STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://flyingmoose.cjb.net) VOL. 36 June 19, 2000 CONTENTS Feature Article - Private Games Questions - More on PBBs SEDG Web Page URL The Captain's Log - So, How Long Should The Game Be? The Swap Corner - Multigame support Correspondence FEATURE ARTICLE - Private Games I have organized many private Starweb Games in the past. It's a way to get a bunch of buddies together in the same game for some fun. It also allows you to set up some interesting conditions that FBI cannot usually offer. I thought I would describe some of the games I have organized and a brief description of what occurred. SW X224 - circa 1977? I was in University at the time and this was perhaps my third Starweb Game. A bunch of my friends at the University and I thought it would be neat to be in a game together. There were no special conditions but many of us would meet once a week at a University Pub to raise a mug and glare at our worthy opposition. As I remember it was a particularly warlike game with only 4 survivors. I managed to place second as a Pirate (having well over half the web to my name) while a merchant that only had 2 homeworlds to haul to won the game. SW X349 - Circa 1978 This was a particularly nasty game that never got to completion. This game was started mostly with a bunch of the Summer Camp staff at Camp Northland where I had been a counselor. Many of the staff that were returning for the 1978 summer had seen me with my printouts the summer before and thought it would be neat to start a game before the summer. Unfortunately the movie "Shirts and Skins" had come out that year and the players felt that 'Anything Goes' as in that movie's particularly evil basketball game that included kidnapping and theft? I believe that summer many turnsheets were lifted from their owners and I know how surprised I was when I scored my brother's map only to find my whole empire was already mapped on it (the rat ). This game came crashing to an end when someone crossed the line and cheated the moderator. I had a PBB circling an enemy HW and I had my orders in to let it drop. Imagine my surprise when I got my turn and all my orders were executed but the PBB didn't fall. A quick phone call to FBI and I find that I had phoned to change my orders. That was the end of that game! We never actually figured out who placed the call. I went on hiatus from Starweb from about 1980 until 1996. Upon my return I relearned the game via email play and quickly started to put together another private game. SW-X1233 Extra long Variant I did not know anything about the extra long variant of SW and was already ticked off that games ended just when they were getting interesting. So I found 13 willing players from previous games and friends and said - let's play to 25,000! This game was won by myself with the help of my allies and was very interesting. I found out that not only was there time to destroy your primary target but if you survived you could go on to wage war against more players. My allies and I fought and conquered Zule and Billgates and went on to take on Bluewolf, and another berserker (can't remember the name). We also enjoyed watching some interesting backstabs as Billgates joined every alliance in the game and turned on them. I don't think he wanted to be anyone's friend just cause damage. As it was he PBBed Bluewolf's HW on a dare and then crippled one of my allies' HW industry (who he was allied with). After this game I found out about the FBI Extralong Variants and have been playing in one ever since. SW-X1242 This private game was a team concept game. We were tired of going through the usual first contact and negotiating alliances. So we organized a game where there were 3 teams of 5 players. Each team selected their character types and the game was won when every player on the team exceeded 10,000 points even the Pirate. I was hoping that having 3 alliances would make the politics more interesting than the usual polarization of a map into 2 camps. It did at first but eventually 2 teams ganged up on one. My team was the one that allied with a team we felt was very weak. We thought by teaming up with them we could take out the other very strong team and our allied team wouldn't be a contest for the win. This turned out to be true. What made it interesting is why our allied team was so weak. Their own merchant was a player that was not getting along with them. Apparently he would issue plans and orders that his teammates felt were not appropriate. He also failed to go where he said he would and their metal hauling suffered. This lead to a vitriolic war of words within their alliance and I was asked to come in to help haul for them. (This didn't help matters :-). My team offered to take their merchant out for them but they had a plan that after he had hit his 10,000 point score they were going to ambush all his keys and take him out themselves. He wound up quitting the game after hitting 10,000 points. SW-X1260 Well, after finding that 3 teams of 5 players didn't work out much different from a usual game I organized a game where there were 5 teams of 3 players. We also added in a few more wrinkles