Comments from Sotto Voce (Pink)

On the RPS forums, we had a little chat about some of the goings on in the game and I'd like to share some comments made by Sotto Voce (Pink). It's very interesting to read about the game from another perspective.

This was after he read my blog:

Yeah, I was somewhat curious about why did you feel the need to lie to me about your intentions when your coalition outnumbered me 4 to 1. Now I see that you have overestimated my capabilities by large margin. Actually I could barely hold off Red and Green, never mind expand further. When I saw your ships also heading my way, it was basically gameover for me. I got my fleets out of the Red's and Green's way and just tried to slow you down so that you couldn't win by taking my stars only. After it was done I plotted course for all my fleets to my three most developed systems and stopped playing.

I responded with:

Well Sotto, what you said is really interesting. As you read, from my point of view, it really looked like you were well on your way to stomping us. Your technology and industry output were massive and I thought, even at that point, there was a chance we were already doomed. From where I was located, I couldn't see any of your stars or fleets or anything so I was a little in the dark. I just had to go off the stats.

And he replied with:

There is ship count in the stats. On my peak I still had 200 ships less than you (that's just you without allies). At the same time my industry was bigger by 20-30 points. One industry produces two ships a day, so I could catch up with you no earlier than in four days (provided no one attacked me during that time, which was completely unrealictic. Likewise science output is only a secondary parameter to the tech level.

- I invested into science heavily at the cost of industry. That was ok for the early game (everyone wanted to trade with me), but in the midgame I seriously lacked ships. This caused me to develop extensively by seizing other players' heavily protected industry centres, and I ended up with even less ships as a result.

- I declined Oak's request to support him with tech. I was afraid that my allies would leak tech to my rivals in return (it happened anyway) and thought that being nice and straightforward to allies could pay off in the endgame (both of them turned on me). Oak had sizeable fleet and wouldn't go down so fast with my help.
- I wasted too much time trying to figure out which one of my illustrious allies supplied Dark Green AI whom I was attacking with my own weapon tech. I missed the opportunity to make a secret pact with one against the other, because I was afraid to side with the "wrong" one.
- I expanded very rapidly, I had bitten more than I could chew. I should have split Dark Green's stars with Light Green and definitely shouldn't have rushed into the centre of the map. People tend to pile up on the leading player in this kind of games, and I just scared everyone else.

I know what he's trying to say in all this, that he wasn't as advanced as his star count and ship count looked. But his industry and science output was massive and even with his calculations, I still think I made the right decision (well I won didn't I?).

I also had no idea what sort of alliances he had going and had to assume that he was out to win it before we got going. I was a bit stuck behind red so even though my ship count was higher, I couldn't use them effectively without some major planning and negotiations. If he had stormed into red and if green had hit my western flank, I may not have been able to retaliate to save red and the win.

At the end of the day, no matter what our intentions or strength comparisons, I completely made the right decision to get help and wipe out Pink. It absolutely won the game for me.