STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://www.flyingmoose.ca) VOLUME 79 June 2004 CONTENTS Feature Article – Variants by Elliot Hudes Questions – Largest Ambush/Biggest Pirate capture SEDG Web Page URL The Swap Corner Correspondence FEATURE ARTICLE Variants By Elliot Hudes In the last issue of this august publication ;-) I mentioned utilizing new variants of the Starweb game to help revitalize the game and to at least get some more interesting games going. This got me to thinking. I've enlisted friends over the years to play in many private games where we have tweaked the rules to create our own variants. Some of these variants might be of interest to FBI, my readers and other Starweb gamers. In addition it might be interesting to propose new variants and go over some that FBI have utilized (past and present). Some of these ideas were touched on in the previous SEDG #33 and in fact I have played in some of those variants suggested then (I've put the game number in the heading for these Starweb variations). I intend to go over: Current Variants Past or Seldom Used variants Private Variants Proposed Variants CURRENT VARIANTS Anonymous Anonymous Multi Bitter end Extralong Multi Partner Slow Standard game Trial Game Past or seldom used variants (occasional offers and one shots) Pandora's Box Time Travel All Apostle game All Pirate game Gang up on Rick game Anonymous games As you would surmise you cannot communicate with players inside (Diplo/Sign) or outside the game. This is pretty well the only inviolate rule. FBI has an algorhythm that scrambles world numbers so that if you see W13 connecting to W44 the other player who landed on W13 may see it as W177 connecting to W67. The names of the players are also scrambled so if you think you are the character Neptune – each of the other players may see you with a different name. This Tower of Babel approach is quite good at ensuring that communication even if attempted will not be useful. My take on these games is that they are a lot of fun. Primitive communication utilizing your actions in the game (e.g. gifting a world to an EB) is part of the enjoyment and skill of the game. Players don't have reams of email diplomacy and can spend less time doing turns and play more games. You are much more reliant on your own skills and at times luck (I have been attacked by all my neighbors much to my chagrin). There tends to be more pirates, berserkers and merchants in the game and almost no art collectors or empire builders. My view - Definitely worth playing. Anonymous Multi This game is similar to the Anonymous game except you play 3 positions. Bitter End I have not been in this variant so forgive my accuracy. In this game you win if you own greater than 50% of the universe (128 worlds). All character types are available but I can't honestly see why anyone would collect art or empire build in this variant. It appears to me that alliances would have a lot of trouble being whole game alliances unless players agree in advance to subsume their desire to win in favor of another player. Extra Long This game runs to 25,000 points. This makes the game last from 24-35 turns in the games I've been in. It's no surprise when it's going to end and this makes the endgame a little more predictable. For players that say, "there isn't enough time in the game to vanquish your enemy before you need to score' this is the game for you. We have all been in the situation where your incursion into enemy territory is bearing fruit but your allies need to score makes you give up a lot of your resources to the scoring effort e.g. turning pirate ships into berserker PBBs. This game gives you enough time to plan and execute a brilliant military campaign, which can be part of your scoring plans. After all, dead players score no points :-). It's too bad you can't pick scores between 20,000 and 30,000 to help keep the final turn a mystery. Multi Starweb I have no experience with this variant. You run 3 positions and play in a game of 5 players. Partner This game allows you to sign up with a partner. You are pre-allied on the first turnsheet and the game contains 7 such partnerships. I suppose there is nothing stopping you from turning on your partner but the game presumes you will be allied ;-). Slow Games This game runs its turns every month. It's ideal for those who do not have email or just want a slower paced game. Standard Game This is the usual 2 week turnaround game with the VPT being anything from 1000-10,000. Trial Game This game is meant to teach newbies the game and hopefully get them hooked on Starweb at no cost. There are 6 players and one is a Starweb Veteran who acts as a mentor in the game. The game is played on a smaller map and only goes until turn 12. Basically, enough time elapses so a new player can see the mechanics of the game. It's just a taste and not too filling. I have been the mentor and it can be fun. You are the ol' vet or sage and you can dispense wisdom in Yodalike fashion. PAST or SELDOM USED VARIANTS Pandora's Box I seem to remember this one from the late 70s or early 80s. It was a standard game except for the berserker who owned a HW with 100 industry and I believe enough mines to run them too. The catch was you had no keys. In theory you could build 510 homefleet divided between I and P ships and any key that wandered into your HW would be yours (unless it had 128 ships aboard and could flee). Thus Pandora's box was opened releasing metallic evil upon the universe. I remember that lots of players wanted to play the position but it wasn't a popular variant. There was lots