Galactic Wino vs Blackmagic Round 1 Discussion Thread

from Stardock Forums

Hey all. I just figured I would start a thread for fun as an open dialogue about the 3 matches from round 1. Oftentimes as a spectator I've watched a match and thought WTF were they thinking especially since commentators typically have really good insight and advice on things that might not be apparent to the players (or are but they choose to ignore it).

I don't know if this is interesting or not but figured I'd put it out there and let everyone decide. Feel free to ask questions if you have any.

 

 "what in the world were they thinking???

Game 1 (scavenger vs scientific)

 

This game was a dumpster fire for me and quite frankly i looked awful. Wino got the good spot on the map and i missed out on it. I wanted to found there at around $35k but the debt timer ticks down faster in beta 10 than beta 9 and so i missed it. I was checking the black market pre-found and didn't realize debt had gotten that low.

 

Other notes:

  • I missed the high silicon in the aluminum/silicon patch. didn't notice it.
  • I claimed an extra aluminum tile so i could transition into a solar panel later.
  • I took the cold fusion auction for $20k because i was trying to drive him into debt. Thought he would bite on $24k but ended up getting stuck with it
  • Guessed wrong on a 50/50 shot with dynamite on his geothermal. Was surprised (and thankful) he didn't wait for my geo to finish building and instead went for my solar panel

 

Game 2 (expansive vs expansive)

 

This one is the real reason i wanted to post this thread. From an outsider it looks like 2 people flailing around mid game struggling to make money to expand. That was exactly what it was. =)

Iron was really awkward and I saw PB suggest that we should've started nuking. I considered nuking his iron but was afraid of getting my own iron and possibly high aluminum nuked. When you're ahead based on found and expanding to HQ 2 first you don't want to give up your advantage in my opinion. Nuking his iron invites mine to get nuked and prevents me from expanding quickly. In order to win the war i effectively have to use 2 black market purchases to start it. 1 goon squad and then 1 nuke. So in order to start this war you need 2 minutes for black market (including cooldown) and roughly $6-7k in early money. That's a lot of time and money that is wasted when you can be using the cash to expand instead.

Iron dropped down to $7 after steel became unprofitable because we both had no choice but to sell out. I'll let you decide whether all that commitment is worth it to start a nuke war. I made the decision that as long as I could keep expanding as quickly as possible I could win the race to the more profitable markets and try to steamroll.

 

At HQ2 both of us stalled out as iron rose in price. Wino had deleted his steel and made farms. I considered doing that as well because steel became unprofitable and neither of us could get over the hump to HQ 3. Eventually i decided to just burn iron and blaze through since i was so close. I have to worry about debt because of my early found and so in order to beat that i have to expand fast and start making money / putting up power / taking the only geothermal tile.

I don't think wino's decision to go into farms was necessarily bad because they were way more profitable than steel was and he could use that time to get into HQ 3 and just rebuild steel mills. It just didn't work out because I froze them but it could've been effective.

 

Other notes:

  • When I watch this game back too i'm still surprised at how quickly pre-found debt ticks down.
  • Getting the only geothermal on the map was of utmost importance to me so i didn't have to commit 2 tiles
  • expanding quickly into HQ 4 and 5 was important even though i gave wino a way to make money by buying steel. I can always put down my own steel and claim and extra iron tile if i needed to. Most importantly I can have both reactors and glass up which were both extremely profitable and then only 1 can be shut down at a time.

 

Game 3 (scientific vs scavenger)



Wino did really well in keeping up exapansion vs expansion on this map which was impressive. The problem is that if you're only keeping up with a scientist you're losing (as evidence see game 1). Game 3 was kind of a mirror of game 1 but with roles reversed. 1 spot was a lot better than the other and so i went for it. Scientists can always generate revenue on account of not paying resource costs. I can always generate more cash than a scavenger and the scavenger can't really retaliate much to shut a scientist down. Fuel costs were obviously an issue in that game and so it again helps not to have to pay much when all the resources you need are relatively close.

Just like game 1 power became a huge issue so getting into it first was key. Having a boost on it was even more important. I waited to boost until it was defended and until i had some other tiles next to it that could make major cash (reactors).

 

Other notes:

  • AB's are awesome particularly if you're a scientist. Even if you boost something that's undefended it forces them to counter it and waste cash/black market cooldown to counter you. As a scientist playing a scavenger you're sucking their limited cash away just neutralizing what you're doing and you'll normally win that battle.
  • First to found won every single time. First to found in QM typically means first to expand and first to get the best tiles on the map. This is really only the case though on a resource scarce map that it's an advantage to found first. Debt can kill you if you're not careful.

 

 

Wino played well especially for not having adjusted to the double fuel cost yet after taking about a month off. I know personally that made me completely re-evaluate how i played and where i founded and it was a very difficult transition for me to make. It took me a solid 2 weeks of playing a lot to adjust so take the handicap in consideration when you rewatch the match.

I welcome any comments/criticism/critique you guys have. Just thought someone might be interesting to see the other side of things. I always wonder what people were thinking while they play matches. Might also for new players to see some insight on strategy.

33,183 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

I usually don't care about small problems, even when they're obvious, like adjacency losses. Making small misplays is bad, but usually it's a single huge misplay that loses the entire game. In this case there were several misplays by both players, first offering up an opening, and then failing to take advantage of that opening. I don't remember much, but pb noted most of them in his stream. I'll take some notes when I watch Seilore vs Cubit. I was really nerve-wracked in game 1, seeing that the game could go either way at any moment. In comparison, I thought game 2 was more reasonable, and game 3 seems to have been GW unfortunately not knowing the doubled fuel cost.

