STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://www.accessv.com/~wulkan/fmt.html) VOL 12 August 2, 1999 CONTENTS Feature Article - Empire Builder Scoring Questions - Apostles capturing PBBed worlds revealed. SEDG Web Page URL The Captain's Log - Reminiscing About Pre SW FBI Space Games. Correspondence - SW and the new Millenia feedback FEATURE ARTICLE Empire Builder Scoring By Elliot Hudes (and remember - some of this is just opinion not fact). As with most positions success is predicated on having good trustworthy allies who can ensure your security and provide scoring opportunities. Let's start by looking at what an Empire Builder can do to score better. Worlds will provide the mines, population and industry necessary to better your scores. And the best worlds have the highest of these resources. Most HWs early in the game with 100 population, 3 mines and 30 industry can provide 43 points/turn. The games resources also include ships, keys and art. Ships can be scrapped cheaper than any other character (4) to produce industry each for an additional point. Keys and art cannot produce points inherently in themselves but can be used to barter for worlds that can. Art obviously is of interest to the Art Collector. Keys may be relevent to any needy character but is of great use to a Pirate as they score points for him and are quite useful to Apostles/Berserkers to allow them to Jihad/R attack at more locations for their score. And let's not forget that keys are very successful for successfully waging war. So it seems easy enough - just get as many worlds as you can, trade away your art and keys and use your industry to build more. Well, with this type of head in the sand attitude you will only find merchants, art collectors and the occasional non-plundering pirate as allies. Further, you will be weakening yourself if your ships and keys disappear to the point where your security is at risk. It is not useful to be able to bag 800 points/turn if an enemy alliance can just roll over you and take it all away. Besides, there are even ways for you to make a big fat profit trading with other world hungry players such as the Pirate and Apostle. If you can manage to join an alliance without an Apostle or Pirate (or at least an alliance where the Pirate is more concerned with warfare than plunders) then you can get ALL THE WORLDS gifted to you save the Berserker's robotic HW. If you have a more balanced alliance you can do a little swapping. Remember that your allies don't want the pirate to plunder their best mining worlds or the influx of metal to fuel their industry will cease to function. Best to give the Pirates the rocks of the universe. These are those worlds with the poorest mines - often 0,1 or 2. These worlds frequently have the lowest population also. And the Pirate only needs to own these worlds for the turn they plunder it and then they can gift them back to you the next turn. Trading a pirate a world with 1 mine and 20 population worth only 3 points/turn for a world he owns (and needs metal for himself) with say 5 mines/150 population worth 20 pts/turn is just good economics for both of your positions. The Apostle on the other hand would be best to play the game in Jihad mode (see Vol. 3). If you point this out to him it becomes apparent that the very high population worlds should be kept out of the Apostle's hands so that he can participate in Jihad attack on the population. Giving the Apostle a low population world at half the population limit will allow the Apostle to totally convert it quickly. Again if you gave the 1 mine, 20 population/40 population limit world (worth 3 pts/turn to the EB) to the Apostle in 7 turns the world is worth 14 pts/turn to the Apostle. Plus he gets to Jihad on that other 150-population world that he gave away and reaps another 300 points later in the game. This is far better than the Apostle keeping the 150- population world and (assuming it's totally converted) receiving 25 pts/turn. It is only 11 points more/turn than getting the low population world from the EB and to make up the difference in points it would take 29 turns of ownership (because the Apostle can no longer Jihad on the high population but converted world). In a similar vein it doesn't matter who owns the high population world that the Berserker or Apostle decide to depopulate for points. So why not let the Empire Builder hold on to it until near the end of the game! That is the downside of dealing with the Berserkers and Apostles - you are only leasing their highest population worlds until they get around to killing them. So you must get your points as soon as you can as the last few turns of the game you may find your point base shrinking. If I haven't mentioned it before trust is a big factor for an Empire Builder. The first worlds you ask for from your newfound allies are the HWs. It's the most valuable from a scoring point of view. Unfortunately many new, paranoid or previously backstabbed players will be reluctant to part with the source of their ships. You must be a good ally and do what you are told in regards to building with the HWs you are lent. Screwing up the build orders or missing