Time: Thu Dec 14 22:57:18 1995 Server: e51-007-11.MIT.EDU
From: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu (Graystreak) Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 04:53:15 GMT
In another exciting, close-fought game the Babes managed to beat a weakened Tuber team in the semis.
About 2 hours before game time we discovered that the UMich net was hosed. The designated server, hal, could not be connected to (even by Dan)! Jay-Tuber set up an emergency server on an MIT machine and we gathered there.
At first it looked like Tubers would not be able to muster 8 players -- Dan was out of action due to local net hosage, ztfeng was out of the country, and Grey Elf was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, a swarm of Babes showed; at times we had 12 online and had to send some off so Tubers would have an obs slot free in case Andrew showed.
Eventually Tubers got an 8th but it was clear their lag would be bad. Babes had a couple of lagged players as well, but plenty to swap in. We started out trying to record the game with xsg, but the server host machine couldn't handle the load and we had to kill it early on.
[Part of me thinks I should stop making these postings, since it's clear that our opponents read them. Tubers, for example, clearly figured out that the base was key to our lines. They creamed the base twice, once +25 early on. But I'm getting ahead of myself.]
Babes took ROM, with the famous DRA/SIR agri. Tubers took FED, with CAP/ALT agri. Both sides had good frontline fuel, but sucky midfields. ROM had IND repair, which we felt we would need.
Initial bombing again went the Babes way -- we saved base+25 and about 30 armies on IND. Fed had base+25 and ALT@18. We started taking planets, mostly ORG and CET since their base was stash-guarding at ALT, but Tubers answered back strongly, dominating space on their side and retaking easily. However, with Sweet Jane on the front, they could not manage to drop anywhere in ROM space. So they ogged the base. An ugly ogg, but it worked. First wave took her down to warp 1, second wave got her repairing at IND, but only just barely (last ogger's dying 15-point explosion -- I was observering the base which was at 590 internal when the last ogger blew and ended up at 605 damage).
Babes spent a lot of time thrashing around, swapping players in and out and generally being disorganized. We had several players bust out (Chris once, Garrett once, Dan once, Jon twice) even with the xsg stopped. Tubers had more lag, but didn't seem to be suffering so many busts.
With our base dead, Jay (playing as DOWN YER TUBER) began to dominate the front. He moved across our line, clearing at will. We lost CAP several times, and REG several times. Each retake got harder and harder. Babes tried snap oggs which did nothing, so we finally decided to just plain ogg. We pushed Jay just barely below warp 1, and then spent several waves harrassing him at home. Each time he'd move out, we threw another wave at him. Eventually, enough of the FEDS had to go back to help defend that we were able to retake our front.
This process repeated several times -- Jay would move up, clear a huge chunk of the front, FEDS would take planets, we would ogg, Jay would retreat and we'd retake. Lather, rinse, repeat. Leonard brought out another base eventually and things started to even out. We solidified our front, and started dropping ORG and CET.
Unfortunately, someone electrocuted a squirrel somewhere in the backbone about this point (47 min left) and half the FED team disappeared, along with a couple Babes. I was field-captain after Chris' bust and I quickly hit a PAUSENOW. Eventually, all the players made their way back in and we restarted. However, unknown to us, the Tubers had used their time (and all their nicely-fueled ships) to plan an ogg. One wave and BOOM. We got ORG and CET out of the deal, but it looked bleak.
Fortunately for us, Jay got overconfident. He began moving to support every take and not resting. We plinked and harrassed and then suddenly he was all alone in the night. We still damn near missed him (thanks to good fast reactions from the Tubers) but Lambchop took her little SC in there and *blooie*!
With the FED base gone and under 30 minutes left in the game we started to play for the win. We knew Leonard would get one more base (though it took him a long time to die -- he spent a lot of time running around 3rd space with half a dozen kills and no armies, attracting Tubers away from the front so we could take planets.
Babes also settled down -- with no more lineup changes to confuse things, we started to click as a team. Garrett (TiNY PRiSCiLLA) in particular seemed to always have a kill, always be carrying (he ended up delivering 29 of 32 TAC). We started to carry the battle to the FED planets, taking and holding ORG for long periods, dropping on CET and RIG as well.
Tubers, however, were not going to lay down and die -- they punched right back with strong team escorting to clear us out of their space and, in a very smart change of tactics, they started taking IND (fuel/rep) instead of CAP (empty). They also pushed their takes to 4 and seemed to be playing for OT -- hoping for another base, I think.
Eventually, though, the third ROM base appeared and that was the beginning of the end. We quickly retook IND and when the Tubers went for it again (under cover of another nearly-successful base ogg), we got ORG and I got a lucky grab of CET (2.0 kills, carrying 4 for a planet I thought was @4 only to find it @3 when I got there).
CET turned out to be the key. I held off dying until it had popped to 3 and ORG went to 4, so even though Tubers cleared CET and dropped, it took two trips to retake it. And while they were all doing that, we took RIG with lots of base close-supporting fire.
