STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://flyingmoose.cjb.net) VOLUME 52, Monday Sept. 3, 2001 CONTENTS Feature Article – War or Diplomacy Game? Oh Apostle Show me the Way – by John Shannonhouse and Elliot Hudes Questions – In-out-in SEDG Web Page URL The Captain's Log - The Player Must Never Be Bigger Than The Game Itself The Swap Corner - The Flying Moose Technologies - Great White North (Canadian) Starweb Tournament? Correspondence FEATURE ARTICLE This article was originally published in FBQ a few years ago but I think it could use fresh exposure here in the SEDG. War or Diplomacy Game? Oh Apostle Show me the Way – by John Shannonhouse and Elliot Hudes The way of war or the way of points. These two often-opposing forces are what make Starweb such a fascinating game. I often hear it referred to as a "War Game". Although war is often present a more accurate description may be a game of diplomacy. This common misconception often drives the game into patterns that can be counter productive to winning. Let me flesh out this thought. I find there are two driving forces in the game - 1) The drive for points - to win the game 2) The drive for warfare - to win against your opponents Mostly these two forces are counterproductive to each other, as they will utilize the same resources. The main resources of the game are worlds, ships and art. For Simplicity I lump mines, industry and metal as world resources. Lets examine these things in more detail. POINTS Worlds - a prime source of points for the empire builder, apostles, pirates and even berserkers (through robotic attack or PBB targets). But even the art collector or merchant needs them or he has little to barter with, and the collector needs worlds at the end of the game to hold his museums. Ships - they are points for the berserker as he cashes them in via robotic attacks and PBB's. Pirates need them for the capture of opponent's keys -- another source of points that is usually undervalued. For empire builders they represent potential industry built and they are needed for the merchants to haul metal and for the Apostle conversion or Jihad attack. All sources of points. Once again they are a source of barter for the art collector. The pirate however is different - they are the source of power and pirates live for the 3 to 1 capture! Of course ships and worlds are also necessary for security and protection. You can't win by points if you are on the verge of an early extermination. So, adequate defense forces, ambushes and owning worlds beyond ring 3 (two turns from the home worlds) makes good sense. There is no doubt that the easiest source of points are those you get from your own empire and those given to you by your allies willingly. Indeed the resources necessary to wrest a prize from the enemy may cost you more in points than the prize itself. Often this is from lost opportunities to use your resources elsewhere. A smart enemy can often delay capture of territory almost indefinitely while you tie up your ships and keys which could have been busy building industry, robot attacking, converting etc. WAR What is it good for? As opposed to the old song - NOT "Absolutely Nothing". There are some very legitimate reasons for a war. Often (too often) there are neighbors who – 1) Will not communicate. They are perceived as a threat or at best neutral neighbors you cannot trade with. 2) Openly hostile or a member of a rival alliance. War is necessary to ensure your security. 3) Gravy points - As I've said the majority of points are obtained by peaceful pursuits BUT there is no doubt that a well planned offensive by a tight group of allies can wrest control of an enemies ships/territory/industry with few losses. This will add to your point base. 4) FUN - here lies the big problem. Despite the potential to slow your point accumulation it is fun to pit yourself against the Mongol Hordes. Your intellect versus the enemy. Add to this the other factors that promote war. a)Pirates - they virtually cannot win. They have a very unfavorable ability to score. Their special ability to capture is a military one. They often drive the game to war dragging other characters in to avoid being targeted and to reap the booty. b)misconceptions - you read the description of the characters and you immediately figure that a berserker gets points for killing all life in the galaxy so he must be one bad ##S DUDE. WRONGO - It is much easier to robot attack a world to 50% of it's population limit for the points and leave the world producing points in the hands of an empire builder or pirate. Especially if you have their consent. This also saves you from having to protect your armada doing the attacks. Similarly the Apostle - you get points for shooting population while on Jihad. It's much easier and safer to do it against your allies' worlds. So in reality the most successful berserker or apostle should be a pussycat not a tiger. So we have two driving forces in the game. If you can get them both to work for you then you are playing well indeed but as one of my allies once said, "One should not win the war but lose the game". So, how do you handle these conflicting needs? The key is timing of ownership in a strong and trustworthy alliance. An overall strategy covers these conflicting needs nicely, but it is difficult to implement. I will cover the resources by type. FLEETS/KEYS Start out by getting fleets and keys to the merchants *fast*. They will help you get to full production quickly, and will also make the most efficient use of ships during war. Assuming sufficient metal, the merchant only needs 28 ships to keep the home world at full production. Any other character class needs 56 ships. That not only wastes 28 