Jagged Knife Double Whammy

I was playing a game as my customized Mandalorians. Things were putting along. I had a great colony rush. I was starting to grab some Toxic and Radioactive planets. I had Drengin to my right and Yor to my left. The Krynn and Thalan had been paid off to wage long-distance, ineffective wars against me. And I had a great core of 6 planets (homeworld and 5 others, one flipped from the Iconians) that were enjoying stacked Economy bases. My war machine was starting to roll and I was looking for my first catch of the day.

Then the Jagged Knife event took 5 of my planets (33 total)... all five from my "core" worlds. My Eyes of the Universe and two major ship building planets were gone. I instantly declared war and started on transports. I had a small orbital fleet above each planet that would take care of any Jagged Knife defenders.

A few turns later the Drengin decided it was time to get our war on. The Drengin? C'mon guys, aren't we pals? Aren't I trading with you? Didn't I sell you Sensors Mk II for the low, low price of 72bc? Their fleets are small but they are armed to the teeth! This is going to get ugly.

Now, I've read the forums for a while. And in most posts I've read this is where the original poster starts lamenting and crying about how unfair the Jagged Knife event is. I'm here to tell you this: I'm loving it!

I hate games where I steamroll over the competition. I love to dig myself out of holes and find myself victorious. And I love to be thrown curveballs. IMHO, this is the time to roll up the sleeves and get serious about what happens next. There will be blood tonight!

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Never had that event. Do you get it often?

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I find the Jagged Knife sooooooo much of a mood braker that i often wished the randomized call had never occured but i would certainly agree with you on one thing; It DOES create an extremely interesting situation where true hard-core players can have at it as they much want or need to!!

This is the type of stuff which falls straight into simulation features instead of "real" strategy patterns... mind you, numerous events could tilt a couple of things in favor of specific races during any games, but i guess the reasoning from SD developers behind such flip-overs is that any gaming sessions are never the same. Good, frustrating at times, but still a fascinating approach.

There's always the good'ol saved/reload process to reset everything as it was earlier and crossing fingers the Jagged-Knife doesn't return if one prefers their games as steady uninterrupted empire build-ups. Trick is, fun can be defined in as many ways as there is some random (or predictable) situations to cope with.

For me, it's like a coin toss. Depending on my mood, i may accept the new challenges or not.

- Zyxpsilon.

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MisterAedan

Join Date 11/2007

The Knife are both great fun and a total pain, and you can usually count on them to walk off with at least one of your really good worlds/trade goods/wonders at the worst possible time. They tend to take my less vital worlds though so I don't get as hobbled as you seem to have been, although on a gigantic map they did once take away all but one of my distant worlds, leading to a rather epic reconquest (spore ships helped). Conversely, they're handy if you're lagging - same game was utterly dominated by Thalans, who had me boxed in (apart from my suddenly-absent outpost) and who'd already shown me who was boss once, but being able to take some of their worlds without directly attacking them gave me a chance to get back on the same level as them. Overall, I'd say it's definitely one of the most exciting events and thus can't really complain.

Funnily enough, another event that proved unexpectedly exciting was the "speed limit" event. At a stroke, I was forced to decentralise my entire civilisation, halfway through a rather large war with the Drengin. It's a bit like suddenly losing your momentum in Risk - instantly, the flaw in your strategy is exposed and all of those undefended territories/worlds you just blazed through are looking a bit short on backup. And of course, when my ships were limited to moving at speed 5, the speed 2-3 Drengin Death Blobs suddenly became much more lethal - I simply couldn't count on my reinforcements getting where they were needed before the cumulative effect of all those popguns eroded my starbases. Sensors became a much higher priority after losing a couple of upgraded starbases to sneak attacks I couldn't react to in time.

Neither game has ever quite been matched for satisfaction, even if the endgame for the latter did get a little frustrating - I NEVER turn off mega events.

...

That said, has anyone ever been on the receiving end of the Fundamentalists? I saw them walk off with 3/4 of the Yor's worlds, including homeworld, and thought that it wouldn't be such fun for that to happen to me.

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I wouldn't mind the Jagged Knife event so much if it wasn't for the bug that makes them gain all the technologies that the current civilizations are able to research, not just the ones already finished.

Had the event happen to me, thought "oh well, I'll just have to start taking my planets back through invasion", only to discover that they had max soldiering (around 110 or so?) far to early in the game, and I had no chance at all to take my planets back from them, nor did any of the other civs.

Has that bug been fixed yet?

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The event has happened to me twice. Once it really helped me out as it took planets from the other civs more than mine. This time... not so much.

The Jagged Knife did seem to have better soldiering at first but after researching a few technologies I am able to take over a 6 billion population planet with only 2 billion soldiers... most of the time. Once my Tir Quan is finished I'm really going to start rolling over them.

I have my five core worlds back and am working on more. I'm taking out the Drengin little by little. They have a killer fleet that I'm avoiding as I take pot shots at their freighters, transports, constructors, and smaller fleets. The semi-constant offerings of ships from the Drath and the Terrans are actually helping me out.

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