Other than the cold fusion auction, your noted problems on game 1 weren't big deals at all. Misclicks and overlooks are ok, it's just a small increase in shipping.

Wino's nuke on the solar panel surprised me a lot.

Taking high aluminum vs medium aluminum/medium silicon, I also like the high unless I want to commit to 2-3 aluminum tiles, but it's a weak preference. I'd only go for the combo tiles if I had tiles to spare. I don't remember if that was the case in your game, but I remember that at the time, I would have also gone high aluminum as the easy-to-think-about option.

I also didn't agree with pb about the nuke in game 2, but he might be right about it, I don't know. If you gooned your iron and nuked his and a war starts, then all his steel mills are dead, that's 4 tiles down at the cost of holding an iron stockpile, a nuke, and a goon. This comes when the steel bottom arrives. In retrospect, pb could be correct, but I wouldn't have been able to figure all that out in real-time, and I wouldn't have nuked.

There were wind turbines, failing to take advantage of aluminum shorts, two adjacent hacker arrays, no spies on the hacker arrays. I think pb pointed out most of these. I disagreed with pb that the player with more aluminum could take advantage of a short better, he was switching between you and both had over 200, so it was really just who sold out first...For the carbon short, I can easily see why holding some cash in reserve is worthwhile, you didn't know he was out of carbon. I don't think I would have known about my opponent's lack of carbon either without seeing that number explicitly.

I might have gone into farms as well, I wasn't paying much attention to the stream then out of frustration.

I don't consider a misclick for glass furnaces to be a game-losing problem, it's very recoverable.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Here's my notes on what I would have done in Cubit's shoes. I wrote the steps in real-time and filled out the reasoning afterwards. None of this is intended to say that any of these steps are superior to Cubit's (some of my steps are explicitly mistakes), it's simply where our strategies would have deviated.


Game 1
take 1 water at level 2, so Seilore can't get those profits
I wouldn't have mutinied that aluminum back, I would have bought a power surge and waited for Seilore level 2. but at level 2, Seilore had nothing worth surging...
bid CO to 6k at least
I would have purchased 100 into the aluminum and gotten screwed
purchased NV for the farms, but bad idea since Seilore kept them around anyway

Game 2
nab that high water at level 1 just to fuck with Seilore, seems this would have been a mistake since Seilore let it go anyway?
would have sold my water, which means seilore wouldn't have been tricked into that second water pump, mistake on my part
prebought glass at level 3, used that for money storage
bought EMP instead of goon squad, since I'm already ahead
sold down oxygen and fuel, he's making those, put into steel
wouldn't have bought those nukes, but they were a good idea

Game 3
found at 40k on same spot. grab the other medium iron, but realize it is mistake after 1 second. oh no! It can be unclaimed but I wouldn't have known that yesterday, so I'm down a claim for no reason at all.
pirate those condensers out of principle, since it's clear he's already out of the game
I stopped watching at this point, I hope Cubit won!

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Cubit and Seilore played 2 games, right?

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Jaiwera, reply 1


Wino's nuke on the solar panel surprised me a lot.

 He saw i was making money on solar and torched it. Heat of the moment thing i"d imagine. The geothermal under construction kind of blends in a little at the very early stages of construction so I think he just didn't see it.

 

Quoting Jaiwera, reply 1



Taking high aluminum vs medium aluminum/medium silicon, I also like the high unless I want to commit to 2-3 aluminum tiles, but it's a weak preference. I'd only go for the combo tiles if I had tiles to spare. I don't remember if that was the case in your game, but I remember that at the time, I would have also gone high aluminum as the easy-to-think-about option.

In hindsight I should've gone for the medium aluminum/silicon and another adjacent aluminum/silicon and switched them later but I had no idea aluminum would tank as much as it did. Wino only had 1 far aluminum tile.

 

Quoting Jaiwera, reply 1


I also didn't agree with pb about the nuke in game 2, but he might be right about it, I don't know. If you gooned your iron and nuked his and a war starts, then all his steel mills are dead, that's 4 tiles down at the cost of holding an iron stockpile, a nuke, and a goon. This comes when the steel bottom arrives. In retrospect, pb could be correct, but I wouldn't have been able to figure all that out in real-time, and I wouldn't have nuked.


 

I still like the theory in concept of starting a nuke war but I still stand by what i did. in the span of 2 black market cooldowns of preparing for a nuke war he can EMP or power surge me twice cutting down my entire ability to start said nuke war and advancing a HQ before I can do anything. He can also get the other high iron by doing that if necessary while i'm stuck a HQ back. If you're the same HQ and you're behind by one you're always losing because the other person beats you to all the best markets.

 

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

I think what surprised me about the nuke war was that neither of you protected your iron - it's one thing to start the war, it's another to be sure your opponent won't.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

My glass was way more valuable than my iron. there were 2 other iron tiles that could have easily been taken not to mention slant drilling if necessary. Or you just hack down iron. There are ways around that.

Iron was $7 when we stalled out. It never got above $35. Who cares if it gets nuked if glass is making you +$200/second.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Soren_Johnson, reply 3

Cubit and Seilore played 2 games, right?

Seems like what I watched was 3 practice games...Cubit just removed the video from his channel. My bad.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Suggestion that might have given Wino more information during the solar-panel-dynamite thing: While buildings are under construction away from your base, make the freighter lines blink on and off. (So blackmagic's geotherm in construction would have been visible to Wino if he selected BM's base.)

 

Also potentially useful, and following the same general idea : assign a neutral color to indicate empty claims away from a player's base (Grey?).