They pushed the base off RIG and dropped, but could only neut it, while we neuted and then retook CET. At under 2 minutes left, they simply could not get enough armies down. They neuted CET, we retook RIG and held off the last of the Tuber carriers as the timer ran out.
For MVP this time, I have to go with Greg (Lambchop). He did a good job bombing two very tough agris, got several key dooshes to lead the team with 12 EAO, and delivered all 13 of his TAC. Second place is shared by Leonard (Sweet Jane) and CMU -- without last night's warmup I do not think we would have been mentally as prepared for this game as we were. Plus, they allowed Jack (Bliss) to scum the infamous 'ceri' account and play from CMU.
Last night we got all the intra-team venom out of our systems; tonite we functioned as a unit better than we have to date (discounting the 25 EAO for the initial base, Tubers had the least success ogging our carriers of any opponent we've faced all season).
BIG thanks to Jay for being able to set up a server on virtually no notice; despite the busts, the server was as close to neutral turf as we could have hoped for.
--Hippolyta
From: jaybyrd@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Josquin S Corrales) Date: 16 Dec 1995 15:58:04 GMT
[In response to Alan's article above]
Unfortunately my MIT server gave Babes the homefield advantage -- not really what we wanted, but we needed to get the game played.
We were definitely lacking as far as organization was concerned. I could have taken our TO at after our third and final (failed) attempt at ogging Wreck. This would have helped us organizationally and strategically, but I missed the opportunity. Not having our usual Markiel field general hurt us, as well as the borg like execution of ztfeng.
Just a few links to a long chain leading to Tuber defeat. More on that later.
I had xsg recording at 5 fps. I've managed to record the first 15 minutes or so of the play-off game so you can watch it yourself (with some leading pre-T mode recording time). With just that much recorded, it ended up as a 12 Meg .Z file. I was considering stepping it down to 1 fps, but I thought the dec 5000/20 server could handle the load. I killed every process I could think of to maximize the cpu time, including X.
Our team was confused and disorganized during initial bombing. We couldn't save squat. However we saw an early ogg opportunity that would bring resources back to equilibrium.
[Re: SB ogg]
I was never at warp 1 during your attempted ogg waves at that point. At most 45 - 50% internal. I told my team to continue taking while you ogged, resulting in an 12-8-0 lead. I had just enough Tubers resing to help combined with the fact that the ogg waves at this point were too direct and easy to crush, but you got better :).
[Re: dying to Greg's SC]
Naw, it was to CA's (not sure if lambchop was in a CA though) I think the final ogg wave that took me out (just above homeworld) was Vlad and someone else, I can't remember what my info borg said at that point. Somehow I managed to suck 70% internal, 45% shields from stray plinks at the front line and was warp one from Ind to Ear. It's one of those, "why weren't my fucking shields up!!" I have a shield toggle that sometimes hoses me. I'd like to remap that to shields on, but I don't have enough keys to do it.
In regards to our overall performance, team Tuber firstly didn't play enough games to get us into unity, lacked a game plan for most of the season, and - despite all my attempts - wasn't interested in spending the time to become a championship team.
I believe they have the potential, but since netrek is such a huge time sink, most of the players weren't interested in committing to the effort. It seems that they were content with their past Summer INL championship win, whereas the Babes were displeased with their loss and vowing to return next season with a victory. We couldn't match their fire to win.
Critical Tuber presense (i.e. missing Markiel and ztfeng) was a testament to the lackluster effort. I don't believe that after the first game SAW loss, we ever held a scrimmage again, but played official games back to back.
Good luck to Babes! If LaggU ever gets a game strategy going that doesn't hand space control to the opponent, then (maybe) they won't get stomped.
Now if Babes believe they are truly the greatest, bring the challenge to the final theatre: KLOC. :>
- Jay
From: dearing@cis.ohio-state.edu (gregory dean dearing) Date: 15 Dec 1995 01:51:16 -0500
Thursday night, Team Tuber (Division I champions) met The Babes (Division II runner-ups) to determine who would continue on to the championship game. With the umich server down, the Tubers opted to play at MIT. Lag appeared to be pretty good for everyone.
The Babes chose Rom (Dra/Sir agris) and Team Tuber went with Fed (Alt/Can agris). Initial bombing was fairly even, with the Babes making a forward stash of ~30 armies on Ind and Team Tuber keeping their base back to hoard ~25 armies on Alt.
The Babes pushed forward early, taking Org and Cet, but leaving their base exposed at the Ind stockpile. This lapse was quickly exploited by the Tubers, who dooshed Wreck+25 about six minutes into the game.
The Tubers took advantage of their army stash and began retaking, claiming the lead about 21 minutes into the game. Jaybyrd's base pushed up, resisting numerous Babe oggs. With his support, the fight stayed on the Babe side of the front for about the next 30 minutes.
