STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://www.flyingmoose.ca) VOLUME 88 March 2006 CONTENTS Feature Article - SW Variants I Would Play In Questions - Keys? SEDG Web Page URL The Swap Corner Correspondence FEATURE ARTICLE SW Variants I Would Play In I find I am not in any SW games at present. That cannot be allowed to stand. I am always looking for interesting games to play in that are not standard. I wouldn't say I'm long past playing to win a pin but I have been in enough games now to recognize the winning strategies and I would like to throw a monkey wrench into the works to allow for interesting game play. Here are 4 VARIANTS of my design that I would play in. If any or all strike your interest I encourage you to email me and sign up. It is my hope that I can launch all 4 games. I promise to join at least 2 of them. Send me your name, email address, character type, Acct number. Please make sure you have enough dollars in your account to play. If I get enough players for a SW Variant I will send it on to FBI and a game will begin. Here they are A) RESOURCE LIMITED SCORING SW GAME This one was outlined in SEDG 84 but I didn't get many signups. I really want to try this out so sign up. 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. Failing this - no merchants at all. 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. B) BERSERKER/APOSTLE UNIVERSE. 1) You can only be an Apostle or a Berserker. Will the game degenerate into alliances of berserkers going for cooperative kills, Apostle- berserker partnerships participating in murder suicide pacts or will any Apostle try to wrest control of territory to slow their opposition and gain ground? 2) I will try to balance the universe with 50% of each. 3) Victory will be at 14,000 points. C) HIGH RESOURCE UNIVERSE My goals here are to have a game that is richer in resources so that the first 8-10 turns, which are usually dedicated to exploration and build up, may be concentrated into fewer turns. I am also allowing enough resources and turns that the strategies for winning will include fierce combat. I have taken steps to also handicap scoring so that perhaps other players can win instead of Merchants and Berserkers. 1) The Universe will have worlds with Industry=1-15, Mines=4-10, Population=100-255. 2) Start the HW with 50 industries and 100 metal. 3) Game runs until T24. This allows time for an Apostle to gain totally converted worlds and to use combat to allow for eliminations to be a feature of strategy. 4) Merchant/Berserker handicap - The Merchant/Berserker's scores will be divided in half! We all know that an adequately supplied berserker can win the game in a flurry of PBB fire. Similarly Merchants can run away with a game. This is true in regular games but may be especially advantageous in a high resource universe. D) PIRATE ANONYMOUS BITTER END KEY GAME 1) All pirate game. 2) Anonymous play - but not in the usual FBI scrambled anonymous format (allows us to compare maps after the game and makes it easier for us to write it up for publication). 3) Pirate with over 125 keys is the winner. FBI cannot track this type of game so you will have to let me know you have won and then we get FBI to send out a final game turn with the final game stats. I figure this may be an interesting game without pirates trying to capture worlds for plunder and instead trying for mastery of the keys. If these 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 #. Also - in previous private games FBI has been open to sending the master printout to a nonplayer who acts as the game historian. In SW- XM240 we had a historian and all the players would talk to him about their strategy. The historian is expected to write up a story of the game from his overview for the SEDG. Write me and volunteer for this position if you will commit to the time it takes to pour over the master printout and engage in turn by turn dialogue with the players. Hope to see you on the web. Elliot ---------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? Last issue I posed the following and have not gotten any feedback. NEW QUESTION What is the largest number of keys anyone has owned at one time? I fully expect an email from Gary on this one :-). To get the ball rolling I will state for the record that in a recent Extra-Long SW variant I managed to capture as a pirate a large number of keys by T27 out of 40 turns. After this turn I gave many to my allies so I never again had so many. But with 152 keys I could get 456 points per turn just from keys. Game SW-L/31, Turn 27, [ENIGMA] [ENIGMA]: Pirate (Score=9079,Gifts=2,Worlds=109,Keys=152,Ships=3520. CAN ANYONE DO BETTER? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP - is now available on the web. Look for our 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 Currently the StarGame Analyzer is being prepped for Starcon (another game). V2.0 which handles both Starcon and Starweb won't be ready for the Starweb audience for a while. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE Rick/FBI writes: >Great issue Elliot. Thanks for reminding me about the "black hole" >game. We may do that again one of these days. >>I wasn't aware that FBI allowed anybody to have more than one >>account. Why is this permitted? > >The primary reason for allowing it is that we can't prevent it if >you want to do it. If you want to get a post office box, or use a >friend's name and address, we really have no way to detect it, >except by accident or by you making a mistake. But we do say that is >illegal unless you TELL us about it. If you tell us, then we can >avoid putting your two positions in the same game (which would be >illegal, unfair, and cause to have you dropped from all games). But >if you want to start over on your ratings, or if you want to play a >game, say as a fighter merchant, which you know in advance would >screw up your rating, or if you have gotten a bad reputation (as an >untrustworthy ally, for instance) and want to start over, or even if >your wife wants your allies to stop calling you on the phone so you >have to play a pseudonym so they can't look up your phone number on >the internet; all of these are reasonably valid reasons to play >under a pseudonym. You can "start another account" but you have to >use at least a slightly different name. And you have to tell us you >are doing it, so we know you aren't trying to trick us. And we don't >let you transfer a game from one account to the other if it is a >"rated" game, because then obviously you could manipulate your rating. >Rick Al Rosin wrote: > Rick, > > I think you should announce a variant of Starweb where the Homeworld > starts out with 600 metal, allowing for faster combat action, fewer > orders and more unpredictability in player styles. Editor: We all know why the limit is 255 :-). Perhaps my variant with 50 industry and 100 metal is a shove in the right direction. Try it out? Lenny Schussel wrote: (and I'm not sure he meant it for the SEDG but it was too good to ignore). Think Like a Pirate! Here's how a Pirate thinks: Pirates always plan for the worst-case scenario; if it happens, they are in good shape, if it doesn't, they are in great shape. Pirates are not creatures of the herd, they don't do what the others do, nor do they really care. Pirates are always assessing their surroundings, looking for threats, opportunities, and an escape route. Pirates, at least the successful ones, make a quick assessment of the situation and then act quickly, they know that they can always change course if necessary; indecision is death. Pirates know that a plan is necessary, but at the same time they are not bound to that plan if conditions change-and they will change. Pirates know that history is nothing but the study of people making the same mistakes over and over again . . . and generally for the same reasons. A smart Pirate anticipates those mistakes and positions himself to benefit. The Pirate's rule of thumb: He who shoots first wins; he does not polish cannon balls, over-think, or over-study anything. A Pirate is a person of quick action who may often appear reckless or dangerous to the common sheeple. Thanks to JCN, a fellow Pirate and "eccentric troll who lives deep in the forest" for the above list. You may wonder why I always capitalize the word Pirate. It is because Pirates are noble creatures indeed, for they are the only truly free men. Why? Because Pirates play by their own rules and they pay tribute to no one-as it should be. http://www.strike-the-root.com/61/blow/blow2.html any Starweb lesson here? Lenny Well, that's it for Volume 88. 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