Graz thanks for admitting that it makes you a bigger man. I disagree with Orion saying that this is a hollow victory. We out colonized, we had more fighters, we had more money and more combined exp. I'm not asking to be declared the winner it really doesn't matter for me, but I won't cheapen what we accomplished.

The Duping had no tactical advantage and the only lasting effect was less than 1000 fighers lost by Graz, and his Bot wasting his turns to attack harmless targets. The duping wasn't my idea or simons. I called my friend up to play for us and in fact if you want to check out the game he is still playing under the name $hitstomper, his first character in the game. He said he was going to dupe and I told him that it wouldn't do anything. We did get a good laugh when he called us up and told us how pissed Graz was about having Mercs with 50 fighers coming at him every few minutes.

It's all in the past Graz, I don't even mind you using your Bots just using them 24 hours a day is BS even you've got to admit that. Put yourself in our shoes. I really hope that you play next game it's good to have a rivilary.

Well Hrvat, I would rather we won without the duping, it would have made me feel better. I have no problem with your friend joining our corp, the more the better. The problem I have with him is the duping he did. A bannable offense and cheating. Even if you guys thought Grazhoppa was cheating, you should have emailed Strider about it, and not done cheating on your own against it. Two wrongs do not make one right. To be honest, it is hard to say that Graz was cheating because he could have been playing by hand and using a keep-alive script to stay logged in. Maybe a script played a wav file when someone entered the sector and he stopped doing dishes or whatever to get to the computer and attack? Even if he did run an attack script, Strider has no rules against that sort of thing.

The only thing that Graz may have cheated at was blocking the Stardock with figs, but it was 1 toll fig, and not 5000 Offensive figs as I have seen in other games by other corps. That is how he caped my ship, I hit the toll fig and was slow to pay the toll (Autopay didn't work for some reason) so he twarped in and capped my ship. I also lost 1.4M credits, but the next day I was back in a new ship.

Not much left in the game, Corp 4 is left and so are the Ringwraiths. Ringwraiths have like 1 Million figs on their planet, we'll never take it over. Corp 4 may be able to be taken over, but they have helped us attack Graz's corp. So it is hard to invade an ally.

I honestly believe that we could have defeated Graz without the use of duping. That would have made me feel this was a real victory, not a hollow one.

Ya know this is really my first time dealing with something like this so realy some need to be patient like i said before yes maybe i did make wrong desicins but don't people learn from mistakes....Well that is all i am going to say about this. Moving on
Strider

Well you did what you thought was best and fair. Simon and Hrvat did battle with Graz and got podded, and Graz lost figs from the attacks. Hard to say what damage the dupes did, only 50 figs each, but they did eat up turns to attack. Each capped ship could be sold to the Stardock to get credits.

I learn from my mistakes as well. Maybe I made some in this game, but I've learned from them. This is the first time a corp I was on was involved with duping. Maybe not a corp member doing the duping, but a friend of his was. Still it does not make it right.

People have to remember that this is only a game and not to take it so seriously. Sure it is nice to win, but it is also nice to lose gracefully. Losing is part of the game, I've lost many games but I've learned from it. I think we have to learn how to be good losers before we can become good winners. We also have to rememeber that it is not our server, but the GameOp's server, and the GameOp has final say over the rules, and game issues. Respect has to be shown to the GameOp, because running a TWGS server is hard work.

Im sorry to poke in here but there is one thing that gets me,its how it seems everyone puts such a high priority on colonists.I usually never bother with them,i get emough to upgrade planets,then i cash like hell,My cash gets me the figs the colonists produce,then I invade like hell and just take everyone elses then they are mine with no colonizing time.Just one of my plans and it seems to work great for me.Jusrt my 2 cents about it,And Strider is a pretty good guy.I am sure he does his best to make it fair for everyone.Good job Strider.

Well Wildstar, Simon invaded Graz's planets and stole 40K collies from them. We did colonize, but I colonized late in the game and Simon colonized early. We pooled our resources when we corped and it was enough to invade a few planets. Which is in a way the same as you play to take someone else's collies and planets. That is what started the whole conflict, Graz wanted his collies back, or else we would suffer. The key being who owns the collies. We had 40K collies on a Class O planet producing org so we could cash it in each day, actually we had two planets like that, makes money while we sleep. In LotR Class O planets produce 1 org per collie, not 2, so it is a very good way to cash in. 40K collies meant 40K org a day and we beefed up a class 1 port to buy 40K org a day.

