With this setup I thought I was dead for sure. I started with 3 scis the first turn and then 4 cols the second because I felt it unlikely we would meet soon. I was right, we didn't meet until the turn I tricked (Rocky Road being the front, meeting him ship to system with my sci in what became Cherry Coke.)
Fighters had already colonized that planet and tricked, but he had colonized Root Beer Float instead of Banana Split, so didn't have the ag to make Cherry Coke a builder. I recognized that he had just finished a trick, and so nuked the planet with my sci instead of sending it further to explore.
That was the key to the game. I tricked Rocky Road up to a builder and quickly got the two planets to the east and the two planets to the south colonized. I then gated in a fleet to Rasberry Surprise and slowly pushed him back from there.
Another key to my win was that the same sci that had nuked Cherry Coke wasn't destroyed until turn 15, after it had explored seven of Fighters' planets. I therefore knew where he had colonized and could see any counter attack coming. Fighters also wasted time and tech in making attacks to chase the sci when he should have been colonizing his planets. He only had at most six planets colonized at any one time, and most of them were colonized late and so hadn't had time to grow in population.
A nice try, but a few critical mistakes cost Fighters a sure win here.
