This was one of the better games I have played. The map advantage was clearly mine, and I made use of it early. There was a lot of engineer work done in this game, 21,19 to DPR was open, 22,19 to 22,20E was closed. 22,20E to Orion was open. 23,22 was linked to my homeworld. I beat him to Orion and pop tricked with Orion, 22,20E (With 70+ag originally), and some back planets. Once I saw how many planets I had of DPR's, I knew he would come hard and early. I colonized nothing, and held him off with attacks in Orion. Beating him to BR4, I forked his non-builders in 20,20 and 20,19 with 12 attacks. I nuked 20,20, and managed to parlay that into a nuke of 21,19 as well. DPR managed to nuke both Orion and 22,20E a little later, but I wasn't trying to save them that hard, as I knew he was nuking his own planets. Instead, I started capitalizing on my planet advantage, terraforming and colonizing while DPR spent fuel nuking planets up top. DPR tried a sneak attack with a stargate in 20,18 moving ships to his newly colonized planet at 23,20. I saw it coming, and met his assauly with an engineer to close the jump to my homeworld. That allowed me to hit BR5, and I stopped his attacks while nuking all his front colonies. It still wasn't over, as DPR dismantled and came back with a BR6 fleet again. Alas, by this time I was comfortably BR7, and the game that should have been a lot easier was finally won. Easily the most enjoyable opponent I have met yet, DPR turned a map defeat into a great game.