While Graz was busy attacking anything that moved his way, I secretly started colonizing as everyone was igoring Terra. I got 10K collies a day from it as a result. In fact Graz's attacks actually did me a favor as it kept him busy and out of my way of colonizing and planet farming. He only found one of our bases because it was too close to the MSL and his grid overlaped ours there. We played planet tag a bit, until we got tired of it and put most of our figs on that planet and moved 40K collies from the Class O to the Class L to produce ore and then twarp buydumped as much ore as we could on the Class L. The photon has a 1 second limit in the game and we knew that if we had enough figs on the planet, he would have to keep attacking to try and take it over. Eventually the photon effect would wear off and it did and dinged him for more then 50K damage when the Quasar powered back up. The collies made 6K figs a day on the planet, so him being in attack mode for a few days didn't help him, but helped us as the planet kept producing more ore and figs. Sure we lost ships, sure we lost exp, but the final battle hadn't been finished yet. Graz won a few battles, but lost the final one at our planet. We actually didn't need the dupes to win the game, and if Graz invaded the planet instead of attacking us, he might have taken it over. But each day it built up and his ship could only attack with 10K figs at a time. So he did a few attacks before the photon wore off and the q-cannon nailed him.

As I said before and I'll say it again, I am not proud of this victory. Graz is a great player and didn't deserve to be attacked by dupes.

I am always loyal to whatever corp I am on, as long as they don't backstab me or kick me off. So I stand for my corp, despite their duping, cussing, and disrespect for the GameOp. I gave them a second chance to clean up their act, no more duping, no more cussing, and no more disrespect for Strider.

I think Strider has been fair in this game, while Hrvat and Simon may not agree with me, I think Graz deserved at least 20K figs due to the dupe attacks. The rest were lost when he podded Simon and Hrvat and Hrvat's friend sh*tkicker or whatever his name was that they gave credits for carbo to.

He had no more than 30k figthers on his ship before we had my friend hit him with 15,000 battle points Carbonite. After the attack I went in hoping to finish him off (sadly he finished me off ), his ship had no shields left and a little less than 15k fighters. My ship had 8000 fighers and 3000 Shields... so you figure he lost at least 9k fighers attacking me.. (my ship had 1.4 defense odds his had 1.5 attack)that leaves 6k fighers. Simon had full shields and 2k fighers so that's another 4k-5k fighers lost in that attack leaving him with a whopping 1,000 fighers after our ligit attacks. So... at MOST he should have been given 1000 fighers for the dupe "attacks". I'm not slamming Strider for that, it's not his job to watch every detail of the game and at the time it looked like we were the bad guys. I don't think you know the details either, Orion, or you wouldn't be defending Graz.

The game is going to be rebanged Friday Come restart and have fun I will be keeping a closer eye on this game but if there are any Problems Please contact me FIRST either on here ICQ or e-mail...
There will also be some new edits in the rebang to make things a little more interesting and i will tone down the ringwraths a little but....So i guess i could declare them the winner.....
Strider

Graz some hints for you.

I read http://www.tw-cabal.com/ and it says that figs have better odds on a planet. This is why I usually do not get into ship to ship combat. Also why we put a lot of figs on Mordor. Besides I feel that if I wanted to capture a ship worth 182K credits I would waste 10K to 20K figs to do it, that I might as well buy a new ship. The only reason I would capture a ship is if it was an "Evil ISS" or one of the rare ships that only Aliens get that you cannot buy from the Stardock. The only way I would do a ship to ship combat would be to buy a "Walls Of Gondor" ship with 4.0 defensive odds and max out the figs and shields on it, let you attack it, pod me, and I come back with another one and repeat it until you are out of figs.

We used a Gilmi to recap our planet, it is a cheap ship, 80K credits I think, and it has almost as good odds as a Saurmon. We just filled up shields and figs on it and recaped the planet. Don't underestimate the cheap ships.