WreckBase arrived again, and The Babes pushed back into Federation territory. Much to our chagrin, we left our SB flapping in the breeze again and lost him to another well-executed Tuber ogg. However, ten minutes later, we finally managed to get the Tuber base at Earth. These ten minutes would be important later, since Team Tubers' base wouldn't be available again until OT.
The fight was extremely even for the rest of the game. I think it's interesting to note that through this point, the largest lead in the game was during the early Babe push (12-7-1).
With about 15 minutes left to play, Leonard (7 kills, no armies) pulled a classic Wreck-to-3rd-space-fake. This drew three Tubers for a couple of key minutes while we retook our front.
After his death, Wreck jumped into the SB again. He cleared planets on the wall side while lightly escorted takers dropped on the open side, enabling the Babes to push up to the first 13-7 lead of the game. The Tubers seemed to be having a hard time creating carriers during this period, having only a pair of one-kill ships during the last couple of minutes. The Tubers neuted Cet and regulation ended with The Babes up 12-7-1.
Babes' MVP award goes to Wreck for the fake, some amazing planet defense, and excellent (albeit unsupported) basing.
Thanks to Team Tuber for great game! Stats follow.
From: leonard@alw.nih.gov Date: 15 Dec 95 14:31:18 GMT
Greg's summary seemed pretty good so I will limit myself to a few comments on the game. Bring on LaggU!
* More proof that the opening is completely unimportant. I got ogged +25. Meanwhile, the JayBase was guarding a nice pile at Alt, and eventually moved forward (and lived nicely) +25. Needless to say, Babes lost a lot of ground. Big army lead for them: no net effect.
* It looked like Babes got their home game after all... of the ten players with the best lag, eight were Babes. (Though Wiz didn't play most of the game.) Only one player (Jon Ellis) had really bad lag, at least by pingstats. But the next group of three were all Tubers. Overall I don't think lag was a big factor, but it did tilt to Babes.
* Congratulations to Tubers on some really great base oggs. I only got about three serious oggs, of which the first two were both perfectly executed six or seven ship one wavers. BOOM! BOOM! The third I got better defense on, and managed to escape with only 400 nicely balanced points and not even wtemp. That proved critical as Tubers really couldn't afford the time to ogg me in the last 5 minutes, and had problems with lack of kills. Thus I ran way out to Rig to escort the babe taker (Tiny, I think), and then actually reinforced it myself. Then I moved over to Can and was rewling away at the end.
* Fakes can be very effective. At around the 70 min mark, I was running around in CA+2 for a while without ever getting a decent clear (and only part of the time having the fuel to help clear). Eventually I had racked up four+ kills and had been chased almost all the way to Rom. So, I went there, dropped, and refit to DD. I haven't seen the logs, but the Tubers must have been positively foaming by that point. Thus, I didn't pick the armies back up; another Babe at Rom had kills and picked.
I moved off absolutely without subtlety in the classic "I want to grab a side planet" way. Naturally, the enemy space control moved to intercept, and so I slid around their flank into Ori space. By this point, three Feds were chasing me. I had to kill one, I think, so I went to Ori to refuel while they pulled back. But quickly I was flying in from the side, and sure enough pulled three tubers after me. I cloaked to keep them anxious, and moved first to Bet and then towards Den. Unfortunately as I turned to run, one of them got the plock and two of 'em D'crunched me almost at the back wall. (Remember: DDs are D'crunchy!)
When I returned (in CA; forgot to get base thus had to quickly mutual with Dan), the front was AMAZINGLY quiet... huge holes where before there had been enemy control. Neat-o.
* My personal game highlight happened in the third base, near Ind. Two Tubers were on tac, both cloaked, and given their massive waves I suspected this was not an ogg... plocked and toasted the escort fast enough to wheel and fire smack at the planet, where the carrier, evidently thinking that it would take longer to kill the escort and/or himself, had committed. Seeing the plasma curve towards the expected place, started phasering it as well. SMACK! Doosh! FATALITY! Bases really can crank out damage when they aren't in fear of wtemp.
-Leonard
From: markiel@callisto.pas.rochester.edu (Andrew Markiel) Date: Sun, 17 Dec 95 06:01:17 GMT
[Re: Alan's note about Tubers lacking ztfeng and Grey Elf]
Sigh, I suppose the truth has to be told...Elf took the space cadet option and completely forgot about the game. It was about 2am as I was going to bed that it suddenly occured to me what I'd forgotten. Friday was not a very happy day.
On the one hand, I'm just one Tuber, but on the other hand organization is very important for at-large teams, and for most of the games I've been the field general - suddenly missing that can unsyncronize a team. From the descriptions it looks like that might well have happened.
[Re: Alan's thought on refraining from posting summaries]
Heh. Look at my posts for earlier games: I cut out all the stuff that might give readers an eye into our strategy :) However, I don't think it was the summaries that gave you away. We've been scouting you guys for a long time to put a game plan together. It sounds like it was working, we just got disorganized and that can quickly lead to losing.
-Grey Elf