to make it fun - that I list here. Premise - Partner/Team approach. There will be 5 teams of 3 players. Victory is determined according to the lowest score of the three on a team. Second place will go to the team whose lowest score is second (regardless of how high the other players on the team rank). All email game. I will distribute all the email addresses and list who is on each team to facilitate communication and eliminate the potential advantage I have by knowing this in advance. Two week turnaround for turns. No merchants. There will be 15 players and exactly 3 of each character type - Apostle, Berserker, Pirate, Empire Builder and Art Collector. No character type will be repeated on a team. There are 3 Team templates. The guys in the game want to be surprised. Please review them and choose the template you think would result in the fairest game. Here they are. Template #1 a)Team - Berserker, Apostle, Collector b)Team - Berserker, Empire Builder, Pirate c)Team - Apostle, Collector, Empire Builder d)Team - Berserker, Apostle, Pirate e)Team - Collector, Empire Builder, Pirate Template #2 a)Team - Apostle, Collector, Pirate b)Team - Apostle, Collector, Empire Builder c)Team - Berserker, Collector, Empire Builder d)Team - Berserker, Apostle, Pirate e)Team - Berserker, Empire builder, Pirate Template #3 a)Team - Berserker, Apostle, Empire Builder b)Team - Berserker, Collector, Empire Builder c)Team - Collector, Empire Builder, Pirate d)Team - Apostle, Pirate, Berserker e)Team - Apostle, Pirate, Collector FBI - once you have selected a template assign each team a triad of characters from choice a) thru e) randomly. Then assign each player on the team a character from that choice at random. For example - if you choose Template #3 and assign my team choice e) - you would have to assign Apostle, Pirate, Collector to myself and my team mates at random. You will find out what character you are on Turn 1 and nobody else will know (even your teammates) until you tell them or they figure it out. Borders - FBI shall place people on the same team on the map such that each player will border at least one of their own teammates. Will tell FBI to allow alliance declaration and gifts on T1 to team mates. They do this by having MET= your teammates on T1. Ally/Loader is still possible with others after you meet as usual. Victory score is 10,000 points - Should be able to get a pirate this high in 25 turns or so. So it's a longer game. Dropouts - If you want to win the remaining partners will have to take over the position and pay for it. FBI can send the printout to whoever volunteers. Yes you can supply your own standby but FBI won't. Missed Turns - If a player misses two turns in a row the Team Leader can drop him from the game (UNILATERALLY). You may take over the position or find your own standby. This will ensure a team survives even if one player no longer cares to submit orders. Victory conditions - I don't think FBI can track the victory conditions as usual. IT IS THE TEAM LEADER'S RESPONSIBILITY to tell FBI when they are about to cross the finish line. You won't have to track other team's scores - if multiple teams cross the finish line on the same turn and FBI is aware they can figure out which team has the highest low score and send out a turn sheet with the "THE GAME IS OVER" sign and the rankings. This game was a lot of fun. 1 team (3 Stooges) declared early on they would not play for points and that they would sell off their worlds and art for ships and keys. They also said that those that didn't buy would be their first designated targets :-). Needless to say my team bought art for many turns . My team (B Sharps) managed to cement an alliance with another team (Toons) with the understanding that it was for a military venture versus a specific team (LDRs). We agreed that once the war was over we would remain neutral to each other and race to the scoring finish line. Once the fight began the Menksnarks came to the aid of the LDR's. So initially it was a 2 versus 2 war. We managed to beat up the LDRs but still had the Menksnarks to worry about and also were worried about the Stooges who hadn't hit anyone. At this point the Toons declared the military adventure over and cut us loose. The Menksnarks/Stooges and the remains of the LDRs attacked us. Unbeknown to us the Toons supplied the enemy ships. Of course we suspected as much. In the final 3 turns of the game we were in full retreat and didn't engage the enemy ANYWHERE. We had our EB/Merchant up to 10,000 points already and were furiously trying to get our berserker to bomb whatever was left. We did win the game but our empire was whittled down tremendously. It was another very good game. SW-X1281 You would think that there were few scenarios worth exploring. This game was triggered by the feelings that the character types were not balanced in their scoring. So we handicapped the positions. Here is the Premise for this game. Private Partnership Handicap Starweb Game Yes, once again I've thought of a Starweb Variant that I want to play so I must organize a private game. Read on - and if your interested sign up with me. 1) ALL Email players 2) PARTNERS - there will be 7 teams (partnerships) of 2. 