turns is a quick way off the ally list and having allies take back their HWs. Even an Apostle HW can be used. Just remember to dump a bunch of Consumer Goods and unconvert some population. If you can manage to do this before the world has gotten to it's maximum population then the world will grow uncoverted population and may take many turns to convert back to the Apostle. Consider an Apostle HW at 70C/100 limit. You dump 20 CGs and deconvert 10 population. The next convert growth will be 7 while the total population growth will also be 7. So you will maintain your lead on the converts by 10 population looking like this - 67C/77. It will there fore take another 5 turns for the world to totally convert and fall back to the Apostle. Additional CGs and trimming to 50% population by your friendly Berserker pal can keep this valuable scoring world in your possession indefinitely. The Empire Builder position has some potential for playing the neutral trader staying clear of all alliances and trading with everyone. I have not seen it done but I've heard rumors. So why not build industry? Well, for every industry built you will not replace the ships used for 4 turns. If you are in a very volatile game your enemies may not give you the time you need to recoup your investment. But if you are in a fairly safe situation and your ship production is secure lets examine the HW situation. On turn 8 you achieve full ship production. You can then build industry and have 37 on T9, 46 on T10, 57 on T11 and 71 on T12 - if you can continue to supply metal to the HW. This is often a rate-limiting step as you don't often have the metal stockpiles or mines close to the HW but with a very enterprising merchant you might be able to swing it. Total investment of ships was 170 ships BUT if the HW were never built up you would have only built in those 4 turns 120 ships. 71 industry will replace the 120 ships lost in just 1.7 turns. You have just benefited from compound interest as the industry you built turned around and built more industry. So by T14 you are now in a situation where the ships lost are paid back. You have just increased your scoring by 41 points/turn by the industry increase and all it cost you was the risk that you had very few ships for defense up until T14. Like I said, you better be in a very secure position to consider only building up your industry. And how loyal will your allies remain if they give you all their worlds and you keep all your ships for yourself. The Pirate may want some for war, the berserker for PBBs and R attacks, the Merchant will certainly need some to keep up with your metal hauling needs and the Apostle will similarly covet them for their Jihad enhancing effects. But what's the advantage of being able to build industry cheaper than any other character? First of all if you are fairly sure that your alliance or at least your character is safe for a few turns (enough time to recoup the ship loss) you can make a good business plan to build up your HW or that of any other allied HW to ultimatly outproduce other empires in ships. In one game as an Apostle I was able to get my Empire to 60 industry without an Empire Builder - and without much ship loss I might add, as I used two naturally occurring industry 4 and 2 worlds that I found. That leads me to another point. There are so many small industry worlds in the game. At first you may visit them for their metal and small boost of ships but as you get busy in the game you may find you don't have enough keys to visit them as often (often due to war). The I ships just build up here doing very little for anyone. These worlds gifted to an Empire Builder can be parlayed into HWs that can produce more ships and points. In fact, if you find one of those rare 4 industry worlds early in the game you can create quite a decent HW out of it. In 10 turns (utilizing compound interest) this world will contain 35 industry. Starting with a 2-industry world will take 14 turns. This only adds about 30 pts/turn to your scoring base but you can mulitiply this by as many 2-4-industry worlds that you find or your allies can give you. The 10-14 turns required for this little venture may just take the whole game and preclude you from using the ships for other purposes such as aiding your allies but you can speed the process by just seeding these worlds with a few ships. In one game I had two 2 industry worlds up to a combined 28 industry by T12 just in time to not only provide me with more points but assist my allies in their war and scoring also. These small industry worlds don't require the ships from your HW. Thus, you haven't sacrificed your security in building them up. You remain strong and in fact become even stronger if you start to use the new industry for ships while your scoring base has risen. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? No new questions but plenty of discussion from previous SEDG questions. Here is some discussion and answers - >Lee Knirko asked: Does anyone know for sure whether conditional fire is truly random? I have had as many as three Berserker fleets, with the conditional fire frequently directed accurately to the robotizing fleet. Are there any known parameters for the target seletion?