A Diplomacy 1.32 Replay

from Sins Forums

I played a very engaging 1v1 last night with Dwish on Wrathful and figured I would post the replay and my comments. We were both Vasari. I was light blue, he was orange.

http://www.mediafire.com/?tb9p51ibua2cmaj


What I noticed (good and bad, on both sides):

Orange went up a supply level at very early in the game and didn't use any of it until 5 minutes later.

I failed to move my colony frigate enough to evade on my far asteroid, and it died to the neutral militia. I forgot to retarget my rally point, so my other colony frigate I built went in the wrong direction and lost all of its antimatter. A serious blunder.

Around 11 minutes I saw Orange fighting off the militia on the other Terran planet on his side - this confused me because in my few previous games on this map I had only fought others on homeworlds and asteroids, and I hadn't thought that taking the time and effort necessary to take the Terran would be worth it. But since Orange was skilled and was doing it it must be viable - so I did the same thing he did and took the Terran on my own side as well.

Around this time I'd collected a whole lot of funds and was saving them in preparation for maximizing income and going up supply only when I really needed it. With 2 frigate factories on my HW I figured I'd be able to build quickly enough to fight off a starbase or moderate fleet. I then saw Orange's fleet in the central asteroid belt and started fleeting up myself. Orange had gone to the central Desert planet though instead of attacking me - evidently he was very serious about eco.

At 19 minutes, Orange came back from the Desert he had conquered and scared my fleet back to my homeworld. He didn't attack it though, he attacked my asteroid instead.

I had completely filled up my fleet supply with Assailants by this time, but all of my newly-built frigates were staying at my homeworld in order to (hopefully) surprise Orange with a much larger fleet than he expected. It worked. His 12 assailants had to retreat to my 27. Still, despite retreating, most of his were killed while mine were pursuing. Orange retreated back to his front asteroid: I could have sent my Assailants to follow and destroy his almost-dead fleet and scare off his cap, but I sent mine to retake the central Desert instead; I was afraid that if Orange got a starbase up on the Desert, I would never be able to retake it, so I attacked it as soon as I could.

At this point I saw that Orange had gotten trade ports - in a map this small? As Vasari, even? I didn't know that was viable. So I got trade as well.

Orange had built a moderate fleet up by this time and sent it to the central asteroid belt choke point, along with a starbase, which started building just as my 30 Assailants arrived. With my tier 3 Phase Missile upgrades I thought they would take it down quickly, but Orange's Repair Cloud helped keep the starbase alive (building) for a long time, until my fleet was down to ~22 Assailants to his ~15 + carrier cap. My own cap finally wiped out the Desert and came back to help. Orange sent another starbase, but I decided to attack his fleet instead, and completely wiped out his Assailant pack before his starbase finished and I had to retreat back to my asteroid. My cap stayed behind to kill a few more Assailants, but started taking damage and retreated to the Desert, where Orange was in the process of setting up a starbase. I built one there too. Orange pursued my cap there, and my cap retreated back to my HW with serious damage while my Assailants arrived at the Desert. Orange scrapped his still-building starbase and tried to pursue my cap again but wasn't quick enough - so he sent his fleet plus an Evacuator and a starbase to my other Terran instead.

Eventually I sent in my fleet to defend, including a starbase and 3 carriers with bombers (plus my cap with L3 Scramble Bombers) - the enemy Orkulus died, but he had wiped out my colony and recolonized. I forgot to kill the constructors, and his turrets and defenses eventually killed my Orkulus too, so I had to retreat. During this battle I also failed horribly at utilizing my flak, so the few I had were mostly useless. Orange engaged my Orkulus with Assailants, and (surprisingly to me) kept many of them alive simply by using Repair Cloud. I retreated back to my homeworld.

As I later found out when looking at the replay, during all this time Orange had been using his starbase to kill all of my trade ships which were exiting from or going to my Desert - his Orkulus at the choke point was destroying all the freighters. In the end he managed to get ~23800 credits from this. Wow.