3) GEOGRAPHY - I will ask FBI to put both partners empires adjacent (not HWs - just that they will share at least one border). 4) EARLY COOPERATION - Partners can declare each other Ally/Loader and Gift on Turn 1 even though they haven't physically met. FBI just puts on the printout that you HAVE met your partner. 5) HANDICAPPING - Each character type will have it's own Victory score in keeping with the character's usual ability to score. Some extra handicapping will occur if you are the sole character of this type in the game. See the Chart below. 6) VICTORY CONDITIONS - How to achieve them - there will be TWO OPTIONS - Either - a) REGULAR - BOTH partners must achieve their individual Victory Scores or b) PUSH OPTION - 1 partner achieves the sum of both partners' Victory Scores. The second players score is completely ignored. This may be advantageous for winning but will actually have disadvantages in regards to TIEBREAKING (See #9) and when determining your standings if you don't win (see #10 -RANKING 2ND THRU 7TH). For Example - You are a Merchant/Pirate partnership needing Victory scores of either 20,000 and 7,500 respectively in scenario a) OR you can try to push the Merchant to 27,500 which is scenario b). (Heck, you can try to push the Pirate to this score but I wouldn't recommend it . Please note - if you achieve Victory conditions - museums will count just as in regular games and may push a different partnership to the win. 7) CHARACTER RESTRICTIONS - There will only be a maximum of 3 of each character type. First come first serve. 8) PENALTIES/BONUSES - If you are the only person playing a particular character type you will be subject to a 20% increase (A Penalty) in Victory Score required (due to the lack of competition). For example if you decided to play the Berserker/Merchant combination and sadly there are no other Berserkers in the game - the Victory score will rise from 20,000 to 24,000 for the Berserker. IF both characters are alone - then both Victory Scores will rise. See the Chart below. Art collectors will have museums counted after somebody hits Victory conditions as usual. The museums will be of value for TIEBREAKERS - please see #9. If more than 2 people play the Art Collector (another way of saying if 3 people play) then the Victory Conditions for Art Collector will only be 80% - please see the chart. 9) TIE BREAKERS - if two teams (partnerships) tell FBI they are going to achieve Victory on the next printout then we must determine who has surpassed their victory conditions by the biggest percentage to declare a winner. The following formulas will be used. Option a) REGULAR -The sum of the partners' scores/The sum of the Victory Scores. Whoever has the highest ratio wins. It is here that the Museums will be counted. E.g. - Two partnerships declare they will hit Victory on the next turn - a Pirate/Merchant and a Berserker/Empire Builder. Here is how it looks. P/M scores = 7,500/23,000 Victory conditions are 7,500/20,000 Ratio is 30,500/27500 = 1.11 B/EB scores 20,500/10,500 Victory conditions are 20,000/10,000 Ratio = 31,000/30,000 = 1.03 The winner is the P/M partnership. Option b) PUSH OPTION - only the push position score is used in making the ratio - thus pushing one player barely over victory conditions may be a disadvantage if another team of 2 can hit both their victory with a wide margin. Example Same as above P/M scores = 2,000/27,501 Ratio will by 27,501/27,500 = 1.00 - only push position (merchant) used. B/EB scores = 20,500/10,500 Ratio = 31,000/30,000 - 1.03 The winner. It is up to you to decide if using the PUSH OPTION is to your advantage. There is a very concrete disadvantage in #10 below. As usual - museums may put another partnership into a TIE position and the Ratio will be used to determine the ultimate ranking. 10) RANKING 2ND THRU 7TH. Will be determined by the lower score on any team regardless of PUSH OPTION. 11) DETERMINING VICTORY CONDITIONS - FBI cannot track this so it is the responsibility of each partnership to inform FBI if they will achieve victory on the next printout. AND YOU MUST TELL FBI IF YOU ARE USING THE PUSH OPTION. Then FBI will forward the next list of scores to me to confirm the win and figure out if any partnerships are in a TIE position -IF the win was achieved they will supply the "The Game is over" sign and the Victory listings at the end. 12) STANDBY PLAYERS - If one of the partners drops you can supply your own Standby Player OR play both positions OR you can play your own position and go for the PUSH OPTION (yes you must still make up your partners Victory points). 