STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG)
   (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer
   - http://www.accessv.com/~wulkan/fmt.html)

VOL 9 - June 21, 1999

CONTENTS

Something new - Mapper's Corner on the SEDG Web Page
Feature Article - The FBI Convention - Phoenix, July 1998
Questions - AH and the Robotic attack, Anonymous games
SEDG Web Page URL
The Captain's Log
Correspondence - Starweb Heresy

SOMETHING NEW:

Mapping - I am going to make maps of deceased games available on the 
SEDGE Web Page. For the most part they will be gif files easy to view 
and download. The purpose of this is to enjoy some of the very 
convoluted and amazing webs that Starweb has been played in. I would 
welcome any maps you would like to share. Please don't send current 
game's maps as this might compromise the play of that game. The best 
format would be gif but I can accept and convert many of the common 
graphic styles of jpg, jpeg, tif, bmp, word files. A brief description 
of what the map looks like would be helpful, as I will post that as 
well. I have a few maps on file and will slowly convert and upload them 
so it will be worth your while to visit the SEDG web page periodically 
to see new maps and to get back issues. As of this writing you should 
be able to view SW-957 (The Mobius sphere) and SW-L/28 (The Double 
Cuboidal Walled Torus). I am also hunting for my best example of the 
simple Hex Map.

Certainly many of the maps I provide will be in Starweb Analyzer Format
so here is a brief description of it's common symbols.

Starweb Analyzer Maps - 
For those of you who have not seen a bitmap file containing
the map generated by Flying Moose Technologies Starweb
Analyzer here are a few pointers for reading it.

1)Any world with more than 10 industry will have a starburst
in the top left corner of the world. HWs all have this.

2)For worlds that wraparound - that is appear more than once
by going off the edge of the universe and reappearing on 
another border due to the 3D nature of the universe - they 
will have a '+' in the upper right corner of the world.

3)Worlds with a very thin line border and a '?' as the owner
have not been visited by anyone whose turns were involved
in generating the map.

4)Gray border worlds with [] as the owner are neutral worlds.

5)Each player or alliance (if defined in the program) will have
its own color and the worlds may contain the first 3 letters
of the player name.


FEATURE ARTICLE
The FBI Convention - Phoenix, July 1998

Well, it's getting close to the time for FBI's annual convention. I 
guess if I'm going to talk about last summers Starweb game I had better 
start now!

SW-CON98

Descriptions of other people's games often leave me cold. Oh, I'm sure 
their interesting (more so for the players) but after a while the 15 
players names, alliances and world numbers are all a swirl in my head 
and I can't make anything of it. I would like to relate to you my 
impressions of my first Convention Starweb game in July 1998. I will be 
keeping tactics to a minimum and trying to give you a flavor for the 
convention style of playing. Playing this tactical diplomatic game face 
to face especially with time limits for turns as little as 90 minutes 
(less for earlier turns) brings whole new vistas to the game. Imagine 
getting stressed out trying to meet a deadline in a game. JUST GETTING 
FOOD WAS A MAJOR TACTICAL PROBLEM :-). Let's see if I can entertain you 
- for me it was an awesome weekend!

Well, for the previous 3 years I had been threatening to fly down to 
Phoenix to play in the games hosted by FBI. Each time certain facts 
dissuaded me. Facts: Arizonians spend the summers in Hell to get away 
from the heat <G>; I'm a very good Canadian and tolerate cold much 
better than the heat; the flight down from Canada was $800.00 ($only 
23.95 US if you know the exchange <g> - just joking!). This year my Air 
mile points added up to the magic number and my wife (tired of my 
whining) told me to go. The capper was when I inquired of Rick whether 
I could get my turns on diskette instead of paper. As many of you know 
I am a copartner in Flying Moose Technologies marketing the Starweb 
Analyzer. This program incorporates all allied turnsheets and produces a 
combined turnsheet that allows various sorts/filters and searches as 
well as provides a color map and an order editor that checks for 
errors. Ok, the infomercial is over - if you are interested go to our 
web site listed above. After hearing this, Moose (the other cofounder 
and author of the program) decided he just had to join me and play too. 
Since we were both coming down together, sharing a room and were using 
the same program we figured nobody would believe we weren't allied and 
playing together (even though we had a history of being opponents in 
the past). So we decided to ally right off the bat.

