I ask this question as much as an intellectual exercise as for advice in my specific situation. In these recent years of TW, those of us who do not have much desire to play in fast-paced unlimited turn corp heavy games will often find ourselves playing solo in lower-traffic fairly stock games that do not see much in the way of regens.

In this case, I have wondered into a 5K-sector/1K-turn MBBS game, last regenned about 45 days ago, that only has one regular player, a Blue with ~20K experience. Terra is depleted but not drained, indicating recent heavy colonizing. The guy is probably building himself an empire in some bubble somewhere. There is substantial fighter screening by the user but it is not oppressive. About 1 out of 4/5 of my ether probes runs into fighters of his, usually just a single Toll fig. As I have yet to run into or see any evidence of Ferrengi yet, the possibility that he has already wiped them out and owns Ferrengal certainly exists.

So, with the objective of ultimately grabbing control of this game from the Blue or at least making his life more interesting, I am interested in some basic strategy ideas on how best to do this.

Left to my own devices, I was on the fence about whether or not to even try and build my own home sector. In a 5K game, it doesn't seem likely that he would have too much trouble finding it and taking it away. Right now, I am SSTing in COLTs and racking up lots of money. How best to spend it, or spend my turns, is the question.

Thoughts?

If I have left out some detail that you need to offer the best advice, please let me know.

I take back what I said. He has not destroyed the Ferrengi yet.

Ouch - a 45 day head start - you have your work cut out for you. What's the total value of the ports in the universe? If it's over several hundred million you may be better off running rob/move or rob/transport with a low TPW ship and with MBBS you may even get a few free mega-robs out of the deal. The advantage of this is you don't need to burn turns furbing yourself and you can explore and grid while you're making money.

For a planet, you are better off stealing one from one of the weaker players rather than trying to build from scratch.

As far as how to spend you cash - you can never have too many fighters and you'll need a good invasion ship.

Good Luck!

Unfortunately, I don't think there are any weaker players with planets. It is a start with planet game but, judging from experience, no one else in the game has played more than a day's worth of turns, if that, so all the other planets not belonging to this player are likely in bad sectors with very little on them.

what are the edits? stock?
its mbbs, so sdt is better $$ than sst.
without knowing the edits, really can't say what the best course of action would be, other than the obvious:
1. cash
2. grid
3. explore

where is this game at anyways?

Check V to see how many figs are in the game. Cash until you have somewhere close to that number then start looking for the enemy.

quote:Originally posted by BlackBeard

where is this game at anyways?


MasterBlaster, game C.

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

heh

quote:Originally posted by Slim Shady

heh


Was I wrong to tell him? Heck, Blackbeard may very well be the Blue I was talking about.

As I said, it is a bit of an intellectual exercise anyway as I figured there was a good chance I wouldn't even bother. I am wrapped up in a very time consuming high-turn game and maintaining my bubble in 2 other lower-turn stock games so I don't have time.

nope isnt me playing there....i havent played there...heard some bad things happen there so i be scared to go there

heh Why don't u go help him out Slim....lol

I took a quick peek at the game settings the other day - looks like out of the box stock settings. If you can put up with the rob delay, just SDT for a few days. There are only 45k figs in the universe after 21 days and most of those will belong to the Ferrengi. 3 days of SDT should give you enough cash to eprobe all the deadends and buy enough figs to take out your opponent. Also, only 2 planets have cits, one will be Ferrengal, the other likely belongs to the blue player - you shouldn't have any problem taking it out.

quote:Originally posted by Mantis

I took a quick peek at the game settings the other day - looks like out of the box stock settings. If you can put up with the rob delay, just SDT for a few days. There are only 45k figs in the universe after 21 days and most of those will belong to the Ferrengi. 3 days of SDT should give you enough cash to eprobe all the deadends and buy enough figs to take out your opponent. Also, only 2 planets have cits, one will be Ferrengal, the other likely belongs to the blue player - you shouldn't have any problem taking it out.


Thanks, yeah I noticed that remarkably low total figs count the other day myself when Harley mentioned it. I didn't think to look at citadel count. Thanks for mentioning it.

Makes me wonder what the guy is doing anyway. Everytime I check scores on the game he has played his turns and his exp has gone up substantially. Colos were close to depleted on Terra the one time I checked. What is he doing? It sure doesn't seem like he is using his time to build a secure bubble.

I'm almost certainly not going to play in this game any further anyway. Another game is monopolizing my time.

quote:Originally posted by Slim Shady

heh


Now I get the joke.