Turn 1. I started out the game on planet 199. I’m not very enthusiastic about my location, as only a few planets are directly obtainable and there is only one direction for growth with freighters without showing my position. Fortunately I’ve got my LCC, and teleport add on is enabled, so that could be avoidable. Strategy is threefold:
1: Fast colonization, fast expansion
2: Destroy one enemy nearby in ~20 turns to create extra space
3: Focus on collecting MC and build reptile to upgrade for 10k MC each. Each reptile can HISS for about 500MC per turn, so after 20 turns, I will have built a clipper for the price of a reptile.
Fleet: 1 SDSF, 1 Serpent
Turn 10. I see an outrider from the privateer crossing over from P384 to P017. This is his starting vessel, so it immediately determines the possible candidates for the privateer homeworld. I decide to destroy the privateer as early as possible. He can be a very potent ally, but his home region in in the middle of the area where I want to expand. Strategy will be to send 3-4 LCC with MK7 and disruptors. They’re cheap to build and hard for the privateer to defend against.
Fleet: 1 SDSF, 3 LDSF, 1 Reptile, 4 LCC, 1 Serpent
Turn 20. Several more players have been discovered. The Robot is to my left, the Klingon seems to be to my top and the Borg and Fed seem to have allied and are to my right and bottom. Judging by the size of their fleet, I estimate that they have been allied from turn 1, or found each other very quickly. I have also seen the Fed flying around with MCBR, so worst case it’s a 3-way alliance. So I’ve decided to push forward with killing the privateer and then focus on the Borg. The fact that he has Fed money and a Biocide is troublesome, no way I can do anything about that at the moment. So I need to stall and build Madonzilla. Unfortunately, I have 50.000 MC lying around for upgrading the reptile, but the Bazars are not anywhere close to me. I have discovered the privateer homeworld, and have 3 LCC ready to destroy is. He has not built a merlin, so I should be fine.
Fleet: 3 Loki, 4 Eros, 1 SDSF, 4 LDSF, 6 Reptile, 7 LCC, 4 T-Rex, 1 Serpent
Turn 30. I destroyed the privateer homeworld in turn 21, but as it turns out, he was not allied to the Fed and Borg. So by destroying him, I have destroyed my only chance to fight back. I have laid contact with the Robot to ally against the Fed/Borg, but I fear it is too late. Robot was allied to the privateer, so with the 3 of us, we may have stood a chance against such an early alliance. I am losing ground to the Fed/Borg combo, who seems to have a really large number of Cubes combined with a lot of Missouri and a few Nova. The Fed is indeed flying several MCBR, which is a nightmare. My Loki will be useless, my ships will be towed and destroyed, I need to build more minefields to prevent the MCBR, but I am very low on minerals after building large amount of T-Rex, Madonzilla plus fighters and torps. The Robot is approaching fast with minelayers and instrumentalities, but I fear it will be too late. I have way too much MC, but still no Bazar in range. Stuck with 19 reptiles which churn out money like crazy, but no way to upgrade them. I’ve started to evacuate them to Robot to HISS his worlds for more minefields.
Fleet: 5 Loki, 6 Eros, 1 SDSF, 5 LDSF, 19 Reptile, 7 LCC, 8 T-Rex, 1 Serpent, 3 Madonzilla
Turn 40. I have just lost my homeworld to the Fed/Borg combo. After some skirmishes he arrives with a fleet of 15 Missouri, 7 Thor, 2 Biocide, 1 Annihilation and 1 Nove. I decided to withdraw instead of fight. There is no way I can win that, and the build point I gather from destroying ships, I cannot spend as all my bases are completely drained. Only choice left is to retreat to Robot space and try to form a new defense there. Several ships got MCBR-towed to destruction, including the Intrumentality send by the Robot. Maybe I can finally find a Bazar in Robot space, but of course my Reptile have low engine quality, so that will take some time. The Robot meanwhile is having to fight the Rebel (Q), Bird (Q) and Fed/Borg combo, so he is not looking too hot either.
Fleet: 6 Loki, 6 Eros, 1 Fuel Carrier, 1 SDSF, 4 LDSF, 19 Reptile, 6 LCC, 1 T-Rex, 1 Serpent, 1 MCBR, 4 Madonzilla, 1 Instrumentality
Turn 50. The retreat has been a disaster. I am getting out mined, so MCBR are waiting a retreating planets, towing away ships to be destroyed. I am one turn behind on where I should be, lost several ships and bases not fully upgraded because of that. Meanwhile Robot is still fighting Rebel (Q), Bird (Q) and Fed/Borg combo and is losing heavily. This game is over, so we wait until the Borg/Fed are tired of cleaning up the leftovers and suggest to end the game.
Fleet: 5 Loki, 6 Eros, 1 Fuel Carrier, 1 SDSF, 1 MDSF, 2 LDSF, 10 Reptile, 5 LCC, 2 T-Rex, 3 Madonzilla, 1 Merlin
Turn 60. Fed/Borg have suggested to end the game on the forum and everyone has agreed. Well played.
Fleet: 4 Loki, 4 Eros, 1 LDSF, 5 Reptile, 3 LCC
Conclusion: All in all the Margetios Bazaar was an interesting scenario. Unfortunately, I have never been close to a single Bazaar, completely ruining my strategy number 3. I destroyed the privateer in turn 21 completing strategy number 2, but thereby sealing the fate of the game. Had I allied with him, or at least made an NAP and focused on the Borg/Fed, I probably still would have lost, but they would have had a much tougher time to win. Next time I won’t put all my eggs in the Bazaar basket
EDIT:
New picture of final turn, after receiving the RST of Borg and Fed.
and his improvements to include teleport among others. Together with UFO4VPA it really is a marvellous program.