Being very active in Starweb games via email I quickly received all 
kinds of advice from previous players AND found out that an old 
ally/opponent was flying down from Alaska. I had an old penpal Starweb 
ally from 1977 who goes to the convention yearly and I started trying 
to convince him to play Starweb again. He was firmly dedicated to 
Heroic Fantasy and kept complaining that the rigors of Starweb at the 
convention were too intense for him as he wished to concentrate on 
multiple games. I promised him that if he would play once again  he 
could have my support. (We made him the merchant and supplied as much 
of the hauling orders for him as we could. We gave him the title 
GENERAL! SHAULA's role was to give us strategic input every evening and 
we had to make it into a plan :-). So now we were three. 

That merry July I flew down to the convention the day before play 
began. I exited the airport and was waiting for the taxi when I 
remarked to a local that I was told that it was supposed to be a dry 
heat and the 115 degrees F didn't seem too dry. She remarked, "Not 
during the rainy season, dear". Walking through this physical wall of 
heat I already started regretting what lengths gaming was driving me 
to. I met my partner Moose at poolside. He remarked that his Canadian 
made shoes' soles were melting to the pavement and he was worried about 
what he could wear on his feet. Clearly we were out of our element <g>.

That first night we decided to forgo Rick's kind invitation to play 
poker to relax in the hotel and meet my long time friend (who I'd never 
met) Shaula the Merchant. We were sitting drinking our soft drinks and 
watching the Arizona Storm (which was strangely just lightning without 
rain - another odd phenomenon I hadn't observed often) when we were 
joined first by Shaula's son - Lamers the Apostle then by my previous 
ally/opponent Protos the Art Collector. Protos made us aware that a 
bunch of players had congregated in the bar and were discussing 
alliances. The fact that a couple of Canadians had come to play was 
apparently well known. It seemed that they had formed their alliance in 
the bar and our Canadian goose was already cooked. Lamers (who dislike 
pregame alliances) and Protos decided on the spot to join us and form 
the opposing alliance. Now we were 5. Moose and I decided that he would 
play the vicious pirate while I would be berserker. 

Day 1 

We calmly walk into the convention hall, register and set up a table. 
Lamer's has brought his laptop and we quickly put a copy of the Starweb 
Analyzer on his machine despite reservations that you can't learn a new 
program and play Starweb simultaneously. This was a needless concern as 
Lamers not only was a whiz with the program right away but could get 
his turn done before any of us and start working with the program to 
figure out the map - AWESOME! We set up our printer so that allies 
without computers could get their turnsheets printed (even allies who 
didn't have the program got their turns by diskette so we could 
incorporate it into the analyzer). 

The opposing alliance was 6 in number so we were already outnumbered. 
They were God the EB, Uncleslam the pirate, Gunrunner the merchant, 
Fortran the Aposte, Blzbub the berserker and Artbell the Art Collector.
We found it interesting that both God and Belzebub were against us in 
this game. War does make for strange bedfellows. 

I must tell you that meeting players in the flesh that you have played 
with over the internet is an interesting experience. Shaula was 
everything I imagined - an older softspoken gentlemen. Blzbub on the 
other hand was an ally of old who got out of his rickety VW van with 
his shoulder long hair, beard and sandals looking like a refugee out of 
the 60s :-). 

Rick discussed the issue of getting turns in on time. It was decided 
that nobody likes missing a turn so each player would be allowed to 
call for a 15 minute time out to extend any one turn deadline once 
during the game. 

Turn 1 was presented. We were given just 15 minutes to do the turn. 
Mike put the diskette into his laptop and the unmentionable happened. 
It wouldn't process. We couldn't get our turns. With sweat pouring down 
his face Mike realized that for the first time in Starweb history the 
game was named in small letters and not capitalized. His program 
couldn't cope. He frantically relabeled all the turns while I wondered 
if I would have to cash in my time out on turn 1! Even worse, would we 
have to (gasp) do our turns with paper and pencils - did we even 
remember how? Later that evening (around 2 AM) Mike rewrites and 
compiles the Starweb Analyzer to cope with that problem. A piece of 
advice - it's always a good idea to bring your own programmer to the 
convention <g>. 

Turns 2-3 are fairly uneventful with very short due dates of about 30 
minutes. The map seems simple (thank goodness since I often pour over 
maps for many hours to get them just right). It seems to be a grid of 4 
connectors all connected into tight little squares. What could be 
easier? Just wait! 

