host, waiting a turn, every trick in the book, the game wasnt having it. Hopefully we will be able to conclude this epic battle, which i believe I will lose, followed by the rest of the war, which I beleive I will win. My Intel and my production rate (5 r2s and an M2 every 3 turns) will ensure that I continue to have the firepower and the Intel to handle even the mighty Defiant. And when I can support a fleet of 200 ships and still produce at that rate the loss of my r2s will only make me able to increase my production.

However, win or lose, This has been one of the best games I have played.

And on to the next dimention...
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Re: What Style of MP Game? This sort!

Post by thunderchero »

I remember reading that one back in the day.........

sounds like a memorial epic game.

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Re: What Style of MP Game? This sort!

Post by Martok »

Wow. Epic indeed! :shock:

Thanks for sharing Dafedz. That was a fun read!
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Re: What Style of MP Game? This sort!

Post by Flocke »

Awesome epic match!
I am sure the defiants would have rouled the galaxy after taking out all the raiders II
But the slow federation tts would have given the ferengi some opportunity to rebuild and continue to have some great battles till they fell :twisted:

I agree I loved to play epic style mp games the most as well, even with most of them ending unfinished.
It's definitely worth a seperate category from cut throat.
In the epic, a great part of mp startegy is the buildup process and to leave your enemy in doubt about it and later have some nice surprises in your backhand.
The usual cut throat on the other hand is a death match t5 small map and it's a complete different gameplay.

great report, enjoyed it alot too! :)
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Re: What Style of MP Game? This sort!

Post by Dafedz »

Thanks guys! Glad you enjoyed the write-up. There are certain stipulations that both parties (if it's 1v1) should agree on beforehand in order to get the best out of the epic-style of game.

1. First and foremost, ensure your empires are on opposing sides of the map.

To allow for maximum build-up time, it's definitely better if you are as far away from each other as possible. In above game, Dillinger and I had to start/abort/re-start several times until we could report to each other via chat that our home systems were on opposite sides of the map.

2. Establish and agree on a period of amnesty after first contact.
When first contact occurs, whenever that is, agree on a 50-turn Friendship treaty. This way each can benefit from a boost to the economy.

3. If desired, establish a 'no-war' rule (for a set time).
This may or may not exceed the friendship-agreement for a set number of turns. For example 'no war til Turn 250 at least' . This allows both parties to get their affairs in order, and prepare for the inevitable end-game clash. (Ofc, 'peace' does not preclude a war of espionage and sabotage. There are no restrictions on this).

4. Role-Play for added fun.
In diplomatic contact, speak to your opponent as a spokesman of your empire would speak, and act as it would act. As the Federation I would very rarely be the one declaring war. "We do not start wars. But we end them." :)
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Re: What Style of MP Game? This sort!

Post by ruthlessferengi »

Legacy lives on... This is exactly the kind of games gentle and I been playing past several years... on a large medium map in udm... now with 18 ship task forces, the only down side is internet slow down across the Atlantic, at times can't seem to finish our massive battles!
Relevance is a post hoc phenomenon

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Re: What Style of MP Game? This sort!

Post by trevtones »

Wow these are so much fun to read, makes me want to play an epic game!
Don't let your reach exceed your grasp! :mad:
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