And thanks for the interest, Norman!

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, August 27, 2019 - 12:25 pm: Edit

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Quote:

Ted, what you have to do is hang a black and white picture of Peter on your wardrobe mirror in a cabin deep in snowy Russia. Then train super-hard like in Rocky IV, staring with rock-hard eyes at the picture every day. Play "Burning Heart" and "Heart's on Fire" in the background as you train. When you finally reach the top of the snowy mountain, yelling "BAKIJA!!!!!!!" for all of Russia to hear, you will be ready to destroy his ship in combat when next you meet.

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By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, August 27, 2019 - 12:28 pm: Edit

...."My name is Ted Fay. You killed my ship. Prepare to die...."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JGp7Meg42U

By Norman Dizon (Normandizon) on Tuesday, August 27, 2019 - 01:12 pm: Edit

But before you reach the great pearly white gates, there is a Checkpoint manned by Saint Petrick. And he will indeed take a very thorough accounting of every Star Fleet Battles game you have ever played. There is no deceiving him.

ALL your SFB Secrets will be laid Bare!

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, August 27, 2019 - 02:34 pm: Edit

If I really wanted to claim that I had beaten Peter at least once I would challenge him to a set of 20 games and play Fed each time and try to jackpot at range 8 in each game.

Pretty good chance luck would have me win at least once.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, August 27, 2019 - 05:46 pm: Edit

One of these days! You'll get me, Gadget!

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, August 27, 2019 - 05:57 pm: Edit

Nope. Jinxed.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, September 03, 2019 - 08:02 pm: Edit

4.1 Final

bakija (GRN) vs Grim (ISC)

Starts tonight at 9:00pm ET. This will likely take multiple sessions, as we have rough, incompatible schedules. But we are starting tonight!

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, September 04, 2019 - 07:41 am: Edit

4.1 bakija (GRN) vs Grim (ISC)

We played 2 turns.

T1: Gorn moves 16 all turn, ISC moves 31 for a few impulses, drops to 16, speeds up to 31 late again. We just move up the map. At R15, the ISC fires the PPD. All 4 pulses hit, centered on my #1 shield. I stop 6 on my #1 with reinforcement, so I take 4/6/4 on my front 3 shields. At R13, the ISC launches an enveloped G torp. ISC turns off, I move a hex closer, launch an enveloped S torp, and then turn off. The ISC speeds up to 31 after turning off, and we just run from plasma the rest of the turn (ISC towards NW corner of map, me towards SE corner of map).

T2: ISC moves 17/24 (about half and half?), I move 31 till about 9, 24 till the end of the turn. I just run the enveloped G torp out, turn south, come back around, and drive at the center of the map. The ISC runs the enveloped S torp down to where it will hit him for 2 damage, he fires a P3 at it, rolls a 6, and takes 1 damage from the enveloper. We both close on the center of the map. Impulse 32, we are at R9, him facing C, me facing A. I am 1 hex closer to the center of the map than he is. He launches the other enveloped G torp.

Game tentatively will continue on Friday.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, September 08, 2019 - 08:09 am: Edit

4.1 bakija (GRN) vs Grim (ISC)

Friday didn't work out; we are gonna try for Tuesday, 9/10, at 8:30 ET, give or take.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - 09:53 pm: Edit

4.1 bakija (GRN) over Grim (ISC)

We started the turn at R9, him facing C, me facing A, me just outside of his #1/#2 shield spine (i.e. out of arc of his off side plasma G which could potentially fire a fastload on impulse 1 if I was in arc), and out of arc of his rear F torp on the facing side of the ship. We both had potential maximum speed, but only about 27 hexes to the far corner of the map. Grim launched an enveloped G torp on impulse 32 of the previous turn (i.e. it was still in his hex).

T3: I look at his ship and his weapon arcs. I figure there is a good chance he'll park here. If he runs, he doesn't get to PPD me, he can't launch a stack of 40 at me due to where I am relative to his arcs. So I take a gamble and plan on him parking. I plot 25 till 9, 13 till 17, 6 till 25, 4 till the end of the turn for 12 moves, arm/hold my plasmas, turn on my ship, put 15 power in tractors, and then have 2 suicide shuttles I have been holding since the start of the game, and a weasel I armed on T1. Impulse 1, Grim announces speed 0, and I am relieved. Impulse 2, I get to R8, he fires the PPD, which could be overloaded, but turns out not to be (he didn't allocate the overload, and didn't want to risk the batteries if I HET out or something). Over the next 4 impulses I take all the hits on my #1 and #6. I eat the enveloped G for 35 damage spread around after a few phasers. He TACs away from me (now facing B, so I'm out of his FA mostly), launches a rear F torp, but 'cause it had to face D, it ends up hitting my mostly full #5 for 17 after a P1 shoots it, leaving my 18 box shield up at a box, but it isn't facing. At R2, I slow down to 13, but move the next impulse. He fires 2P1, 2P3, rolls 1, 1, 1, 1 for 22 damage on my 12 box #6, doing 10 in (hitting a F tube and a couple fired phasers). Impulse 10, I turn into R1 with my 5 box #1 (centerlined on his #2). He does not TAC. I tractor him, auctioning up to 12 power to beat his 11 negative tractor. I launch S, F, F, fast F, 2 suicide shuttles which move the next impulse at speed 6 (or 3 if they are crippled, as I got there at the exact right impulse luckily). Grim shoots me in the face with 3P1 for another 10 internals (hitting another F tube and another couple fired phasers). I shoot him with a couple phasers, finding 8 reinforcement. Impulse 11, all my stuff hits him, he takes 126 damage resulting in 93 internals.

