From: jwoolsey@gfx.engga.uwo.ca (John J. Woolsey)
Subject: Re: Stale socks.
Organization: University of Western Ontario, London
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 23:12:00 GMT

In article <Aug.12.19.01.12.1992.9246@pilot.njin.net> macko@pilot.njin.net (Peter C. Macko) writes:
>
> rlewis@isi.edu (Roger Lewis) writes:
>
>>I think that if Garrett actually limits resource availability like
>>you wanted him too, that there won't be enough fuel around in the game
>>to allow people to leapfrog past your front.  (I don't consider this
>>a good thing though).
>
>  Neither do I.  
>
>
>well-balanced fleets but small squadrons of poorly equipped destroyers
>or cruisers that are too easily lost since armor is almost worthless.  A
>smart opponent can eliminate these easily at little cost to himself if
>he knows the various inherant weaknesses in such squadrons.
The real players know that squadrons are USELESS. The best attack force is
really small. One tanker with an Xtal, and a Battle ship with Lasers, and a
strength 2 CEW and lots of armour. No guns, and enough fuel to fire a full
strength laser shot. This combination works great. Stay online when you jump.
Then laser every defensive system in the solar system to death once the tanker
jumps. You can dismount the Xtal, and move it over to the battle ship, and thus
only use one Xtal for both. Just after laser tech 5000 fuel is usually enough
to take out a complete systems defenses. about 5000 takes out an @ if you want
to bother. I chalked up something like seven @s, and quite a few dead players
last game with that kind of strategy. I lost almost nothing until I stopped
being able to log on during updates all the time. The CEW is for anti-missile
fire. Upgrade the CEW on the spot to the correct range, and then take the
missile out with one shot every time. V
CEWs are useless for attacking since any player with brains lands every ship
in the system since it is harder to hit landed ships.

>  The reason why I've been able to gain such stockpiles is because
>newbies and inactives are plentiful in most gb games.  You can usually
>take a planet away from a newbie without causing signifigant damage to
>it thus maintaining the efficiency of most if not all of its sectors.
>Almost every battle I've won against an active experienced opponent has 
>cost me copious amounts of time and resources while gaining me little 
>except some shattered and burned out planets.  Turning a planetary 
>wasteland into something habitable is an expensive proposition especially 
>when the planet is drained of resources.  This is why experienced 
>players tend to avoid fighting each other when possible.  There is little 
>to gain and too much to lose.
Killing experienced players is possible, but it has to be done really early
in the game, and you have to really be ready to do it. It is also fairly easy
to kick an experienced player out of a non-home system without terribly high
losses if you know what you are doing. You can also kill a newbie at his home
world without too much difficulty early in the game. You usually lose the home
world, but you can often take over most of the other planets in the system.

>  I'd rather have a smarter interface.  In the last few games I've played,
>I wrote a battery of perl scripts to create macros depending on the
>data output by different gb commands.  Unfortunately, wars and alliance
>politicking still required too much of my real time.  So I haven't played 
>much lately. (wistful sigh)  One of these days, when I find the time,
>I'm going to have to take up Dan's offer and do some corroborating on
>Robo-Hydra.  
>
I fully agree on this I am either going to write an auto-client that really
works or never start a serious game again. I don't believe you need many real
allies to live in a game. I have seen so many players with 10 to 15 allies fall
to my forces because the allies couldn't do a thing in time. (The planet was
already wasted, and defended by the time they got there.) The other famous
one is a player saying why did you kill my cargo ship that I sent into someone
else's home system that you were attacking. I wasn't involved in the war I was
just there to look at the system. Honest. Really. It is only way into the game,
and almost everyone has full explore, but still.... You need to know how to play
to survive. Allies usually amount more to a pact of non-agression or a tech
builder then real co-ordinated offensives or defensives. Actually I let someone
land on all my non-hospitable planets once since I didn't want to T them all,
and I figured if I helped him that much he wouldn't try to screw me around.
Besides he was a newbie who picked a good ally :-) ttyl - JAW
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