Weekly history tournament - Halley's Comet - closing Dec. 5

[hi]

This weeks theme was selected by Colin.

Map	Apparition date (date sighted)	Apparition date recorded by, or made mention of
1.	November 10th, 1378	No surviving record. However scientists assume this was the date.
2.	June 9th, 1456	Emperor Zara Yaqob was a ruler and built a city called Debre Berhan (city of light).
3.	October 27th, 1607	Edmond Halley, which the comet is named after.
4.	September 15th, 1682	Edmond Halley.
5.	March 13th, 1759	Edmond Halley predicted this apparition.

The winner (best total score) gets to pick next weeks theme. If we have the same winner as last week, the runner up (#2) will pick the theme.

See here for the rules, an overview of themes and previous tournaments and the overall ranking.

Please post your progress/total scores in this topic.

[Katra]

My scores so far

Nov 10    1378   8727   8:45
June 9     1456   8842   7:51
Oct 27     1607   8825   7:59
Sept 15   1682   8791    8:15
Mar 13     1759   8806   8:08

Total  43991

edit - nibbled some time off all scores. Real nice set of maps.  ;)

[mopa42]

My scores:

Map	Date	Time	Score
1.	November 10, 1378	9:56	8579
2.	June 9, 1456	8:57	8701
3.	October 27, 1607	8:15	8791
4.	September 15, 1682	7:26	8897
5.	March 13, 1759	8:14	8793
TOTAL		42:48	43761

These are some fun maps!

Edit - Improved a little. I have some solid medium times, but nowhere near fast. I can't discover the tricks to the amazing times I'm seeing.

[Colin]

I'm glad you think they are fun, I picked this theme because it
has plenty of dates to filter through (finding the good maps)!  ;D

I will post my first times on the maps soon.

[hi]

Try to beat my map1 score  ::)
My scores so far:

Map	Date	Time	Score
1.	November 10, 1378	2:22	9620
2.	June 9, 1456	5:08	9211
3.	October 27, 1607	5:54	9104
4.	September 15, 1682	4:47	9261
5.	March 13, 1759	5:04	9221
TOTAL		?	46417

//improved on map1 to 2:22. It's your turn to beat it, Colin.

[Colin]

Well, I tried all the maps a few times, and here are my
general scores for today. I will probably come back to
a few of them (or all) later on.

Map	Date	Time	Score
1.	November 10, 1378	2:44	9564
2.	June 9, 1456	4:59	9233
3.	October 27, 1607	5:01	9228
4.	September 15, 1682	4:41	9275
5.	March 13, 1759	5:08	9211
TOTAL		22:33	46511

I find these maps a fun challenge compared to the last
couple sets of maps, (Fool's mates are challenging, in
their own way. . .) but I would like to see more people
filter through the themes of maps for 'hard/good' maps!  ;)

EDIT:

@hi, gah. . . I can't beat that, you win. Hahaha I will still
try to improve my other scores. ;)

By the way hi, your scores = 46417 not your current score!  ;)
Your time should be 23:15 if my math is correct.

[ctuna]

My scores, so far.

Map	Date	Time	Score
1.	November 10, 1378	7:36	8875
2.	June 9, 1456	5:49	9116
3.	October 27, 1607	6:19	9047
4.	September 15, 1682	6:39	9002
5.	March 13, 1759	6:39	9002
TOTAL		33:02	45042

   
         
         

Somehow I managed to score the same on 2 - weird.

[Colin]

Tournament Results

Rank	Player	Total Score
1.	Colin	46523
2.	hi	46425
3.	CTUNA	45042
4.	Katra	43991
5.	Allan	43766
6.	mopa42	43761
7.	chretip	40026
8.	Pasqualz	38570
9.	Pezzle	33918*

*   Did not finish all maps.

A good turnout this week! Oh and by the way KEES, I improved
my scores on one of the maps by 2 seconds this afternoon, but
I didn't edit my post before the deadline, so don't copy paste my
time from there, it isn't 22:33, its 22:31.  ;)

I would like to thank hi, UpperKEES, Kapoios and CTUNA, for the
great time and all of the help over the last few months!  ;D

I hope hi picks good maps for next week. (hint hint)  :P

I will post my solutions tonight, or tomorrow. (However, hi should
post the solution for map 1 as I never completely solved it!  :()

[Colin]

Here are my solutions, I will provide a brief description
with each, because these solutions at the end of the
week helped me so much, I will try to do the best I can
to 'give back'.  ;)

   November 10, 1378,
hi knows more about this one, but here is what I did:
after building the above layout of collectors, I left 1
blaster at home, I then flew another to the small
'island' to keep the Creeper down. Then after it ran
out of ammo, I finished the map by using it as a
bridge. Note: it is a hard bridge.



