STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://www.accessv.com/~wulkan/fmt.html) VOL 6 - May 10, 1999 The Scoring Pirate (vs the War-Crazed Non-Scoring Pirate) By David Benepe (Curiosity) david_benepe@prodigy.com The scoring pirate is not anti-war. He just tries to use war as a tactical means to acquire points, rather than just for the fun of winning battles. The battle tactics don't change that much, but an overall strategy is required to score, whereas the non-scoring pirate is more likely to focus on mastering battle tactics for pleasure sake. Like any character, a scoring strategy starts with a thorough understanding of the pirate scoring rules. I'm not going to repeat them here. I'm amazed at how many players rely on chatter and teammates help to learn the basic rules. READ THE RULEBOOK! Okay, now that you've learned the rules, you should realize that Pirates need to acquire stuff. Keys score points directly (3/key/turn). Worlds score points when plundered (50/40/30/20/10...) every 4th turn. Ships don't score points, but are essential to use of the pirates special advantage, Pirate Capture. And ownership of Pirate Art and, if possible, the Scrolls, can make a difference in the pirates position in the game. STRATEGY A scoring pirate needs allies! You simply cannot acquire enough worlds to plunder, keys to score with, or ships, unless a lot of stuff is given to you. Any pirate should aggressively seek full alliances, not just tit-for-tat trades. The scoring pirate just requires more in return from the alliance than the title of "General". Unless there is a strange map or someone guesses a world connection, this usually begins after receipt of the T-4 printout. The first three turns, the pirate needs to decide between a HW Production Strategy and an Early Plunder strategy. The former is not unlike an EB or Apostle, gaining territory by acquiring it while uncontested and building strength early. This is essential for the war-crazed non-scoring pirate, but not necessarily for the scoring pirate, who can employ the early plunder strategy. Plunder any R1 world with less than 2 Industry and less than 4 mines on T2. Plunder any R2 world with no industry and less than 3 mines on T3. And -- not for the feint at heart -- plunder the HW on T1! People have called me crazy, but consider that the HW will produce only 2 ships on T1 and T2. Normal T3 production may be about 6-10 and T4 is 15-25. Missing these ships would kill a non-allied pirate, so this strategy will doom the pirate who fails to find good allies. But its no more risky than giving your HW to the first EB you meet :o) On T5, the plundered HW will return to commission, and will have all metal brought in from T2-T4 available for full production on T5. Why make this sacrifice? For the extra points! Most pirates plunder their HW only on the LAST turn of the game, which is difficult to guess, so often missed. 40-90 extra points is well worth it. It also allows the pirate to concentrate the first few turns on expansion rather than hauling. This facilitates both acquiring worlds, and more significantly, REACHING POTENTIAL ALLIES. Like his war-crazed counterpart, the scoring pirate comes to the table with his special power. The ability to P-capture enemy ships. However, he must be more demanding, and therefore, more generous in his negotiations. Demands: 1) Allies must use all possible early gifts to give the pirate worlds to plunder. Clearly, this is no problem for merchants and collectors who don't need to own worlds. Bezerkers can afford to loan worlds, particularly those near their pop-limits, prior to robotizing them. EB's and Apostles can rotate worlds with the pirate so they score on the turns the pirate is waiting to re-plunder. Since both are expanding at faster than 2 worlds/turn, there are usually plenty of low-scoring worlds for them to spare as gifts. 2) Keys The average player would have 17 keys (255/15). If a pirate can obtain 8 keys per ally and hold them for an average of 10 turns, thats 24 points/turn/ally or about 240 points/ally. Coupled with keys won from opponents, this adds up! No need to use gifts to acquire keys. Just park them at a world being given to the pirate for plunder and transfer all ships to homefleets. Make sure any other fleets at the world are AT PEACE. 3) Ships The scoring alliance that includes a pirate should have a military target. The group goal is to acquire assets for all players by capturing an opponents territory. Most of the alliance production should be used to build ships to be shuttled to the target area and given to the pirate for use in P-captures. The HW should be the primary target, as with the war-crazed non-scoring pirate. However, the scoring pirate should immediately plunder worlds captured on the way in and quickly consolidate areas around the HW after its capture. After these initial plunders, the area can be used as secondary production for the advancing armies, if necessary. Contributions: 1) The pirate should seek an optimal number of allies made up of all types, as discussed above. The HW should be given to the EB on the first turn met, hopefully T4 or T5. No need to wait for a T8 mine-turnover if the world was already plundered :o) 2) Allied merchants and collectors should be granted full access to hauling rights for the alliance and all alliance art, EXCEPT for pirate art and scrolls. The pirate art can be given later to the collector for museums if need be, unless the pirate is fortunate enough to obtain a GROUP of pirate art (Silver or Lodestar). 