Stars!: Antiballistics
Game idea: Per and Altruist, hosted by Micha, Oct 2006 to January 2007A small graphical overview of the Stars! game: Antiballistics, by Altruist (altruist@9spam.arlos.net - remove 9spam.)
The maps are made with the help of the Stars! Notebook and Irfan View
- Players: 9
- Skill level: Intermediate and above
- Version: 2.6/2.7jrc3/4
- Autohost, Turns generated: 24 hours up to year 2430, then 48 hours. Weekends and holydays off.
- Universe size: Small, Packed, Distant Starting Positions
- Starting conditions: ACC BBS, no random events, no public score
- Victory conditions: Last Man/Last Team standing or consensus
- PRTs forbidden: None
- Restrictions:
- no cheats (except chaff and split-fleet dodge)
- no pregame alliances
- Special Rules:
- Research fields weapons and construction mustn't be cheap.
- Each player must have 100 leftover points in the race wizard.
- Starting Germanium mineral concentration on HW will be 50% or less.
- Everyone has to be set to enemy except one ally. The ally can be changed once every 10 years, i.e. 10 years must pass since last time you set someone to "Friendly". Tech exchange between enemies is not allowed.
- No capital missiles (jihads etc.), no battleships and no dreadnoughts are allowed during the game. Torpedos are ok.
- Additonal notes:
- Player relations: No agreements or treaties or cooperation of any form is allowed between teams. Players without an ally (solo-players) may negotiate a NAP with another team but the formal player relations must be kept at enemy and the player can't have more than 1 NAP at the same time.
- Expert Players: might not want to choose JOAT or CA to keep it a challenge
- announced as new game at autohost on 2nd October 2006: New Game: Antiballistics
- comments about the finished game at autohost on 5th January 2007: Antiballistics game ended
The players:
m1: Vikings (JOAT), played by Per.m2: Altruists (IT), played by Altruist.
m3: Traders Reich (HE), played by ccmaster.
m4: Xeelee (HE?), played by Matt/mlaub.
m5: Phoenyx (IS), played by Shadow Whist.
m6: Fluffy Monsters (WM), played by Evaron.
m7: Thomids (WM), played by Eric.
m8: Kudzu (HE), played by Charles.
m9: Arb (JOAT), played by wchart.
Year 2400-2419: Trouble from the beginning
Already in the first 10 years the Altruists clashed with the Arb. The clash with the Arbons ruled out an alliance with them (at least I assumed this). Thus, after having scanned the Xeelee HW and discovering that those liked a completly different hab, Altruists made a very early alliance offer to the Xeelee. The offer was really very early (around 2409/10) and the Xeelee were probably a bit surprised about it. Since they didn't know anything about the Altruists, they needed more time.On the bright side, already in 2402 (!!!) Altruists had scanned 3 good green planets.
Clashes with the Arbons intensified in the 10th: Altruists shot down some Arbon privs and pop-dropped 1 or 2 planets.
Next neighbour I met were the Vikings. The Vikings had also clashed rather early with their neighbour Fluffy Monsters. Pregame Per/Vikings and me (Altruists) had ruled out to ally but then we found ourselves as neighbours, in similar circumstances with early clashes and surrounded by neighbours we had started hostilities against or neighbours not willing/unsure about allying up. Thus, after some debate, we rethought our pregame agreement. But since we had initiated the game, we were a bit reluctant to ally up and feared it would look like a low undercover pregame-alliance. Unsure how to handle this and not with much game experience, we then decided to ask Micha about his opinion as the host and an experienced player. After he told us that he wouldn't see a problem Vikings and Altruists allying up, we did exactly that, sometime mid 10th, I think.
Looking back now it seems a bit weird but both of us had played only in beginner/intermediate games before, so we (well, me for sure) were a bit awed about what players we might meet in a "intermediate and above"-game. Especially after I looked up ccmaster (Traders Reich) and mlaub (Xeelee), I classified them both as veterans and each probably able to cream us even on their own without allies.
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Year 2419
Vikings, m1 (JOAT) Altruists, m2 (IT) Traders Reich,m3 (HE) Xeelee, m4 (HE?) Phoenyx, m5 (IS) Fluffy Monsters, m6 (WM) Thomids, m7 (WM) Kudzu, m8 (HE) Arb, m9 (JOAT)
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Year 2422-30: War with Arbons
After having allied it was obvious that we (Altruists and Vikings) had to clear our backyard but without being really able to support each other except with tech trade.The early successful Altruist attacks on Arbon privateers had certainly hurt them and basically stopped the Arbon expansion into the east. Nevertheless the Arbons were developing strongly and answering the Altruist threat by investing quite an amount into research and soon they came up with bazooka equipped DDs. Uups, that stopped any Altruist attacks. Arbons possessed now better tech than the Altruists and any further attacks would had been dangerous and too costly at this early stage. Thus I decided to stop further attacks, to lay low and to prepare a decisive strike.