Turn 4 - first contact. Yippee most of my alliance is adjacent to each 
other Protos, Moose, Shaula and myself (Somnos). Lamers appears to be 
in some isolated part of the web - likely surrounded by the enemy 
alliance (sigh). First contact negotiations are just so nice at a 
convention. Uncleslam walks over to my table and says - "We met at W35 
- do you want the key or the world?" In 2 seconds or less the first 
contact negotiations are over - even email can't match that! 

It's about now that I realize that we may be having our second 
convention crisis. It's about 2:00 PM and I'm getting hungry. Inquiring 
when there will be a lunch break I'm told - there isn't one. Do we get 
an extended due time for the turns for meals. Yes, but it's an extra 30 
minutes for the turn due near Dinner only and many use the extra time 
to get their turns done (especially those in multiple games). I firmly 
believe that an army travels on their stomachs and if I did't get 
nourishment I was going to die. The enemy alliance bring in submarine 
sandwiches. How can that be? Well, Gunrunner explains to me that he's 
been to the convention before and they shopped the day before for food. 
Didn't I see the refrigerator in our hotel rooms? Oy, Moose decides he 
can live on power bars and Gator aid from the hotel gift shop. Lamers 
and I order in Pizza. 

As it turns out the extra 30 minutes around dinner are not enough to 
sit down and order food in the hotel restaurant so we go to the bar and 
order a couple of beers and nachos to tide us over. It's then we notice 
that happy hour ended 10 minutes ago :-(.

The end of day 1 (final orders due) in the convention hall was destined 
to be 10 PM. This winds up being the T7 orders and they hand us our 
turn 8 printouts at 10:30. We are nowhere near the end of our day 
however. Essentially we have been playing without a plan the first 7 
turns. All of us being experienced players we obviously did the maximum 
expansion, got our merchant working in our areas as well as have our 
Art Collector pick up our art, gifting worlds to the Apostle and keys 
for our Pirate. It's only on the T8 printout that all our HWs have 
between 23 and 30 metal. Having only 11 players in the game meant 
spending more turns grabbing all the free worlds. Obviously we are now 
ready to do something. The question was - What? The team is tired and 
hungry after 14 hours of Starweb but our gaming isn't over. We decide 
the best way to handle things was to go to a restaurant, have dinner 
and thrash out how to spend day 2 (likely turns 8-14). Following this 
we were all to finish our turns and meet again at 8:00 AM for a 
breakfast meeting where we could hand each other the orders we required 
our allies to do. The turn was due at 9 AM. 

The map looks odd. The grid pattern is holding mostly. We have Moose, 
Shaula, Somnos, Protos all in a line that wraps into a circle. Above 
and below us is the enemy. Lamers is isolated in his own grid 
completely surrounded by enemy. There is one anomaly world. W7 has 8 
connections and while 4 of them fit into our nice grid the other 4 seem 
to connect to players we haven't even met. This world is key - as it 
connects to so many AND is our only link to our ally Lamers. What we 
didn't know until game end (due to being the smaller alliance) was that 
the map was two cubes (all worlds on the surface). Each corner world 
would have been a 3 connector except for the fact that they also 
connected to the anomoly world W7. 

During dinner (steak predominated) we discussed strategy. Obviously we 
were the smaller team and when (not if) war broke out it would be wise 
if it was on enemy territory. At least if we lost it would take time 
for them to repel us and mount counterstrikes. To allow them the first 
strike was to invite disaster. In addition, a first strike by our team 
would give us the chance to destroy or capture a HW and even the odds 
in addition to helping to limit points for their merchant and 
berserker. The decision was made - General Shaula declared that we 
should take out their best warrior - Uncleslam the pirate and to try 
and cripple their merchant Gunrunner. Meanwhile Lamers decided to go 
after Fortran the Apostle (I can't remember why :-). It was my job to 
secure W7 so we could pipeline ships to Lamers if needed.

Dinner was over by 12:30 AM and Moose and I retired to our room to do 
our turns. We thought we did fairly well getting done just after 1:30. 
What to do now? Have any of you worked on a Starweb turn late at night? 
If you are like me you cannot fall asleep. Too much concentration and 
thinking and your mind keeps churning and thinking of numbers. Moose 
and I go swimming in the pool. It's a cool 90 degrees F at 2 AM :-).

Day 2 - The alarm goes off at 7:00 AM and we are refreshed (HAH!) by 
our 4 1/2 hours sleep. A quick shower and we meet our allies for 
breakfast and finalize the orders. We head to the convention hall.