After the smoke clears, the ISC has zero power and a single P3 left on his ship. I still have 3 or 4 P1s to fire in his ship. Grim surrenders.

And excellent game vs an excellent opponent.

I took a gamble, and guessed correctly. And even then, if he had allocated all his available power to tractors, he could have beat my tractor--he allocated 6 to tractor and 11 to reinforcement, which could have been 17 tractor. But that would have required a lucky guess as well. Sometimes you guess correctly, sometimes not, and I have lost plenty of games by guessing wrong. If he had just run this turn, I was probably hosed, even without the PPD or stack of 40, so I was gambling.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - 10:26 pm: Edit

Congratulations to Peter Bakija.

Great games in the Sapphire Star Tournament #1.

By Norman Dizon (Normandizon) on Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - 10:44 pm: Edit

Wow!! Great game! Love the detailed write-up.

By Ken Lin (Old_School) on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - 12:18 am: Edit

Congrats Peter, and thanks for sharing the writeup with us!

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - 06:47 am: Edit

Thanks everyone!

It is worth pointing out that Paul's allocation on T3 would have been a perfect killing plan if I had gone with a chase him down allocation myself (i.e. if my coin flip guess had landed on "he will run"); I probably end up either coming into R5 and bolting half my plasma at him (to avoid getting too mangled on the way in) at which point even if I hit with both on side plasmas and do 20 damage with 5xP1, I still don't go through his #2 shield (30+11 reinforcement+up to 5 batteries)--or--I become nihilistic and try for an anchor that I'm not actually prepared for, and his 6 allocated tractor will completely foil anything I could possibly have for tractoring.

So his allocation was completely sound, assuming I plan to chase, but works out poorly if I guess correctly that he is going to stop and plan on that. But if I planed on him stopping and he runs, I probably get killed.

I have played a lot of games vs the ISC over the years as either a Kzinti or a Gorn, and the vast majority of the time, the game comes down to guessing if he is going to stop or run on a particular turn. If I guess well, I do well. If I guess poorly, I do poorly. This time, I did ok :-)

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - 09:44 am: Edit

Congrats, Peter! Glad the guy who beat me took all.

I, personally, don't know anything about guessing wrong.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - 06:58 pm: Edit

Congrats Peter!

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 - 07:12 pm: Edit

Thanks everyone!

Paul! You should chime in with your side of that last turn. I'm interested!

By Paul Graves (Grim) on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 05:37 am: Edit

Here were some of my thoughts in perhaps more detail than you might have wished...

My general plan for the game was a typical one for the ISC against most opponents: beat you down slowly with the PPD if you didn't close or hurt you so badly on your way in that you didn't have enough to kill me by the time you did.

By the end of turn 2 things were going well for me. I had damaged all three of your front shields by 13-20%, only taken one point of damage in return, and hadn't sacrificed position to do it. I still had plenty of torps to keep you away and my PPD is up. I was happy to continue this if you let me. Since I know you are equally aware of this and you didn't launch any plasma at the end of turn 2 it seemed likely that your turn 3 plan was to charge me.

When an opponent is likely to charge my ISC, unless I can run away far enough to avoid very close range I find it's generally better to basically stop. If I had run and you had fully committed to chasing me you could have caught me in the corner at the end of turn 3. You would have had to eat the EPT on the board, the PPD, and one rear F along with some p1s. Depending on how well you spread out the damage maybe you still have enough left to beat me in a tractor auction on turn 4 maybe not.

Against almost any other opponent playing the Gorn I would have been fine with taking that chance and run. However, when calculating this I noticed that in order to use my PPD before turning to run I realized that you could fairly easily get to centerline me at range 5 on a back shield. I thought Bolty Bolterson might be very tempted to take that shot. Given you would have had to eat the EPT and my PPD, you wouldn't destroy my PPD or G torps and then you'd be forced to run I thought that wouldn't be too bad unless you rolled well. When a similar situation presented itself when we played Gorn vs Gorn in the last Plat Hat you did bolt, rolled well and won so I was not excited to take that chance again. So I wanted to put some power to shield reinforcement to reduce that possibility.

