Star Empires games 3 & 4 finished - New game starting

From: rhl@valhalla.mitre.org (Roger Lincoln)

Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 18:05:57 +0000

The Wars are Over!  Both of them!  Two separate games of Star Empires,
started 5 months apart, somehow managed to finish at exactly the same
time.  Long-winded synopses of both games follow.

GAME 3 started 1 year ago with 46 players and was completed on turn 52
when Bob, aka carroll@cs.uiuc.edu (I never knew his real name),
defeated the last of his enemies and conquered the entire galaxy.  My
hats off to the self-proclaimed "Great And Powerful Bob".  He
claims to be a PBEM newcomer, but his strategy and game play were
masterful.  While carefully forging together a strong group of allies,
he spent much time exploring and gathering information.  He slyly
influenced events around him and masterminded the downfall of one
rival empire after another.  Perhaps the greatest testament to his
brilliance was that unbeknownst even to *me* he was secretly allied
with one of his supposed enemies, Dreadlords (Greg Titus,
gregrt@seattleu.edu).  Together Bob and Dreadlords were able to worm
their way into practically every faction in the galaxy.  Nobody knew
of their unholy alliance, especially Bob's "allies" who continued to
terrorize the rest of the galaxy under his direction.

I don't know exactly how it started, but the "Big One", the
step-sister of all battles, was touched off indirectly when Carnaticum
(now Dr. Carnaticum, Robert Feinstein), in retaliation for the
destruction of his friend, Shofixti (Blair Prescott,
bprescot@sirius.UVic.CA), launched a kamikaze attack against Bob, but
was unable to rally anyone else to his cause.

Around the same time, Bob and his allies were preparing for a
coordinated attack against the number 2 player, Snow Miser (Susan Van
Elkins sue@wopper.ucsc.edu).  Snowy gets the record for gaining the
most territory with virtually no losses to her fleet.  Primarily
through mercenary tactics, concentrating her massive fleet at select
sights where battles already raged and then negotiating peace with the
overwhelmed combatants and letting them leave, all without firing a
shot.  She even managed to maintain friendly relations with some of
her victims; one of them, a member of Bob's alliance, informed her of
the impending attack on her empire, codenamed Operation Tropic: The
Melting of Snow Miser.

Snowy, hoping to use the Carnaticum attack on Bob as a diversion,
launched a preemptive strike, codenamed Operation Snow Storm.  She
sent her fleet, the largest in the game and still virtually untouched
by enemy fire, and blanketed dozens of Bobs worlds.  Through a series
of beautifully scripted press releases (which touched off a media war)
she apparently convinced everyone her entire fleet was engaged, while
forming a quick alliance with the number 3 player, De Speler (Maarten
Hazewinkel, mmhazewi@cs.ruu.nl), and using one of his side worlds as a
secret staging area where she kept fully half of her massive fleet in
reserve.  Carnaticum's pleas for justice, coupled with Snow Miser's
movie scripts convinced De Speler to join the assault on Bob.

The ensuing battles were awe inspiring, all of the surviving players
at that point were drawn into the fracas, everybody except Bob's real
ally Dreadlords, who, as planned, sat on the fence and plotted.
Carnaticum, who was already near death when he started his attack,
didn't last long and was soon eliminated.  Bob and his fake alliance
launched a massive retaliation against De Speler and Snow Miser.  De
Speler maneuvered his fleet to hold his planets, but the opposition
was too overwhelming, and De Speler withdrew from the game when his
end was inevitable.  Snow Miser on the other hand used questionable
tactics in abandoning her empire, letting her secret fleet hide in
reserve for 2 or 3 turns, and then sending it in against Bob when he
thought her attack was failing.  Unable to find Bob's homeworld and
main shipyards (she even tried bribing me with cookies) she refocused
her attack against Kalevala (Mika Valiviita, valiviit@cc.helsinki.fi),
who was thought to be Bob's biggest ally.  Little did she or anyone
know that this played right into Bob's hands.  While Bob and his front
conquered piece after piece of her empire she constantly shuffled and
redeployed her ships to different worlds to keep up the assault on
Bob.  Whether or not it kept Bob off-balance, it kept me highly
entertained, which is all that really matters.  But Bob was too big,
had too many allies, and was too smart for her.

Fittingly, just before Snow Miser was finally defeated, Bob and
Dreadlords publicly announced their New Galactic Order and informed
the rest of the galaxy, all of whom thought they were still Bob's
allies, that they must surrender or die.  Snow Miser lived long enough
to rub the ex-alliance's noses in it; it brought tears to my eyes.
Perhaps the most tragic story is that of one of Bob's ex-allies,
Retchian (Russel Cormac, rcormac@occs.cs.oberlin.edu).  The exact same
thing had happened to Retchian in Game 1, he fought his heart out for
his alliance, only to have it turn on him in the end.

