STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://flyingmoose.cjb.net) VOL. 19, November 8, 1999 CONTENTS Feature Article - HERE'S HOW TO HAVE FUN (OR NOT TO HAVE FUN) Questions - Failed Gifts - final word. SEDG Web Page URL The Captain's Log - Beware "Him Of The Clean Hands" The Swap Corner - The order editor Correspondence - Looking for loopholes. FEATURE ARTICLE - IT'S A GAME. HERE'S HOW TO HAVE FUN (OR NOT TO HAVE FUN) Alternate title -- A SMORGASBORD OF OPINIONATED HUEY :-) Elliot's top 12 things you don't do in Starweb 12) Ignore email 11) Ambush your allies (ouch!) 10) Forget to load 9) Load at a HW 8) Forget to go to peace (spoil captures) 7) Transfer ships to an enemy key (yup, I've done it :-) 6) Impose your will (plan) on allies 5) Don't follow the plan (but didn't open your yap to discuss concerns) 4) Miss turns 3) Drop out 4) Send out objectionable personal email/diplos And the number 1 thing you don't do in Starweb is .... 1)backstab ---------------------------------------------------- WHEN DOES IT STOP BEING FUN. When the enemy alliance has you on the ropes and you're down to your last ship - NOPE! When despite your best efforts (that's your best efforts) you can't catch up with the lead score - NAH! When you're superbly masterful war plan is busted up by a 100-ship ambush - UH UH! Similar to the top 12 things listed above I find that it stops being fun when you lose all control over your fate due to stupid things. Not because you were outflanked, out maneuvered or outplayed. What are these stupid things. This will vary for everyone but for me. Stupid things are things like - you are bickering with your allies. It's a game and if you can't get along in a game you must be some piece of work in the real world :-). Allies that see and/or participate in the planning of a turn cycle and then just screw it up. "Oh, sorry guys. Was I supposed to reinforce that HW?". "I know I agreed to ally with the 4 of you guys but I won't help attack whatsisname over there". Repeat this statement for most of the players in the web . Email I've seen (not to me ) such as "You are the stupidest F^&$ I've ever gamed with". "No, your plan sucks [no reasons or facts to say why]. We will do this .....". Oh gee, don't I get a vote. Perhaps I should just send FBI some money for your account and let you do my turns . Oh, you're in the lead because your 3 neighbors dropped out and you just waltzed in and took all the worlds. Gee, I had to exterminate 3 of my neighbors and engage in heavy negotiations to get my 5th place! Your closest ally drops out (and he owns your HW) without even a word or an email. And now won't even return your mail. Gee, I don't mind if you wasted your $ playing up until now but it was sure nice of you to dump my game and flush my money in the toilet too! Yah, I know many of you won't agree with my last comment. After all, Starweb costs money. Why shouldn't you drop out if your position has become untenable? I will give you 2 reasons. First, if you were playing chess and I took your Queen would you flip over the board in a rage? Of course not, that would be unsportsman like. To me dropping in the middle is a little like that. Second, even if you can't figure out how to enjoy the game in it's present state you have an obligation to your allies. No, you don't have to stay until the bitter end wasting your valuable dollars. Yes, there should be at least a 1 turn "Handing over the mantle of power" to your allies. This may involve giving back HWs, gifting yours and turning over as many ships/worlds as you can so that your abrupt end to the game doesn't hurt them and as I've said - "Flush their game down the toilet too". I'm sure you can all come up with you're own list but I thought you would enjoy seeing me vent some of my rage. I guess it behooves me to give some thought to "HOW TO MAKE STARWEB FUN WHEN YOU ARE LOSING (GETTING YOUR BUTT SHOT OFF, IN SCORING HELL ETC.) Have you considered that you should not lay over and just die? Make it costly for the enemy to take anything from you. Make him work for it and whenever possible spit at him or poke him in the eye with a big stick. You can keep a world or key neutral a long time by working the rules. Gee, another fleet of 1 just arrived again spoiling that HW capture :-). Nuts, a 40 ship key with a PBB just landed at the enemy HW (unexpected and unable to defend against). "Whaddya mean he mapped my territory and gave my map to everyone in the game." Everyone appreciates an honorable and competent opponent who doesn't just drop as soon as they see your invasion force. You will too when you are on the 'Dishing it out' end of a game. See if you can arrange for you're over aggressive opponent to fall in the ranks. To this end, why don't you re-evaluate your goals for the game. You can get a lot of satisfaction putting on a good defense but also by slowing down their scoring and perhaps shifting to trying to get one of your allies to win the game over the opposition. A fun thing to thumb your nose at your opposition that I have done is - collect a bunch of bad art and drop it on a world the opponent can't get to. Gift it to him. The subsequent turn you can AH and recapture the art so your opponent cannot make a subsequent gift. Then you are set to repeat the cycle. Some aspects of this game that I