   June 9, 1456   
This one was a pretty fun one, the way I did it was
force my way up the middle with 2-4 blasters, the
one left in the middle and way over to the right
keep the Creeper from flooding without using too
much energy, if you place them just so they can't
fire into the Creeper, but only when it over flows,
it saves a LOT of energy.



   October 27, 1607   
This was one of my favorite ones, I must give
credit to hi on this one, he and I were talking about
it on the Chat on Wednesday, and here is what you
do:

After building the Collector grid, and 1 blaster by the
totem (again placed so it only attacks the Creeper
when it just barely begins to overflow) build about
5-7 blasters and fly 5 of them (fully charged) close
to the Emitters, like in the picture below. You then
use 2 more to bridge from the Collector on the high
ground and build another Collector to give those
hard working blasters some ammo. After those
Emitters are secure, move your way south.

Note: you can bridge to the totem via blaster/sam
or land OC in the Creeper to get to the last totem.


   September 15, 1682   
This one was a lot of fun too, I also was talking
with hi on Wednesdays about this one. Here is
how I did it:

After you build your first couple of Collectors on the
mountain to the top Right side of the map, you build
a few reactors and a blaster to keep the Creeper
from flooding and a Drone. While you are waiting for
your Drone to get done, you build 2 more blasters.
You target the Drone bomber 1 space right of the far
left/top Totem, and after it leaves deactivate it (you
only need it to bomb once). While that is happening
you advance with your blasters, build another and
move OC accordingly.



   March 13, 1759
I had my head in knots over how the heck hi did
this one, but I finally came to the conclusion that
you can actually bridge it!  :o It is pretty simple
once you figure out you can bridge there.



Hope this helps all of you!  ;)

[ctuna]

Great work, Colin. You found several more creative solutions than I did. And I don't see why you think you didn't solve map 1. You beat me like a rented mule. Thanks for the answers.

[hi]

Well done, Colin. You certainly got a lot better lately =)

I believe it is not my turn to pick the next topic, because we got the same top2 twice. I think that's on ctuna as number 3 as I already chose the topic of the week before (but I am not really certain).

I'll give you my solutions on map 1 and 5 as they are really different than yours, Colin. (it's quite funny that you thought you had a similar solution to mine on map5 and yet they couldn't be more different =)

map1:
I pretty much did the same as Colin, but I think my collectors are placed a little better for the following reasons:
1.) my strategy is a lot easier to implement.
a) you don't have to do that annoying bridging over a too long distance (just normal bridging)
b) I don't have to keep the upper middle blaster in the air at any time and most importantly don't have to micromanage it so much to save energy
2.) I can land odin later and will have way more energy at my disposal at the end (I think that's the problem with your strategy)
3.) I believe this way the blaster won't need that much amo (but I'm not really certain)

I managed to be fast enough so that I did not have to clear the left island of the creeper. that's what saved me the ~25 secs.




map5:
I just build 5 blasters (and some collectors before) and then flew to the upper emmiters and cleared the area and started over again. Then I did what's shown in the image.
Note, that this certainly is not the perfect strategy, it's just a very simple one. You could easily get a better score by starting out in the upper left, then moving to the right and then doing what's shown in the image.

[UpperKEES]

Congrats Colin! :) You really deserved that gold medal; no need to get the #1 spot for every map!

I also liked the maps you picked a lot. I've really been tempted to play this week as well, because your choice was excellent, but just didn't have enough time. With guys like you I really need more than just a few hours, because when I play I like to be able to get at least some kind of medal. I promise to participate the next time when there are no fools mates again however, whether I have time or not!

I believe it is not my turn to pick the next topic, because we got the same top2 twice. I think that's on ctuna as number 3 as I already chose the topic of the week before (but I am not really certain).

The order is different, so you can pick the theme if you like, but I don't mind when you pass this privilege on to ctuna. I'll leave it up to you both and assume you'll agree by PMs.

[UpperKEES]

I have updated the overview topic with the latest overall rankings.

Next weeks theme has been selected by hi and will be: The Concorde supersonic passenger air plane.