STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://flyingmoose.cjb.net) VOLUME 42 Nov. 6th 2000 CONTENTS Feature Article – RAMBLINGS - Character types Questions – The 'Z' Order SEDG Web Page URL The Captain's Log The Swap Corner – Creating the Map Correspondence FEATURE ARTICLE RAMBLINGS (of a deranged Starweb Player) By Elliot Hudes Character types I've played all the character types now and I thought I would just put down some of my opinions about them. Perhaps you won't agree with all of my observations but they arise out of playing many games. As you play Starweb you will come to learn that certain player positions are at an advantage for scoring while others have the dice loaded against them. If you don't play for score but have other goals you can have a lot of fun anyway. In fact, many do play this way and so, Starweb lives on. It can also be a lot of fun trying to promote a very bad character to the front of the scoring pack. This may mean exterminating the rest of the web to do so - a very difficult (but laudable goal :-). PIRATE The fact that the poorest scoring character is so popular is mostly linked to the warlike abilities of Pirate capture. Indeed, some pirates ignore plunders completely so they can concentrate on their little conflicts and in that way keep their areas strong (working mines, industry and lots of metal). In this way they are often sought after allies. After all, who doesn't want an ally that doesn't covet your resources? Typically in a regular game I would say that a pirate working hard to score will come in somewhere around 3rd to 5th place depending on how many successful Berserkers and Merchants there are. Can a pirate win or rank well? Well, yes of course they can but the only times I've seen it had the following conditions. A) A very low VPT. The Pirate and in fact many in the game had to select a VPT of 1000. A pirate that is plundering as much as he can (keeping minimal mines live for metal production) and trading for more is often at the front of the scoring pack for the first half of the game. He can reach 3000-5000 points before a berserker gets enough ships to wreak havoc by PBB or a merchant starts bringing in their 1000 points/turn. I have been in games like this and typically they can end as early as T12. B) A huge number of allies working actively to promote the Pirate score. This often requires the presence of a dropout player (or two) on the Pirate's border and many allies who will feed him worlds. It also may require allies that are willing to hold back and pace the pirate's score. I was in an extralong SW game where our Pirate ally got a 999 ranking (in a 25,000 VPT game). To do this meant feeding tons of worlds to him, exterminating the web and holding back the Merchant, Berserker and Art Collector's score. For me trying to put the brakes on my allies scoring so that I may rank as a Pirate is uninteresting. I prefer to look for a battle. EMPIRE BUILDER I have yet to see an Empire Builder win the game by outpacing the opposition. Like the Pirate you are very much at the mercy of the number of worlds you can glean from allies. Sure you can fight for worlds but if they are contested you will find that the number of worlds you can take are far outweighed by the number your allies can gift (or the number you can AH and take in your allies territories). To play the game for maximum scoring gain you need to be a good diplomat. You see, you have to trade everything you've got - ships, keys and art in return for worlds. You must enter an alliance that will then protect you since you have no armadas. And you must be trustworthy or nobody will turn their HWs to you (worth 40+ points/turn). Sometimes if you're in an extralong game or if you can spare the resources you will get the chance to build up small industry worlds into large production centers. In fact, in a couple games I was able to build second HWs for myself at minimal cost. To increase your chances at winning you must try to find targets for your Berserker/Apostle brethren that are not necessarily your best worlds. So you may like to find an alliance that is best suited to your scoring needs rife with Art Collectors, Pirates and merchants. By midgame your orders are basically build orders supplied by your allies for their HWs. It can be very boring unless you are a good diplomat and team player and get into the planning of the alliance. But in the end any successful Berserker or Merchant will bypass you. I find this position BORING! Probably won't be playing it much in the future. APOSTLE I've covered how to play an Apostle in excruciating detail in Volumes 3 and 5 with Paul Balsamo. I won't go over old ground. Basically the Apostle has many ways to be played. How you play it will often depend on circumstances of the game and your opinion. Obviously Jihad is more point productive over martyr points. But do you try to grab as many worlds as possible to bring in points for the worlds, converts and complete conversion? This is often mitigated by whether you have other world hungry players in your alliance. Obviously you will do best if you have the most worlds, lots