The next obstacle was a pleasant one. At the Safari Hotel the 
convention center has 2 halls. Today there is a modeling audition and 
young women from everywhere wearing revealing clothing in attendance. 
Many of us try to get our orders done quickly so we can loiter in the 
common lobby. War and sex just don't mix - it's hard to concentrate.

Today we are experienced convention gamers. Today with the enemy 
alliance's blessing we declare the supper turn (the long one with an 
extra 30 minutes) will be at 4:30 so we can go to happy hour <g>.

T9 we launch. T11 we land in enemy territory. We land on the border and 
Uncleslam has huge armadas sitting on the Gunrunner and his own border. 
We have only beat them to the first strike by 1 turn (whew)! By this 
time I've robotized W7 and secured it (Blzbub my metallic counterpart 
has been sitting here in ambush). He is blown away and a 35 ship ambush 
is set up on the anomaly world. Lamers has hit Fortran and there are 
huge Blzbub fleets waiting - again we just barely beat them. Our 
incursion into Gunrunner was through the anomaly world which will be a 
problem for us later. T12 we locate the Uncleslam HW. The enemy are 
fighting on their territory as we predicted and our areas are clean.

By T14 we are firefighting on Fortran ring 2 worlds, we have landed in 
force at Uncleslam's HW and somehow in the Gunrunner area as we 
approached the HW (well, we thought we were approaching the HW <g>) we 
fell into God's territory. I admit it. We were lost. The turns owned 
were not a big help with a lot of worlds gifted to God and we couldn't 
figure out where his HW was. Since we arrived via an anomaly world into 
the middle of his empire it was like being blindfolded and turned 
around a few times. We didn't know which direction was deeper and which 
was to the outer worlds.

This was as far as we got on day 2. We were handed our T14 printouts at 
10:30 PM as usual. The day was fun and we had no problems meeting the 
turn deadlines and even got to gawk at our neighboring convention. The 
day's best strategy/tactic happened at our 4:30 break turn. I was tired 
and I just announced that I had had it and was going to the bar. About 
half the game joined me both ally and enemy alike. At this point, God 
started buying my drinks. It was happy hour and I found that I was 
getting 2 beers with each round. Thankfully my American gaming 
colleagues were not acquainted with the fact that Canadian beer can 
have as much as 6.5% alcohol. I was OK up until the 6th beer. Doing the 
following turn was quite a challenge :-). With our Starweb analyzers 
any player could review what his allies were doing and it was no 
problem at all for Lamers and I to help Moose with his vast war machine 
since neither of us was concentrating on scoring yet. At this point in 
the game our top player was Shaula our merchant with 6800 points. 
Protos' art pulled in 5800 but the enemy merchant was in the lead with 
8400 points. 

We retired to the hotel restaurant again for some sustenance and 
planning. We were effectively fighting in 2 empires with one of their 
HWs about to fall. Hopelessly lost in our 3rd incursion. Shaula our 
General correctly pointed out that we had 1 more day and possible 4-5 
turns and that if we continued to concentrate on fighting we would win 
the battles as Gunrunner walked away with the Starweb Trophy (or 
possibly their berserker). We decided to continue the battle as best we 
could trying to disrupt Gunrunner's hauling and tie up ships to limit 
the enemy berserker's ability to drop PBBs but that we would start 
pushing one position to the top. Our best candidates were Shaula and 
myself. Shaula directed us to push Somnos the Berserker position. I 
think he was being polite but I also know he was having trouble 
concentrating on 4 games simultaneously (I was only playing Starweb). 
Unknown to me was that part of our team didn't share our team's plans!

The day ended as previously with a 2 AM dip in the pool.

Day 3 Highlights

Mrs. Shaula brings in incredible Mexican food for lunch.

T15 - Uncleslam's HW - Moose orders an AI while I robotize it. What can 
I say - were thorough! 16 suppressed industry remains. In Fortran I 
bring a PBB to his ring 2 world and make him sweat. Still hopelessly 
lost in God fighting Uncleslam the whole way. My first PBBs fall and 
I'm at 1900 points, Shaula at 8400 and Protos at 6600. Gunrunner is 
still in the lead with 9600 and someone is at 7100 in the enemy camp. 
Tempers start to run hot - sleep deprivation is blamed. Moose demands 
help to position his war fleets while I'm spending my whole time trying 
to find ways of striking the best PBB targets and to rendezvous to pick 
up his ships. I tell Moose - "You're the Pirate - just fight. No time 
for consensus" :-).