3) Allied berzerkers should be promised (and pirate MUST deliver) many ships (and some keys) for bombs late in the game. Reputation goes a long way in securing this kind of trust. At the same time, apostles should be given keys to facilitate Jihad participation in the Berzerker attacks. 4) The pirate's gifts should be used to return worlds to the EB and/or Apostle after plunder. VICTORY Winning as a pirate is tough. You need help to gain the resources necessary. If the pirate manages to get 240 "key" points from 5 allies and 120 "key" points from 5 defeated enemies, that's 1800 points. 50 worlds plundered twice is 4500 points. Add in some art and you've got a chance! Just be sure to vote for 10,000 points because its going to take time AND cooperation. Your Berzerker ally won't like it if the game ends at 5500 points on T12 before you have time to give him any bomb fleets, and he finds out YOU voted for 1000! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions - Last issue we asked -- What if I migrate my convert to the other apostle's world? How can I capture a PBB'D world and get 10 points per turn? John Shannonhouse kindly answered - What if I migrate my convert to the other apostle's world? I think it is the same as robot migration -- there is a percentage chance of conversion based on number migrated compared to number owned at the world. Try it! How can I capture a PBB'D world and get 10 points per turn? Migrate a convert every turn. The *2nd* turn you will own the world. The old population will die off every turn replaced by the new converts. John Shannonhouse Thanks John. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP - is now available on the web. http://www.accessv.com/~somnos/sedg.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE - 1)Message text written by Elliot T. Hudes in Vol. 6: >If an apostle gives you a fully converted world, you cannot give it to another apostle. The world will revert to the owner of the converts on it. In fact, any fully converted world will revert back to the Apostle one turn after the gift unless you deconvert some population with consumer goods.< John Shannonhouse comments: This is *almost* completely true. However, if the world is not at the population limit, it will grow non-converts while owned by the other player. There is a chance (small but still significant) that the new population will not be converted. This happened to me as an EB when the Apostle gave me his HW early. With his permission I migrated out converts every turn, and owned the HW the entire game. 2)In light of our last issue regarding Apostle facts, in my most recent game an Empire Builder has attacked my Apostle ally and is doing some very interesting maneuvers that caused some discussion I would like to share. Consider these two worlds - W208 (196,200) [GOZER] C[YAKERNI] (Captured,Metal=13,Mines=1, Population=76/73C,Limit=73,Turns=1,Plunder=1,CG-Unload=1) F98[GOZER]=2 (AH) (F26[GOZER]-->W196 F50[GOZER]-->W196 F67[GOZER]-->W196 F96[GOZER]-->W196) W233 (78,95) [YAKERNI] C[YAKERNI] (Captured,Lost by [GOZER],Industry=1, Metal=6,Mines=6,Population=80/76C,Limit=76,Turns=1,I-Ships=2, CG-Unload=2) (F130[GOZER](Unload)-->W95 F159[GOZER]-->W95) Yakerni asked: Same situation, two worlds, different results. Except that at W208, he ordered AH at a world which was already neutral and he captured it, and at W233 I captured it OFF him.....! Can someone tell me what it is in the Starweb program that causes this? My Comments: At first glance you think there is nothing unusual in an Empire builder (Gozer) capturing a not fully converted world (W208) but it seems unusual that Yakerni captured back a not completely converted world with no ships there (W233). This is a fascinating consequence of Gozer's actions and the sequence of events in Starweb. In both cases on the previous turn these were fully converted worlds of Yakerni not eligible to be owned by Gozer. W208 was neutral by virtue of an AH by Gozer and so by the rules should have returned to Yakerni's hands this turn. Gozer migrated normal population AND did an AH. In the sequence of events the program checked for Apostle capture before migration and probably designated W208 as Yakerni's. Then the unconverted were migrated followed by AH whereby the program checked the requirements for normal capture. The world now satisfied requirements for not being totally converted and changed hands to Gozer. The migration and AH were critical to this. In the case of W233, the program checked for Apostle capture and this was satisfied as it was totally converted and gave the world to Yakerni (from Gozer). The migration of the unconverted then occured and did nothing to affect ownership of the world. Doesn't fighting Apostles make your head hurt :-)? What followed was a discussion of which surplus population would die next turn (since the population limits had been exceeded in the migrations). Another interesting ploy emerged for capturing Apostle worlds. Craig Steele added: If Yakerni owned a fully converted 10 population limit world, and I migrate 10 population there, isn't it likely that the population would be 10/5C next turn? Meaning that I could then own the world for a number of turns since Yakerni conversion rate would be very low. Again, not something I've ever seen before. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, that's it for Volume 6. Don't be afraid to submit articles or suggestions. They don't have to be long. Address your correspondence to Elliot Hudes - somnos@compuserve.com