I started massing carriers/bombers. I had given up on the Terran and on my asteroids (Orange proceeded to attack my far asteroid), but I built a SB on my HW just as his fleet started to come towards my homeworld, just as my main fleet (11 carriers + carrier cap -> 31+ bomber squads) went to the central choke point to destroy his Orkulus there. My homeworld SB upgraded durability twice and weapons twice. Choke point SB destroyed, my fleet warped into my HW again a bit after Orange started attacking my Orkulus (Orange had 32 Assailants and 3 bomber squads). I started building a Phase Jump Inhibitor on my homeworld, but Orange did nothing in response. My bombers and Assailants took out both his capital ships, and his fleet tried to retreat but was destroyed by my Orkulus and PJI. My starbase just barely survived with 1350 hull remaining. In this battle his total fleet supply used went from 374 supply to 36 supply in 3 minutes. Ouch.

His fleet was completely gone, and I had a ton of bombers, along with a very large credit reserve: the game was basically decided, even though he had many more planets than me. Dwish said he had to leave, so that was it.


What I learned:

* Extended colonization and trade is possible on Wrathful despite the very close quarters

* Killing trade drones can be effective, in rare circumstances

* A frontal assault on an Orkulus can be effective if you have Repair Cloud.

multiplayer
10,790 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Im going to watch u play-since im the replay king..keep posting more games.

 

Orange didn't scout enough to stop a carrier build up.

Kept building stationary missile turrets.

Wheres phasic trap when u nid it lol?

 

 

GG.

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting RiddleKing, reply 1
Kept building stationary missile turrets.

Used properly, they can be extremely useful.

Wheres phasic trap when u nid it lol?

I know, after the last battle when I was attacking his Terran on my side I made sure to priority attack the building hangar as soon as I saw it under construction because I was so afraid of Phasic Trap.

It would've taken me a while but eventually I would've moved on to the far asteroid that he controlled, and he probably would've gotten Phasic Trap by then and things would've gotten a whole lot more interesting. I'm not so sure if I would've been able to attack effectively, although I had a few (unused) ideas in mind.

I was also thinking that it might just be easier to culture him to death, but that would've taken a while and wouldn't be too hard to defend against... it would depend on how he would attempt to recover (if at all).

What really surprised me was how focused he was on economy instead of on (attempting to) quickly kill me - our homeworlds were quite close, after all.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

I just realized something else I should've learned from this: Dwish had a great balance between economy and fleet. Near the beginning of the game, he had just enough Assailants to fight off my capital ship or starbase, were I to build one on one of his planets, and had the supply researched to be able to build more Assailants immediately. The rest of his funds he put into trade ports. "Cautious economizer" is probably *the* best general strategy for long games, or at least for the beginning of long games.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

He should have gone assailants all the way and instead of spending on flak he should have put that money into phasic trap and hangers. He's assailants numbers would have reached a critical mass and over-run the map.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

If he had gone all Assailants I would've responded with the same and the game would've been decided mostly by attrition and Orkuluses. Works but is a bit boring.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Theres not many replays posted so I try to watch them all and provide some feedback especially 1 vs 1.  However I wasn't impressed with the map, Wrathful is one of the many small 1 vs 1 maps I'd delete from the game if I had the power, it doesn't seem very well thought out.  Play Storm Front instead.

Though the game seemed to last a long time, on twenty minutes blue could have won with a direct attack on the orange home and orange's single factory, also blue almost always had far more credits in the bank.  So I wouldn't really call it a long game, more of a prolonged game.  The attack on the blue home when it came was just stupid, orange had no chance.  He may have been time-limited to have to launch it but afterwards he had lost.  Whether he could have won by defending the advantage of 3 roids and 3 terrans to a terran a roid and the desert before he attacked the blue home is questionable, as he was never in a position to survive a direct attack on his own home, and blue had carrier cruisers while orange had only flak and assailants.