T16 - My score jumps to 5000 and Shaula to 9300 but it's obvious that 
we are now pushing our berserker's score. The enemy merchant 
(Gunrunner)has hit 11,000 points. We are not sure if they will push 
their berserker or merchant but their berserker has less than 5000 
points at this point and nobody has time to carefully track scores.
Fortran loses his ring 2 world to PBB fire. In Gunrunner/God - Moose 
transfers all 93 ships to the Protos fleet, builds a PBB while Protos 
gifts to me. We lose no ships as Uncleslam targets Moose. I am going to 
drop as many PBBs as I can until destroyed. At Unclslam's HW Moose does 
it again, transferring all excess ships to my key while I run to ring 1 
with a PBB! It's now a race for me to score with all available ships. 
Moose is going to turn them over ASAP! In fact - the whole alliance is 
gifting me keys and building to me for PBBs. Uncleslam invades Protos 
and Fortran decides to invade Lamers. We shall see about that!

T17 - Moose finally plunders something! Nobody really knows why. God 
notices <g>. My score (Somnos) now jumps to 12,000 surpassing my 
merchant Shaula at 9500. The enemy merchant Gunrunner hits 12,000 and 
their berserker is left far behind. The push is on! Incidentally, 
Lamers the Apostle is relying on martyr points from my PBBs and has hit 
6000 points. Protos is at 8000 points and owns 47 art compared to 
Artbell who has 53 art. I head for Fortran's ring 1 with a PBB. It's a 
feint - I know where his HW is and I have no intention of taking him 
on, as it's a waste of ships. But it keeps him pinned to his HW 
defending while I run around his area dropping bombs. I continue to 
drop bombs in the Gunrunner/God area and Uncleslam area and take the 
heat as they fire on me because I want points!!  Lamers is still 
fighting off incursions while now Somnos is invaded and Moose HW is 
jumped by the enemy. 

T18 - The second last turn of the game. The orders for this turn are 
called scoring orders. FBI gives us only 15 minutes to do orders that 
will generate points. So movement orders are useless. I don't think I 
can actually process all the turnsheets and do a turn even just for a 
few scoring orders in 15 minutes so I go back to manual and look at a 
turnsheet with pen in hand. It's a mistake. 

The enemy is all over Lamers, I PBB Moose's HW to prevent it from 
falling and my inner ring worlds are under attack. We ignore defence 
and concentrate on ships to Somnos for Robot attack or PBBs turning 
over even our merchants hauling fleets. Meanwhile I am still running 
around Gunrunner, God, Uncleslam and Fortran with my keys either PBBing 
or robot attacking with smaller and smaller fleets. If the game was to 
go more than a couple of turns they would crush us militarily - but we 
know the end turn and so we push to score.

We almost missed seeing the last minute backstab by Protos. He has 
gifted two worlds to Artbell with most of his art on keys hovering over 
them, and has let Unclslam capture an art key over one of his worlds. 
All his art can be given over. What gives? He's giving all the art to 
the enemy Art Collector. Lamers and Moose both rise to their feet in 
the real world, red faced and angry and ask Protos just what the heck 
is going on. I can't help snickering. I don't like backstabs but lack 
of sleep and 18 hour days of Starweb are taking their toll. I've known 
Moose 24 years and have never seen him angry so I laugh. I then ask 
Protos to leave our table. Lamers asks the important question. DOES 
ARTBELL HAVE ENOUGH TO STOP YOU!!

A quick look at T18 scores reveals that I have 16,800 points. The enemy 
merchant isn't showing on any of our printouts but we can't imagine his 
score rose by more than 2000 points putting him at 14,000.That puts him 
out of the running. But Artbell has about 10,000 points (we couldn't 
separate his score from another close one). Just how many bonus points 
and art points does 100 pieces of art bring? Remember I only have 15 
minutes to write the orders for my last turn and I don't have time to 
figure it out. Moose and Lamers try to calculate it BUT UNTIL RICK CAME 
IN TO ANNOUNCE THE RESULTS WE DIDN'T KNOW. 

The final score - I had 21,619 and Artbell had 19,832. I beat him by 
1787 points. It was anyone's game until the end and the excitement was 
quite high until the end. Gunrunner took 3rd place with 15,893. 

