The NESer Neptune's Pride Thread!

[Lord_Iggy]

That is true, there is a degree of luck in initial placement, but it is easily enough overcome by good play.

[Terrance888]

The Situation with Thlayli is extremely fluid. Needless to say, mere definitions of "War" and "Peace" are limited, but the Possibility of Profit is high.

Also-my windfall is coming in soon. Just need to see if certain desperados are worth trusting or not.

Good write up.

Anyway, coming out of a hard spot to contend with others in itself is really as rewarding as simply cruising from a great spot to victory. And coming from a hard spot to victory?

Priceless

Also.

[Terrance888]

Colonization of Tau Marfak-Rotation 0 Year 2

And so it begins. The Zozman Republic off handedly stated that they have no treasury available and they have already committed their fleet, emptied of its ships into the hyperdrive.

And you know what else goes into hyperdrive? OUR PROFIT MOTIVE!

Trade grows like a tumor. Scratch that, strangeweed... err... a virus? Nevermind um... Trade grows like our PROFITS? Yep, that works. Trade grows like our PROFITS-we have raked over 100 credits from selling our nearly obsolete Repeating Blasters across this cluster. Industry keeps up with the Zozmans and while our Economy remains low, profits from our Trading keeps our actual income with our dasdardly neighbors.

Diplomacy whispers in my ear from a hundred thousand diplomats. But something else whispers in my ear. Perhaps I am destined for more than merely the Chief Executive Manager of a colony. Perhaps I just need to drink less coffee.

We march to war. A defenseless system is building ship as fast as it can, but it will fall. The whispers tell me so. No treasury means no tactical manvering, no tactical manuvering means no reinforcements, no reinforcements means victory.

FOR PROFIT.

[Lord_Iggy]

Crezth and Thlayli, who were at the forefront of the game a scant three days ago, have both experienced dramatic falls from power. By comparison, Starlife has moved from the weakest player in the game to one of the middling empires. Daftpanzer continues to struggle with his difficult starting position, while Benefactor and Zoomm11 continue to quietly thrive in the galactic south, clocking in third and fourth in the star count respectively, with 23 and 22. Leading the way are Lord_Iggy and terrance888, with 27 and 25 stars at the time of this writing, primarily due to their ongoing dismemberment of Thlayli.

Crezth was undone by his underdeveloped economy and his aggression, which was conducted with only the baseline weapons technology. Suffering disproportionately heavy losses, at one point losing 40 ships to a garrison of 15, Crezth's fleet has been decimated. At this point, he has the worst economy, worst industry, worst fleet, worst science, in both research capacity and actual technologies, and third worst star count, ranking him in sixth position, just ahead of Daftpanzer and Thlayli.

Daftpanzer and Starlife have both engaged Crezth in combat, although it has been Daftpanzer, still weakened by the accidental rerouting of an early expansion fleet, who has managed to make the greatest gains. Crezth's home systems are now facing immediate danger from Daftpanzer's advance fleets.

Meanwhile, Starlife and Zoomm11 have gone to war, with early gains going almost entirely to Starlife. However, while they currently have equal star counts and comparable Economies and Industries, Starlife possesses a Speed and Weapons advantage, while Zoomm11 has a 50% larger fleet. If there is a time for Zoomm11 to try and make up the tech disparity and deal some immediate damage to Starlife, it is now.

Thlayli, already taking losses due to his war with Terrance888, has seen his empire take a dramatic turn for the worse due to Lord_Iggy's entry into the war. His home system, Zosman, has fallen, although weapons technology, most likely from Benefactor or Zoomm11, may allow him to retake Zosman and its critical five industry. However, its economy has been destroyed, a brutal blow to an already beleaguered player.

Overall, Terrance888 and Lord_Iggy find themselves in a powerful position, providing that they can manage to keep their anti-Thlayli alliance together in a post-Thlayli galaxy. Unless he can roll some metaphorical critical successes on his diplomacy rolls to break up the alliance that is presently steamrolling him, Thlayli is effectively defeated, although he still possesses the guile and military capability to influence the ultimate distribution of his systems between his enemies. Starlife has strong potential, though much depends on the competence of Zoomm11, who also possesses an excellent position with several possible allies, the strongest of which is Benefactor. Daftpanzer is making gains right now, though how tenable these are with the lurking presence of Benefactor, who has yet to make any military moves of note, remains to be seen. Crezth is in a rapidly disintegrating situation, but not one which is irrecoverable- by allying with Zoomm11 or Benefactor, or by parleying with one of the other remaining non-hostile powers, he may yet be able to stabilize and go on to play a significant role in the late game.

Stats

[Dachs]

Thanks for the update. That's very handy. I appreciate your effort at neutral reportage especially.

[Lord_Iggy]

It's tough, because I don't want to give my enemies too much of an idea of what I think they should do, and I need to keep a fuzzy line between what I know and wht I'm speculating about.

[qoou]

[14:33] <@Iggy> Anyway, why don't you post in the thread qoou, and say that we'll be starting a new game at some time tomorrow.
[14:33] <@Iggy> Mid-afternoon is the best time, because it is late night for brits (IE spending just before sleep) and mid-day for north americans
[14:34] <+Luckymoose> currently doing the dining hall
[14:34] <+noob> Kk.
[14:34] <+Luckymoose> such a painful process

Conclusion: Lucky Moose is a hall-sexual or some such perverted .