The rest of the galaxy, led by Bob's largest ex-ally Kalevala, finally
united against Bob and Dreadlords and the final battles began.  Bob
and Dreadlords together owned more than half the galaxy and the end
was near, but then Dreadlords mysteriously dissappeared, his ships
left dormant in the middle of battles, his planets left sleeping.
Bob's truest friend and staunchest ally was gone.  Bob still had an
unimaginably huge empire and dominant fleet, but he was now alone
against the rest of the galaxy, now down to just 6 battered empires.
Was Dreadlords disappearance a coincidence or the culmination of Bob's
master plan?  That still remains a mystery to this day; I know
Dreadlords did not lose net-access, perhaps his bones will someday be
found shackled behind a hastily erected brick wall in Bob's wine
cellar, who knows?

It all fell into place, it took a few months longer, but Bob moved
against each of his ex-allies and destroyed them all one-by-one.  The
Most Tenacious Player Award goes to Wolfen (Bruce Saul,
kitten@sneeze.resp-sci.arizona.edu),  who's empire was pulverized
very early in the game.  Left for dead, he bided his time and built up
massive defenses at his one remaining world, and lived to strike one
final blow, along with Kalevala, at Bob.  Kalevala and Wolfen, the
final resistance, fell today and Bob became the unquestioned Master of
The Universe.   For a few days at least.

Copies of the press releases sent during the Media War (very
imaginative writing) are available for players who didn't live to see
it.  Write if you'd like a copy.

------------------------------------------------------------

GAME 4 started last October with 50 players and ended today on turn 32
with 5 players sharing the galaxy between them.  The victors are (in
alphabetical order, and ascending order of ego)

Landru (Andrew Markiel, markiel@callisto.pas.rochester.edu)
  Overlord (Phil Miller, pmiller@mmm.com)
  Petaq (Mark Glad, mdglad@mmm.com)
  Ruskin (Scott Elliott, elliott@halley.serc.3m.com)
  Zwagonian (Sjeord Schreuder, saschreu@cs.vu.nl)

From an outsiders perspective their alliance is shaky at best, and how
they came to be allied is still somewhat of a mystery.  The tale you
are about to hear is admittedly frought with inaccuracies, ommissions,
and does not come close to doing justice to the backstabbing, double
dealing, and backroom politics that these 5 practised.  I am proud to
have witnessed their handiwork.

There were many different factions in this game with many petty little
wars (gotta love 'em).  Two players of note are Hexmaster (Dave Allen,
allen@viewlogic.com) and Martyr (Donald Kerr, D.Kerr@massey.ac.nz).
Hexmaster specialized in collecting and trading scouting information
with all the other players; in the end this was his downfall when he
was destroyed by those who felt threatened by that much free-flowing
information.  Martyr has the distinction of having the most number of
players after him at one time, and nevertheless managed to survive
most of the game and remain a thorn in the side of the lead player
until just a few turns ago.

The events in the game were mainly driven by 3 major alliances.  The
first, nicknamed the Fab Five by other players, was started by Ruskin,
who knew from the beginning that he was going to win, but needed a
little help.  He recruited 4 other random players including Zwagonian,
and 3 others who weren't fortunate enough to survive to the end.  The
second alliance, and in my eyes the most cohesive, formed early on by
Overlord, Landru, and Petaq.  The third alliance was formed by 4
players from Montreal; Nemesis (Candace Levine,
candy@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca), the tactical genius who nearly won in
Game 1; Pond Scum (Scot Hughes, falcon@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca), the guy
who claims to be the real genius who advised her in Game 1; Vorkall
(Louis Fillion, fillionl@jsp.umontreal.ca), the game's novelist; and
Mephisto (Stephane Branchaud), a Compu-$erve slave who was plagued by
sporadic net-access.

These three alliances managed to engineer, directly and indirectly,
the downfall of empire after empire, and yet managed to stay off
eachother's toes, and even maintain communications and trade
occassional information.  Indeed 3 players from 2 opposing alliances
knew and worked with eachother in the Real World, which is exactly why
they didn't trust eachother.

As cunning and subtley manipulative as Bob was in Game 3, Ruskin has
proven himself the master of misinformation.  By leaking confidential
information, providing false information, and starting and spreading
rumors, he turned many players against eachother and let them destroy
one another.