of high pop worlds in friendly hands to Jihad on and lots of ships to convert with and shoot in Jihad. But since you have sooo many ways to score and could require every resource in the game (worlds, ships, keys and apostle art) you really have to be careful about this because nobody wants an ally that only wants to take. The fact is, this position is the most difficult to play well. It is not necessarily the poorest scoring position despite the fact that so many play it so badly. I've played it twice for a win (extralong game) and a 4rth place (Tournament). It remains a challenge and interesting and I would play it again. My very prejudiced opinion - in a regular game you don't have enough time for complete conversions. It takes a world at 50% of it's population limit 7 turns to hit pop limit then 4 more turns to completely convert. Therefore the most completely converted worlds will come from your own area or as gifts from allies done in the early game. Using a berserker to trim worlds at their population limit down will help you convert. However, if you try to win a regular game you will need to outstrip your berserker buddies who can fire ships or PBBs at ANY population in the game while you are required to have 1 Jihad target. Either you will require his consent to pass him OR you will need to have a good world base or more ships than him designated for Jihad scoring. In any case you will have to have allies willing to let you keep ships for scoring or willing to turn many over to you before the endgame. In a long game you have much more time to convert worlds and can take advantage of this aspect to beef up your EB style of scoring. Similarly with the extra time in the game you may have larger stockpiles of ships available to you for Jihad. In my Extralong game win I insisted on armadas from my allies as a fighting Apostle (ya, the Pirate got a lot also :-). I wound up invading both the other Apostles in the game and alternated between using one as a Jihad target and the other to convert. A large fleet at a totally converted high pop enemy Apostle world can completely convert it to you in 1 turn! I did so at one 100 pop world and instantly snagged 20 pts/turn without firing a shot. The key here again is to manage the game to stay ahead of the berserkers. So many Apostle players give up their ships blindly to their Pirate ally. Perhaps good early in the game but you really need ships too and if you can find allies that will let you have armadas you can do very well and promote the war efforts. Those that just use their conversion abilities to infiltrate enemy areas leave convert spies and move on will find their score lagging. Bottom line - this position can win and is a real challenge to your skills both in the game and diplomatically. ART COLLECTOR What can I say - I like this position and wouldn't have found out if I hadn't been parachuted into it as a Standby. Why? Geez, how was I supposed to realize that collecting art wasn't boring :-). In fact, you can play this position different ways also. This adds to its appeal. You can play very diplomatically and try to score art from everyone - giving away your ships and keys like the Empire Builder and all your worlds in return for art. Thus you are the neutral player allied to no one alliance. Everyone is afraid to cheese you off in case you side with his or her enemies. On the other hand you can join an alliance in return for their art and any you can capture in battle. And the thing I liked most... The snagging of art can be completely divorced from those things you need to make war. Sure you can give away most of what you own but if you go into battle all you can lose are ships keys and worlds. So what! You can always hide your art but to your allies - every ship lost is less scoring for the Berserker/Apostle, less industry built by the EB, less metal hauled for the merchant. Every world lost is also potential points lost to your Berserker, Apostle, EB and Pirate. And not only that but a successfully played Art Collector can win the game versus a Berserker or Merchant. So it remains a favorite position of mine especially if I'm looking for a win or a fight! MERCHANT Well, if you are new to Starweb my article so far would clue you to the fact that the Merchant position is one of the easiest ones to score and win. It's very mathematical - 8 points/metal dropped to a maximum of 60 at a HW. With just one ally (and you gift him your own HW) you could potentially drop 120 metal/turn for 960 points. FBI's feeling is that the position is so boring that if they didn't have the advantage nobody would play them. I disagree but this is an entirely different rant . Having only 1 or 2 merchants in the game with active allies is a shoe in for a game where 2 groups form and the merchants race to the finish line. Heck, if a player is a contender for the win he should be able to score 700-900 points/turn. This means that any merchant hauling only 30 metal/turn to a HW requires 2 allies to be able to score 720 points/turn (90 metal). With this kind of scoring advantage you would need at least 5 merchants in the game for there to be