Blitz

Blitz

Blitz is a 1 on 1 short game (average 15-30 turns), with 16 planets instead of the usual 500. It can be played at Planets Nu. Blitz games will end when a player resigns, a player misses three turns in a row, or one player has 90% military score. Playing Blitz will not affect your tenacity.

It is a great way to learn the game for new players. This is because you get quick feedback for your decisions, instead of having to wait many turns (which can take weeks) before your learn if your decisions were good or bad. Because resources are limited, it also forces you to make the best use of resources that you can, which teaches you how to make ships in an efficient way. Blitz also lets you play more games, because the games are quite short. This gives you more opportunities to try different races and new strategies.

Bugs

• Occasionally when you start a Blitz game, the map is uneven. In extreme cases, you will see 4 planets on one side of the map, and 12 on the opposite side. In this case, delete the game and re-create a new one. In general, it is best practice to check a game's starmap before another player joins, to make sure the map is fair. If it seems very uneven, you can delete the game (only before turn 2) and re-create a new one, with no penalty.

Tips for Playing Blitz

• It is usually best to stick with warp 7 engines. Upgrading to Tech 10 engines is very expensive (2400 MC), and warp 9 engines cost a lot more minerals and MC. When needed, you can always overdrive your warp 7 engines to warp 8 or 9.
• Economize! Only build what you need. Do not waste minerals on high-tech beams if you don't need them. Do not waste money on engines if you don't need them. (E.g. a defending ship can have warp 1 or warp 5 engines, which are cheap). Do not put Mk. 7 torps on your ships if you can't afford the MC.
• Rush strategies usually work well.
• Avoid over-expanding and over-investing in planets. It is difficult to defend your planets in Blitz, so pick a couple planets that are important and defend them. You usually want to defend planets with good natives. To defend against ground combat races (Lizard & Fascist), defend your high-income native planets by putting a lot of clans on them or maintaining minefields. Expanding too far and building too many mines will cost you a lot of MC which could be used to build ships instead.
• In general, you don't need a second starbase. There are exceptions to this rule, however. (E.g. Fascists can benefit from more starbases because this allows them to build many D19b glory device ships.)
• Every time a planet is conquered, the native population is reduced by 25%. To avoid losing too many natives, avoid re-taking a native planet with ship combat. Instead, drop clans on it, which will not reduce the native population.
• Don't delay transferring minerals/cash home. Next turn, the enemy might take your cash planet, and build torps with your MC. Every turn counts.
• Don't be surprised if an enemy tech 10 Warship arrives at your Homeworld by turn 7 and sometimes even earlier. Monitor the scoreboard to look at the military score of your opponent. This can inform you if your opponent has built a large ship that turn. (The Military Score Calculator can help you estimate what size of ship an enemy has built.)
• Plan ahead to have resources to keep building a ship every turn.
• If in doubt, a good default tech to use on your ships is warp 7, plasma bolts, and Mk. 4 torps.
• If a native population is low, use the growth tax method (70-100 happiness). If the population is above 6.6 million, use a more aggressive tax strategy.

Suggested Opening Strategies

• Use your MDSF to go to a planet within one jump at warp 9. Try to go to a more distant planet (close to 81 LY), since your other ships will have warp 7 engines and can't explore as far as the MDSF. Load 100 clans, 100 supplies and 700 MC so you can build factories and mines as soon as possible. (Use BDM friendly code to drop MC on same turn as clans/supplies).
• Consider an offensive rush by building an attack ship on your first turn.
• If you do not rush, build an LDSF to find a native planet as soon as possible. If there are no planets within 49 LY, overdrive to warp 8 or 9.
• On your homeworld, build max factories and mines. (If you are Lizard, you won't need as many mines; 200 is fine).
• On your first turn, tax your natives to -30 happiness. After that, let the population grow until happiness returns to 100. This will help your population grow, and increase your tax income quickly. In practice, you will need to tax whenever you need money, so it's OK to tax before happiness returns to 100.

Race Analysis

• The best races in Blitz are Lizards and Rebels. Fascists, Robots and Feds are also good.
• Evil Empire and Cyborg are considered the weakest races in Blitz. Crystals are difficult to win with, but playable (build small webmine fields instead of big ones).
• Avoid Privateer if you don't want a Rock-Scissors-Paper game. They are easily beaten by Fed, Lizard and Fascist.

See Also

• Blitz Leaderboard.
• Public Blitz Statistics
• Past Blitz tournaments