STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://flyingmoose.cjb.net) VOLUME 47 April 2, 2001 CONTENTS Feature Article – - ALLIANCE RELATED STRATEGIES FOR EMPIRE BUILDERS Questions – Dropping I ships, interesting case of R attack SEDG Web Page URL The Captain's Log - The New Maps - Simplicity In Itself... The Swap Corner - Starweb Analyzer V1.4 beta Correspondence FEATURE ARTICLE - ALLIANCE RELATED STRATEGIES FOR EMPIRE BUILDERS By John Shannonhouse Editor: I wrote about Empire Builders in Volume 12. I present John's view of this character now. Many of the points iterated initially are repeated but as always, there is more than one way to play the character and more than one opinion on how to go about it. I especially like the alliance based advise. ALLIANCE RELATED STRATEGIES FOR EMPIRE BUILDERS Empire Builders tend to fall into two categories. Either they become the cornerstone of an alliance, or they become cannon fodder. Believe me, working within an alliance is more fun for most people, and you get to see more of the game as well. An Empire Builder's needs appear to be in conflict with most other players. He needs worlds, especially home worlds. In Starweb, ownership and use of worlds is power, so people are naturally unwilling to part with them. Except when dealing with other Empire Builders, it is possible to get around that restriction. An Artifact Collector is a natural ally. He only needs about three non-valuable worlds to build museums, and all he wants in return is all your artifacts, many of which are harmful to an Empire Builder. An Empire Builder should be able to get most of his worlds in exchange for art plus the promise to build as requested. Do not expect the gift of a home world from anyone before turn eight at the earliest, more likely turn ten or later. Everyone wants to build some sort of military force before gifting the home world away. A merchant is also a natural ally, but is extremely dangerous if he is not willing to control his own score. He does not need any worlds, and gains more points when he gifts his own home world away. Be wary of a Merchant who wants to give you his home world early. He should be getting plenty of points from hauling for other players, and his score will grow too fast if he gifts you his home world early in the game. An Empire Builder's best strategy in dealing with an Apostle is to get immediate and long-lasting benefits while getting the Apostle lots of points much later in the game. An Apostle gets most of his points through a Jihad, against a player with lots of high population planets, during the last two or three turns of the game. He does *not* get points for killing off his own converts at high population worlds that he has gifted away. It would be to his advantage to gift his highest population limit worlds to an Empire Builder before they grew too many converts with the understanding that he would be both an ally and loader, and could PBB the worlds later, along with a number of other high population worlds. The Empire Builder could even provide ships for the purpose. At that point he would be slowing down the Empire Builder's growth, but the benefits received in the mean time are well worth it, and he can make up for most of those losses by gifting the Empire Builder his home world every other turn. He would always recapture the fully converted world the following turn, but the Empire Builder would get points for the mines and industry. An Empire Builder can work out a similar deal with Berserkers, except that they cannot gift their home world to a non-Berserker. The same deal can be offered to any other Berserkers/Apostles. The Berserkers do not require that a specific player own the world, but easy access to a number of high population worlds at the end of the game without having to worry about fighting for it is *very* valuable to a Berserker. The beauty of this strategy is that all Berserkers/Apostles get full points for all population killed at the same world as long as all of them attack, so you can satisfy all of them with the same worlds. A diplomatic message to each of them mentioning some specifics on worlds with high population limits (current population not being much of an issue at this point) and promising fleets and ships for the purpose should get a very positive response. Of course, they have to trust the Empire Builder in order for this to work. They take all the up-front risks. But this is the starting strategy for a good alliance. If they agree, the Empire Builder should gift each of them a one ship key at peace at his home world, and build up one ship each turn to the Berserker. He can then robotize while the Apostle does an AP order, giving both of them 16 points per turn. An Empire Builder can also work to some extent with a Pirate. He probably has a number of worlds, which are "rocks" -- worlds of almost no value to him. The Empire Builder can gift those to the pirate to plunder, while the Pirate gifts more