find to be the most interesting and entertaining are - - Negotiating the perfect alliance - getting the map figured out - Multiple FBI Accounts - Diplos The actual trading and war can often be an anticlimax to actually putting together a great alliance that works as a well-oiled machine. Concerning the multiple accounts, I like to play seriously and rank well but I also like to play some games in character, or to boost allies or totally out of character without concern for points or score. To this end I use a separate FBI account. Then I can let loose as the Pirate who won't plunder, the berserker who wants military roles (not PBBs and targets). As to Diplos and Signs. I think that after the initial first contact and exchange of information about how to communicate with each other they don't have much of a role in the game aside from entertainment value. I like to create or read witty notes. It gave me a smile when after invading a HW with 300 ships the enemy sent a diplo next turn that just said "RUN AWAY! YIPE, YIPE, YIPE". Well, you may not agree with all or even most of what I say. But before you put fingers to keyboard to set me right, remember what I said near the beginning of the article. It is just a game. Have fun. Elliot Hudes ----------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? In SEDG Vol 18: >If I gift a fleet to a player, and that fleet is destroyed (ships >destroyed attached to the key) the turn I gift it, will the player I >was gifting it to receive a report on the world that fleet(key) was on >when it was gifted and destroyed? John Symnos replies: Yes. I've seen this occur. David's response is correct. Both DAVZO and SNARK would have received a report in the example he sites. I have been both the giver and the intended receiver of a gift in this kind of situation. The same holds for keys where ships are shot off the key that was gifted. The only difference is that the player who loses the key is the one giving it, not the one receiving it, as shooting happens before gifts. (Fat lot of difference that makes!!) The intended recipient WILL still receive a report though as "Gift to [PLAYER1]" (for example) will still appear on the printout and so that player will still get a report. John. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP - is now available on the web. Look for our new MAPPER'S SECTION on the SEDG Web Page. http://www.accessv.com/~somnos/sedg.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURE - THE CAPTAIN'S LOG 991107.0846-5 Beware "Him Of The Clean Hands" By Walt Schmidt walts@dorsai.org "To whose gain? [Cui bono]" - Marcus Tullius Cicero "To what end do men gather riches, but to multiply more? Do they not...add house to house and lands to lands, that they may get it all?" - Thomas Traherne Considering the magnitude of the email I received after last Log's parody, it's back to other stuff. [NEMO!] [Yes, Alter?] [EVEN Elliot didn't say he liked it!] [True, but he didn't say he didn't like it!!!]. We had been talking about alliances. And as luck would have it, a fellow StarWeb player sent me a copy of a recent anonymous message they received. A message which is right on-point concerning YAFOA (Yet Another Form Of Alliance). Here's the message: "Be careful, I believe we have at least one player who is trying to ferment a war between others, so he can sit back and smile as he watches each of us squander our limited resources in a war no one will win. Why - so when the dust settles, he can laugh at our folly as he picks up the pieces for points and to win the game. Beware he who lets you do his dirty work for him. Beware "him of the clean hands." " What other form of alliance? I'm talking about the proverbial three-way alliance between "me, myself and I." And even a player who has foresworn all others, who has sworn allegiance to your group, might in fact be another "him of the clean hands." Someone who is really only out for himself and no one else. So how can you tell if such a person has joined your alliance, under pretense of following (and just in case you forgot): Nemo's Three Laws of Alliance 1 - My Comrades - first and foremost! 2 - Myself - a damn close second. 3 - All Others - can go scratch... You can't for sure. But it's a good bet that if the player in question has exhibited certain attributes, then (s)he bears watching. [AND, what attributes might that be, Nemo?] [Patience Alter, I'm getting there.] [THAT might be the case, but could you get there a little bit faster? Like maybe before our readers lose interest!] [Our readers?] [YOU think if it was just you, "they would come!"] [...]. So, here's four questions that you have to ask yourself about your fellow players. If you can answer no to all four, it's a good chance (s)he's in your alliance to stay: Nemo's Four Questions of Fidelity: 4 - Has he ever missed a turn, no matter what the reason? 3 - Has he ever mis-spoke, regardless of why? 2 - Has he ever broken a promise, period? 