ships that could be used for the combat, but full production is reached faster with the merchant, so more ships total are available with the merchant hauling. Each home world should have at least two merchant fleets hauling at all times. Some keys with few ships can be given to the berserker/empire builder/apostle. The berserker can trim population for points cheaply, while getting set up for later PBB runs. The empire builder and apostle can move through your territory capturing worlds with an AH order, thus saving gift orders. An early gift of a fleet with that understanding is much more efficient than gifting worlds. There should be at least one berserker fleet at each home world. Pirates are next in line for keys and ships, just as you are ready for offense/defense. The keys should be given relatively early, so that the ships can be transferred and used as soon as combat develops, normally about turn 10. They don't get many keys, but they get a *lot* of ships. This is the cornerstone of the alliance offense. Working out judicious pirate captures of your opponents by transferring every spare ship to the pirate transfers the most critical resources from your opponents directly to you. Capturing opponent's ships is worth considerably more than twice as many ships built by your own industry. Pirates maintain the lion's share of the ships through the early and middle part of the game. Berserkers traveling with the pirate will have ships transferred over from the pirate when it is necessary to either bomb or robotize a home world. Apostles are frequently overlooked in combat, but they also play a very key role. Apostles should get keys with a moderate number of ships so that they can roam through an opponent's territory converting population. These converts will act as a constant spy network, even on worlds that were never captured or that were recaptured by the enemy. Knowledge is power, and the apostle's special ability makes him pivotal to the decision making process. At game end, the pirate no longer needs such massive forces. Ships should be transferred in mass to the berserker and apostle for killing population, and to the empire builder for building industry. By that time it should be obvious who needs the most help, so this can be handled efficiently. However, the pirate should still keep the lion's share of the keys, and should get lots of them at the end. These are sources of points for him twice. He gets three points per turn for each key. In addition, they can be used to capture fresh worlds from his allies for plunder. Which brings us to: WORLDS Unlike keys and ships, worlds are not at all interchangeable. Surprise. Empire builders do not get dibs on the first world gifts, and neither do pirates. The most time-sensitive player for worlds is the apostle. Every turn spent not owning a world is a turn spent not growing converts. The longer the delay, the less likely that full conversion will occur, which is critical for the apostle. Allies should examine their worlds for low population with medium to high growth limits, and gift them to the apostle fast. Worlds with medium to high populations with high population limits should instead be given to the empire builder. Not only does he get more points for owning them, but they also become ideal jihad targets late in the game, so the apostle should avoid the temptation to grow converts. After the Apostle gets all the best worlds for him, the empire builder should start getting worlds. Home worlds should be gifted no earlier than turn eight, just after the mines increase. This helps production at that key world, which is a key consideration that early in the game. Otherwise, examine worlds for total value and potential value to the empire builder, and gift the most valuable ones away as rapidly as possible. An ideal tactic is to gift valuable worlds that are at or near their population limit to the pirate. He plunders and gifts them to the empire builder. This should probably come first, even before the gifting of "rocks" to the pirate. And remember that worlds with few mines and no industry are not necessarily rocks. The population limit determines their value to the apostle or empire builder. The Pirate gets worlds to keep only after the apostle and empire builder get theirs. The value of worlds for plunder drop off very rapidly, so a pirate can get worlds relatively late in the game and still get close to his maximum value out of them. A pirate's tendency to hold on to worlds forever is self-defeating. It is much better to gift them away immediately after a plunder, and get another in return. He should get worlds from the apostle as rapidly as possible for plundering, because after the full conversion, he will not be able to own them long enough to get a plunder. Except for the apostle worlds and complete rocks, the pirate should concentrate on getting lots of worlds in the late middle and the end game, after they have already done full duty for the empire builder. Nobody else needs worlds, but everyone needs or at least likes ARTIFACTS: Artifacts have unique properties that must be addressed, and which are frequently ignored. The obvious one is points earned during the game. Everyone gets points for owning some artifacts. Each class has a "Greatest Treasure", where he gets as much as an artifact collector would. Some artifacts subtract points, and some (the nebula scrolls) provide no points at all. The art can also be placed in museums by the collector for 500 points each at game end. The least utilized feature, but one of the most important, is the ability to give full sets of artifacts to a player for a 500-point bonus, or 1000 points for the collector. For the most part, the rule of