valuable worlds in return. It might be a good idea to gift a rock to the Pirate immediately to start the ball rolling. Another possibility is to transfer ships to the Pirate's fleets in exchange for worlds, as long as he has another player to fight. The pirate could then move along, capturing worlds, plundering them, and then gifting them to the Empire Builder. With a fair sized alliance doing the same thing, a Pirate can become a very potent force. Of course, the Pirate also has to agree to give up a lot of those ships later in the game so that the Berserkers and Apostles can catch up. If there is a need to defend territory, a Pirate is usually willing to do the fighting as long as the other players provide some of the ships and fleets for the purpose. Just be sure that he is trustworthy. The vast majority of players are. While it is not always possible to determine if a player is reliable, there are some sure-fire signs that he is not. If a player is constantly working "behind the scenes" deals with you at another players expense, wants to try and hide alliance information from the opponents for some reason, does not follow through with his side of deals, tries to get your assistance by threatening you, or lies to you, he is probably doing the same thing to everyone else at your expense. A quick note to the appropriate people asking if they are getting the same treatment will usually bring this to light, and that player will make a good victim of the newly formed alliance. An Empire Builder should always mention that he would build as instructed on any home world gifted to him. That will be the biggest worry of most players. They may need to work out most of their orders one turn in advance so that they can send build instructions with the turn. One word of warning -- don't insist upon "equal point-for-point" trades. Alliances that use that strategy never come out on top against good competition. The idea of an alliance is to help all the players as much as possible. Try to figure out every possible way to help them out. They should be doing the same for you. Many of the Empire Builder's allies should be willing to let him move two-ship keys into their territories to capture worlds from them via an AH order as they transfer up any ISHPs or PSHPs. That will speed his rate of increase a lot. Later in the game it should be possible to do some fine-tuning of scores to make sure that no-one gets left too far behind. Generally at the end, assuming the alliance is successful; Collectors, Berserkers and Merchants will have to hold back while Apostles, Pirates and Empire Builders will require additional assistance. It is a good idea to mention this early on as something you would like to see so that the other players have time to think about it before the last minute. Later in the game, when full production has been reached along with a comfortable excess to handle emergencies, merchants should slow down their hauling. They may wind up having a large fleet at each home world carrying a lot of metal which can be dropped as needed, but will not drop more than needed to maintain a score close to the high score. If necessary, gift a home world back to the merchant for a turn to allow him to drop metal without gaining points, or he might join in on the PKILLs to lower his score. My personal preference as a merchant is to come in a close second. That way I get a good score, but I am not a threat to the other players. Matching scores rather closely to the Empire Builder (who has the least control over his score) becomes important. When it comes to that point, it is much better to have overkill capabilities for the players who can control scores rather than try to hold them back and limit their chance to run away with the game. Not only does that make it easier to match scores, but it gives your alliance the capability of keeping ahead of the opponents if they make a last minute attempt to win the game. Again, that requires trust, but for me the best part of the game is seeing everyone demonstrate their mutual trust for everyone's benefit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? Last issue I asked: I can envision another reason for dropping I ships rather than P ships on the ground even if there is no industry present. Can anyone supply the scenario(s) for this? John Gault said: You are an Apostle, or allied with Berserkers, or both, and you want your population to be shot at. A P-ship would have to be destroyed first, possibly causing one of the shooters to capture the world, but an I-ship will look the other way and let the people die. Editor: The reverse is also true when the Apostle is the hunter! It's a small point but if an enemy Apostle or Berskerker show up with a key with the intent of scoring and capturing a world they can't do it in one turn. With a P ships they could fire AP and score points while capturing. With I ships they must make a choice whether they score, capture or waste 2 turns doing it. New