< Nothing in Starweb is random. The game does not include a random number generator. The conditional fire orders are based on the key number. John Shannonhouse On Doubly loaded Merchant keys and ambushes - Bob Becker said: It's my understanding fully loaded Merchant ships are unable to fire and that would include ambushing. Regarding getting an Apostle to capture a PBBed world - Last Issue David Benepe recommended: Just a guess at the apostle capture of PBB'd world challenge. You could have a friendly Berzerker increase the population limit to 1, by dropping enough I-ships and robots, converting them to 1 industry and increasing the limit. Then migrate enough population (regular or convert) to kill off the robots on the same turn the Berzerker gives you the world. [I didn't see any prohibition against diplomacy in the question. :o) ] Paul Balsamo responds: David's method would work, although it would cost 30 Ishps to scrap into 5 industry (it takes 5 industry and 5 metal to increase the pop limit by 1) and a whole bunch of industry next door to migrate enough converts to kill off 5 robots (actually you'd have 8 there unless you migrated them) and leave 1 convert (or use a key to kill the robots after they boost the pop limit). You don't need the berserker to gift you the world (actually he can't while there are robots there). It would also take at least 4 turns - turn 1 robotize and drop the 30 Ishps, turn 2 scrap Ishps, turn 3 boost the limit and migrate the converts, turn 4 the convert captures the world. This takes 1 more turn if you want to blast the robots before the migration. that's a heck of a lot to get 10 points per turn and the game is probably ending by the time you do. Good job of logic though. Although technically this works, the way I do it takes very few resources and the world is fully converted by the "2nd" turn (hint, hint, nudge, nudge)... Editor: I then took a stab at the puzzle (unsuccessfully I'm afraid) and Paul responded: Elliot, Close, but no. O.K. O.K. I guess I've tortured everyone long enough. Here's my answer: The trick is that the capture of the world does not involve a convert! After the world is PBBd, the apostle puts at least a 1 ship key over the world while he migrates a regular pop there. That captures the world for 5 points. Now that he owns the world, he just keeps migrating a convert there each turn and gets 10 points. After the world capture, it doesn't matter that the convert dies there every turn, since the new convert arrives before the program checks for the world going neutral due to zero pop. The fleet does not have to stay at the world. By the way, this is also a way that an artifact collector can get his art back if an enemy PBBs a world with his art on it. Paul ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 CAPTAIN'S LOG 990728.1656-4 By Walter Schmidt - walts@dorsai.org "History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself." - W.C. Sellar and R J. Yeatman "A long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away..." there was this great space battle PBM and this great SciFi Fanzine editor. They had nothing to do with each other - yet everything to do with my memories from that particular time in my life. I know how great they both were - I also know not everyone would agree with me on that. And while the former (the great space battle PBM) will most likely not again be mentioned in my log anytime soon - the latter (the great SciFi Fanzine editor) will surely be! [AND enough with the hyphens already, who do you think you are, a Hemingway] [like I said - mentioned soon - even if indirectly] [chuckle]. Almost two decades ago, a PBM entrepreneur by the name of Rick Loomis sent out the first, hand-typed mimeograph [I wonder, again, if I should explain...nah, if they don't know - let them look it up], two-page set of instructions for his then-new game Space Battle. It was a game for two 10 player teams - with one over-all commander on each team - who controlled the Base and three Battleships [WATCH the hyphens, Nemo]. The other nine players on each team, each controlled one Cruiser, three Scout, and nine Probe ships. The object of the game - real simple, to destroy the enemy base by reducing its energy level to less than zero. There were two-dimensional grid maps, there were simple orders, and there were abilities that only the team's Commander could exercise. But, if the team's Sub-Commanders didn't like (the job) the Commander (was doing), they could affect a mutiny by a two-thirds vote. I mean you couldn't help but love a game that defined the "proportional quantity damage" a Beam would do, or the "probability of a Torpedo hit" as: 1 - ( range / max range ) ^ 2 ! I even broke out the old navigation logs and reminded all my Sub- Commanders (yes, I was a Commander of a team), in those days of the non-computer, what the equation for the distance between two sets of coordinates was - you know: d = ( ( x2 - x1 ) ^ 2 + ( y2 - y1 ) ^ 2 ) ^ 0.5 !!! Alas, there were problems with the game - and Loomis stopped running it. And I saw less than a dozen turns of the game, myself. My