STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://www.flyingmoose.ca) VOLUME 64 September 2, 2002 CONTENTS Feature Article – Merchant Point Conservation Techniques by Elliot Hudes Questions – SEDG Web Page URL Correspondence FEATURE ARTICLE Merchant Point Conservation Techniques by Elliot Hudes This is an article of a slightly different nature. In most games one tries to learn how to win and score as high as possible. In Starweb it is obvious that certain character types score better than others. It is possible for any position to win but there is no doubt that the pirate or apostle positions will need a lot more help from their allies than say the Berserker (who can almost do it alone with PBBs produced by his own ships if nobody bothers him). The merchant has been noted by many to be a position that scores much too easily. Over the years FBI has revised the rules so that the different positions score a bit more equitably (and in the author's humble opinion should do more) but have maintained that certain other facts mitigate this. Such as, the pirate is such a popular character that even if he can't win they have too many players who wish to play it. This is a statement about how popular the war gaming side of this Diplomacy game is. They also feel the merchant is such a boring position that the advantage is an added enticement to get a couple in the game. This is a shame because I don't feel any position is boring. When I game I expect to form an alliance and participate in a team manner; suggesting strategies even for the war while I ply the trade lanes in pursuit of metal. Perhaps this attitude doesn't permeate the Starweb Universe. I guess if you are just loading and unloading metal it would be boring. Why is scoring such a problem for merchants? Well, getting 8 points/metal means that any HW you are bringing 30 metal/turn for full production is worth 240 points/turn. You can bring in as many as 60 for 480 points/turn AND you can gift your HW away to use it as a scoring base also. I will completely ignore CG as a source of points. They are miniscule and unnecessary compared to hauling. To be competitive in this game you probably need to bring in close to 6000-8000 points by turn 16. Many games end between T16-T20. The merchant makes first contact on T4 and then needs a couple turns to deploy keys or have them gifted and built up. At best he gets a key gifted at a HW for T5 that gets built up and sent out. His first large dump of metal is on T7. So his real point increase happens on the T8 printout. Can he gather 8,000 points in the next 8 turns. The answer is YES, easily. He only needs 3 good allies (and his own HW) to bring in 1000 points/turn. And this is with only providing 30 metal/turn. The fact that the game has 15 characters means that there would be room for 4 merchants that could not only service the game but also be competitive with each other and the best Berserkers and Art Collectors. Rarely have I seen a game with this many merchants. Heck, even if the game had 7 merchants and each could only ally with 1 player they would have the potential to haul 60 metal/turn to each of 2 HWs and bring in 960 points/turn. Yes, I realize there may not be enough metal (especially in plundered out regions) but the potential is there. So with such awesome scoring potential why do the rest of the players put up with it? Well, it's simple really, having a merchant as an ally has the advantages of early ship building and the need for less ships to haul. The merchants can haul the necessary 28 metal/turn with only 14 ships while you require 28. Since you must always have a wave of hauling ships going out from, and coming in to the HW you require a total of 56 ships to haul metal. The merchant can do it with 28. Now, a saving of 28 ships may not seem like a lot but on turn 5 where you only own 40 (with some on the ground), you are incapable of doing all your own hauling. So the merchant can get you there faster and cheaper. What's the rush? Well, you may be a bloodthirsty pirate or allied with one and need to get to full battle readiness before your intended target. I pity the player who doesn't have a merchant ally and is invaded by an alliance utilizing one. Taking the opposite view - you may need the merchant to get to full battle readiness because your are afraid you must repel an invasion. Also, ships are not only power but a very important commercial product and are the tender from which Apostles and Berserkers create their scores (in killing populations), that Empire Builders score by creating industry and that Art collectors use in trade for art and you have a lot of good reasons to have a merchant around. Since most Starweb players tend to be honorable you don't see many players bring on a merchant ally only to backstab him later. So the only viable option is to ask a merchant if he is willing to join you (and your allies) and acquiesce to a scoring agreement. It goes something like this - "If you join us 4 guys you will obviously win before we have the fun of killing the enemy alliance known as 'The Scum of the Universe'. Would you agree to limit your score so that you ... Pick one - come in a close second? - come in first but with alliance members a close second. - only win if none of our alliance can and we need to push you over the top. Since many experienced merchants are like me and tend to be team players they will agree. The more inexperienced will be a problem as they may not see your logic and want to win. Then there are the players who don't want to join a team but play the neutral merchant trader. It's a good move since nobody is going to pick them as a target first due to the fear that they will then join 'the other side'. My attitude to counter the neutral trader is not to fall into the trap. At best, I don't allow them to haul for me. At worst - I will force them into a decision by attacking them or their allies. Is attacking a merchant the best way to limit him. It would seem so but I have found there to be a huge reluctance to just target a player based on his religion, creed or character type . It seems to me if you playing an Apostle or Pirate that targeting Merchants and Berserkers could be a very good way to promote your position. I just have not pulled it off. So with all that in mind how can a merchant limit his scoring without limiting his hauling? After the merchant has reached a certain stable hauling pattern and establishes how many points he can bring in OR wishes to hit a certain score and drop his scoring to 0 he can try some of the following. 1) Own the HWs. This is not popular with Empire Builder allies as they get the best scoring from these worlds (>40 pts/turn). But if you don't have an EB ally it is an option. Apostle HWs are interesting. They are totally converted so if it's gifted to the merchant you will own it for 1 turn and then it will return to the Apostle's control on the following turn. Since the merchant will not get any points if he owns the HW on the turn it is gifted to him you can have the Apostle gift you his HW every other turn. You will score no points here and the Apostle will lose 10 points every other turn for the gift. You can never own Robotic HWs so this will not work for berserkers. 