From duelge@math.wisc.edu Fri Oct 30 07:53:57 1992 Return-Path: Received: from schaefer.math.wisc.edu by depot.cis.ksu.edu SMTP (5.65a) id AA22578; Fri, 30 Oct 92 07:53:57 -0600 Received: by schaefer.math.wisc.edu; id AA19298; 4.1/42; Fri, 30 Oct 92 07:53:02 CST Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 07:53:02 CST From: Jason Duelge Message-Id: <9210301353.AA19298@schaefer.math.wisc.edu> To: greyhelm@cis.ksu.edu Status: OR The Coliseum game has ended. I think it has been about 5 weeks of play, with updates every 20 hours. The deity, TOG, did a fine job, we had no real bug problem, and hardly a moment of down time. Some slow net connections, but these are endemic to internet. Twelve brave souls entered the coliseum. The world was 32x32, with about 500 sectors of land. Each person had a 40 sector start island, and some 1, 2 and 3 sector islands were scattered about. The only way to make any real land increase was to take from a neighbor. This game had some special characteristics. First was the tech limit. tech of 60 was the max attainable, and with logbase3 tech, with no easy, tech growth was slow for most. The goal was a world war 1 style of game, sopwiths dueling over the little nations. Certain ship techs were lowered, so we had carriers and landing ships. Also, bridges were impossible to make, and the start islands had at least two sectors between them. Since guns at tech <60 only fire 2 sectors, home islands were safe from fort bombardment. 11 people broke on time. Metzada broke an update late. Temekula had the first ship, Darklore had the first edu. I don't recall who had the FIRST tech, but Kenaitze had the tech lead from near to the beginning. Plainsboro quit relatively early, and was replaced by Nautava. Some of the early fights pitted Ministry vs Jelomould, Ansalon vs Darklore and Temekula vs Haven. Jelomould and Haven were able to fight off their attackers, but Darklore succumbed to Ansalon. The next batch of combat saw Temekula taking over Nautava and EVIL_EMPIRE (after replacing Kenaitze) taking over Jelomould. Jelo fought to the last, but EVIL artillery was telling in that battle. Nautava logged in twice during the Temekulan attack, which proved insufficient to fend them off. The first big attack of the game saw EVIL mounting a large campaign against the Ansalonian home island. This attack wasn't exactly a suprise, as EVIL had the first (and only at the time of the attack) planes. It was just a matter of who. Ansalon fought fiercely, aided surrepticiously by Temekulan guns, shells and military. Despite having no planes for several days and having his dist center bombed Ansalon kept fighting on his home soil for about a week. Eventually he succumbed and found himself residing on the recently acquired (and lightly populated) Darklore island. At the same time the forces of Ansalon and Haven began fighting over Ministry's island. Ministry seemed unable to play, and the vultures were quick to the carcass. Ansalon offered to share the island with Temekula, and a battle of two against one ensued. Ansalon was forced to retire from the conflict when EVIL struck, but Temekula eventually won the island, using greater numbers of guns and shells to eliminate the bulk of Haven's forces. Haven's sporadic update ability also proved telling. It was at about this time that sides started to form. When EVIL joined the game he was all bluster and braggadacio. (Isn't he always!). He immediately declared hostile towards everyone. He also proclaimed that with his enourmous tech lead he would soon rule the world, and have everyone kneeling at his feet (or words to that effect. :)) During the Ansalon campaign, things looked bleak indeed. The nations of Metzada and Haven sided with the EVIL one, and Metzada and EVIL made attacks against Ansalon's positions on the Darklore island. On the other side, though, another coalition was forming. The core of Temekula and Ansalon was joined by Valinor and Gondar. While Ansalon was being pounded Temekula was taking Ministry land and supplying Ansalon with shells, guns, military and even civs. Valinor and Gondar were moving to plane tech and planning attacks against the home islands of Haven and Metzada, respectively. When Ministry was completely absorbed, and the bulk of the EVIL alliances ships sunk, the allies struck. Valinor and Temekula attacked Haven, splitting his island in two. They had the fortune of Haven's absence (later