The Spartan Challenge

knowhow2 · October 7, 2001, 07:46

Well it seems like the challenge between Drago Sinio and Flubber (former cbn) have ended and I for one want o know how things went.
Who won? Where the Spartans as powerful as Drago said them to be? How did the war act out? What kind of victories were there? and so on.

Flubber · October 7, 2001, 09:52

Hey Alan

Three victories for the non-Spartans-- all were complete by 2262. In each case, it was conquest all the way although I did not bother to play them out once the Spartans were eliminated. The turn tracking thread is here
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...ighlight=Drago while the discussion thread that started the whole thing is here http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...ilder+Spartans

Drago still believes in the Spartans but believes that he has to make some major adjustments in his play. I learned to value morale more than I had so it was a learning experience for me as well.

knowhow2 · October 7, 2001, 11:06

Congrats Stephen!

Well done my friend!

Clear Skies · October 7, 2001, 14:56

I backed the non-Spartans from the outset, me...

I found it surprising that you started off in the Great Dunes every single time. How annoying are they!
As a totally random aside, the Monsoon Jungle and the Fossil Ridge (and other landmarks) lose their bonuses/penalties when you raise or lower the terrain. Does this happen to the Great Dunes?

Flubber · October 7, 2001, 18:06

the great Dunes have no penalties, they are just arid soil. The only good point was that it was easy to forest all the squares and the ruivers I drilled meandered into quite a few squares.

And I didn't get the great Dunes in all of the starts. I got it for the gaians where my home continent was composed almost 50% by the great dunes. Although . . . thinking back I did not get any good landmarks freal close to my start in any of the games. The Hive were surrounded by fungus and had to terraform a land link to get off a smallish continent. The University had the best start I guess as the Jungle was on the same landmasss and only about 20 tiles away. Unfortunately that meant that all the AI factions wanted to come visit LOL.

Drago Sinio · October 7, 2001, 22:00

Yes, its true, the Spartans were badly defeated in all three games. I still have nightmares about swarms of Flubber shard choppers descending from the heavens like locusts on PCP and devouring all in their path. Not a sight for the faint of heart.

I think that there were three reasons for the outcome:

I did not expand enough, early enough.

I was way behind in techs.

And I had no idea how powerful choppers were under human control, as the AI had never used them against me.

I have been experimenting with improvements to my beloved Spartans. I have been playing them Planned- Expansionist- Builder early, and then Free Market - hybridish builder once I get the empire up to a large size.

I have also been using Elite choppers as my main attack force, with Elite best armour scout rovers to secure the bases that the choppers clear out. The Elite rovers have three movement points which allows them to almost keep up with the choppers in range assuming they are moving mostly on roads.

While i was beaten badly in the challenge games, I think my play has improved greatly for the experience.

Word of warning: If you meet the mighty Flubber in an MP game- be afraid! Very afraid.

knowhow2 · October 7, 2001, 22:56

Quote:

Word of warning: If you meet the mighty Flubber in an MP game- be afraid! Very afraid.

I have

.............

although he didn't actually beat me

Flubber · October 8, 2001, 01:42

Alan is correct, I have never beaten him and in fact he won more battles than me in Axt o42 before he had to hand off to a replacement

Unfortunately our factions relations were

and war between the replacement and I was inevitable and eventually we were successful

As for the "mighty" Flubber

. Heck-- I have won ONE MP game and one duel.

One thing I will say is that I kinda liked the duel concept (but won't do three at once again-- too time consuming). Alan, if you wanted to try one -- I'm game-- pick a world, settings, AI or not and a faction and I will pick from the remaining factions.

knowhow2 · October 8, 2001, 04:46

So Stephen you want revenge do you? Well I am actually stupid enough to take you up on your challenge (i'm currently in FOUR MPs but 3 of them is going really slow so a duell would suite just fine). When I wrote "Stupid", I mean that I'm actually "ahead" when it comes to our internal scoring so everything from here could possibly be downhill

. Hopefully not

How about Randomize Map and Standard everything else (planet, settings, rules and AI - with that I mean the original 7). Of Cause SMACX. So how about that, what do you think?

Since you made the challenge, I will pick the weapon - The Mighty Hive!

*Flubber took of his left hand glove walked towards knowhow2 and slap his face over with it. After which knowhow2 accept this challenge with the words 'you shall pay for your boldess' and chose duelpistol ofr the means of lifeand death*

Flubber · October 8, 2001, 08:46

Alan

sounds good to me. I will play the Drones unless by original 7 you meant the Smac 7 in which case I will play the university ( I didn't know if you were just trying to indicate that we would play with normal AI involvement). Will we trust to the map generator and one of us set it up , or should we try to get a map from someone like googlie that they believe is "fair". Either way is ok with me.

* Flubber took the proffered pistol and with a steely gaze stared into knowhow2's eyes.

knowhow2 · October 8, 2001, 16:22

Stephen,

I trust you to be fair. Make a random standard size map with standard settings and rules. I play Hive and you play Drones. 5 AIs, the original 7 (exchange drone for Morgan).

you can send me the first turn to lawalan@hotmail.com

and start up a turn-track-thread at MP thread.

Sounds good to you?