Sub- Commanders affected the first successful mutiny. Their loss... For those who have been reading Science Fiction for some time now, you might remember a Hugo Award winning fanzine entitled, "Science Fiction Review." Its chief-cook and bottle-washer was a writer named Richard E. Geis. Now Geis published a few other fanzine-type journals, including several of a very personnel nature. Buried within these journals - peppered throughout them if you will - were the comments of his Alter- Ego. They, both the journals and the verbal jousting matches between himself and Alter-Ego - between himself and himself as it were - were very, very interesting [AND Nemo, use another hyphen and I'll break the fourth finger on your right hand] [I get the message ] [AND wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, Nemo. If Geis were reading this he would have a thing or two to say about your use of me]. [ ] What does all this have to do with StarWeb. History. Never plain and never simple, and never just history. For what we do today, clearly has its roots in what we remember, of what we did, yesterday. Think about that... And while you're thinking about that - think about what could be more fun than a stand-by position. Give up. An Anonymous Stand-By Position. More on that as things develop. And talking about how things develop, there is still time, last time I looked, for several more to join in the next eMail StarWeb game. It would not surprise me if in that yet-to-be-started game, you ran into someone you know... Shai Dorsai ! Nemo ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE Dave Newman: Care for stories about odd SW variants? There was the old BlackHole game, of which I was never part of, but I heard about it. I was in two of the Pandora box games, though I don't recall much about either one. Maybe enough players from the Pandora Box games are around that we can piece together the history of one of the games. Editor: I would love to hear about some of these variant games. Especially how to play them for best results. Ken Kohn: I read your latest v11 piece regarding new features, and here's a couple of suggestions: How about a Mask Key that to all other players has the appearance of a player you have met...but only you know who controls it. You can change the Mask each turn to another player that you have met in an attempt to confuse the other players. Of course, you cannot change the key number. If that other player submits orders for the key not realizing that they didn't have the key last turn (assuming they see it), the computer will simply ignore the order (no error message, preferably). The key will only take orders from the actual owner. I thought about calling the Mask Key a Spy Key, but that might be better for an key that renders itself invisible and has a nice side effect of not being able to be captured by Pirates or fired upon. I would imagine this key would have a limit of 1 ship, so it cannot be used offensively. This distorts your Scout Key suggestion even further...think of it as the Stealth Key. Editor: I have my doubts about any feature that would cause players to believe that an ally has backstabbed them (such as if the masked key has an ally name attached but attacks you). Regarding the Analysis Geoff Bridges did on the turn 1 two-world flight guess - John Gault had this to say: There is one problem with method B. At least two of the commonly-used maps are square grids, where the assumption that two Ring 1 worlds won't connect to the same Ring 2 world doesn't hold up. In that case, it's 50-50 that your two fleets are going to Ring 1 worlds which do share a Ring 2 world; so if one move fails, chances are increased that the other move fails also. For this reason I think that A is the better strategy. (I'm tempted to say this only holds if your homeworld has 4 connectors, but I wouldn't put it past Rick to respond by creating a map using a hex grid or some other new type.) Bob Becker said: Howdy Elliot, On Starweb and the new Millenium article, I believe there are two many other games out there that have all that new fangled type of stuff already in them for RL to want to actually change Starweb. Now what I think would be cool is a Long Starweb type of game that hooked different types of Starweb maps together and you could go between galaxies. In each Galaxy you would have an alliance made up of one of each type of character class and your mission is to explore and conquer your neighbors galaxy while defending your own. I believe your Agrarian class would be eaten alive. Editor - you were the first of 3 players to voice the opinion that the Agrarian would be eaten alive. Perhaps I was too zealous in my Green philosophy. Us ecology nuts tend to be :-). Well, that's it for Volume 12. Don't be afraid to submit articles or suggestions. They don't have to be long. I had promises from a couple players on articles about mapping, an ol' warhorse telling tales and promises of articles about various variants. If this sounds like a SOMETHING YOU SAID - I'M CALLING IN MY MARKERS. Write the article and Address your correspondence to Elliot Hudes at somnos@compuserve.com. And do it now :-).