of boredom for the berserker until he was found around T8 or later. Often he could be found by probe and ignored the rest of the game. And just how dangerous is a berserker with 1 key and 255 ships who is still at his HW (likely ring 6 from another HW) and doesn't know the map. It's not too surprising that this variant is extinct. Time Travel Starweb Again it is a standard game but once each game a character can travel in time which means in this case that you can ask FBI to rerun the turn with new orders for your character while all the other players have the same orders run (unless they also asked to travel in time that turn). Once the turn is rerun another player can also ask to travel in time. So in theory turn 8 could be rerun 15 times. So your HW is invaded in a surprise attack. You activate the Temporal Web Gate and make sure all your builds are to the homefleet and your keys return home. Some reward for your adversaries careful secretive machinations eh? But wait, he then can rerun the turn too and this time he ignores the HW and takes out vast tracks of your outer empire. Well, your allies have temporal gating technology also and can dive back to turn 8 and protect your flank. Or do they? Perhaps they save their one trump card for later. Time travel makes my head hurt! This game is a sporadic offering by FBI. If you want to play just go back a year and sign up for the last game. All Apostle Game This was an offering from FBI where all 15 positions were Apostle. Do you fight a Jihad to secure your score? What if you exterminate that player and now have no target for your Jihad? If the meek inherit the earth then letting your converts die as martyrs would seem to be a winning hand unless nobody wants to help you out. Can you muster a big enough war fleet to try and reconvert opposition worlds? This game had interesting nuances. I'm not sure but I think FBI also did an all pirate game also. Gang Up on Rick There was a recent email of a game against the moderator where Rick invited everyone to play in a Starweb game with him and try to beat his score. Write me and let me know if there are any other FBI variants I've left out. PRIVATE VARIANTS Private Partners Email Surprise Game Private Partnership Handicap Starweb Game Private Father/Son Partners Multi Game Private Anonymous Partner's Email Starweb Game Private Handicapped Starweb Game Second Semi-Annual Captain's Challenge Game! Most of these are variants I've thought up to play in private games (and one of Walter's). Sometimes the changes required a manual reworking of the final scores in my attempt to handicap certain player types (the ones I thought scored too easily). I will explain these in more detail and if they catch the eye of some of the players perhaps we can get Rick to offer up an interesting variant each month in his email flier to his customers. He has said that the SW games he advertises in his email often fills up quickly. So this might be a way to test out new variants and get games started quickly. SW Private Partners Email Surprise Game Premise (Played in SW-X1260) Premise - Partner/Team approach. There will be 5 teams of 3 players. Victory is determined according to the lowest score of the three on a team. Second place will go to the team whose lowest score is second (regardless of how high the other players on the team rank). FBI doesn't hand out Victory pins nor put the scores into the formal rankings in their magazine for private games. This is a great game to goof around in and take some risks. All email game. I will distribute all the email addresses and list who is on each team to facilitate communication and eliminate the potential advantage I have by knowing this in advance. Two-week turnaround for turns. No merchants. There will be 15 players and exactly 3 of each character type – Apostle, Berserker, Pirate, Empire Builder and Art Collector. No character type will be repeated on a team. There are 3 Team templates. The guys in the game want to be surprised. Please review them and choose the template you think would result in the fairest game. Here they are. Template #1 a)Team - Berserker, Apostle, Collector b)Team - Berserker, Empire Builder, Pirate c)Team - Apostle, Collector, Empire Builder d)Team - Berserker, Apostle, Pirate e)Team - Collector, Empire Builder, Pirate Template #2 a)Team - Apostle, Collector, Pirate b)Team - Apostle, Collector, Empire Builder c)Team - Berserker, Collector, Empire Builder d)Team - Berserker, Apostle, Pirate e)Team - Berserker, Empire builder, Pirate Template #3 a)Team - Berserker, Apostle, Empire Builder b)Team - Berserker, Collector, Empire Builder c)Team - Collector, Empire Builder, Pirate d)Team - Apostle, Pirate, Berserker e)Team - Apostle, Pirate, Collector FBI - once you have selected a template assign each team a triad of characters from choice a) thru e) randomly. Then assign each player on the team a character from that choice at random. For example - if you choose Template #3 and assign my team choice e) - you would have to assign Apostle, Pirate, and Collector to my team and myself at random. The fact that you didn't know your own character type or the composition of your team until turn 1 was the surprise. Borders - FBI shall place people on the same team on the map such that each player will border at least one of their own teammates. Will tell FBI to allow alliance declaration and gifts on T1 to teammates. They do this by having MET= your teammates on T1. Ally/Loader is still possible with others after you meet as usual. Victory score is 10,000 points - Should be able to get a pirate this high