Neptune's Pride War Diary #3

Alex – AKA Sifter

As I wrote in my first update to our Neptune’s Pride diaries, I am a keen student of the numbers, and at first, they looked very good. So good in fact that my main problem was trying to remember enough rubbish Britpop bands to name my fleets after. Thank heavens for Ocean Colour Scene, The Bluetones, and of course, the mighty Shed 7.

At the start of the week, my alliance with the space Pope (His Gorgeous Highness or whatever Paul is calling himself) seems to be holding. He doesn’t answer messages and when he does is very cryptic and frequently misses the point – particularly when I suggest a stronger tie than just a no-fly zone – but I feel confident enough to turn my attention southwards.

I covertly ally with Joe and Kev, gradually bump up my economy, industry and science and generally life moves along at the pace of a late period Oasis ballad – stately and with the odd lump as I capture a new planet. This is until Joe starts sending dark warnings about Jamie and Harry. Mike is for the chop, he warns. He will be next. He predicts his own death, within days. This seems overly dramatic to me – until Mike’s empire is torn apart. The effect of the evil alliance’s numbers, particularly Harry’s, is staggering.

Harry’s economy sky rockets to nearly double mine, his ability to produce ships is way ahead and his science makes my boffins look like the lunkheads on the bench the local rugby club. It is a sobering moment, and I realise something must be done. I need to obtain science from another player. I still hold out hope that HGI and I can work together – plus he’s strong militarily. The easiest player to obtain science from is Clive.

This planning is somewhat precluded by the fact Joe’s clearly warned all the other players about Harry and Jamie, and I find myself sucked into an alliance with them. Valuable days are wasted as we discuss how we're going to move ships and tech to the front. I gift technology to Kev and Joe as they will be the first to face the onslaught. Clive does nothing other than shuffle his ships around his tightly clustered core of planets. Paul continues to give frustratingly vague replies, and again, no practical support. Kev remains cheerfully upbeat about the alliance but it becomes clear to me that a strong alliance of two is far superior to a weak alliance of five.

Time is short, so I decide to attack Clive, hoping to take his planets, boost my own stats and make my empire big enough to keep up. At midnight I launch my main battle fleets - Cast, Ocean Colour Scene and Shed 7 - at Clive's worlds and go to bed. Clive however, is up just that little bit later and this, in conjunction with the fact his worlds are close together, enables him to move his fleets into advantageous positions. When I wake up, I stare at the screen and it feels like a real morning after. My fleets have been totally destroyed and Paul has wasted no time on moving against me and hoovering up my poorly defended stars. This is my Be Here Now moment, the point when, at the height of my powers, I have thrown it all away.

I don't feel too upset, though. It was a big gamble to take on Clive and you can't take those gambles if you expect they will always pay off. Far more upsetting are the long and naive in-game emails I receive over the next few days: Kev seems to believe Paul is still interested in an alliance, while Clive - despite having no ships left - sends off a message to the effect that now we all need to co-operate to defeat Harry. It seems they have yet to accept that it's all too little, too late.

Jamie – AKA JaySeeYou

I was away from my computer most of the weekend but nevertheless Harry and I made good progress into Mike’s space and met little resistance. Mike strangely moved all his fleets away form our attacks and massed a large fleet of almost 100 ships on his very last star. On our approach he boldly sent the ships off to attack Joe.

I received communications from a number of players over the weekend trying to break up my alliance with Harry. I was sure I couldn’t trust any of the information contained within the messages, as I’m very confident Harry and I are truthful with each other.

Mike has attacked Joe with his last fleet, so in kindness we are letting him keep a few stars. He will be an important ally in the attack on Joe, which we began today. We sent four fleets at Joe with over 200 ships and managed to secure two of his stars without too many casualties. Having taken a few stars we are setting our fleets to capture the neighbouring stars. These however are quite well defended by Joe but with our superior weapons we should be able to win.

After an initial land grab on Joe he has retreated back to his home world of Mira with over 220 ships. We will launch an attack once we have enough to take it, in the mean time I am quite worried about the incoming fleets of Kevin’s from the east. Hopefully our superior weapon skill will allow us to be victorious in the upcoming battles.