So do people want to start another game tomorrow around 3 EST? Would you rather wait until this one is completely finished?

[Lord_Iggy]

Man, Zosma the Meat-Grinder. 69 ships in the fleet 'pHerkaRd_SeLF' invaded Zosma, garrisoned by 37 ships in two fleets, 'Negotiation Team' and Innocent Civilians'.

Thlayli used GUILT. It's moderately effective.

Guilt would have been more effective if you hadn't been commenting about Terrance's mom shortly before, but...

Anyway, 37 ships and 2 carriers dead for Thlayli, and 50 ships dead for me.

Next, one of Thlayli's reinforcement fleets, 'Hospital Ships', arrives a little too late. I one shot it with no casualties.

Thlayli is now down 42 ships and 3 carriers, while I am still down 50 ships.

A ship spawned from Zosma's industries just after I conquered it, giving me 20 ships. Thlayli's fleet of 28, 'Unarmed Observers' would survive with 3 remaining ships if it faced a defending fleet of 20, but with 5 industry the system generates 10 ships per day, so one ship every 2.4 hours. As Thlayli's fleet was roughly three and a half hours out, I was confident that I would have 21 fleets remaining, presuming that I left my carrier in place.

So the battle came, and Unarmed Observers got crushed. Zosman is mine, held by just a single fleet.

Final Tally of Losses:

Thlayli's Losses: 70 ships and 4 carriers
Iggy's Losses: 68 ships and 0 carriers

A carrier costs $25 to produce, but can be produced instantaneously. 70 ships are what is produced in a single five industry system in a week. At our current industry levels, I will rebuild the number of ships lost in 21 hours, while Thlayli would take over three days- these numbers do not take into account the fact systems are still changing hands, and quite quickly at that.

[Terrance888]

Before Iggy's intervention, it was back and forth fun, with me getting slightly better due to pillaging 60 credits and thus able to afford maneuvering fleets and me having 1-uped Thlayli in tech in every single category.

In the same vein as Iggy's meatgrinder battle, Thlayli's Observers of 50 ships were coming towards my offensive stack of 45. Bored, I sent 2 subsidiary fleets out-one to chase his ships heading to defend his capital and the other to go mess with Crezth. I ended up with less than 10 ships surviving but I broke half his fleet right there. Because my main fleet is wounded, I mostly nibbled at the edges of his empire as reinforcements came.

Also, yeah, I didn't want to say too much because there is a lot of interesting double think, shadow alliances and all sorts of stuff going around. But PROFIT is a distinct motive. . And early Research really paid off by now, with over 200+ credits pouring into my treasury throughout the game.

[Wonderslime]

Love the game postings, even if I'm watching from the outside. Fight the good fight and keep providing updates! (But never make the game personal -- emotions always seem to run higher than they should...)

So do people want to start another game tomorrow around 3 EST? Would you rather wait until this one is completely finished?

I'd definitely be up for starting one, since I just missed out on the last.

[Lord_Iggy]

You can look at the ship counts graph to see when and between whom the big battles happen. Terrance has been trading fleets more cost effectively than me because he got to do his biggest fight (I believe) on the defensive. Also, Thlayli managed to acquire weapons from an as-of-yet unconfirmed source (I have my strongly-grounded suspicions) shortly before his battle with me, allowing him to hit with 4 damage plus one defender bonus for the first big engagement of the Battle of Zosma.

[Dachs]

I'm jonesing for a labeled map with all of these named systems coming up in the dispatches from the front.

[Lord_Iggy]

I colour-code my writeups for that reason (adding text on this computer is a huge hassle), and Zosma is the 'westernmost' star of the Yellow Empire.

[Dachs]

Why are several of the stars in and around your territory twinkling? Does it indicate anything in particular?

[Lord_Iggy]

Larger twinkles mean larger ship concentrations. Although that is another one of those points that I'd rather not share, as it only shows fleet concentrations in my range of view.

[qoou]

Ok. New Neptune's Pride will start at 3 PM EST July 17th 2012 or so.

Edit: To clarify: don't join until around 3 PM or so.

Edit2: To clarify even more: We all have to join an empty game at the same time, lest we risk playing with non-NESers.

Edit3: To clarify even further: Edit1 refers to tomorrow's 3 EST.

Edit4: I'm retarded.

[Crezth]

btw thlayli and I were never allied you FOOLS

I'll join this new game and avenge my colossal failure.

[qoou]

Originally Posted by Crezth

btw thlayli and I were never allied you FOOLS

I'll join this new game and avenge my colossal failure.

Go eat some neurons. Into your brain. D:

[Lord_Iggy]

You might want to remove that link so that people don't join it by accident and then get stuck- you can only take part in two games at once, and if you get wiped out in a game, it still counts as one of your active games until someone emerges victorious from it.

We should start this game tomorrow, so that everyone has a chance to learn about it and decide if they'd like to join in.

Once again, that's Noon Pacific Time, 3 PM Eastern Time, 8 PM Greenwich Time, 9 PM Central European, and 10 PM if you're Northen_wolf. Or a Finn. But our Finns have all gone into hiding.

[Starlife]

Count me out. One NP is one NP too much. Nah, only half joking. It's been fun. But the dark depths of my psyche that I am forced to explore while playing this game are not fun.