in 25 turns or so. So it's a longer game. Dropouts - If you want to win the remaining partners will have to take over the position and pay for it. FBI can send the printout to whoever volunteers. Yes you can supply your own standby but FBI won't. Missed Turns - If a player misses two turns in a row the Team Leader can drop him from the game (UNILATERALLY). You may take over the position or find your own standby. This will ensure a team survives even if one player no longer cares to submit orders. Victory conditions - I don't think FBI can track the victory conditions as usual. IT IS THE TEAM LEADER'S RESPONSIBILITY to tell FBI when they are about to cross the finish line. You won't have to track other team's scores - if multiple teams cross the finish line on the same turn and FBI is aware they can figure out which team has the highest low score and send out a turn sheet with the "THE GAME IS OVER" sign and the rankings. Private Partnership Handicap Starweb Game (SW-X1281) Yes, once again I've thought of a Starweb Variant that I want to play so I must organize a private game. Read on - and if your interested sign up with me. 1) ALL Email players 2) PARTNERS - there will be 7 teams (partnerships) of 2. 3) GEOGRAPHY - I will ask FBI to put both partners empires adjacent (not HWs - just that they will share at least one border). 4) EARLY COOPERATION - Partners can declare each other Ally/Loader and Gift on Turn 1 even though they haven't physically met. FBI just puts on the printout that you HAVE met your partner. 5) HANDICAPPING - Each character type will have it's own Victory score in keeping with the character's usual ability to score. Some extra handicapping will occur if you are the sole character of this type in the game. See the Chart below. 6) VICTORY CONDITIONS - How to achieve them - there will be TWO OPTIONS Either - a) REGULAR - BOTH partners must achieve their individual Victory Scores or b) PUSH OPTION - 1 partner achieves the sum of both partner's Victory Scores. The second players score is completely ignored. This may be advantageous for winning but will actually have disadvantages in regards to TIEBREAKING (See #9) and when determining your standings if you don't win(see #10 -RANKING 2ND THRU 7TH). For Example - You are a Merchant/Pirate partnership needing Victory scores of either 20,000 and 7,500 respectively in scenario a) OR you can try to push the Merchant to 27,500 which is scenario b). (Heck, you can try to push the Pirate to this score but I wouldn't recommend it ). Please note - if you achieve Victory conditions - museums will count just as in regular games and may push a different partnership to the win. 7) CHARACTER RESTRICTIONS - There will only be a maximum of 3 of each character type. First come first serve. 8) PENALTIES/BONUSES - If you are the only person playing a particular character type you will be subject to a 20% increase (A Penalty) in Victory Score required (due to the lack of competition). For example if you decided to play the Berserker/Merchant combination and sadly there are no other Berserkers in the game - the Victory score will rise from 20,000 to 24,000 for the Berserker. IF both characters are alone - then both Victory Scores will rise. See the Chart below. Art collectors will have museums counted after somebody hits Victory conditions as usual. The museums will be of value for TIE BREAKERS - please see #9. If more than 2 people play the Art Collector (another way of saying if 3 people play) then the Victory Conditions for Art Collector will only be 80% - please see the chart. 9) TIE BREAKERS - if two teams (partnerships) tell FBI they are going to achieve Victory on the next printout then we must determine who has surpassed their victory conditions by the biggest percentage to declare a winner. The following formulas will be used. Option a) REGULAR -The sum of the partners scores/The sum of the Victory Scores. Whoever has the highest ratio wins. It is here that the Museums will be counted. E.g. - Two partnerships declare they will hit Victory on the next turn - a Pirate/Merchant and a Berserker/Empire Builder. Here is how it looks. P/M scores = 7,500/23,000 Victory conditions are 7,500/20,000. Ratio is 30,500/27500 = 1.11 B/EB scores 20,500/10,500 Victory contions are 20,000/10,000. Ratio = 31,000/30,000 = 1.03 The winner is the P/M partnership. Option b) PUSH OPTION - only the push position score is used in making the ratio - thus pushing one player barely over victory conditions may be a disadvantage if another team of 2 can hit both their victory with a wide margin. Example Same as above P/M scores = 2,000/27,501 Ratio will by 27,501/27,500 = 1.00 - only push position (merchant) used. B/EB scores = 20,500/10,500 Ratio = 31,000/30,000 - 1.03 The winner. It is up to you to decide if using the PUSH OPTION is to your advantage. There is a very concrete disadvantage in #10 below. As usual - museums may put another partnership into a TIE position and the Ratio will be used to determine the ultimate ranking. 10) RANKING 2ND THRU 7TH. Will be determined by the lower score on any team regardless of PUSH OPTION. 11) DETERMINING VICTORY CONDITIONS - FBI cannot track this so it is the responsibility of each partnership to inform FBI if they will achieve victory on the next printout. AND YOU MUST TELL FBI IF YOU ARE USING THE PUSH OPTION. Then FBI will forward the next list of scores to me to confirm the win and figure out if any partnerships are in a TIE position -IF the win was achieved they will supply the "The Game is over" sign and the Victory listings at the end. FBI - please note - I wish the List of Victorious Partnerships to be listed in order of their Partnership - not based on the raw scores by player. E.g. 1) Somnos -- Score and stats Moose -- score and stats 2)Curiosity -- score and stats Neurolept -- score and stats. 