thumb is to get art to the artifact collector as quickly as possible. There are some exceptions. Plastic art should all be given to the merchant. A properly run merchant will stop dropping metal to avoid running away with the game. Negative art will help him keep hauling longer. If the collector can spare it, you might want to give the merchant the lesser of two evils and the radioactive isotope as well. Greatest treasures should go to the appropriate players (except the merchant, of course). Assuming you can get all five, the nebula scrolls should go to the player who will need the most help at the end of the game -- usually the pirate, sometimes the apostle. If you don't have all the nebula scrolls, they should go to the artifact collector as quickly as possible, as well as all the other artifacts with the possible exception of the black box. If the black box provides some capability that is uniquely useful to another character class, then it should go to that player. Usually you have a choice about which art to give away to the collector. Start with harmful art. Then move on to art, which provides you no points. Finally give away the art that helps you. This can be facilitated by getting the collector a fleet in your territory. He can move to pick up the art. By mid game the collector should have all the alliance art besides the exceptions already mentioned. THE END GAME: At the end of the game, things happen fast and furious. The artifact collector should be at or close to the lead due to the generosity of his allies, and the ease of getting him lots of points fast. The merchant should be in the lead or slightly behind the collector, with the empire builder also close by. Everyone else needs to take quick action to catch up, and this requires a *lot* of coordination and cooperation. Hopefully your alliance has been preparing for this most of the game, so you are ready. The artifact collector will give away sets of art to the appropriate players for their 500-point bonuses, or the 1000-point bonus for the scrolls. He loses a lot of point potential here, but makes up for it by building museums with his carefully gathered artifacts. This is why players should give art to the collector early and quickly. If he is lagging behind everyone else, he will not be willing to give away his only chance to remain competitive. The berserkers and apostles will be joining in on kills. The berserkers will be dropping PBBs while the apostles will join in with an AP order. Hopefully everyone has already located the best bombing targets, they are owned by the appropriate people for the jihad, and the keys and ships are all magically available at just the right moment. The empire builder will be frantically building industry to partially offset his losses to the bombs and to the pirate (more on that later), but since everyone in the alliance has pushed his score up early on, he can live with the late loss of points. Which explains why you want to build the empire builder up fast. If he is lagging too much, he might fight to keep those resources, which will hurt everyone else. The empire builder is building industry using the huge stores of metal that have been accumulating at the home worlds, which allows the merchant to slow down or stop hauling as well. The merchant should be allowed to gain an early lead and keep it because he can always stop his point growth completely at any moment. It is not nearly as easy to find a way to suddenly gain the points if the others are all doing well, or if the opponents have mounted a successful strategy to take the lead. The pirate is also now making his biggest move. He declares everyone a non-ally. This obviously calls for very close coordination. He moves to worlds as ISHPs or PSHPs are picked up to leave them undefended. His allies either move to be captured, or fly over his ambushes where they are captured for the three points each. He gets a set, or perhaps two sets of pirate art from the collector. All this is difficult, requires an amazing amount of trust throughout the game, and needs everyone to handle their orders perfectly. It is possible, but is it fun? You bet it is. It sounds like everyone is out of the "fun" part of war and combat, because the pirate and berserker get all the combat experience. However, just because someone else writes the orders does not mean that you were not intimately involved in every aspect of the planning stage. The fun part of the war is working out the plans and seeing them succeed, not writing the boring orders. Everyone in the alliance should participate in the plans. No one is perfect, and it is always possible that someone will see a key point that everyone else overlooked. Talk, argue, plan, and send messages. If you came up with the heart of the plan, you will be as excited as the pirate when he makes a major capture. The weakness and drawback -- you have to really trust your allies from the beginning of the game to the end. Try it. You'll like it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? Last issue I posed this: W117 (56,197,213) [NEMO] (Metal=21,Mines=5,Population=31,Limit=31,Turns=3) F100[NEMO]-->W56 F100[NEMO]-->W197 This key has appeared to do the impossible. The Veteran may have seen or done this particular magic trick. The question is - describe how this key managed this and give a good scenario to utilize this technique. Hint: I just did this in SW-XM/202. There was no shortage of players with the answer to this one! Donald McEntee said: Wouldn't this be the result of F100W56W117W197 (or F100W197W117W56)? It would give me a report of both W56 and W197 without resorting to a probe. ACTUALLY I think I did something like that once (to add some confusion to an