adequate competition for them. I have never seen these many but it might be a good idea as it could very well slow the trend to mega-alliances. Why do players tolerate such things? You might think that would make a merchant a natural target but it doesn't. Since a merchant can double haul every player early in the game wants to half the number of ships hauling and get to full ship production first. Add to this that you cannot just eliminate a merchant. Sure you can invade his territory but he doesn't need it really. He needs to haul metal in his allies' territory. So to truly eliminate a merchant as a scoring threat you must eliminate or cripple his whole alliance. This leads to experienced players in the role of merchant seeking ways of limiting their scoring. Agreeing to slow down or pace other scores is common. When you are doing this you realize there are still major flaws in the game. This character type should get no more than 4 points/metal in my opinion. I still play the merchant occasionally. Why? Well, it's a good position to play if you are interested in diplomacy and forming alliances. Since everyone wants you, you have the opportunity to organize the alliance in the early game. I have also found it challenging to see if I could drive my score down while hauling for as many players as possible. In one game I started with 10 clients and yet the game still went 18 turns with me in second place. I needed to own a lot of HWs (even Converted ones) and held a lot of plastic too :-). BERSERKER For detailed notes on play as this character see SEDG Volume 1 - On being Metallic. This character started out 20+ years ago as the character that never wins to the character most likely to win (similar to the merchant). Why? Well, ships equal points. The more ships you have the more you can kill. And as opposed to the implied character in the rulebook or the Saberhagen books - berserkers are pussycats. A berserker bides his time in the game by supporting his alliance and when the time is ripe takes a ton of ships and converts them to PBBs and eradicates life on many worlds even his own allies' worlds. I have seen a berserker capable of taking in 17,000 points in one turn. But it's not as easy as all that. The berserker must survive and know when it is time to go from a supportive role to a scoring role. The key to this is not only ships but also having enough keys in the correct locations to get ships and deploy bombs effectively. All this takes careful planning and cooperative allies. It's easy to get caught up in the wars and then realize you have no resources in one sector of the web with many juicy targets. The added bonus is that the Berserker has formidable military powers with his ability to capture a world by robotic attack (especially a HW) right out from under the owner's nose even with ships firing in the air. Many players take the Berserker role for the sheer warlike fun of it in tandem with their Pirate brethren and only look to see if they can win later in the game. My opinion - a fun position that can play in many ways - diplomatic, warlike and for the win. Probably FBI should limit how many points they can bring in to keep the other positions competitive. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? Last issue I asked: OK – speaking of rarely used orders. 'Z' will prevent you from ambushing anyone anywhere. Has anyone needed to use this? Why? And speaking of ambush – Znnn stops you from ambushing at world nnn. I presume this includes your fleets there as well as your homefleet. Can anyone confirm that? Rick Loomis answered the first question: The purpose of the Z order is so you don't have to figure out all the places where people might get ambushed if you don't want to ambush anyone. For instance, your ally is going to give you a world but he's already used up all his gift orders for this turn, so you are declaring him "not an ally" so you can capture the world he wants to give you. But you don't want to accidentally ambush him somewhere else. If you aren't at war with anyone and don't want to ambush any "neutrals" who might be flying through a world given to you by your ally - this can be a useful order. Rick I was still unsure whether a Z123 order prevents any fleets in the air at W123 from ambushing or if it only applies to homefleet. Paul Balsamo answered: I've used the Z order a few times. As a matter of fact I just issued a Z order in a game last week. I agreed to a NAP with a neighbor, but I am not allied to him. He wanted to explore a world that he connects to, but he only had a key at another of our border worlds and he would have to fly through one of my worlds to get to there. Since I wasn't going to declare him ally, I Zd the world for 1 turn. Also, when you Z a world, nothing that you have there (home fleets, regular fleets) will ambush. Here is a new question. If you are a merchant hovering over an industry world with 255 metal already present will you get point credit for any metal you drop? I actually see this scenario in a game I'm in and I'm concerned that being at the maximum metal possible may affect the merchant scoring. