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. You can look at the current Blitz Leaderboard.

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.

Features

• The race of each player is unknown until after the first turn has started. This is a change from earlier settings, where the first player's race was visible before the game started.

Issues

• 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.

Lodda Tips

• Look at mineral density at start, it can differ from usual games alot and can influence strategies, ship buildings etc.

• Develop planets away from your enemies, not in his path to your HW. Usually blitz is brutal, and many warships flying around. I often did normal game approach , sent 1000s of clans to good planets, just to have them wiped out by a strong attack quite early.

• Rush strategy seem to work often, no need for economic buildup with most races and in most games. Rebel and Colonies worked quite well for me.

• don't over expand, planet count doesn't mean anything, military and developed planets near home is much more valuable.

• don't make warp 9, warp 7 and overdrive is fine on these small maps, i have not run out of fuel yet. (maybe there are exceptions on strange maps, I have one very strange now, 5 planet vs 11 planet cluster, separated by gap over 81 LY, first gap i have in blitz :))

• always beam up the stuff you need most, every mineral/fuel counts.

• don't waste money and minerals on beams in most cases, other stuff seems to be more important, i go with plasma bolts. Exceptions maybe against crystals, or robots?

• set ntp if you tow freighters with torpedo ships, you like to capture them, not destroy them. Built slots are precious, usually you wont need/be able build second base, except maybe with lizard or other special cases.

• don't delay transferring minerals/cash home, next turn the enemy might take your cash planet, and build fighters/torps with your stuff, every turn counts.

• don't make too many fighters with free fighter races, 90 per big carrier is fine, you dont need 300 fighters and 1 carrier. observe your tritanium demand and supply.

• standart tech for me: warp 7, plasma bolt, mark 4.

Lord Lancelot Tips

• First if you the one creating the game, I would avoid the Privateer they can be easily beat by a few races Fed and Lizard for example.
  
  • When your creating the game, it would be wise to not click turn done, until you know what race your playing against and adjust your ship building.
• Expect an enemy tech 10 Warship at your Homeworld by turn 7 and sometimes even earlier.
  
• Warp 7 engines are your friends
  
• If you watch the Military score change inside the game, and use Shipyard you can get a pretty good idea what the enemy is building.
• Some Races tend to do poorly in blitz, the most notorious would be the Borg.
• For a list of Races (and players) who are doing great you can check the Blitz Leaderboard.
• Most of the Blitz games you will not need to make new Starbase.

• Basic Turn one:
  • Put 200 cargo: clans, supply and money into your starting warp 9 medium and send it to a planet 1 turn or less from your HW, one away from your enemy would be best.
  • Build Max mines, max factory and set tax to -30 happiness.
  • Build a ship, and plan ahead to have resources to keep building a ship every turn.

List of Current Active Blitz players

Lodda
LordLancelot
Crome
mechnomaniac
purebloodprince

Feel free to add your name to the list.

See Also

• Planets Nu Client Add-ons
• Planets Nu Tools
• Public Blitz Statistics