enemy I knew was going to show up at W117) and the printout showed something different, like F100 just once with multiple destinations... And there's always the Black Box! Joe Taormina said: This key has performed the "in and out" maneuver. Or maybe it's the "out and in" maneuver. Anyway, you use this technique when you want to probe two other worlds from where you're located, but don't want to burn a ship probing one. The order for doing this in this particular scenario would be F100W56W117W197. This sends the key to W56 and then back through W117 and on to W197. You therefore get to see what's at both 56 and 197 using one key and losing no ships to probes. HOWEVER, this maneuver does open you up to ambushes at W56. So you may lose the ship anyway if there's a homefleet at that world. John Galt said: F100 started here at W117, and was given the order F100W56W117W197. This actually appears in the rulebook. The only thing about it that mystifies me is the exact format: on recent turnsheets I've seen, the last line of the report would have been F100[NEMO]-->W56-->W197 John Shannonhouse said: That one is rather simple, and I have seen it several times. Start at W117. Give the order: F100W56W117W197 That gives your result. It is one way of checking out what is at W56 without using a probe and so saves a ship (assuming you are not ambushed). Editor's note: Thanks guys – I knew you vets had seen it. I used it recently so that an invasion force would have to guess which of the 2 worlds was a HW that I was bringing metal to. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 010902.1259-4 The Player Must Never Be Bigger Than The Game Itself By Walt Schmidt walts@dorsai.org As Elliot & John re-visit "War or Diplomacy Game? Oh Apostle Show me the Way," I though I would allow us to take another look at my seventh column from August 21, 1999, on... "Gamesmanship - Some Random Ramblings." "One of life's primal situations; the game of hide and seek. Oh, the delicious thrill of hiding while the others come looking for you, the delicious terror of being discovered, but what panic when, after a long search, the others abandon you! You mustn't hide too well. You mustn't be too good at the game. The player must never be bigger than the game itself." - Jean Baudrillard "You scratch my back, and I'll let you scratch my back, again." – I recently received a contact-request that stated due to economics, no email or fax - just snail-mail and telephone calls. Telephone calls? Now I presume that meant incoming phone calls only. I mean if you think about it, if the author was willing to call you in return, then why not other forms of eComs? After I thought about it for a while - I included an eMessage with my turn saying in so many words that it looked like we would be using game messages. "This is a great diplomacy game, but I don't do messages." Huh?!? I have never understood players in a non-anonymous game who don't respond. Hell, even a lazy SOB like myself [AH, YOU admit it, Nemo!] [Good Morning Alter, it's good to see you are as reliable as always in your approach to communications] understands the benefit of the SIGN command. You meet someone for the first time - you fire off a short message it's axiomatic. If you don't want to do the minimal of correspondence, then join anonymous games. Sheesh... "Oops Part I - I really did mean to leave your world." This message is especially effective when in addition to not leaving (as you promised you would in a previous turn) you also somehow accidently had four other of your keys show up at the world you had meant to leave. Dah! Gee - you must really be having trouble with your orders. Can you say JIHAD? "Oops Part II - The gift command didn't work?" And there is a part III, IV, ad infinitum! I guess the thought here is to give the big lie (as in - let us work together) one more try. But I always wonder - does the issuer of an Oops really think the player to whom the message was sent - will buy into it? Or, is it just sent - 'cause, why not! "Gee, I've never played this position before." Or its corollary "Gee, I haven't played in too many games." You don't see this one all that often anymore. Any of us can go online and look at the game-stats listing the Loomis provides. There, low and behold, you can see that your fellow gamer has played in more games than there are days in a month! I guess this is a distant cousin to the Oops. I mean, they figure - if you're gullible enough... "The Response - Sure, good idea, let's work together." Ooookay. So if you did want to REALLY work together, I would have thought you would have given me a little to work with. To this form of gamesmanship I usually respond with a "Great, now we are a team," or something like that. While in the meantime I presume my fellow gamester is out for my blood. In fact, playing me for a fool is one sure way of getting my life's work (as far as that particular game is concerned) to be seeing how many new and creative ways I can assist in making your score a negative one! "Okay - here's what I suggest...and to show good-faith, I've just..." Ah - a true games man [NEMO, IS there a particular reason you don't say games persons?] [Yes]. So from here on we start/continue to work together. Now as Mr. Eastwood once said, "That doesn't mean we'e gonna swap spit in a shower." And I never forget the words of Sun Tzu: "Keep you friends close - but your enemies closer!" But what it does mean is I am obviously working with a fellow true-spirited gamer - who isn't trying to insult my intelligence. And if (s)he [satisfied Alter?] [IT'S A beginning...] happens to get the better of me - there's always the next game! [walts' 010902 note: Yes Elliot, there IS always the next game (grin) ] As one last comment about gamesmanship, let me refer us all to General Colin Powell's - someone who clearly knows more than just a little about playing real life war-games - Ten Rules 1. It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning. 2. Get mad, then get over it. 3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it. 4. It can be done! 5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it. 6. Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision. 7. You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours. 8. Check small things. 9. Share credit. 10. Remain calm. Be kind. ...and, of course - Shai Dorsai ! Nemo ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURE - THE SWAP CORNER The Flying Moose Technologies - Great White North (Canadian) Starweb Tournament? Last issue I posted thoughts on a Starweb face-to-face tournament to be held in Canada. There was some interest generated as I received confirmation from 6 players who are ready to commit to the game already and 2 others who are definitely interested. A decent game of Starweb requires 10 players minimum and I believe that I will need at least this number to be able to cover Rick's/FBI's expenses to come up and moderate the game. Is anyone else out there interested? I believe I shall look for a weekend either in April or November of 2002 (being the off season). April is the first choice. I plan on running the tournament from Friday to Sunday. Players should plan on arriving in Canada Thursday so they can complete the journey to Muskoka be evening (ready to play Friday morning). I have researched a conference center in Muskoka that will charge $30/person/day Canadian (without meals) based on a double occupancy. It will be $45/day for single occupancy - the rooms come with kitchenettes. This is equivalent to $20-$30 American - extremely reasonable – actually the word cheap comes to mind. Here is a copy of my note from last issue. Stay tuned for further updates. I recently received the following missive from Rick at FBI: "Maybe next year I'll just hold a Starweb tournament at Origins in Columbus Ohio. And since we had these loyal fans who often came down from Canada, maybe I'll arrange to fly up there and run a private tournament for them and their friends sometime in the next year or two." Both Mike (CEO and Presidenté for life of FMT) and I were intrigued with this idea. While I personally know 8 players in the Toronto area, I don't believe we can pull off more than 6 for a weekend retreat. Still, we would love the chance to host a weekend of Starweb. Here is what we had in mind. Location: I was thinking of looking into a hotel/resort in Muskoka. In the off- season it's cheaper than Toronto (which is an extremely expensive venue for any convention due to the high cost of living and because we get a lot of corporate traffic here). I will check into it - you would just love seeing Muskoka - it is composed of thousands of lakes and hills nestled in northern Ontario. It is a robust ecologic niche entrenched in the geologic formation known as the Canadian Shield, an area virtually stripped of topsoil by the most recent glacier's advance leaving outcroppings of three billion year old Precambrian rock and thousands of lakes in its wake. It's a 2-hour drive from Toronto and I'm sure that the Toronto area players can shuttle out of towners to the resort (I have a van that can seat 7) or players can rent a car fairly inexpensively). Time: I do not wish to compete with FBI's tournament and since Canada only gets about 8 weeks of decent weather in the summer there will be a great reluctance by Canadians to spend 3 days indoors playing the game. If we do choose a country setting then winter is out - blizzards can be a problem as I've been both snowed in and prohibited from traveling when I ski there in the winter. I was thinking more of spring or fall of 2002 as possibilities. Cost: This remains to be seen. I must cover Rick's expenses to put on this tournament. Usually FBI charges $99 US to play. If I can get a commitment from 12-15 players then I think I could pull it off for the same price. Vacation: If you are considering visiting Toronto as a vacation - this City has a booming tourist trade with lots to see. (Check with your travel agent). In addition to seeing Muskoka (which is a playground for many US movie stars who buy cottage properties), we are only a 2-hour drive from Niagara Falls. Starweb Analyzer: If you bring a laptop you will be able to get your turns on diskette to input into your Starweb Analyzer. If you prefer paper and pen - I will ensure that I have an inkjet printer available for paper turns. Well, that's the bare bones of the idea. I can look into the costs of the resort and possible dates but I need to know if there is a lot of interest out there. Would you attend? Let me know. Of course if we get a large response there might even be a chance of running other FBI games here. Elliot P.S. Added bonus - Canadian Beer! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE John Shannonhouse wrote: >> You do know that Balisong is a reserved name (mine), don't you? John << Editor's note: John is bristling with my use of the good Balisong name as the backstabber in my short story last issue. John - I knew you had used it once in a game with me but I was unaware that it was a reserved name. I apologize for associating your good name with my fictional account. I did put a disclaimer on my story identifying it as fiction so I hope you can sit back and enjoy the escapism. Suspend your disbelief for a moment cuzz we both know that John Shannonhouse is no backstabber. Well, that's it for Volume 52. 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