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 001021.0824?5 By Walt Schmidt walts@dorsai.org "Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination." - William Burroughs A not too long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . seven intrepid Starweb players met in private for what would be yet another test of the mettle of their player types and the abilities the years of gaming had given each and every one of them. This was as an unusual grouping as ever, as it brought together a band of Starweb Knights know to all . . . with reputations preceding them always (but not always to their or other's liking), as they went forth on their journeys and fought the battles in the worlds that Loomis made. Some were known as Champions - having won that title on playing fields both usual and not. Others were known for their playing styles, where the playing of the Game was often more important than that most transient of titles - being known as "the game's winner." One of these intrepid soles is even called the Ancient one, it being said of him that he was there - at the Beginning - as it is also said of yet another. And who are these seven warriors? The Ancient One - his proponents say he was one of First Ones, his distracters claim he either found or stole a First One's trappings. But no one would dare question his playing abilities - if they know what's good for them. Chronicler - his gaming abilities are known to all, as is the manner in which for posterity he records what he and others have seen. While it is rumored that he, too, was a First One, for this meeting it appears he has affected another persona. Speaker - as other's have been said to do, he speaks in tongues - but in ways that ensure his intent is made clear to all who will listen – and they all, do, listen. She - known for her penchant for things auric, some say this comes from the fact her playing style is similarly hued. But all say, she isn't one to be trifled with. Luca - he claims lineage to Luca Pacioli, the 15th Century Franciscan philosopher who earned the epithet, "Father of Accounting." To us he is known for his duality, his yin and yang. Fighter - he continues to fight the good fight, although some say he will fight any fight, invited or not. And all say, he does fight any fight, well. Player - while the younger of the group, in Loomis years, he is none the less known as a "player" and his actions should never be taken lightly. In a galaxy far, far away . . . seven intrepid Starweb players met in private for a test of their mettle. Nothing remains secret for long, and you have now met them, too. More on their future meetings - as things progress . . . 'Til next log - Shai Dorsai ! Nemo Editor's note: I took a stab at identifying the players since I've played with so many of them. I got 2 wrong. Here are the players of this private game – can anyone identify who is who? They are myself, Walter Schmidt, Ken Cassady, Mic Hammerschmitt, John Muije, Herb Diehr and Sharon Wyatt. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURE - THE SWAP CORNER Creating the Map With the mouse you are able to construct a beautiful color map. Any worlds you see or any you are told about and add to a Dummy Turnsheet can be added to the Map View. The days of the pencil written spaghetti map are over. Worlds are color coded by owner or by team (see Team Support). Any worlds filtered out of the List View will be grayed out on the Map View. If you put the mouse pointer over any world the world's basic information will be brought up in the The World Quick-Information Area. This is just the world statistics to help you decide if this is the world you wish to examine. It also marks which turn it was last seen if it's not current. If you left click on any world the center shading will go white to help you locate it on the map. Simultaneously the associated information will be selected in the List View. This makes it very easy to have all the worlds statistics while viewing the map. To move worlds on the map you can drag and drop them using the mouse. After adding, deleting, copying or moving worlds on the map you may want to save the changes to the map file permanently. You may do this from the File menu or the Save map button to the right of the 'World Quick Information area'. Intelligent algorithms determine where the connections between worlds are drawn for wraparound worlds. The program attempts to only show the closest connections in order to avoid having a world found on both the right and left border of a map creating a connection to worlds next to them by crossing over the whole map. This works well for worlds only seen at edges (twice) or even at corners (4 times) but in some complex maps may not be as clean. E.g. A------------>A | | D ----------->D In the example the map would look like that without any messy AD connections that create long diagonals across the map. Right clicking on a blank portion of the map will bring up a menu that is used to construct your map. You may choose - Unmapped worlds, Unmapped worlds connected to the selected world, paste, Shift map (up, down, left, right), Set font, Show