1 - Does he shy-away from getting his public hands dirty? But if too many of the four are answered yes, that's not good. And, if too many of the four are answered yes, and more than once, I can suggest to you only one thing: beware "him of the clean hands." More on my Four Questions of Fidelity, next log. - Shai Dorsai ! Nemo ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURE - THE SWAP CORNER The Order Editor The Order Editor is one of the most powerful features of the Starweb Analyzer. I thought I would take a few issues to help explain how to fully exploit its abilities. The following is a high-level summary of the Order Editor's features: o Complete syntax checking. You cannot type an invalid order. o Semantic checking. Checks for mutually exclusive orders, manipulating resources, hints and tips, etc... o Order prompting with typing completion. o Integration with the Analysis Window. Clicking on an error/comment will highlight the order involved in the editor as well as highlight the world in the world and map views. Similarly, putting a '/' after an order and hitting enter will do the same in the analysis and map windows. o Order template generation. This will create an incomplete order sheet containing build and unload orders and also fleet orders that are incomplete (e.g. F123 ) preceded by a comment line containing the world number and it's statistics associated with the fleet. o Imbedded documentation. o New Meta-Orders to help keep track of intensions. Fnnn@ to keep track of intentional ambush fleets, and >Fnnn to mark an order to be completed later. o Auto formatting of orders for submission to FBI. When opened for the first time on a new turn, the Editor will open a new order file and preload it with either a fully generated order template (default) or just a an empty order template suitable for free style order entry. This is controled by the Auto Generate option found under Options on the menu bar. The order template generation function generates partial orders in either execution order or world order (controlled by options). The orders generated include: o all possible build orders (not complete as to what target to build to) o all possible unload orders o will list all of your fleets preceded by a comment line that contains the world information for the world that the fleet is at. o optionally includes all possible art orders. You may wish to delete some of the unload and art orders if they are not what you wish. Unload orders are provided for any key with metal hovering over an industry world. Therefore you may wish to delete some unload orders if you do not intend to drop metal. You must complete the fleet, art and world orders. You may add any MSG, AMSG diplos or a SIGN if you wish. Note: You should not remove or modify the world information comment lines generated in the order template. They are used by the Direct Order Entry feature to locate the appropriate place to insert the order. Any line that starts with an asterisk (*) is a comment line. These lines will not be included in the final version of your orders. In addition, any text following an asterisk is also treated as a comment. Comments can be very useful for putting in statements to remind you of certain things such as the job each fleet was assigned. For example: * W10 (1,2,3) (metal=2,mines=1,pop=0) what a rock. is a comment line whereas - F123W12 * Go to W12 for some fun. Is a comment after a valid order. In addition the Draft Order Editor can make a terrific note that houses not only your orders but your plans suitable for emailing to your allies to outline what you are doing, what your requests for them are and any other information. The Analyzer knows how to extract only the orders for submission to FBI on the Final page. Typing a question mark (?) anywhere in an incomplete order will generate a list of all possible order fragments that can be used at this point in the order. It is intelligent prompting because it will only give you choices that you can use such as the correct world connections. Note: The question mark will not appear in the editor or affect the text in any way. More on this powerful tool next issue. Elliot ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE Chris Richards: >> El, A couple of SEDG's ago you mentioned that exceeding a score of 32,767 took you to -32,767 since that is the largest number StarWeb can handle. Does that mean that if you go below -32,767, you will get a positive score of 32,767? If so, is this a valid way for an Apostle to win an extra-long game? If an Apostle plays the game like a Berserker, i.e. by firing at non- Jihad population, he will lose points faster than a Berserker would gain them. A Berserker gets 2 points for each population killed; an Apostle loses 3 (1 for the population and 2 for the shots fired). Of course, an Apostle only loses 50 points for each PBB dropped as compared to the 200 gained by a Berserker, but as compensation the Apostle does not have to hit anything special with his shots to lose points whilst the Berserker must go looking for population to kill. The Apostle can gift his homeworld to an ally once the converts have been unconverted to save getting 5 points a turn for it. And there is all that bad art to be collected... - Chris << Editor's note: Cute Chris. I am not sure if your premise is true but I imagine FBI would scan any printouts and would correct a winning score created by hitting -32,767. If not, I'm sure all the other players would yell foul and get a correction. Well, that's it for Volume 19. Don't be afraid to submit articles or suggestions. They don't have to be long. Address your correspondence to Elliot Hudes at somnos@compuserve.com