13)VICTORY HANDICAP CHART CHARACTER BASIC SOLE CHARACTER >2 CHARACTERS EB 10,000 12,000 XXXXX PIRATE 7,500 9,000 XXXXX MERCHANT 20,000 24,000 XXXXX BERSERKER 20,000 24,000 XXXXX ART 10,000 12,000 8000 APOSTLE 7,500 9,000 XXXXX As usual FBI does not provide pins nor include your ranking in their ratings for private games. But the results will be published in FBQ. I hope this variant leads to some really neat strategies, as you don't have to give up on winning just because you pick the pirate or apostle. And it may make you think twice about which character mix or alliance is best. Perhaps it won't be the traditional ones. This game started out as usual. We had some interesting partnerships such as Merchant-Apostle, EB-merchant, Pirate-Berserker, Apostle- Berserker, Art-EB and Pirate-Berserker. But this game was the most violent one I have ever played. I joined an alliance of 6 players. One of the pairs on our team the Art collector - Merchant encountered the other Art Collector on T4. The enemy AC was carrying 180 pts/turn of art. So my allied AC said he was leaving and then fired on him to get the art. The other 8 characters allied against our evil alliance. I had the choice initially of which alliance to be in when this was going down but as the enemy AC was allied to an EB and I was an EB I didn't think my chances were too good joining them. As the only EB in the evil group of 6 I got most of the worlds and someone to give my art to. Besides a grouping of 10 vs. 4 didn't seem right so I remained on the backstabbing/evil team :-). By endgame our AC/Merchant pair had lost their empires despite anything we could do. The cost of evil I suppose . In addition all 14 empires got invaded by endgame. We managed to capture 4 of the enemy HWs intact, AI and destroyed a HW and suppressed another. At the 2 final enemy HWs we only reached one by endgame and the other beat off our attacks. Our 4 original HWs managed to beat off their attack. By endgame we had 600-industry building (From 8 HWs plus all the industry I built). As I said, it was a vicious military game and at the end it was my partner and I who won as merchant/EB. The handicapping worked as my merchant raced to 20,000 points against an Enemy Apostle at 7,000 of his 7500 needed points! Father-Son Private Starweb Game These are a few of the private games I've been in. At present I'm organizing a new one for some friends and their sons. Our sons range in age from 10-15 and of course all of them are keen to play Starweb. There are only 6 of us playing so we are playing 2 positions each and it will be kind of like a cross between a Multi and Partner's game. Also, we are arranging it so that each Dad is partnered with another person's son. 1) As in a Partner game each player will have their positions adjacent to their partner. Each player's two positions will also be close to each other and you can declare your other position and your partners as an ally on turn 1. 2) It's a multi - you get 2 positions each and that means you get them on 1 turnsheet. 3) It's an email game due every 2 weeks. I will set due dates on Saturdays so the kids can do turns at the last minute without interfering with school. New turnsheets will then arrive on Sundays. 4) Victory conditions - FBI tells me that in a multi it's the lower of your two positions that counts. 3) On your turn 1 orders you will set the Victory score as usual - anything from 1000 to 10,000. 4) Just to make it fair - we won't allow anyone player to use the combo of merchant/berserker - as they would have an unfair advantage as your lower score. Yes, you can have both characters but that means each player must take one. Recently a Starweb friend was trying to put together an email Partner's anonymous game. Here you have a partner you can communicate with but you cannot communicate with anyone else in the game. This preserves some of the fun of planning with someone and gets rid of all that spam that an email game can generate :-). So far only 8 players were interested so this game is on hold (indefinitely). Editor's note: I wrote this a while ago and the Father son game is presently on T12. War has broken out not only on the web but in my house between my 2 sons :-). The kids are having a ball. The Partner's Anonymous game is now on T6 and it looks interesting. Anyway, I thought you might enjoy hearing about some of these private games. Have you created any interesting variants? Let me know. El ----------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? I received a lot of mail regarding the issue of building PBBs and firing shots. Thanks!! Paul Balsamo raised an interesting point which I am going to pose as a question. I will give you Paul's answer in the next SEDG. If you order a PBB built and fly thru an ambush that would reduce the key to less than the 25 ships what do you get? A neutral key with a PBB or perhaps a fleet that fails to build a PBB. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 000615.0455?4 By Walt Schmidt walts@dorsai.org So, How Long Should The Game Be? "To insure the adoration of a (thing) for any length of time, faith is not enough, a police force is needed as well." - Albert Camus Last log we spoke of "how many?" This log we'll look at the "length of a thing." But first... "Happy Thirtieth to Me, Happy Thirtieth to Me" Yep, for those of you who have religiously read my logs [YOU mean sat still and suffered through them!] [Morning, Alter], this issue's log is my thirtieth. And looking back at the past twenty-nine logs [OH boy here it comes - someone pass me a pair of chest-waders, my thigh-high boots just ain't gonna cut it!] [!], I can only hope you've got [I know, I know - but if it's good enough for AOL...] as much out of them, as I