The answers to the art questions are - you can get 10 museums worth 
5000 points. All the art in the universe is worth 1800 points/turn (to 
the AC). Having the entire Nebula scrolls brings in 1500 and 1000 each 
for having each of your two categories. The maximum points the art 
collector can get on the last turn are therefore 10,300. How much of a 
push did Protos give him? Well Protos was bringing in 765 points a 
turn, completed all the sets (3500 points) and completed another 4 
museums (Artbell had 9 at the end). The Protos backstab propelled 
Artbell forward by 6265 points in one turn in addition to the 1035 
points per turn and the 5 museums he already was going to get. Artbell 
scored over 9,500 points on his last turn

At the end players from both sides exchanged information and questions 
that had plagued them such as ---

1) Why didn't Somnos drop all his PBBs the last turn? I didn't see them 
- remember I said I didn't use my Starweb Analyzer software for the 
last turn. I could have dumped the game with that type of mistake.

2) Why did we jump to ring 2 of Gunrunner then head out of system 
towards God. We were lost :-).

3) Why did we plague the ring 1 world of Fortran - did we not realize 
where the HW was? HAH - that one we did on purpose :-).

4) What effect did our plans have on limiting their merchants scoring? 
Well apparently at times we had disrupted hauling in up to 3 empires at 
once. It was nice to know our gambit worked.

5) Why didn't their merchant score more than 1000 points/turn or they 
push their berserker more? Well, apparently there was a small split in 
their alliance. Three characters felt they were able to win the game 
and so close coordination wasn't possible. For example Artbell was 
approached by Protos over the art transfer and limited his support to 
his merchant and berserker so they wouldn't pass him. There was no plan 
to push one character forward in the enemy alliance.

The final results are below - please note that Moose only owned 23 
ships and they were all I ships on worlds - that was how efficient he 
was getting his ships/keys into my hands. Shaula was equally 
accomodating. And you can see why Starweb is such a team game. To get 
me to first place our alliance dumped the other positions so the enemy 
alliance took second through fifth place.

When I accepted the plaque for the Starweb win for myself and my 
alliance I was asked how I found my first convention. It was intense, 
tiring and a lot of fun. Compared to it a weekend on call at my 
hospital seems like a rest :-). 

Moose and I return to Phoenix July 23, 1999 to defend our title. I hope 
to see some of you there. It should make for an interesting article for 
the SEDG I hope.

Elliot

(1) [SOMNOS]: Berserker 
(Score=21619,Worlds=34,Keys=48,Ships=187,Industry=69,
          Mines=48,People=124,Robots=253)

(2) [ARTBELL]: Artifact-Collector 
(Score=19832,Worlds=9,Keys=22,Ships=223,
          Industry=1,Mines=41,People=612,Artifacts=100,Bonus=8000)

(3) [GUNRUNNER]: Merchant (Score=15893)

(4) [BLZBUB]: Berserker 
(Score=13240,Worlds=25,Keys=41,Ships=379,Industry=57,
          Mines=67,People=61,Robots=150)

(5) [GOD]: Empire-Builder (Score=10869,Worlds=62,Keys=18,Ships=267,
          Industry=252,Mines=298,People=3917)

(6) [SHAULA]: Merchant (Score=9740,Worlds=2,Keys=6,Ships=8,Mines=15,
          People=156)

(7) [PROTOS]: Artifact-Collector (Score=8743,Worlds=9,Keys=13,Ships=33,
          Industry=2,Mines=34,People=525)

(8) [LAMERS]: Apostle 
(Score=7530,Worlds=22,Keys=1,Ships=99,Industry=65,
          Mines=96,People=430,Converts=964)

(9) [FORTRAN]: Apostle 
(Score=5283,Worlds=21,Keys=13,Ships=49,Industry=7,
          Mines=107,People=35,Converts=2380)

(10) [UNCLESLAM]: Pirate 
(Score=4802,Worlds=14,Keys=75,Ships=614,Industry=1,
          Mines=24,People=706)

(11) [MOOSE]: Pirate 
(Score=1936,Worlds=10,Ships=23,Industry=3,Mines=41,
          People=567)
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QUESTIONS:

Message text written by Elliot T. Hudes to John Shannonhouse!
>John - I have a query. If my HW is beseiged by an enemy berserker and 
he does a large R attack what would happen if I did an AH (and there 
are no homefleet)? Would the R attack capture the world for the 
berserker or would I render it a neutral robotic world?<

You would render it a neutral robotic world.  The presence of robots 
does not keep a world from being driven neutral.  That is one of the 
things to do when defending the HW, which I think was one of your 
discussion points.