The terrans and the desert had very few militia which might have made them more attractive- apart from the one behind the star and pirate planet, which seems irrelevant.  Orange failed to research the terran boost which seemed odd and neither player went for slavery, which is a fairly standard Vasari tech.  There werent that many turrets but the repair bays seemed late in arriving.  I dont consider Orange to have had a great balance betweeen fleet and trade at all, he had too little fleet early on and this put him at a disadvantage throughout the game.  Also, why no culture, was it a serious game?

I dunno about trade on this map, it seems set up for refineries rather than trade.  If trade is indeed preferable than trade needs a nerf- which I have constantly argued for.  Nice to see the bounty for destroyed trade vessels working, but the respawn time was almost instant which is just wrong... orange does get the bounty but there was little impact on the trade income for blue.

I noted that when the rival starbases fought at the desert and terran they both had the same name... one rebel and one loyalist perhaps?  Will we get new unit names for the new factions with Rebellion?  I called for different forms of government a long time ago, and people scoffed and said the Unity could never be split.  I do wonder what the rebel Advent are about though, the heretical heretics presumably.  Perhaps they believe in abandoning science and returning to nature with their enhanced bodies, sort of like Frankenstein's monster?

 

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Storm front is insanely balanced. I love that map.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting DesConnor, reply 6
Theres not many replays posted so I try to watch them all and provide some feedback especially 1 vs 1.  However I wasn't impressed with the map, Wrathful is one of the many small 1 vs 1 maps I'd delete from the game if I had the power, it doespn't seem very well thought out.  Play Storm Front instead.

The reason I like to play on the map is because it allows for fighting in very close quarters without being Point Blank. You're right that the map itself isn't all that good, but the other preset 1v1 maps don't really do the job for what I'm interested in.

I just wish there were preset 1v1 maps which were just homeworld-asteroid-asteroid-homeworld or some simple variation on that.

Though the game seemed to last a long time, on twenty minutes blue could have won with a direct attack on the orange home and orange's single factory, also blue almost always had far more credits in the bank.  So I wouldn't really call it a long game, more of a prolonged game.  The attack on the blue home when it came was just stupid, orange had no chance.  He may have been time-limited to have to launch it but afterwards he had lost.  Whether he could have won by defending the advantage of 3 roids and 3 terrans to a terran a roid and the desert before he attacked the blue home is questionable, as he was never in a position to survive a direct attack on his own home,

Now that I think about it, you're definitely right. I almost always play more conservatively than I should, and I need to improve on that.

and neither player went for slavery, which is a fairly standard Vasari tech.

Oops.

There werent that many turrets but the repair bays seemed late in arriving.  I dont consider Orange to have had a great balance betweeen fleet and trade at all, he had too little fleet early on and this put him at a disadvantage throughout the game.  Also, why no culture, was it a serious game?

Culture would have increased HW income from 21.1/2.1 per sec to 22.5/2.31 per sec... I guess combined with the very slightly increased income from asteroid rocks it would have been worth it (compared to a trade port in the logistics slot instead), although the cost of that first culture center (including research) would have been significantly more. Then again, since I (Blue) had so much spare funds throughout most of the game, I should have gone for it. It might have also prevented Orange from colonizing that Desert on Blue's side right after bombing out Blue's colony there.

I need to work on actually spending my extra funds... I often delay going up fleet supply much longer than I should. As it was, if I was going for saving up a lot as Vasari with low supply usage, perhaps I should have gone for sending starbases to the four worlds on Orange's side at the same time.

I dunno about trade on this map, it seems set up for refineries rather than trade.  If trade is indeed preferable than trade needs a nerf- which I have constantly argued for.  Nice to see the bounty for destroyed trade vessels working, but the respawn time was almost instant which is just wrong... orange does get the bounty but there was little impact on the trade income for blue.

Or maybe refinery income needs a buff? Although a nerf to trade would make refineries relatively more attractive, refineries are still quite expensive for their benefits.

Thanks for the criticism, helping me identify my mistakes helps me become a better player. Despite the many mistakes the game was quite fun anyway.