If I was a red, and I captured someone's planet and it had 40K colonists on it and I couldn't move them, I would attack the colonists with figs to deny the enemy use of them in a recap. This is a slash and burn tactic for a red. You will get more negative alignment, true, but it is a denial tactic. We used those 40K colonists to defeat you by using them to power the q-cannon on Mordor with another 10K colonists already on there to produce 50K ore a day and 6K figs a day. There were some collies on equ too, because 50K was the max for working on ore. Without those collies, you would have easily taken Mordor. As a blue, I'd use a cheap ship with atomic detonators and try to blow up the planet, less of an alignment loss and a chance of being blown up, but hey it is a cheap ship.

Simon and I traded like mad while others colonized like mad. We used the same tactics as Wildstar, attack someone else's planet and steal the colonists. Simon and I consolidated our collies into his sector, the one you found. We had other bases, but not as heavily guarded. Since we knew that you knew it was there, we put most of our figs there. Apparently it paid off, despite us not being able to access that planet for a few days due to your attack mode.

As a red, you should know that in a 1000 turn game you should be earning 12M a day. Enough to buy at least 40K figs, maybe more depending on the price. I got this figure from TW-Cabal. So if instead of attacking our ships for two days, you say SDTed for two days, came back with a Sauramon with 90K figs, you could have taken over the planet easily. It wasn't going to move because the Twarp drive wasn't built yet. Something you should have known from prior invasions.

I know you've said you were out of the game for 2 years, maybe these hints can help you improve your game. You've helped me a lot with hints, and I hope these hints help you. Good luck in your next game.

Ok well someone post the new ship and planet stats before the next rebang and I'll be happy.

I won't be corping with Simon and Hrvat the next game, I got a chance to learn with Galaxi and her corp. Maybe Wildstar will join? Anyone else interested? We'll need a good CEO too.

LotR needs more players, it is a good game. Very interesting ship and planet edits. Of course that will change next game.

You start out in a Merc, a Merchant Cruiser clone. Most people tend to go from a Merc to an Aragon and start colonizing. As of the current game, Aragorns have 150 holds, 10K figs, 3K shields, and 2 tpw and a transwarp drive and ptorp capable. Grazhoppa told me about the Palantir, a super Scout that has 100 holds, 1000 figs, 250 shields, 2.0 odds, and 1 tpw, good for trading. The Sauramon is the fighting ship, 200 holds, 90K figs, 10K shields, 1.6 odds, twarp, photon, and 3 tpw. Of course all bets are off in the next rebang as the ships get edited again.

Orion, I've played red before, and that 12M is under ideal conditions. I don't know if it was the board I played on or not, but when it comes to stealing it's not all about numbers anymore. The game designers hated people who use sctipts so in the last few versions of 2002 they put in what is known as the "Random Bust" it is impossible to never get busted stealing no matter how much EXP you have. It's because of the random bust that I don't SDT or SDTT. It's better to do a planet buy down and steal the money back. Less chance of getting caught and losing EXP . Then again I have horrible luck so maybe it's just me.

From what I understand there is a 1 in 50 chance of busting no matter how much exp you have. In some games I get busted too easily, in others I could steal all day and hardly ever get busted. That is why a corp should at least have two reds on it, to clear each other's busts. One takes turns SSM, SST, SDT, whatever and the other red either waits or steals somewhere else. When one of them busts, they stop, and switch or clear each other's busts. Tradewars is that rare game where crime actually pays because you only get fined your cargo, some holds, and 10% of your experience. You can use the credits you stole to buy more holds, more cargo, and bust planets until you get your experience back and have some credits left over to buy more figs, etc.

I am currently in Game C at Simpsonville, the Extern is not refreshing the ports or clearing the busts, and I am red there. Hardly anyone else is playing because of it. So my busts never clear there. I only get in that game to test things out, not playing seriously there.

TW55 taught me how to play red in a MBBS game, the Mega-Rob is amazing there. If it works, you get a ton of experience and alignment loss, and 3.3 to 6.5 million credits. If you bust you lose all your cargo holds, so use a low holds ship like a Scout to Mega-Rob in. The only thing I didn't learn yet was SDT.

Hey back on the subject of LotR, it is 7pm CST and no rebang yet. When is it going to happen on Friday? Also what are the new ship and planet stats. Thanks in advance.

bang on Saturday at 4 central time and edits are in a different post here
Strider

Thanks.