John

In Volume 8 Ken Cassady asked: Anomymous Games - 

	Making deals without talking - 

	Has anyone come up with a non-verbal way to make deals in and 
Anomymous Games?  What could you do to let the other person know what 
Charactor you are?  Is there any hope to playing an Artifact Collector 
in this type

Editor - I didn't get much feedback on this question (in fact an 
article on Anonymous games would be welcome) but then ....

Ken proposed the following:
Here are some ideas for my own questions...

Artifact collector - 
   Other players try to push Artifacts to every player they come up 
against.

Berserker - 
   Drop a robot on a world.

Apostle -
   Convert a population with ships.

Empire Builder -
   Build a factory on a planet with four ships.  A bit expensive!

Pirate -
   Plunder a world.  Bet I did not have to tell you that one.

Merchant - 
   Consumer Good a world.

Once you figure out who someone is then give him something to try to 
make friends or shoot him to let him know your an enemy.
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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
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THE CAPTAIN'S LOG 99.06.13.08.51
   (Walt Schmidt - walts@dorsai.org) 

"Friday the thirteenth done come on Sunday this month!" 

You know, no matter how things change - they really stay the same. Back
In the late '60s I learned the real source of the expression hurry up 
and wait. So here we are three decades later and what am I doing - 
waiting. TANJ! (And for the uninitiated that means There Ain't No 
Justice!) 

I thought I could jump right in the game, taking a standby position. It
seems that the current "crew" is a lot more diligent than we were back
then - end result, there is no pressing need for standbys. Yes, there 
is a need - but from how it was explained to me, I wouldn't call the 
need,urgent. 

Not to be defeated by the bureaucrats, I thought I would join a fast 
eMail only game. Only problem is, there isn't any. The best that's 
around is a regular eMail only game. So maybe the diligency is up - but 
the fanaticism is way down. Back at the beginning, some of us were in 
dozens of games at the same time. Okay, so maybe that's why standbys 
were easier to come by...there was a tendency, then, to "leave" games 
that weren't fun anymore. 

So how have I kept myself busy in the interim as I wait for a game or 
two. If anyone is interested, I have six PDF files, about 4.5mbs total, 
that are version one of the rules. Since my ISP only gives me temp 
storage for such things, the turn-around time is about a week. But if 
anyone would like to see what the original rules looked like, drop me a 
line. But that was just for starters. 

Since the current rules are also downloadable, I've gotten me a copy 
and am in the process of comparing them to the original - I'm taking 
the current rules and reformatting them into the original rules 
organization. Don't know what I'll find from doing that - but if it's 
anything interesting, it will be in a future log. 

And this automated mapping thing - Fantastic ! I sometimes think one of
the reasons some of us were in so many games, was to discover more 
about the game's mapping grids. I recall that there was a standard grid 
that many games were designed with. But I also recall that there were 
some very "interesting" other grids. Needless to say, once you had 
uncovered the grid type, you were a leg up on anyone not yet so 
fortunate. 

That's it for now. Shai Dorsai ! (...yes, Shai Dorsai - but that's 
another story for another day) 

               Nemo
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CORRESPONDENCE 

Ken Cassidy said:
Other ideas I would like to see discussed but they may border on 
heresy.

It has been almost 20/30 years of Starweb...

      So what about a change...

The first thing I notice is discrepancy of earning points.  Merchants 
make a lot and pirates do not.  Maybe Rick could give us some 
statistical help here but that seems to be the case.

Elliot (editor) comments:
You aren't the first to suggest this to Rick. But FBI feels that the 
pirate position is too popular already despite the fact they rarely win 
so they need no further advantages. And being a merchant is supposedly 
boring enough to entitle the advantage to get someone to play. I 
disagree because when I merchant I don't just haul metal. I also am 
very involved in the planning of the wars/diplomacy and plans of the 
alliance. As to changes in Starweb - I doubt FBI is interested in 
changing their very successful award winning game but you can certainly 
enhance it using Flying Moose's Starweb Analyzer. I seem to remember a 
fantasy article I wrote to FBI about upgrades to the Starweb game a 
couple of years ago. I think it might make for an amusing article so I 
will look it up.

Well, that's it for Volume 9. 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