Altruists jumped to bazookas in mid 20ies and started to build the OSLO FLEET: 49 baz DD and 46 minibombers. I tried my best to keep the production away from those damned penetrating JOAT-scouts of the Arbons but feared the worst because Arbons had begun to produce not only quite many baz-DDs but now also baz-FFs on all his planets. To make things worse, we had the suspicion that Arbon and Fluffies had allied up but were only starting to work together. The Altruists' ally Norsemen were JOAT, too, and since good reconnaissance was surely needed, Altruists started to transfer scouts to the Norsemen, making them to penetrating scanners this way to keep an eye on Arbon ships (Norsemen and Altruists shared m-files).
2422
- Vikings reconquere No Respect from Fluffies.
- At warp 10 a Xeelee mineral package with 2400kt is midway from Xeelee's HW to Kudzu colony Potassium (see mm on map).
- Phoenix are IS, confirmed by usage of IS-fuel transport. All PRTs puzzled out now except Xeelees which might be classic HP-HE. Kudzu and Traders both HG-HE, probably -f.
2424
- Altruists loose rank 1, probably to Traders or Kudzu
2425
- Traders build first bazooka-CCs and mini-bombers, probably to attack Thomids.
- At warp 10 a Xeelee mineral package with 2700kt is midway from Xeelee's HW to Phoenix colony Applegate (see mm on map).
2426
- Xeelee discover nearby Altruist colony Sheridan; hopefully Xeelees have run out of minerals and can't throw one more of those weird packages.
- Alliance between Traders and Phoenix confirmed by battle report.
Ships for OSLO FLEET were finished: 54 baz-DD, 48 m70-minibombers, 100k pop.
The "decisive strike" was meant vs the Arbon HW through a warp-10-attack from planet Love, thus I had built some more DDs than the initially planned 49 DDs to make good for the expected losses due to overwarp. Many Arbon planets were now covered by Viking (penetrating) scouts and the scans showed the disturbing fact that the Arbons had altogether more bazooka DDs and FFs than the Altruists but... scattered over all Arbon planets. Hopefully the Arbons had really not detected the production of OSLO FLEET. All ships got orders to gate to Love to get into striking range.
2427
- Altruists on rank 1 again.
- Xeelees throw mineral package vs Sheridan, at w10 with 2550kt midway. 147k pop evacuated at Sheridan (22k pop left on planet), freighters were built and gated in in anticipation of mass packet.
All DDs and mm70-bombers had arrived at Love and merged to OSLO FLEET and got orders for a warp-10-attack vs the Arbon homeworld Sagittarius.
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Year 2427
Vikings, m1 (JOAT) Altruists, m2 (IT) Traders Reich,m3 (HE) Phoenyx, m5 (IS) Xeelee, m4 (HE?) Fluffy Monsters, m6 (WM) Thomids, m7 (WM) Kudzu, m8 (HE) Arb, m9 (JOAT)
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2427-39: War against Traders Reich/Phoenyx
About 90% of the galaxy was scouted by that time (2429) and the most northern Altruist outpost at Allegro was colonized in 2427... and found itself in trouble right away. The neighbouring and very close Carver/Where/Pi cluster was already colonized by the Traders and Phoenix, Carver having already a population of almost 300k Traders. Well, I guess everybody saw the masses of Trader ships cruising thru space and fearing the worst if their expansion couldn't be stopped.But first the Traders almost stopped the Altruists. In 2428 Allegro had proudly produced a small dock which, in the very same year, got a visit from 2 Trader baz-cruisers. Not only that those cruisers shot down the Altruist escort yaki-FFs and the dock, the bigger shock was facing cruisers at all. Altruists had con 7. Lucky me I had brought a bit more than 100k pop to colonize Allegro and even luckier, the Traders' CCs weren't accompied by hordes of Trader pop to storm Allegro. Desperately Allegro set up a fort with yakis the following year in 2429, hopefully enough to shoot down the 2 Trader cruisers and fencing off the expected hordes of Trader pop. But the Trader had left the orbit of Allegro. Either the Traders hadn't enough of their mini-freighters at Carver or they made a big mistake underestimating the importance of Allegro because they didn't know that Altruists were IT.
Big circles showing the position of fleets, double arrows next movement, simple arrows past and future path of the fleet.
The Trader fleet bombing the Thomids HW is out of reach to engage the Altruist DUCK FLEET which will attack Bonus and Green House. The blue planet to the right of Green House is a former Thomid one but now owned by the Traders as is the planet below it.
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Year 2437
Vikings, m1 (JOAT) Altruists, m2 (IT) Traders Reich,m3 (HE) Phoenyx, m5 (IS) Xeelee, m4 (HE?) Fluffy Monsters, m6 (WM) Thomids, m7 (WM) Kudzu, m8 (HE) Arb, m9 (JOAT)
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2445: The End
In 2445 the Viking fleet defeated the Phoenix fleet at Applegate. It was the biggest batte of the game involving 231 warships.The remaining players of the Xeelee, Phoenix, Trader and Thomid gave up and voted Vikings (Per) and Altruists the winners of the game.
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Year 2445
Vikings, m1 (JOAT) Altruists, m2 (IT) Traders Reich,m3 (HE) Phoenyx, m5 (IS) Xeelee, m4 (HE?) Kudzu, m8 (HE) Fluffy Monsters, m6 (WM) Arb, m9 (JOAT) Thomids, m7 (WM)
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