2) Bad Art. With the 9 plastics and 2 other bad arts there is potential for you to lose 140 pts/turn. Getting your allies to give you the bad stuff will help a bit. 3) Stop hauling - later in the game you may have built up stockpiles at some HWs enough that you don't have to bring a full load in every turn. At this point you may even be able to start gifting back hauling fleets to the owner of the HW you are servicing. Although they will only haul half as much they may be able to cruise to the endgame without you. E.g On T15 the HW has 120 metal - and the game is not expected to last beyond T19 then there is no need for more metal. 4) Slow hauling - similar to the above. You can unload half your metal (on the doubly loaded fleet) and then gift your hauling key to someone else. They can unload the remaining half of the metal without any increase in score. 5) Participate in the Robot attacks or Jihads of your allies :-). If your ally is bombing a 150 population world and you have even 1 ship do an AP you will find yourself losing 150 points for participating in the attack. If need be you may have to fire at population all by yourself! It's a bizarre concept trying to attract negative points but as a merchant you may have to consider it to have happy allies and a nice long game. Elliot Hudes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? Last month I asked: New question – This one has no black and white answer. I thought it might be interesting to see players' take on these aspects of first contact. So write in! I didn't receive much response to last issue I must assume that I didn't make it interesting enough – Alas. Here are some of my thoughts on these scenarios. It's turn 4. W186 (12,30,133,154) [] (Industry=1/0,Mines=4,Population=18,Limit=31) V7:Lesser of Two Evils F4[SOMNOS]=3 (Moved) F197[FLATHEAD]=8 (Moved) F194[]=0 1) So assuming neither player is an art collector what do you think the best first contact deal should be? Does fleet size dictate your opening diplomacy? Answers i) Fleet size is recognized by some as the right to take whatever is at the world. Others (myself included) react to such diplomacy with disdain. Your mere insignificant presence says that you have some rights since you have spoiled the capture! If this is the sole contact point with Flathead then I let the big-fleeted guy pitch the deal and I don't mind if it's better for him (e.g he gets the world if he's an EB). I don't worry about the bad art in a game. Sure it will negate the points at that world but it's easily gotten rid of to the nearest art collector or black hole. I usually want at least the key OR the rights to explore some of the unknown connections to this world. W186 (12,30,133,154) [] (Industry=1/0,Mines=4,Population=18,Limit=31) V7:Lesser of Two Evils F1[NORTHSTAR]=2 F4[SOMNOS]=3 (Moved) F197[FLATHEAD]=8 (Moved) F194[]=0 2) Still no Art Collector (I don't want it to be too easy). How do you divide this up? A: There are only 2 things of value – the world and the key. You can include the art if you already know of an AC who will take it AND if you are willing to take the point loss to ferry the bad art away and trade it elsewhere – well, likely Flathead and Northstar will thank you :-). So, somebody has to walk away the loser here. Obviously if two players have already allied they can decide amongst themselves to take 1 of the items and leave the rest for the third player but assuming that it is T4 and no alliances have been built somebody must move off with no prize. I find these scenarios a great way to find out what a player is made of. This type of scenario helps you sort out the difficult players (targets) from your potential allies. If I'm a player that needs worlds – Apostle, EB or pirate I may make a pitch for that. If I'm better off with keys due to lack of them or if I'm a pirate – I may ask for that. But if it isn't critical to my game situation I may ask for the right to explore the 4rth unknown connection over the other players and move off. W186 (12,30,133,154) [] (Mines=4,Population=18,Limit=31) F4[SOMNOS]=1 (Moved) F197[FLATHEAD]=1 (Moved) F194[]=0 3) I always like the scenario where nobody can hold the key or the world due to lack of ships. Would you do anything differently here? A: I do nothing different here. You can always send your key of 1 ship on for further exploration while you bring in a key of 3 ships if it's decided that you get this world so that you can drop an I ship and claim the key. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE Elliot, I was filling out a StarWeb turn and grappling with a problem where I thought the universe was being unfair to me and I thought my dilemma might make a good discussion point for SEDG. To wit: One of the things that makes SW interesting for people who a lot is that the universe is different from game to game. Not only the mapping pattern of the planets, but also resources, size, etc. While variety is good, I feel that some of universes punish or reward differnt character types. I can give examples from the three of the multi-games I was/am in: M/211 - The game that Rich Broman wrote about. There were many worlds with HUGE population limits, at least a dozen over 200, some of which already had a population over 100 when discovered. A Berserker's delight, or in multi-land, a Berserker/Apostle delight. That same universe had relatively few high-metal worlds. The pirates in the game had a real hard time gaining enough metal for building and at the same time having worlds to plunder. My T8 turnsheet for example shows a total of 129 mines vs 146 industry among my three characters. M/214 - Metal coming out of my ears. My T8 turnsheet gives me 167 mines vs 110 industry. Pirates can plunder lots of worlds and still easily make their metal quota. M/216 - Another metal-short universe, and one where most of the low metal worlds have an industry on them. Again tough for the pirate because he loses both metal and ship production when he plunders. Of course this all could be sour grapes on my part because my characters are not in sync with the universes. But I think that just at too many of a character type in a game is disadvantageous to some and advantageous to another, so is the makeup of the universe. I guess that's the tradeoff. Adding variety can lead to imbalances, but keeping everything equal makes it a bit boring. The key is finding the happy medium. Later, Jeff Calkins Editor: That's one of the things I really enjoy in Starweb – the way the universes change. I've been in universes where there is so much industry (most worlds) that you can contemplate building it up and you have to think twice before invading and risking deep plunges through ambush infested enemy territory. I also remember games where you had limited contact with players and ones where you met all 14 players on T4 simultaneously. Well, that's it for Volume 64. 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