explained as a real world problem), and took the island with little trouble. A few days after that started, Temekula (and later Gondar) invaded Metzada. Metzada fought hard, making the updates and building planes as he could afford them. The battle was lopsided, however, as Temekula was three times the size and had more planes, ships, and military hardware. Gondar's well placed and executed attack ended resistance. EVIL had been pretty quiet when his allies fell. His only actions after ending his attacks on Ansalon were two late attacks against an absent Temekula. Each gained a few sectors and destroyed some planes, but neither held enough 'thickness' of land, and the sectors were taken back. At this point the world looked like this ... Temekula with 3 and two half islands. Ansalon with 1 island. Gondar and Valinor each with 1 and a half islands. EVIL had 3 islands. Temekula had sat atop the power chart for several weeks, despite EVIL's 'i'll be there' claim, and had more planes, ships, shells, guns, mil, than EVIL. With the allied forces, EVIL's army was more than doubled. When the last Metzada sector had been taken, Temekula informed the EVIL one that his time had come, and even gave him a one week notice. To this the EVIL one replied 'I'm going into defensive mode. Overlapping aircover. Overlapping forts. Tedrick lost 600 planes against me once, and you guys aren't going to get anywhere. You won't even break my aircover.' When the time of the attack came, it was a fine thursday evening. Temekula logged in and began the laborious process of stripping aircover. EVIL was on at the time, and some pleasant banter accompanied the recon missions. Eventually, though, the EVIL one decided to go to bed. At this point, the Temekulan aircraft carrier sailed to the EVIL one's coast, and the air stripping began in earnest, with more sectors in each recon mission. After 60 fighters (i counted), the EVIL airforce was down (in areas). Careful pinbombing of fort guns, and landing ships with mil secured some coastal forts. Transports resupplied, and shelling began. The fighting lasted till about 3am Temekula time (4 hours after the attack started), with Temekula holding about 15 sectors on two beachheads...with thickness. When EVIL logged in, he replied with 'You won't HOLD the sectors'. However, the alliance was now attacking too...and the EVIL budget couldn't afford it. His aircover against Temekula NEVER recovered, and Temekula continued to expand his holdings over the next few days. It all ended on sunday morning when EVIL informed the world that he had to leave for Dallas and couldn't continue the fight. It was over before then, however, as the EVIL one had lost 60 of 150 planes (the remaining 90 largely inneficient), over half his mil, about half his guns and shells, and 30 of his 120 sectors. Ansalon, Valinor and Gondar were all taking part in the attack, and two updates after his announcement his lands were all gone. Temekula took two of the islands and the allies split the last one. Sorry for the enourmous length, but it is rare for games to end, and even rarer that anyone posts about them. I've tried to be as complete as i could be, painting the history of the game, but even now i can think of things i've forgotter. Like Wistra. Or Ansalon's hidded capital. Or the fun 'trivia questions' TOG gave us, or the aborted hunt for red october. No matter. I will end this with the final power chart (after mopping the EVIL one up) and let you continue your news reading. Jason Temekula sects eff civ mil shell gun pet iron dust food oil pln ship money Temekula 255 89% 180K 7.3K 7.8K 1.2K 7.8K 21K 41 101K 1.6K 230 10 95K Gondar 80 92% 71K 3.9K 1.4K 340 5.2K 7.5K 250 33K 850 30 10 15K Valinor 75 88% 46K 3.8K 2.0K 310 2.8K 13K 50 16K 1.8K 60 10 1 Ansalon 50 85% 41K 2.8K 1.6K 220 2.2K 6.0K 150 15K 1.0K 20 4 25K Wistra 40 98% 15K 2.1K 875 105 2.8K 300 150 3.0K 650 40 10 2.4K Ministry 0 0% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 40K Metzada 0 0% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 25K Haven 0 0% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15K Jelomould 0 0% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5.0K EVIL_EMPI 0 0% 0 20 25 2 0 0 0 100 0 0 1 3.3K Nautava 0 0% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.8K Darklore 0 0% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- worldwide 500 90% 353K 20K 14K 2.1K 21K 48K 600 168K 5.8K 370 50 225K