The concern I had about stopping was that maybe you just run from my EPT and come back. When I looked more carefully I realized you couldn't both run it out enough to matter and still make it back to the middle of the map and I'd still further reduce your shields with my PPD. I could then run away turn 4 without you being able to close before turn 5 when I have the PPD again and if you tried I'd have another EPT on turn 4 you'd have to eat along with back Fs.

I didn't worry much about you moving only enough to reach me and putting the rest to tractor (as you did) because I couldn't see how you might have thought that would work. Either I run which means that strategy fails because you can't reach me, or I stop and have a ton of power with nothing to do with it but stop exactly the tractor you would want to try.

So considering all this I decided to stop, put enough power to tractor to stop any reasonable amount you put to tractor so I could weasel torps, a small amount to start moving at the end of the turn which I could bolster with batteries if not needed elsewhere, and the rest to reduce the effectiveness of a lucky bolt shot.

Perhaps the factor I overlooked was that you too saw all this and realized you didn't have too many great options so you had to try something a bit unexpected. In my opinion an experienced ISC player generally has an advantage against the Gorn.

In any case, you made the right decision and I did not and that's what winning is all about!

Congrats again on your victory!

By Norman Dizon (Normandizon) on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 12:35 pm: Edit

This is Awesome to hear the other side of the story!

It's curious how much the tendency to Bolt really factored into everything. Against other opponents, you would have done one thing. But against Peter, knowing his habits (and past Tournament results), you decided to do another. Very interesting.

I was wondering why that PPD was not overloaded. Looking at your thoughts, it makes more sense now.

When I compared the Gorn SSD vs ISC SSD before the game, it noticed the Gorn had 2 PL-S and 2 PL-F, all of which could launch forward (plus Phasers). The ISC had the PPD, 2 PL-G, and 2 rear-firing PL-F (plus Phasers). So I wondered if the effectiveness of that PPD was worth the difference in Plasma.

It's also interesting how much that EPT was factored into the tactics. Looking at the actual game results, it looks like the EPT did 35 damage, spread around, after Phaser fire.

It's cool how important the Tractor Auction was in the overall battle. The reason I say this is because its importance highlights how essential every point is during Energy Allocation. Basically, how you spend your points differentiates one Captain from another.

Guessing right and guessing wrong in strategy and tactics (in addition to good and bad rolls) ultimately leads to either victory or defeat. I wonder, is it so in Real Life?

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 01:44 pm: Edit

Paul,

Thanks for the notes!

Yeah, I also think the ISC is advantaged over the Gorn (I generally give it a 6-4; sometimes a 7-3 if I'm feeling nihilistic :-); as such, when we went into T3, my plan was "hope they don't have blasters", i.e. it looked like stopping was a good option for you there, especially if you wanted to use the OL PPD (which you could have, certainly at that point, if you were willing to risk me just leaving R8 with a HET immediately, which isn't that likely), I said "How do I maximize my tractor power"; if you had run, I just accepted that I was probably doomed.

The reason I was speed 25 (which was a very specific reason, when you asked :-) was that 25 was the lowest speed that moved 7 times in the first 9 impulses, specifically moved on impulse 9, and didn't move the 1 impulse that it didn't move. I wanted to get from R9 to R1 (assuming you were stopped) as quickly as possible, with as little power as movement in possible. I also knew that 'cause I couldn't afford to move 31 or anything, I was going to need to miss a hex in there somewhere, and 25 missed a hex of movement when I was going to be at R6. I didn't want to sit inside of R5 for a pause, allowing you to get an advantageous phaser mizia if you were so inclined, and I was willing to take that at R6. I wanted to move impulse 9 and then decelerate to a slow speed that then moved on 10, so I could make sure I went from R2 to R1 without a pause in there.

As such, I end up at 25 till impulse 9 (moving 7 hexes); 13 till 17 (moving on 10, when I get to R1 if you are stopped); 6 till 25; 4 till the end of the turn, which is 12 moves. This gave me enough power to get to 15 tractor and still hold my 3 shuttles (2 suicide and a weasel, just in case).

I figured it was likely you were going to stop at that point--if you ran, it would be difficult to PPD me, and I started the turn in the blind spot between both possible plasma torps. I accepted that if you did run, I'd be sad, and probably dead. With the plot I had, it was likely I could get a R5 bolt shot on your rear shield anyway, which would have been a dicey booby prize--if I aced with 4-4 tops and roll well on phasers at R5 at a minimally reinforced shield, I might have a fighting chance the rest of the game, but in all likelihood, I'm probably doomed at that point if you run. I also considered that you could have plotted, like, 15+ tractor if you stopped, but it seemed unlikely that you would both stop *and* drop 15 power on tractors, all things being equal. I was willing to risk that.

