A Betrayal of Pride: Opening Gambits

Death is the only certainty in life; until Neptune’s Pride came along. Now being betrayed is as inevitable as the skin eventually rotting from your bones and being eaten by maggots. And you know what? It is glorious.

This was my little empire, full of hope and confidence...

Neptune’s Pride is a sort of 4x lite, which more closely resembles a board game (and that is not a criticism, I love board games) than a traditional multiplayer and it is played entirely your web browser of choice. It plays out in real time so fleet movements take hours not minutes and only requires you to log in a couple of times a day to give your orders. What makes it brilliant is the diplomacy. It is a game which, while not impossible, is very difficult to win without building alliances. But as the alliances are with real players and aren't formalised in the game in any way they are incredibly fragile. There are two things you need to know about playing Neptune’s Pride. Alliances are necessary, and they will be broken. This is the story of my first game of Neptune’s Pride II.

So I have joined a game and found myself in the bottom right corner of the galaxy. I am actually somewhat cut off with the gap between my collection of star systems and their neighbours a little bigger than the current range of my ships. I begin hyperspace research immediately. The other thing I do is contact my galactic neighbour and inform him that I intend to take Rasalas and its surrounding systems. I try to win him over with a suggestion of co-operation for the future, insisting that we are in danger of being stuck in the corner fighting each other, making us vulnerable to other empires towards the centre of the galaxy. With the beginnings of a tentative peace arranged I begin upgrading my infrastructure.

... and then I realise we have nowhere to go.

I am hoping making initial contact will mean something to the unknown quantity that is other players. I found those people I spoke to early in the original would be more likely to trust you.

It's all nicey nice now but he will betray me...
if i don't betray him first.

I focused my first system upgrades on economy, maxing it out as much as possible. I hope that while I might fall behind with research and industry at first, when I’m pulling in obscene amounts of money each day I can quickly make up the deficit. I flick through the other player’s starting manoeuvres and find most have taken a different approach, favouring research and industry - all except one. I hope that is a sign. Intrigued by this player I find he is stuck, like me, in the opposite corner towards the galactic north. As he is on the other side of the galaxy I message him and suggest a tech alliance. We choose different research and promise to share the results while discussing future military support. A little debate leads to us believing Red and Light Blue are the best targets, as long as pink doesn't betray me that is.