*** Must Watch Diplomacy Replay *** -- HuyMac gets the Dirty Sanchez!

Red played very poorly, and dumped ~20k in credits on bounty over the course of the game.  He could have probably bid half or a quarter of what he did and still won both pirate raids.  Neither you nor your ally were actively counter-bidding, and on the second raid defenses had built up to such a level that the pirates (even Diplomacy pirates) weren't a big deal, so the raid wasn't even worth 1k credits, much less 10k.  Beyond that, HuyMac was handily owning the neutrals in the center of the map and pushing you guys quite easily all on his own.

The only hint he had that there was anything of value beyond the wormhole was the sudden disappearance of your scout swarm.  I keep track of my enemy's assets, and having a big chunk of enemy units suddenly go unaccounted for sets of alarm bells for me.  However, HuyMac either didn't notice or didn't consider what it meant for the wormhole, and let your control that amazing wealth.

That said, you guys could have definitely done a better job defending and holding the neutrals.  You were really getting hammered, and if it wasn't for all that extra income that let you starbase all your planets, you'd have lost very quickly.

Oh, yeah, I know.  My ally was pretty worthless.  I was laughing for most of the game because Huy and Thrawn showed no signs of knowing about the neutrals on the other side of the wormhole.  I opened the map in Galaxy Forge before we started.  I just think it's funny that Huy thought he had us buttraped and then all of the sudden he traps his fleet at my terran, a non-strikecraft-based fleet, which is perfect pickings for a starbase.  I just wish I could have seen the look on his face.  (For context, he's a bit of an ass, which is why it's so funny.)

I hadn't paid any attention to the pirates until the first raid; I wasn't even aware that they were on until then.

Guess I need to retire that smurf name now.  It's run it's course.

Just looking at the map... it's extremely tailored to Vasari.  The vast majority of the wealth is in the form of neutrals, and the majority of that is on the other side of a wormhole.  The low planet count greatly favours the Vasari starbase, and you can reasonably cover all your assets with only a couple of these.  Given the map layout, you'd probably want to demolish your civics after you have wormhole travel tech, so that's yet another Vasari perk.

Why would you play anything but Vasari on this map?

Welll....while I can understand why it is fun to post a replay of someone you want to see humbled, there really isn't much to be proud of here.  HuyMac's ally was slightly above worthless.  Your ally was much better, but had the misfortune to be on the frontline and did his job of getting beat up while you maxed out your neutral economy.  HuyMac played an aggressive game based on the false perception he had the biggest econ / owned most of the map.  You could say his "instinctive knowledge" of what you were capable of did not serve him well considering you had +16 neutrals hidden away.  This is why I also hate to play premade maps unless I get a look at them, because another good player can smoke you if they know the secrets of the map.

It is an amusing replay.

Just watched the game and in truth if red played any better and invest in other ships than disciples your strategy would backfire.

Huy didn't play his best game either. He was building skirmishers???? If you wen't straight for assailants and carriers he would have easily died even with pirates on which after update when they were nerfed became cannon fooder and experience for caps. 

PS are u retiring your smurf because after posting reply it became publicly known????

He built skirmishers to control the neutrals because there was a big ass fleet of Vasari scouts that were going to threaten them (before they disappeared thru the wormhole).  Even the neutrals in the main area represented a lot of income, and HuyMac had guards on most of them -- Skirmishers are the ship of choice until you get carriers.

True but he was fighting with some of them as well

Oh yeah, it's definitely pretty much a Vasari-only map.  I can't imagine that people would ever want to play it again unless they enjoy fighting over neutrals.  That smurf name has run it's course, and I'm retiring it.  I've held onto it for a little too long anyway.  I'm sure I'll use it again at some point.