12) STANDBY PLAYERS - If one of the partners drops you can supply your own Standby Player OR play both positions OR you can play your own position and go for the PUSH OPTION (yes you must still make up your partners Victory points). 13) VICTORY HANDICAP CHART CHARACTER BASIC SOLE CHARACTER >2 CHARACTERS EB 10,000 12,000 XXXXX PIRATE 7,500 9,000 XXXXX MERCHANT 20,000 24,000 XXXXX BERSERKER 20,000 24,000 XXXXX ART 10,000 12,000 8000 APOSTLE 7,500 9,000 XXXXX As usual FBI does not provide pins nor include your ranking in their ratings for private games. But the results will be published in FBQ. I hope this variant leads to some really neat strategies, as you don't have to give up on winning just because you pick the pirate or apostle. And it may make you think twice about which character mix or alliance is best. Perhaps it won't be the traditional ones. Private Father/Son Partners Multi game (SW-X1301) 1) Each player gets two positions. Each Father/son partner ship therefore has 4 positions in total. Fathers are being teamed up with other player's sons. This ought to make it interesting. 1) As in a Partner game each player can have their positions adjacent to their partners? Each player's two positions will also be close to each other and you can declare your other position and your partners as an ally on turn 1. 2) It's an email game due every 2 weeks. I will set due dates on Saturdays so the kids can do turns at the last minute without interfering with school. New turnsheets will then arrive on Sundays. 3) Victory conditions - FBI tells me that in a multi it's the lower of your two positions that counts. 4) On your turn 1 orders you will set the Victory score as usual - anything from 1000 to 10,000. 5) Just to make it fair - we won't allow anyone player to use the combo of merchant/berserker - as they would have an unfair advantage as your lower score. Yes, you can have both characters but that means each player must take one. Private Anonymous Partner's Email Starweb Game (SW-X1304) This game was designed to preserve the flavor of the anonymous game with little chatter but give you 1 player you can talk to and plan with. 1) Game played anonymously -- player's honor not to talk amongst themselves. BUT YOU CAN TALK TO YOUR PARTNER! FBI not to allow Signs and Diplos. Game will be played in a non-scrambled (FBI) format. NONSCRAMBLED – so partners can share printouts! 2) Game played via email. FBI will assign code names. 3) Seven two-man/woman teams. On turn 1, each player chooses an ending score between 1 and 15,000. 4) Game ends when the first player crosses the victory point limit. The highest combined team score, however, will determine the winning team at that point. FBI - CAN YOU TRACK THIS? If not - when the lead player trips the victory score - you will need to send me the final turnsheet first with the list of player rankings - and I will rearrange it to reflect the team rank (WE HAD TO DO THIS IN SW-X1281 if you remember and it worked well). To clear up some potential confusion, just because Retief trips the ending score point, doesn't mean Retief's team wins. At that point, the game ends, and combined team scores are used for final scoring criteria. Be careful, then, to what degree you let your partner's scores separate. 5) Two week turnaround. 6) The usual - partners empires are adjacent and they have already met on turn 1. Private Handicapped Starweb Game (SW-X1330) This game is handicapped similarly to the Partner variant above but you are playing a lone position. Premise: I would like to start a game similar to one I did previously where we handicapped the various character types scoring. I remember that I was a merchant racing to beat an Apostle, which made it very interesting. All player types were equally capable of winning the game making the strategy much more interesting. Were you going to play a pirate trying to grab vast territory to plunder? Would you have to battle a player just to slow his scoring down since he needed only half your value? HANDICAPPING - Each character type will have it's own Victory score in keeping with the character's usual ability to score. Some additional handicapping will occur if you are the sole character of this type in the game. Similarly a couple of the characters will get a break in their VPT if there are many players signed up for the same position. See the Chart below. PENALTIES/BONUSES - If you are the only person playing a particular character type you will be subject to a 20% increase (A Penalty) in Victory Score required (due to the lack of competition). For example if you decided to play the Merchant and sadly there are no other merchants in the game - the Victory score will rise from 20,000 to 24,000 for you. Also for some characters there is a built in penalty for having too many of them in the game e.g. Art Collectors. There just isn't enough art, worlds etc. to go around. There shall be a break granted if there are too many of certain characters - see chart below. VICTORY HANDICAP CHART CHARACTER BASIC SOLE CHARACTER TOO MANY CHARACTERS EB 10,000 12,000 8000 (for 5 or more) PIRATE 7,500 9,000 XXXXX MERCHANT 20,000 24,000 XXXXX BERSERKER 25,000 29,000 XXXXX ART 10,000 12,000 8000 (for 3 or more) APOSTLE 7,500 9,000 XXXXX ART COLLECTORS/MUSEUMS Art collectors will have museums counted after somebody hits Victory conditions