The thing I was also factoring in was the possibility of you string launching weasels to delay the tractor, but I had the ability to HET, and as I slowed down precipitously when I got to R1, I probably could have still whacked 2 or 3 weasels, still got to R1, tractored, and hit with all the torps before the end of the turn.

By Norman Dizon (Normandizon) on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 03:08 pm: Edit

dicey booby prize?

By Paul Graves (Grim) on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 04:19 pm: Edit

I did plan to partially overload the PPD (5 pulses). There's no practical way to get all 6 unless the opponent is not closing fast or moving away. However, I didn't want to allocate the overload in EA as we started at range 9. If I were going to overload from batteries which I had considered I would have done it at range 7 so if you do HET at least I get 2 pulses and even three if you don't speed up to avoid the skip speed 25 has on impulse 5. But at that point I worried I may need the batteries for tractor so thought it prudent to not. Good thought but too late... Also it allowed me to tac to get my back F in arc and keep my #2 reinforced shield facing you.

If I had overloaded at range 8 and you were planning to chase me which it appeared likely at that point, a HET to only take one pulse and run out the EPT wasn't a terrible idea for you given the other options I thought you had. I was hoping to tempt you into just that by firing at range 8 not 9 with the standard PPD.

I was only curious about speed 25 at the time I asked because I wasn't aware you were planning to slow drastically later so figured 24 did the same thing as 25 but with a smaller turn mode and if you really wanted speed, 26 made more sense. But given your goal of closing quickly and being able to reduce speed afterwards drastically, speed 25 makes good sense.

I really wasn't too concerned about what was happening on turn 3 until you announced the speed drop to 13. At that point I knew I was doomed. I considered chain weaseling but that would have just delayed the inevitable and maybe I was wrong that you didn't have a ton to tractor. I was surprised you had suicide shuttles but didn't bother to destroy them (at that point I didn't know they were SS) because I was already dead anyway. To be honest I'm not sure they are worth paying the 2 power all game. Either you tractor me and the plasma is enough with phasers or you can't tractor me. That 2 power is more important to the tractor working in the first place in my opinion.

Also I wondered about the hybrid tactic of an EPT and reinforcement turn 1. In particular I think the EPT costs too much power and then you have to rearm it. I would prefer to either reinforce more or probably more importantly run faster. Going only 16 all turn 1 really hurt your positioning. In the Gorn against the ISC I'm tempted to start the match holding G torps for 1 power only so I have more power and I can always pay the extra point from batteries to upgrade them to S's. Succeeding at the tractor with 80 points of plasma is better than having 100 but failing the tractor by 1-2 points. Plus you save 2 power for every turn until you do use them. The Gorn having an EPT seems generally unnecessary as you just close turn 1 until the ISC launches their G-EPT in which case the ISC turns off anyway without your EPT. Given that you probably need to charge the ISC turn 2-3 and eat the second EPT on the way anyway it doesn't really matter if the ISC doesn't run off and in fact if they don't it can make it easier to catch him.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 05:17 pm: Edit

>>Also I wondered about the hybrid tactic of an EPT and reinforcement turn 1. In particular I think the EPT costs too much power and then you have to rearm it. I would prefer to either reinforce more or probably more importantly run faster.>>

Going fast with no enveloper on T1 means you are obviously committing to an anchor attack, which is easy to foil when it is super obvious; Launching the enveloper on T1 means the ISC probably turns off and runs, and has to run further than the Gorn does (G torp dies faster), and then the ISC is unsure what the Gorn is going to do on T3. Like, I very easily could have been planning on an enveloper and turning off on T3 (having rolled the torp on T2). I mean, like, at that point, it might not have worked real well, but it was certainly possible.

>>In the Gorn against the ISC I'm tempted to start the match holding G torps for 1 power only so I have more power and I can always pay the extra point from batteries to upgrade them to S's. Succeeding at the tractor with 80 points of plasma is better than having 100 but failing the tractor by 1-2 points.>>

I've played the "I go really fast on T1 with G-torps held, eat all the ISC's junk, and then try and tractor him on T2" numerous times. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But it is also really easy to see coming, which is a problem. It turns out I have been vastly more successful against the ISC by being less obvious right out of the gate.

By Paul Graves (Grim) on Friday, September 13, 2019 - 06:09 pm: Edit

I wasn't suggesting charging on turn 1. Just that you will eventually have to charge and holding Gs and not an EPT gives you more power to be in a better position to do that on whatever turn you do decide to. The ISC player knows you have to charge at some point as well so not arming an EPT turn 1 doesn't reveal anything they don't already know. In fact by your logic perhaps it will make them think you are charging turn 1 when really you aren't so they may do something foolish...