Owners, Display by team and Edit colors. Unmapped worlds - Provides a list of all worlds in the World View that haven't been mapped yet. Selecting a world from this list will place it on the map in the open space you originally right clicked on. Unmapped worlds connected to the selected world - When this is selected only those unmapped worlds that are connected to the currently selected (highlighted) world in the map view are shown. This is quite convenient when you have dozens of unmapped worlds and just wished to show specific worlds that are adjacent. Paste – allows you to put another copy of a world down on the map (after using the copy command). Good for those edge worlds. Shift map - Inevitably as you gather more map information you will find your map reaches the edge of the Map View. You can shift the Map in any direction to provide more space for inserting additional worlds. Set Font - By choosing the font you determine the size of the world and the style of the 3 letter label denoting ownership. Show Owners - Toggling this will remove/insert the owner label onto the worlds. Removing them reduces the size of the world, allowing more of the map to fit on the screen in the Map View. Display by Team - If you have defined Teams in the Game Profile then invoking this will color all worlds belonging to the same team in the same color. Without Team support every character has a distinctive color for his worlds. After a few turns of gifting to allies the one color per player style can have the map start looking like an angry fruit salad! The use of Team support can define the map into colored regions controlled by different alliances. Edit Colors - You don't have to accept the Analyzer's default color assignments to players or teams on the map. You must first decide by choosing a radio button whether you will display the map by individual players or in teams. If by Teams you will have to define them in the next section. If the map is displayed by player colors then the team colors will not be displayed. If you define teams and select to display by Team colors then those chosen under Players will not be displayed. If you still wish to adjust individual players colors while under Team display you will have to define these individuals as their own team of 1 player. To assign a color is very simple. Highlight the player/team you are interested in assigning then click on the color in the available palette. This color should appear in the Assigned Color box. To change the color just select another off the palette. To deslect colors and return to the default you only have to click on the assigned color box. Note: Once a color is assigned it is no longer available on the palette. Remember – if you don't like where a world is you can move it using the mouse drag and drop ability or just cut it (or copy it) by right clicking on the world and then pasting it in a new location. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE More email regarding SW-B/28 John Shannonhouse said: >>And Robert Easton jumped in with: I feel it is only fair that I respond to this charge. There is no mega-alliance in SW B/28. And I am not the main leader of the alliance that I am in. That is Bob Mc Lain<< Ummm.... do you know Bob McLain? Did you know that he set up his own website quite some time ago on PBM? Did you know how much he bragged about doing backstabs, which is apparently was his very favorite methodology? He says there are millions of new ones born every minute who don't know about him, so he didn't mind bragging about it. Ask him about desert islands and boats some time... I think Bob Easton and his alliance may be in for a surprise John Paul Balsamo said: Regarding the Lee Knirko/Mega-Alliance thing: I am not in the game that they are talking about, but I have been in a multi-game with Lee where he had a prefab 3-player alliance. Muligames only have 5 players! If that's not a mega-alliance, I don't know what is. Paul Editor: I'm not in the habit of rabble rousing but this letter I received from one of my allies seems to be a common complaint. I put it out to the SEDG readers. If you believe this is true perhaps we need to let FBI know so they can supply us with a game that suits our needs. Here is the letter from Roy Hamilton – Roy said: If you are in agreement with the following sentiments, you might consider forwarding this message to Rick or writing one of your own. I recommend 5000 to 15000. To:FBI From: Frank Roy Hamilton Subj: Ending Scores. Dear Rick For some time, I have been complaining about the fact that Starweb games are ending too soon. We start a game. It takes until turn 7 or 8 to get full production and then the game ends on turn 15 or 16 or 17. Well, I'm not going to bother you any longer with any complaints. Instead, I'm going to finish the games that are running now and the games I have already signed up for and, then, I will only be playing Extra Long Starweb and, perhaps, an occasional Bitter End game. Regular games are ending so soon that they just aren't fun anymore. Frank Roy Hamilton Well, that's it for Volume 42. 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