as usual. The museums will be of value for winning or TIE BREAKERS. TIE BREAKERS - if two players tell FBI they are going to achieve Victory on the next printout (or if an Art bonus pushes another player over their Victory Condition) then we must determine who has surpassed their victory conditions by the biggest percentage to declare a winner. The following formulas will be used. Score/Personal Victory score - This Ratio will determine whether you are the winner and how you rank. Not the absolute score. For example if two players declare Victory for the next printout and they are an Art Collector with 1100 points and an Apostle with 9000 points their ratios are Art 1100/10000 = 1.1 Apostle 9000/7500 = 1.2 The Apostle has won the game. Similarly all players will be given ranks (second, third, fourth etc) based on the same ratio of score to THEIR Victory conditions. DETERMINING VICTORY CONDITIONS - FBI cannot track this so it is the responsibility of each player to inform FBI if they will achieve victory on the next printout. Then FBI will forward the next list of scores to me to confirm the win. IF the win was achieved they will supply the "The Game is over" sign and the Victory listings at the end. I will supply all players with a list of players, email addresses and character types. This will ensure that I don't have an advantage since I will be collecting this information. As usual FBI does not provide pins nor include your ranking in their ratings for private games. But the results will be published in FBQ. Second Semi-Annual Captain's Challenge Game! (SW-XM208) This is a semi-monthly, email, dual-multi (each of us will play two different character types), 20,000-victory point game. All communications are allowed, and the only other requirements or rules are there ain't any - other than those printed in the Starweb Rules booklet. The winner of this challenge-game will be the recipient of the Second- Ever Captain Nemo Fabulous No-Prize, get special mention in a special edition of SEDG, and, receive a specially designed Winners No-Prize certificate - designed by himself and suitable for framing or any other use the winner can think of . . . So, will those six others of you who feel they are up to the challenge, who perhaps want to try out one of Elliot's behavioral styles, please send me an email. The game will include the seven of us (the first six of you and me), and promises to be one hell of an adventure - if the ongoing First Semi-Annual Challenge game is any example. Be thee up to it? 'Til next log - Shai Dorsai ! Nemo PROPOSED VARIANTS I would like to finish off with some ideas for future Variant offerings. I will reiterate some of those that I suggested in previous SEDGs. The Small Alliance Variant Intermediate Scoring Variant Apostle/Berserker Variant Elimination Variant Small Alliance Variant (SAV) This variant limits alliances to two A= orders. Yes, I know that anyone can write more ally orders and the SW program would accept it but I have to believe that the SW gaming community is mostly honest and if they joined a game of this variant it would very likely be adhered to. And in the case of accidental alliances, it should be a simple thing for Chuck to check the top of each printout when he runs the game and ensure that only 2 allies show up on each player's turnsheet. If more appear that turn it would only take a few minutes for him to rerun the turn and delete the extra ally that the player had added that turn. I also concede that the veteran player is savvy enough to manipulate his orders so that he could disguise his alliance of 4 players by being very careful not to ambush players that can't be added to his alliance list. I think we can't prevent this sort of play but just by calling it the Small Alliance Variant we would likely limit this type of player from joining. Intermediate Scoring Variant Another Variant I would like to see played is the Intermediate Scoring Game (ISG). In this variant players must choose an end score between 7000 - 15000. In fact I believe this should be the new Standard length game. Here's why. It is already well known that certain character types win more often and certain character types have little chance of winning. For the uninitiated, consider that the only pirates that win do it by vast plunders in a game with a very low VPT often around 4000- 5000. This works because the merchant or berserker hasn't the resources to get their scores rolling yet (and the Art Collector hasn't had time to pool his art into museums). But to win like this the game often ends by turn 14. In a game where you aren't likely to get your HW to full ship production until turn 8 or 9 this doesn't leave much time for any interesting play (read 'play' as fighting). Most players agree that games that end early are boring because nothing of note has happened yet. These days with runaway merchants or berserkers even the 10,000- point game can end by turn 16. I believe that if the game ran just a little longer, say, to turns 18-22 there would be a lot more interest in the game itself. This would allow an alliance the chance to truly attempt to eradicate an opposing alliance in a military venture as a strategy to control their scoring. In the short games the best you can do is eliminate one player if you have many cooperating in his demise. A longer game would also allow players to see a runaway player and make plans to bring him down. Before you start saying 'There is an extralong variant', let me tell you that these games of 25,000 VPT are in a whole new category as they often last until turns 26-33. I like