Question from Scott Davis: >The rules state: "Note that if 2 or more players both fire at the >population of the same world, each gains or loses the proper number of >points for the TOTAL population that died there that turn." > >I have witnessed that even if the attacking keys are lost, the >berzerker/apostle firing at pop still gets the points. Does the same >rules hold true for robot drops? > >In other words, if my ally and I both drop robots on the same world, >but our target destroys my key and keeps me from doing direct harm to >the population, do I still get the kill points for attacking >(robotizing) population? > >Thanks. >-Scott Editor's note: Remember, if you robot attack but your key is destroyed you will do no damage to the population and receive 0 points. In this case the allied berserker successfully does the kill. Will the program credit you? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 - 010401.0401-4 The New Maps - Simplicity In Itself... By Walt Schmidt walts@dorsai.org "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail." - Henry David Thoreau Start any new SW games recently? Have you tried to map them? If the answers are yes, then you've already run into the new map(s) that Loomis is using. You know the ones - with (what appears to be) more cross-connectors, to all sides of the map, than carter has little liver pills. And for the young ones reading this - that is one hell of a lot of cross-connectors. Well, the answer to your mapping needs is simplicity in itself - it is The Uniform Polyhedra! For those who want the whole story, the URL is: http://www.mathconsult.ch/showroom/unipoly/#Geometric Otherwise, read on... First, as a way of background - Uniform Polyhedra consist of regular faces and congruent vertices. Allowing for non-convex faces and vertex figures, there are 75 such polyhedra. All but one of the uniform polyhedra can be described by a Wythoff symbol. The Wythoff symbol contains three rational numbers p, q, and r, all larger than 1. If the numbers p, q, and r in the Wythoff symbol are integers, the corresponding polyhedron is convex. If we drop the condition that the solids be convex we get many more shapes. First, we can allow non-convex polygons as faces. The non- convex regular polygons are the star polygons, such as the pentagram. We can also arrange the faces around a vertex in a non-convex way. With these additional figures we get four more regular solids, the Kepler- Poinsot polyhedra. We then need to consider truncation - which consists of "cutting off" a vertex. The truncated small stellated dodecahedron is an ordinary dodecahedron, and the truncated great stellated dodecahedron turns into an icosahedron. The truncated-in-the-middle forms of the great icosahedron and the small stellated dodecahedron are the same, called the great icosidodecahedron, and so are the forms of the great dodecahedron and the great stellated dodecahedron, the dodecadodecahedron. We also need to consider symmetry - and specifically: Tetrahedral Symmetry; Octahedral Symmetry; Icosahedral Symmetry; and Dihedral Symmetry which objects have five fold symmetry! But, which form out of eighty shapes has Loomis picked as a basis for his new maps? The "give-away" was those little triangles that the new maps invariably form. So far, I have found three forms that are most likely being used. With an understanding of these three - your maps will no longer need to have all those cross-connectors! I have also included URLs to graphics of each form. The Great Truncated Cuboctahedron (Wythoff Symbol: 4/3 2 3|), which shape has 26 Faces, 72 Edges, 48 Vertices, and has Octahedral Symmetry. URL: http://www.mathconsult.ch/showroom/unipoly/20.html The Great Ditrigonal Dodecicosidodecahedron (Wythoff Symbol: 3 5|5/3), which shape has 44 Faces, 120 Edges, and 60 Vertices, and has Icosahedral Symmetry. URL: http://www.mathconsult.ch/showroom/unipoly/42.html And, the Small Retrosnub Icosicosidodecahedron (Wythoff Symbol: |3/2 3/2 5/2), which shape has 112 Faces, 180 Edges, 60 Vertices, and also has Icosahedral symmetry. URL: http://www.mathconsult.ch/showroom/unipoly/72.html By the way, there are also 59 stellations of the icosahedron which I have not yet had a chance to review. More on those, later For the time being - Good Mapping all! 