The beginning of the end began when a message from Ruskin to another
player was either accidentally or purposely leaked by Ruskin himself
to Pond Scum, proving that Ruskin was plotting against him.  This came
at a time of decline of the Pond Scum alliance; the group had been
severely weakened defending their pal Mephisto, who was eventually
destroyed; Nemesis, the lynchpin, missed turns and mis-handled her
fleet, all because she had dreams of passing classes and eventually
graduating - the fool.  Pond Scum was one of the few players at that
time who knew that Ruskin was far from the battered empire he made
himself out to be, he was in fact the leading player with an empire
far larger than anyone realized.  Pond Scum sent broadcast messages to
the galaxy at large warning them of the Ruskin threat, and was
publicly laughed at by others "more in the know".

Pond Scum picked up another quick ally, Sky Hunter (Jay Kenniston,
v089kxgt@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu), who had been gunning for Ruskin since
Game 1.  The two launched an all-out attack against Ruskin.  Pond Scum
and what remained of his alliance tried blanketing many of Ruskins
worlds, while Sky Hunter, on the verge of a Spring Break trip to
Daytona Beach, sent in everything including the kitchen sink against
Ruskin's homeworld.  Pond Scum took the brunt of the retaliation and
his fleet shrunk rapidly.  Then things took a very strange turn.  The
last message from Sky Hunter was a general broadcast warning that Pond
Scum had allied himself with Ruskin and the two had destroyed Sky
Hunter's attack force.  This perked the interest of a player who until
then had followed a relatively low profile, Caine (Tom Granvold,
tom@goat.clipper.ingr.com).  Being wooed by the major alliances for
the "final battle" he had been leaning towards Ruskin, but with the
announcement and confirmation of Ruskins and Pond Scums impromptu
alliance many new questions were raised and he paused to reconsider.
Caine ended up waiting, biding his time until the inevitable final
battle between the big alliances, then he would make his move.

By now the political situation was a total morass and cannot be fully
understood.  The Overlord alliance were friendly with Pond Scum and
had been plotting their combined attack against the Ruskin alliance.
Nevertheless they had been loosely cooperating with Ruskin despite
being fully aware of his double-dealings.  Upon hearing of the
Ruskin-Pond Scum alliance they launched a devastating attack against
Pond Scum.  Pond Scums fleet, terribly weakened by the pre-alliance
attacks against Ruskin, could not hold out and he was destroyed.  Now
was the time Caine had been waiting for;  the two, and by this time
only, alliances were about to go head-to-head for total galactic
superiority, and Caine would be there rallying the rag-tag band of
smaller independent players to cleanup and finish off the devasted
victors.  The stage was set - Overlord, Petaq, and Landru on one side;
Ruskin, Zwagonian, and the other 2 surviving alliance members on the
other.  They gathered their fleets, charged their guns, gritted their
teeth... and shook hands and formed one large alliance!  Neither side
trusted the other, but practicality won out.  However, a 7 player
alliance was much too big, so Ruskin and Zwagonian abandoned the
others of their ex-alliance.  The new super-alliance then turned
itself to finishing off the rest of the galaxy.  Caine desperately
tried to rally the remaining players but was unsuccessful.  Martyr,
who was now being hunted by Ruskin, was harbored by one of Ruskins new
allies so that he could continue to harass Ruskin, but was eventually
destroyed.  Then Caine and the remaining players were quickly wiped
out, leaving the galaxy in the hands of 5 ruthless despots who to this
day still don't trust eachother.

Copies of all broadcast messages, press releases, and master
turnsheets are available for players who didn't live to see them.
Write if you'd like a copy.

--------------------------------------------------

With the cessation of hostilities in the previous 2 games of Star
Empires, I will be starting up a new game shortly.

In short, Star Empires is a simple version of the traditional
space domination games.  It was designed to be quick and easy to play;
Star Empires is to Galaxy what Checkers is to Chess :-)

Unfortunately the newest version of the game, v3.0, adds a bit more
complexity.  The galaxy is now 2 dimensional (from the easy 1
dimensional universe it used to be).  There's lots of new code and I
hate testing, so there will inevitably be a bug or two to deal with.

If you'd like to sign up for the game write to me and say so.  Or if
you'd just like to read the rules first before deciding then write and
ask for a copy.

Hopefully the game is still quick and easy and newcomers to strategy
games and PBEM are highly encouraged to play.  Veterans don't really
have much of an advantage, the winner of Game 3 was a newcomer, and
some of the winners in Game 4 were newcomers (I'd say virgins, but
there are ladies present).

I was hoping to keep this game small, but since 2 games just ended at
the same time it'll probably be a large.  I'll cap the game at 50
players.