them but they are marathons and some players could lose interest in such long games. By specifying a 7000-15000 limit we ensure that the end score is still unknown so nobody can predict the ending and that the game won't end too soon. I predict a much more interesting a spicy game. Apostle/Berserker Variant These two player types are natural allies. It might be an interesting game with berserkers allied with berserkers for the cooperative kill and apostles declaring Jihad on each other in addition to the usual Apostle/Berserker alliance. Will there be a lot of combat or will it just be a horse race as each player tries to score to the VPT? Who knows! Elimination Variant I envision this game being a more combat oriented game. Start with 15 players and the Victory conditions are that the player with the highest score when there are only 7 players left is the winner. Now to define when there are only 7 functioning players left. I suggest the following. It is when a player doesn't own any more worlds. To make it impossible for other players to keep a 'dead player' in the game you make world gift orders totally illegal. So you are still capable of gifting keys to your merchant, art collector (with art) or other character types for their use but once a player looses his final world he is out of the game. This will make it more difficult to get worlds for Empire builders or Pirates but they can still take worlds from allies by shooting the worlds with keys in their area. In addition, the Art Collector or Merchant that gives up too many worlds will make his position more risky as he will be more easily eliminated (a tempting situation if they are also ranking very highly). As for drop out players, if FBI can't find a standby this position is considered out of the game and decreases the official player pool. I think this is a very easy Variant to set up for FBI and one that I would be interested in playing in. Do you have any ideas for easy to implement Variants? Write in. Elliot ---------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? Last issue's question - who wants to take bragging rights to: 1)Largest ambush executed. 2)Largest pirate capture. I said: I haven't received any response to these questions yet. I can start the ball rolling. I've personally gone through an ambush of 83 ships to get to an enemy HW. I still arrived with over 200 ships and won the battle but it sure hurt. As to large pirate captures - I don't think I've seen more than 50 ships captured. Anyone else? John Shannonhouse wrote: I MIGHT have largest ambush executed. As an Empire Builder I had moved into a dropped position's territory, captured a world, and because I thought I only had a couple of turns until game end, I dropped 93 ISHPs planning to convert them to industry. The other player came alive and flew three ships over that world to another one I could not see, but ALL THREE KEYS got through the ambush. So I knocked out 279 of his ships. He then immediately dropped. I helped Lee get a pretty large pirate capture in a game, which was notable because of the coordination involved. I had to stay with a 48 ship key facing a pirate key of 100 ships or more and about 7 other 1- ship keys that needed to be captured also, fire at the pirate key to knock it down, while transferring everything possible to Lee so that he could show up and make the full capture. I fired at the opponent's key and was destroyed in return, but I killed 24 of his ships. That would leave a minimum of about 80 ships captured, and I believe it was actually a fair amount more than that. Lee did this with just one ship to spare. At one time I kept all my old turn sheets, but they took up too much space, so I don't have the exact number. Perhaps Lee remembers. This was a partnership game. Rick Loomis writes: >Here's a new question. Who wants to take bragging rights to: >1)Largest ambush executed. >2)Largest pirate capture. Oh, wow! I wish we had kept track of these numbers. I personally made a really big pirate capture in Bitter End game #10 many years ago. I'll have to see if I can find my old printouts -- I'm pretty sure it was more than 50 ships. As I recall, me and my five allies were the last six players in the game and I was the only remaining pirate. We finished off the seventh player with that big capture. All five of my allies assured me that they would stick with me, so I selected the apostle and told him that I was canceling our alliance (as per our agreement). And of course, all four of the others stabbed me the next turn! (They were probably correct to do so - I think I would have won in three or four more turns if even one of them had stuck with me.) I thought perhaps I could beat them all anyway, but the next turn took me TEN HOURS to do. When I finished it, and looked up at the clock, I realized there was no way I had time to finish this game! So I told them all that I would surrender if I got to pick the final winner. They agreed and I picked the apostle that I had attacked. (grin). It's fun to remember that game. I will definitely have to see if I can find the printouts. Regarding a previous question on talking Black Boxes I received this from Rick Loomis: The black box never communicates - but sometimes the typist/moderator has been persuaded to let slip a snippet of information. We did have a Black Box communicate once a long time ago. I had foolishly programmed the black box to do something innocuous for 9 turns, and then on the 10th turn blow up like a PBB. Some poor slob picked it up and brought it to his HOME WORLD. At that point I realized that it wasn't really