'Til next log - Shai Dorsai ! Nemo ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURE - THE SWAP CORNER Starweb Analyzer V1.4 beta I know it's been slow but V1.4 is almost upon us. If you wish to play with this version of the program it is available for download on the Flying Moose Technologies web site http://flyingmoose.cjb.net. The first thing that you will enjoy is that V1.4 beta is both the Evaluation version (good for processing turns 1 through 6 and combining two players turnsheets), which is free of charge but can be converted to a fully registered version after purchasing with a registration key. This means it will save you time as you only have to download it once. If you are already a registered user you only have to request by email and we will give you the registration key. Be aware that this version is a beta and it is strongly suggested that it be installed to it's own folder. Don't overwrite V1.3 just yet until we are aware of all the bugs. I have been using it for weeks now without problem. Here are some of the latest features. Fleet Tracking If you do a click on a fleet or on the fleet movement information in the World View the path the fleet took will be shown on the Map View with red arrows imbedded into the connection between worlds. Be aware that it is possible that you won't see the whole path the fleet took and so may be given 2/3 of the path. If you put the fleet number into the Order Box (above the Map view) you can use the find button or '/' after the order to find the fleet and display it's path. In addition, once you have written the orders for the fleets and done at least one Order Check any subsequent fleet tracking will also include yellow arrows to show the path the fleet will take with this set of orders. Finally, the World View does not just list which fleets flew through each world and where they went. Now the Starweb Analyzer examines all the turn information and reconstructs the path a fleet took and displays this whole path in the World View at each world the fleet makes contact. For example if F1 is at W10 and flew to W13W55W7 you would see F1 from W10->W13->W55->W7 displayed at all 4 worlds. This makes it very easy to track fleet movement especially for enemy movement. Additional support for Apostles Worlds with Converts Filter - Includes all worlds that have any converts. Worlds with Converts [Owner] Filter - Includes all worlds that have converts owned by the owners listed in the owners list. Note: this is the convert owner not the world owner. The world[owners] filter can be combined Worlds with no Converts Filter - Includes all worlds that have no converts. By using combinations of these filters you can find all worlds that you own with converts and without converts as well as worlds that you don't own with your converts. This makes it easier to see worlds that you may wish to trim or help convert as well as making score tracking easier. Berserkers We have added further filters. Robotic Worlds Filter Non Robotic Worlds Filter Using this with owner filters makes it easy to find your robotic worlds (for calculating scoring) and non robotic worlds for gifting or future R attack. Other Filters/Sorts - Sort by Industry (Ascending) - Sort by Industry (Descending) This makes it easier to find those high industry worlds you may wish to visit for refueling. - Offense Scan Filter Similar to the Perimeter alert – it shows any nonallied (or nonTeam if defined and selected) worlds with your Team/allied keys present. Excellent for a quick view of any offense you are mounting. Order Editor enhanced Ambush alert – Worlds that you haven't seen in a while, enemy worlds, your worlds with nonallied keys present etc. where you may be ambushed will be given a warning on checking the orders that a potential ambush exists. Setup Wizard You no longer must browse to turn 1 of the game to get the Wizard to setup the game automatically. any game turn will do. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE Lenny Schussell said: Elliot - Enjoyed the new volume. Perhaps you can invite all the readers to each suggest a single rule change and when there are a lot that we agree on, then maybe it would make the cost worthwhile to Rick to make Starweb V-2. My suggestion would be to improve the pirate score by giving him 5 points per ship for every key that he pirate captures. Early in the game, there might be some 5-20 point bonuses, but later when the 100 ship armadas start floating, some significant jumps can be made. It would reward the pirate for being a pirate, just at the time when his plunder value of the home territory is falling off drastically. One ship keys with plastic art make excellent info gathering tools in anonymous games. I almost always get them back the turn after they are captured. Lenny Editor: That would be fun! I don't think FBI is interested in changing Starweb but perhaps if we came up with enough ideas some might be used in some mythical future when 8th Edition Rules are created ?. I like the game as is but would like better scoring competition. I would like to see merchants make 5 points/metal dropped and only 100 points per PBB for the berserker. In addition, the apostle should also get 100 points for dropping a PBB on their Jihad target. Letter from Alter: Elliot, The Captain wouldn't let me participate with his column this month - and he has forbid me to talk about the column. But he didn't cover all basis - so... All his URLs and related data are valid - but please look closely at the DATE of his log! Yours in Gaming – Alter Editor: OUCH!! Well, that's it for Volume 47. 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