Time: Wed Mar 20 23:06:44 1996 Server: trombone.msl.ri.cmu.edu
From: markiel@callisto.pas.rochester.edu (Andrew Markiel) Date: Sat, 23 Mar 96 01:19:46 GMTTubers hosted Asterix at trombone.msl.ri.cmu.edu for a key Division 2 matchup Wednesday night. Lag was a little rough, some packet loss and stdv, but it was pretty evenly distributed between the two teams, Tubers being a little unclear on this "home server advantage" concept :)
The planet setup probably wasn't much to Asterix's liking. The choices were Rom with Ald/Eri agri, Fed with Den/Bet agri, Ori with Pro/Ant agri, and I think Kli had Lyr/Mir agri. I don't think Asterix wanted a frontline agri battle, so they passed race pick to us. We jumped all over Fed (not really afraid of Fed vs. Ori) and after some debate Asterix chose Rom, putting both teams agris way in the backfield.
I didn't really see both sides of the opening bombing, but I think it was pretty even, we might have saved a few more. The Rom base stayed at their second line (Dra/Sir) while the Fed base (OneWaveDave!) was on our front, and I think that added control helped us as we quickly started the trading of the Rom frontline. After about 20 minutes the front was mostly ours, and the battle for the backfield began.
The Asterix plan seemed to be to hold onto their back 7 planets and load extra armies on the base, and probably make a push for the front when they got many armies, or after ogging our base. Unfortunately, the defense was difficult: with the agris far back, both Hyd and Sir were good targets for small carriers, and scout runs past Sir to Tau were also possible. For much of the game Tubers ran two carriers, one to each side, which really gave Asterix trouble trying to defend both sides simultaneously. They managed to keep around 10 armies on the base, but couldn't push higher since they had to keep retaking. It seemed to me that their base should have helped defend either Hyd or Sir, but from the logs it's clear they wanted their base in the middle where he would be easier to defend.
Both bases lasted for a long time, because even though both teams had good ogging, they both had better defense. At one early point Asterix sent a full 7 man ogg wave at our base, but every single Tuber saw it coming in time to get in front of the base and the wave was completely slaughtered. Our ogg attempts were equally unsuccessful. It's interesting to read the message logs, as about half the team messages for both teams were about how to kill off the enemy base! Which, of course, meant both teams were always prepared to defend their own base.
We went back and forth for a long while, trading Rom back planets while each trying to ogg base, both teams fighting so hard that neither could get anywhere. Tubers got a break at about 45 minutes when Dave survived a massive Rom ogg wave; he went to 88% damage, but with full-team defense he didn't die.
With about 30 minutes to go, Asterix began pushing forward, retaking their backfield and Cap. However, Tubers seized the opportunity to finally break through and mug the Rom base, dropping him in one wave while the Roms were taking Ind. This hurt, since they couldn't pile armies on the base anymore. We retook the front, but then with 20 minutes to go they finally pounded our base in one wave. The game was finally open!
The game got kinda weird after that, Asterix was trying hard to get enough armies to retake tehir space, while Tubers were doing everything possible to stop, so there were ships all over the place. The ending was awfully exciting, because with the score 13-7, Roms gathered about 12 armies on Rom, while the Feds got 3 carriers, 2 with 4 each and Dave with 6. Roms struck first, taking Cap and Ind, then dooshed one of our 4 army carriers. Dave got run out to 3rd space, and things were looking iffy, but he managed to get back to Fed space, and then we cleared first Cap and then Ind for our two carriers. In the final minute they neutralized Cap, but we got 4 armies through and neutralized Sir. A Rom raced to Eri and back with an army, but was 3 seconds late so the score ended 12-6-2.
Good game. Asterix played a hard fought game, never giving up and keeping it close, but Tubers had another great game and were able to slice up the Asterix defense enough to prevent them from getting a solid push, then finished the game off with solid escorting in the last minutes.
-Grey Elf, captain Tubers!!, 5-0-0 INL