a good idea for a black box program (don't worry, we don't do that anymore!). So on turn eight we sent a moderator message to the player: "The Black Box says 'TICK TICK TICK'" Just a broad warning in hopes he would take the hint. As it happened, he dropped out of the game on turn 9 anyway, so he didn't get to see it blow up his homeworld. However every other player who came by and saw the black box sitting on a world that had been PBB'd, just left it there! Gary Schaefers writes: EL - You asked for PIRATE capture data this is a turn i just got in. I must say, it is a Multi position game, and a bitter end game, so I have more ships available than in a regular game. Worlds to note: Wxxx - PIR Capt 246 ships on 5 keys Wyyy - will capt 294 ships on 7 keys, next turn. Wzzz - Capt 82 ships on 4 keys. Waaa - Capt 57 ships on 3 keys from the only other remaining player. Now, in addition to the PIRATE Captures, as we all know, APOSTLES can take over worlds. I destroyed the robots on W223 after hauling metals to it so the IND could build a pile of ships, while I was amassing my forces doing other things. I migrated in CONVERTS on 2 consecutive turns. Wbbb - APOSTLE Capt 238 ISHIPS. I dont know if you want to include these stats in your Newsletter, but here is the complete printout for your perusal. The game is ANON, and is still active, so you might want to be careful about disclosing info. Hope it is not YOU who is the other player!! If so, this info wont help you anyways!! LOL Gary Editor: I took care of the world numbers so the purity of an Anonymous game is preserved. No, I am not the opposition in this game but it looks like you have it well in hand with pirate captures of 246 ships. Whew – You get bragging rights on this one. Anyone else wants to brag about some large battle or capture – write in. Elliot. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 SWAP CORNER STARWEB ANALYZER V1.5 - It's on the web site and it's no longer a Beta! Go get it! As before - registered clients of any previous V1.x version can upgrade for free. www.flyingmoose.ca Rick adds: One of the things I have done recently is put all our rulebooks (finally) onto a CD, which I will now take to conventions, and offer to potential customers. (You can get one of these to give to gaming friends if you like. The official price is $5. Order more than one simultaneously and I'll charge you $1 each for additional copies.) I have put the "trial version" of the Starweb Analyzer on this disk, so hopefully it will promote more Starweb players. There are also pdf versions of all the turnsheets for anyone who wants to mail or fax a turn in, too. Rick Loomis ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE Bob Becker writes: Hey Elliot, How are you doing? I was hoping I could get a blurb into your next SW newsletter to try and talk Rick Loomis into updating the Star Web Ratings on the FBI website. Now I know what a daunting task that would be so I would propose doing a second ratings area with only those who have been active in the last couple years. What do you think? Or do you know if this is done in the Flying Buffalo Quarterly? Bob Becker Editor: I received a nice detailed note from Rick Loomis/FBI regarding suggestions in the last issue. His comments are the ones not preceded by the quote marks '>'. >One suggestion I would make is a Newbies-Play-Free Partners variant. >Veteran players would take on the responsibility of finding new >players while FBI would make the investment so as to attract new >players some of whom would then sign up as PAYING customers. Perhaps >there would be some sort of bonus if one of the new players won the >game. We do already offer a completely free "trial game" to a new player. Only 12 turns long, smaller map, and only 6 players, but it's totally free. You can suggest this to your friends and acquaintances. >As far as the game mechanics are concerned, there could be some >improvements made. Even a color-coded printout or email would make it >more interesting. I'd like to do this. Maybe we can work out something.... > I want to try and find ideas that FBI can implement that will help >rejuvenate the game and expand the SW player pool. Yes, the more ideas the better. >I think Chris hit on an idea with his Veteran-Newbie partner game. >This would be a new variant AND a way to bring in new blood. Utilizing >the existing players to aid in recruiting is a good idea. Other ideas >FBI could try are to give players who are responsible for a successful >referral 6 free turns in any game they are in. We do give two free turns to anyone who refers a new player. Have the new player mention your name when he signs up, and we'll give you two free turns. And I'll think about the idea of the veteran-newbie game. >Again, I think FBI needs to do something in terms of advertising >whether it is posting to usenet newsgroups dedicated to gaming or >placing ads in gaming magazines or ezines. I definitely plan to do more advertising. As for posting to newsgroups, it is much better if YOU FOLKS do that. Then it's telling about something you enjoy, rather than crass advertising! I've noted that the number of daily hits on our website makes a huge jump every time someone mentions us on a popular website. Also it helps if you have a website (personal or business) to put links to our pages. Put one to our homepage and one to the starweb page. The more links the better. Some search engines give you higher ranking if you have more links to your page. >Another thing I think FBI needs to do is to create a new Variant that >will promote a game with much more depth. By