STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://www.flyingmoose.ca) VOLUME 84, April 2005 CONTENTS Feature Article - THE SCORE EQUALIZATION VARIANT Questions - What was your biggest blunder? SEDG Web Page URL The Swap Corner Correspondence FEATURE ARTICLE THE SCORE EQUALIZATION VARIANT Last issue in the SEDG I played around with some ideas for interesting variants for Starweb. In the past I've played some private games where we handicapped character types so that any type could win. That was my humble opinion when I changed the VPT for Apostles/Pirates to 7500, EB/Art to 10,000 and Merchant/Berserkers to 20,000. Not everyone agreed with my manipulations especially a well-known Apostle who can win games under the existing conditions but I thought it would be more competitive. What can I say, I found the players played similarly to how they did in the past with large alliances and merchants and berserkers vying for the win. Perhaps a pirate doesn't want to be sidetracked from using his awesome capture abilities in battle to go after a mere trifling such as points. I think this may have been more a function of the mindset of the very veteran SW player pool. People get comfortable playing in a certain way. So, not only do Apostles tend not to win but they attract players who don't go for the win. I would like to try this from a different aspect. I am going to put out the Variant I proposed in the last SEDG. In this Variant I proposed manipulating the Universe's basic characteristics (kind of like giving Planck's constant a tweak :-)) so that all character types have a chance at the win. Here is a reprise of the basic tweaks and my logic behind them. >> Manipulating the world's resources would also allow other styles of play. I would like to see other player types win the game other than the Berserker and Merchant. Can we create a universe that promotes the Empire Builder scoring while at the same time tames the Merchants and Berserkers? Let's walk through this thought experiment together. A universe rife with high mine worlds could boost the EB nicely. To hobble berserkers a limitation of population size would make PBBs less profitable and perhaps only useful for the points created by the blast itself. How do you limit the damage a merchant could do in a high mine universe? I would say there are three things you can do. You realize they get 8 points per metal dropped on an industrial world up to twice the number of industry. A typical HW is worth up to 60 metal dropped or 480 points a turn. Even having only 1 ally and gifting your HW to them allows a potential 960 points/turn scoring possibility. So here are your three options: Limit HWs to 20 industry, have many merchants in the game and have populations set to less than the mines we have just boosted to limit metal. So now my universe has 20 industry HWs that can only generate 320 points per turn. Still a good merchant with 5 clients (inclucing his own HW) can generate 1600 points/turn. This is where you stock the game with 5 or 6 merchants and let economic forces coerce them to compete. Yes, I know that multiple merchants can join the same alliance and score well but if metal resources are scarce - they won't be able to capitalize on this either. If population on most worlds is less than the mines present you automatically have limited the metal available to these merchants. For example a world might look like this: (Industry=2,mines=12,population=6,limit=8). The EB gets 15 points/turn for this world. There isn't enough population to drive all the industry and the mines and so you would see 2 ships built and only 4 metal produced each turn. The merchant would only see 2 surplus metal for hauling on this world which equates to no more than 16 hauling points for the merchant. A berserker could only score 12 points for a robotic attack (plus 5 points/turn for a robotic world) and a PBB would generate only 200 + 12 = 212 points. Even if a berserker managed to robotize his worlds by T10 and bomb them at the end this world would likely be worth 12 points for kills, 10 turns as robotic = 50 points plus 200 for the PBB for a total of 262 points. On a game timeline of 16-20 turns this puts the worth of this world to a berserker at no better than 13-16 points/turn. A pirate plunder the first time generates 50 points and must wait 3 more turns for recovery, which maps out to about 12.5 points/turn for them. Interestingly an Apostle with a 50 ships key can easily convert this world allowing him to obtain the 10 points/turn for a totally converted world. So here I've designed a world that promotes EB scoring while not providing a lot of extra metal or ships, encourages Apostle scoring and limits Merchant/Berserker scoring. The value of this world remains in the 12-16 point range, which makes all the character types including the pirate on a fairly equal footing for score. Similarly, you could manipulate the industry in the universe so that there is a lot of it around to boost EB scoring but lack of mines or population will limit their usefulness. Here are the typical ranges that I feel would promote the score equalization: (Industry=0-6,mines=10-20,population=2-40,population limit=50) I would add that population never exceeds the mines for any worlds where mines are more than 3. So high population worlds (pop=50) will have a low mine count and not produce large amounts of metal to promote merchants.