did writing them. Now on to the length of a thing. I've changed my mind. [MAY I infer that you've changed your mind on something due to your first opinion not being as to-the-point as is your current position, on whatever?] [Well, Alter, if you would let me finish instead of interrupting me, you would not need to infer, anything - but yes, you're correct] [BE STILL MY POUNDING HEART! The Great Captain Nemo has just admitted to having made a mistake - will wonders never cease!!!] [Ah hell, I should have seen that one coming] As I was saying - I've changed my mind. I had originally not appreciated the "two-week game." And had been of the mind that all games should be month-turnarounds. I was wrong. Having watched the ebb and flow of several "month" games, it seems to me that player interaction is far better sustained during "two-week" games, than it is during "month" games. In fact, it's almost as if "month" games actually disrupt interaction. Perhaps it's the old "out of sight, out of mind." And with a month between turns is just too much "out of sight" So where do I stand today? [WELL, you stand at longit...] [Enough Alter!] [THEN don't give me such obvious straight-lines] [Maybe I should call you Abbott, instead of Alter] [THAT'S fine by me, as that would make you Costello!] [Arrrgh! I really should have seen that one coming] The following is "Nemo's Guide to Game Lengths - To Best Enjoy the Game!" Regular Game: two-week email Anonymous Game: may be a month snail-mail game Partners' Game: two-week email Multi-Game: two-week email Makes admiral sense to me - what say you? ? Shai Dorsai ! Nemo ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURE - THE SWAP CORNER Mulitgame Support The Starweb Analyzer will automatically recognize a multigame by the unique header information provided and will go into a multigame mode so long as you add all of your player names to the Game Profile information as described below. The order editor will retain orders from multiple players (where in solo games it only retains orders tagged as coming from the one character you have designated as you). Example - Game SW-AM/199, Turn 1, [MOOSE] [MOOSE]: Berserker (Worlds=1,Keys=5,Ships=2,Industry=30,Mines=2,Robots=50, Ally/Loader=[SOMNOS],Ally/Loader=[ZULE]) [SOMNOS]: Merchant (Worlds=1,Keys=5,Ships=2,Industry=30,Mines=2,People=50, Ally/Loader=[MOOSE],Ally/Loader=[ZULE]) [ZULE]: Pirate (Worlds=1,Keys=5,Ships=2,Industry=30,Mines=2,People=50, Ally/Loader=[MOOSE],Ally/Loader=[SOMNOS]) ------------ o In the Game Edit Window - List your player names in the player entry field separated by commas. In the example above your player name would be Moose,Somnos,Zule. No spaces between the names. (Reminder - the Game Edit button is found on the Starweb Analyzer Processing Toolbar). o Name your multi-player turnsheet using the first player name in the list (this is your Primary player). E.g. Moose_t1.txt if Moose is the first player in the Multigame where you are Moose, Somnos and Zule. o Only list the Primary player in the list to process turnsheets for. Therefore for turnsheets to be processed you would only put in Moose! o Multi-player turnsheet player information is now collected. (Note: the players you can see this turn information, and diplomatic messages are only listed for the Primary player.) o You *must* specify player tags at the beginning of lines in the order editor for all but your primary player. E.g. [SOMNOS] F17U [ZULE] F44Q F225AF1 * This order will be assumed to come from MOOSE. Since it is untagged it is associated with the Primary player. o The order editor draft and final files use your primary player name for their default naming conventions. o The final version of the orders will keep all orders for all of your players. o The Starweb Analyzer supports the unique multi-game orders e.g. L=MOOSE,SOMNOS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE Bob Becker said: Snipped from Volume 35 - Alliances Part II. > Multiple merchants - they work well together also > since they have such a huge scoring advantage. In fact having more than > 1 merchant may be a peaceful way to stop a merchant from running away > with the game. Since a merchant with only 2 allies (and gifts away his > own HW) can bring 60 metal/turn to each HW, he can theoretically make > 1440 points/turn from 3 empires. So an alliance of 5-6 could house 2 > merchants. > Hmmm, we had a 6 member alliance, 1 Pirate. 1 Berserker, and 4 Merchants. 3 of the Merchants took spots 1, 2, & 4. Also we did not run away with the game as I posted to you in a earlier discussion. Merchant alliances that are well thought out and try not to run away with the game can be very good. Bob John Shannonhouse said: A long time ago, it used to be that if you fired while building a PBB, you would not fire with those 25 ships. That was not the intent, and the program was changed. Now you *do* get to fire with those 25 ships while building the PBB. John Editor - added John's comments because it's interesting to note that historically PBB building did interfere with firing. Interesting how the game has evolved. Well, that's it for Volume 36. 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