Lauren

This may be a crazy idea, but since we're only sending messages through the game, maybe we could set up Twitter accounts with our aliases. That way we'll have an alternate method of communication since I, and maybe some other people, can't view the game while we are away from home. We could send them to Murdoc and he could post them here.

Confirming!

I'm ready to go again. I thought I would need to take a break but after listening to the podcast, I miss it already. I do like the idea of being anonymous. However, I don't have access to NP when I'm away form home. I don't want to screw up the game by not being able to answer messages in a timely fashion. Maybe by the time we get a new game going the iPhone version will be released. Fingers crossed.

Haha. That's pretty funny because the "good reason to keep the game going" I mentioned earlier was to get you to third place. I figured I would try to do that to make up for blabbing about our plans and because you basically locked me in to second with the last ditch effort to team everyone up against Chris.

It certainly made me super paranoid. I was totally down for attacking Ethos first too because I wanted to expand South. I'll admit I wasn't looking at the big picture at all. Ethos tried to make a deal with me but I was trying really hard to be loyal to my allies. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if I had teamed up with him.

This was my strategy as well. I wanted to be 100% honest and not screw anyone and I didn't have to until the end. I think the end is when people get super paranoid because at some point someone has to make a move. I'm sure that my immediate land grab helped a lot. I think my big problem was that I relied too much on trading tech. I was really stingy with my money in regards to science and I pretty much put it all into industry. Science was something that I really wanted to focus on when the game started but at some point, my economy wasn't high enough to justify putting that much money into science points. I just need to learn to balance better. I've got a much better idea of how to do that after this game. My first two games were public and they didn't teach me anything compared to this one. Also, it's not until the end of the game that I remembered to set up ship building routes. I've done that all three games and I'm going to put a damn sticky note on my monitor for the next game. Neptune's Pride True Confessions: I've already told Murdoc about this but right before we went to attack Ethos (SGP), Jennoa was moving a big fleet right through my home star. I wasn't really sure why he was doing it and he could have moved through a dozen other stars that would have made more sense (closer, out of Ethos' line of sight). So naturally, I freaked out thinking he, and possibly Murdoc, were going to double cross me. I thought at that point that I needed a backup plan so I told Chris that he was next to be attacked. Now I don't know how soon the Chris/Ethos alliance began but I've been wondering if that caused it. If so, I effectively screwed Murdoc, Jennoa and myself by doing that. The funny thing is, Chris and I never traded anything. I just gave him that information. (Where is the face palm emote?) So I guess that's my question. Was that the point when the alliance began? Anyway, this was a lot of fun and I definitely want to do it again.

Well that was fun but I'm glad it's over. Congratulations Chris. I'm curious why you didn't break up that huge megafleet sooner, you probably could have ended the game a few days ago. I do feel kind of bad for dragging the game out so long but I had a good reason. Are you guys cool with some post game strategy disclosure? I have a few questions about specific things and I don't want to give anything away in case you guys are going to jump right into another game. I totally want to play again but I need to take a couple weeks off.

Seriously. Someone may be taking home a Daytime Space Emmy when this is over.

That may be the problem. No one has said a thing in my other game and it's loading just fine. At least the "Welcome to Neptune's Pride. First time player? Read the Tutorial." part is.

The stars being so close together totally takes away the need for range tech and made the initial land grab crazy. I think the default settings would be ok with 12 players too.

Ahhh, that would be why I couldn't get in. Thanks!

If it's cool, I'd like to get in on the new game. I'm almost finished with my second free game which should be over in less than a week. My first game was pretty frustrating because we had 4 people drop out and no one made any attempt at diplomacy. In the game I'm in now, everyone pretty much contacted me right away. It's a totally different game when that stuff goes on and it's the best part of the game. I just wish there was some sort of notification system (via email or text message) that would let you know about messages or events outside of the game since I can't view it at work and I can't check it on my phone. If this gets released as an app with push notifications, I might just become the least productive person on the planet. Anyway, I would love to get in on a thumbs game.