<< I've asked FBI about setting up the resources as I've outlined. I've forgotten to ask about the 20 industry per HW but I will sort that out too. So here are the parameters of the game. I realize most require the honor system. I have had some interesting requests and I'm thinking of trying them. RESOURCE LIMITED SCORING SW GAME 1) Limited resource map (High pop worlds will have low mines). (Industry=0-6,mines=10-20,population=2-40,population limit=50) If FBI can - I will make sure the HW has 20 industry. 2) All competitors will agree that they will initially play to score and win. (I realize that later in the game players may need to support others to win when their position sours BUT I want players who will try to play to win in all the player types). 3) Minimum of 4 merchants. If I don't get enough signups I will coerce players to take this position. 4) Limited alliances. You can't declare anyone an ally so the 'A=' is not allowed. It is more cumbersome - but by using the 'Z' order you will allow merchants or others to fly through your area unmolested by ambush and merchants 'at peace' will not suppress your industry. I'm not trying to eliminate alliances - just make them harder to function. 5) The game runs until T20. Why? Because I want there to be enough time that combat can be utilized for neutralizing competitors. I dislike games that end on T14. Neutralizing a competitor is a legitimate way for a player to ensure a high scorer stops and for you to grab more resources and points. I realize that this means the berserkers will know when to drop their bombs so I'm also open to making the end score 14,000 so that we can get 20 turns in and still have an element of surprise over when it ends. If you sign up - let me know if you want T20 or VPT 14,000. If we get enough signups I may stay out of the game and ask FBI for the moderator's printout so I can follow the game and be its historian for a SEDG writeup. I could interview players as it goes along and see what they are thinking and their opponents and see how the plans roll out. If this game sounds interesting - Sign up by email to: Elliot Hudes (somnos@flyingmoose.ca). I want your Name, preferred email address, Character type and player name and your FBI Acct #. When I get 15 players we can start. Go ahead - email me!! El ---------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? Last issue I asked: What was your biggest blunder? Ron Ruemmler replied: On turn one of my second Starweb game I sent all 32 ships out on only four fleets. On turn two, I not only put the two new ships on the neutral key, but ambushed one of my own fleets flying through my homeworld! Fortunately I was a pirate and captured the two ships on turn three. Ron Anybody else want to fess up to a blunder in Starweb? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 There has been a lot of movement with The Starweb Analyzer V2.0 but it will be a while before it's launched. It is being built in the Dotnet framework and has a lot of potential for neat new features but at present it isn't as advanced as V1.5. It is being alpha tested by a few diehard fans and I will report more about it when we have gotten a little further along. Elliot ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE Lou Sheehan said: One potential feature in a future private game the 'ally' and 'at peace' orders are prohibited. Editor: As you can see I liked your Ally restriction. I couldn't see how to get both to work and still get merchants to safely hover over your HW without suppressing industry (unless that would imply you need some homefleet over your HW). Rick (FBI) wrote (regarding over 15 HWs): Elliot, Keep in mind that the private game was only going to have 8 players. We can have 16 "homeworlds" but we can only have 15 players. We'd have to rewrite the program to allow more. That 8th player was only going to have one "formal" homeworld - we were going to alter another one with the data corrector. You are right that we can change the numbers of industry, metal, population, limits, etc as much as you like. We can also start people off with less than usual. We could, for instance start a game with very little industry - how about a game with only 6 industry at the home world? Would that encourage the EBs to build more industry? It would certainly limit the merchants! Rick << Editor: Thanks for the clarification. So I could still do an overpopulated universe with 15 players each with 2 HWs - where the 2nd one is created by FBI? And I could have more than 15 players in this game if I made it a partner game and the partners shared the 1 printout and each ran their HW (the SW program would still only create 15 positions and 15 printouts). So if anyone is interested in a game of 15 players with 30 HWs or has a partner that they would coordinate with (to submit only 1 set of orders) this is another potential variant. Well, that's it for Volume 84. 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