Neptune’s Pride – The Last War Diary

Neptune’s Pride – The Last War Diary

Previously in Neptune’s Pride – Diary #1, Diary #2, Diary #3

It’s game over, man! Game over! After four long weeks of tactical planning and suspicious looks, finally the bit-tech office has returned to some semblance of normality and we can stop bouncing conspiracy theories around about who is betraying who.

Things progressed very quickly since the last report, with Alex getting knocked out very quickly and Joe, who had turned his forces over to Kevin, following shortly afterwards. Clive’s empire collapsed next, with Mike not far behind. That left Kevin and Paul to deal with the combined threat of Jamie and Harry, who at that point dominated nearly the entire map.

The heat proved too much for Kevin, whose forces were slowly taken away through a war of attrition. Paul fared a bit better, aided by his secluded spot on the map and a competitively sized army, managing to hold on to his 42 stars for the entire last week of play. With 91 stars needed to win and no chance to expand, Paul wasn’t able to do more than that – Harry and Jamie both overtook him, claiming first and second place respectively.

In many ways it was an anticlimactic close to an intergalactic struggle. Despite the hope that Harry and Jamie would turn on each other, no backstabbing was ever done and victory was assured for the pair as soon as Alex and Joe fell. Jamie seemed content to settle for second place (or too honourable to betray his ally), allowing Harry enough room to get the 91 stars required to win. In short, the reason the game wasn’t more exciting was that we were all too nice.


On the plus side, at least we’ll know that for next time – there are already several other games in progress. Not everyone who participated has the stamina to play another game, but some of us do and are starting new games with other friends or joining in with forum games. If you think you’ve got what it takes to best Harry or Jamie in Neptune’s Pride then you should head to the forums and issue a challenge!

Even those who’ve chosen not to start another game straight away (mostly) agree on how good Neptune’s Pride is though. As Craig said in the feature which kicked all this off, “It’s the most horrible game you will ever play…it’s also brilliant!”

In fact, we like the game so much that we’ve decided to bestow upon it an official bit-tech recommended reward, with these war diaries collectively acting as the review. A quick vote after the match had ended showed that 50 per cent of us were already involved in other games - and only Clive and Harry were so exhausted that they wouldn't recommend the game to a friend. The rest of us agree; if you’ve not played Neptune’s Pride then you should grab some friends and give it a go! It's free, after all.

In the mean time, check out each players’ closing thoughts on the following pages and don’t forget to tune in our latest games podcast, which features some lengthy discussion on the match. It’s also probably the only time you’ll hear Jamie talking on tape.