depth I mean a lot more >factions. If the game doesn't degenerate into a two team effort but >instead had 3 or 4 factions and a few independent characters going >their own way then it would lead to a lot more interesting gaming. How >do you do this under the present constraints? Well, one idea I've seen >proposed before is the concept of limiting alliances. Call it the >Small Alliance Variant (SAV) and limit alliances to two A= orders. Maybe I'll run this up the flagpole and see if anyone joins it. >Finally, I must make a pitch for player retention. It is just as >important to keep old players as to recruit new ones. I think my >Variants and others (such as Rick's one of playing against him) are >excellent but there are other things that FBI could do to help out. >First, why haven't we seen a FBQ for years now? You don't keep players >interested in the games if you don't keep your magazine current. >Second - the rankings (which are on the FBI web site) are years old. I >think that FBI needs to update these at least every 6 months. I've >played many games since the last 2000 update and want to see my >ranking! It's almost as if FBI is just ignoring it's PBM fans. Sorry about that, folks. For the last 7 years I have been President of the Game Manufacturers Association. (GAMA). It is a trade organization that runs the Origins game convention in Columbus every July, the Origins awards, and a trade show in Las Vegas every March. I was first appointed president during a time of crisis, and the organization was in crisis for much of the time since. The organization took up at least half my time, and didn't pay anything. Last July I talked another sucker... I mean, a dedicated game company executive into running for the office of president, and I am now the "former" president of GAMA. With my sudden new batch of time, I have created some new products for publication, most notably the WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION expansion game for the Nuclear War Card Game. This will be released at Origins in June, and after that I hope our financial situation will be greatly relieved - - I will be able to spend more time on such additional activities as ratings and the magazine. John Shannonhouse writes: One thing that FBI has come up with on many occasions has been new maps. Perhaps a map could be designed specifically to isolate the players into small groups. Have five relatively small subsystems each holding three players. Players would cross over each other on turn 4 rather than meet at a new world on turn 4. Each of those three homeworlds would be equidistant (perhaps four or five moves) from a single world which then connects to a central smaller star system which is equally accessible to each of the five groups. Make resources SCARCE. A three mine world should be a treasure, and zero mine worlds should not be that rare. The groups of three would by necessity have to either ally with or knock out the other two players in their own star systems before making a major move to control the central location, and then perhaps try a move against another through a pipelane that can be mined with ISHPs and PSHPs. Editor's note: Actually I've done exactly what John suggests. I created several interesting maps and submitted them in the proper electronic format that FBI uses to be incorporated into the SW program. I've been told they are in the general pool of maps to be used. One of these maps I utilized in one of my private games. I called it my Pocket Universe Map. There were 5 pockets that housed 3 empires. In my version I made the pocket a hex map (all worlds are 3 connectors that create a honeycomb). The map wrapped from top to bottom and right to left the way the full 255 world maps do creating a small torus. I put only 40 worlds into each pocket making the furthest worlds from a HW at ring 5 in the pocket. Each pocket was connected to the other 4 pockets by a tunnel. These tunnels started at common ring 3 worlds between empires. So on T4 players would meet at anomalous 4 connector worlds where the 4rth connection went to a tunnel of two 2 connector worlds that ended on a similar ring 3 world in another pocket. To connect all the pockets this created 15 tunnels of 2 worlds (30 more worlds). Whoever controlled the tunnel to another pocket would probably have a lot of power so I added an additional route to each pocket. I created a pentagon where each world connected to pocket at a ring 5 world. It would take two turns to attack the heart of an enemy empire utilizing the tunnels but a back door remained at ring 5 that put the enemy HW only 3 turns away and it was utilized in our games. Finally, each HW had a moon to take the full tally of worlds to 200 + 30 + 5 + 15 = 250. I think I made the last 5 worlds into blackholes, which may not even connect to the main universe. Some of the things John envisioned did come to pass. Most of the pockets allied internally. Players only met 2 others on T4 and I had hoped for pockets that would fight and leave only 1 survivor. As it turned out there was only 1 pocket where the denizens didn't cooperate very strongly. I had hoped by having ring 4 and 5 worlds they would hope to meet more players after T4 and not ally with their neighbors first. But as it turns out in Starweb, players tend to ally early and strongly and most players know they need to get their HWs up to strength on turns 4-8 and by then they knew they were in a closed pocket and the nearest enemy pockets were best approached as a team. Well, that's it for Volume 79. 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