STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - http://www.accessv.com/~wulkan/fmt.html) VOL 15 Sept. 13, 1999 CONTENTS Feature Article - The FBI Con99 - Starweb Questions - The highest Starweb Score ever! SEDG Web Page URL - New maps have been uploaded! The Captain's Log - Doing My Turn - Part I Correspondence - Call for articles FEATURE ARTICLE -The FBI Con99 - Starweb Well, it's just a natural follow up for me to relate to you my experiences playing Starweb this year at the annual FBI Convention. This was my second year at the convention and I was the returning champion set to defend my title. I will try to minimize the details of the game and give you an overview of convention play. Once again my buddy Mike joined me for the convention and the week before I spammed him with jokes about how hot it is in Arizona in July. Reminiscences of the 115 degrees F were mostly faded from my memory. The convention was to run Friday through Sunday as it did previously but this time at a new hotel - The International Hospitality Suites (since last year's hotel had been demolished). The site is critical to play because us crazy gamers don't stop for lunch, dinner or even bathroom breaks. This hotel was clean, cozy featuring a full kitchen. Not only that it was walking distance to a grocery store, variety store and some restaurants. Mike and I packed up our laptop computers and I packaged my bubble jet printer so we could use our Starweb Analyzer programs to play and provide professional maps and combined turnsheets to our allies. I brought two inkjet cartridges to be safe. Despite my attention to detail my destiny was going to carry me in another direction. We arrived in Phoenix at it was a chilly 110 F. We waited for the shuttle bus at the airport and quickly grabbed our baseball caps, sunglasses and sunscreen from the tops of our luggage - THIS YEAR WE ARE EXPERIENCED AND WE ARE PREPARED!!!!! After arriving at the hotel and checking in we looked over the room and we were pleased. We did a preliminary check on our equipment and when I reached into my bag to get my printer - my hand returned totally black. Despite putting the ink cartridges in plastic bags, one had exploded and the bag did not contain the ink spill. After cleaning up (making sure that half the room, my hands and our towels were a sad gray), we put in the other spare ink cartridge. Guess what? It was totally dry :-). Thankfully it was Thursday in the early afternoon and we could hail a cab, go to a computer store and buy new cartridges. We visited the variety store and made sure we had a good stock of beer. I saw a 30 pack for the first time (Canada only has 24 packs) and nodded my head in appreciation of the USA and it's very civilized packaging of this golden elixir. A walk to the grocery store allowed us to observe another unknown fact to us. The term 'cool breeze' is not understood in Arizona. When the wind blows here it actually heats you up - kind of like getting caught up in a blast furnace. We stocked up on important foodstuffs from the major food groups - cookies, nuts, cakes and soft drinks. We took a cursory look at the fruit section but decided against any semblance to health this weekend. After all we came to kill things - Whattsa matter, you wanna live forever :-). Settling back in at the hotel we were visited by two players we hadn't seen in a year. Chris and Frank, who had been our major foes and honorable opposition last year. After a bit of gossip they had a proposal. First, they sounded us out about asking for the Merchant and Berserker positions to be outlawed at the Convention this year as they felt (rightly so) that in a convention game it boiled down to who could push their merchant/berserker best. Having been the berserker who had been pushed to the win last year I saw the truth of their argument. This would leave the EB, Art Collector, Pirate and Apostle. Mike and I felt this would make for a more interesting game so we agreed. Next, they bemoaned that the pool of players keeps getting smaller and that it was getting tiresome playing the same game with (or against) the same players. They suggested we swap partners. I was game but Mike felt it was somehow obscene (despite my assurances that it was on the up and up :-). The rumor mill said there were only 7 or 8 players. If it were 7 we would be given 2 positions each. Day 1 was quite pleasant with time for a swim, dinner at a nice Mexican Restaurant where I was reacquainted with Doug (a long time friend through the games over the past 20 years). We conned Doug into playing Starweb again as our ally despite his annual protests :-). That evening we had a knock at the door and met Ken - a first time convention player who I had met inadvertently via the Internet only 1 week earlier when I parachuted into a standby position (on T4 - first contact). Ken wished to join our alliance and so we were set. I have to say that those you play with make the game. My alliance was great not only because they were all competent players but because they were fun to be with and had great senses of humors. We laughed all weekend long. The next day we met to register at 9:00 AM. There were a couple of differences from the previous year. The convention hall was a private dining room off of the hotel restaurant given to us for the weekend. We were informed of the rules - "We were not to bring in our own food or beverages during tournament play". Having stockpiled already we made plans to eat in our room but we smuggled beer into the convention all weekend long :-). We also had to vacate by 9:00 PM every day. This was actually quite good because the previous year things went too late. With this new time limit we could have our daily team meeting/dinner by 10PM in a restaurant then do our turns and retire by midnight. A lot more civilized. The other team wound up being 4 players also and in fact 7 of the 8 players were returning from last year. So we already knew what the field looked like. We put in our requests for character types and then found out what the opposition did. We decided on the following - Ken - Caesar the EB - wanted to score high Elliot (me) - Somnos the Apostle - I wanted to score high. Doug - Shaula the Art Collector - wanted an easy position and to boost the alliance. Mike - Moose the Pirate - wanted to kick butt. We found the opposition decided on - Frank - Nostradams the Pirate John - Fortran the Pirate Chris - Megamouth the EB Mike N - Vampyr the Apostle I could already sense that if both their pirates didn't care for plunders that their EB would do better than ours (since Apostle worlds would not be suitable for ours). I also requested that I be given the rocks of the universe to completely convert since our Pirate didn't want to plunder. High pop worlds went to Caesar for my ultimate Jihad. I had concerns that 8 players in a 255-world universe would make a lot of the game exploration and make military penetration of the enemy too difficult. They were just so darn far away. I also had a sinking feeling that their character mix was more insightful than ours for this unique game. I did hope I could parlay my Jihad abilities into a run away score especially if we were on the offence and our territories were pretty safe. My fears were very well grounded and we wound up doing as much defense as our opponents. As usual the first 4 turns were the exploratory turns and we didn't expect to meet anyone for a few more turns due to the paucity of players in the universe but by T5 our whole alliance had met. So did the opponents alliance. Obviously FBI had noticed our request for positions were on one sheet of paper and made sure that each alliance were tightly connected but remote from each other. In fact, I continued to capture ring 8 worlds from my HW before finally meeting the opposition on one of my borders (so did they). This 'no man's land' between our alliances was huge and made worse because one of the enemy pirates stopped expanding at ring 3 in favor of hauling. The only close contact we had was Moose had encountered Vampyr close to him and Caesar had a contact point with Fortran at ring 4 (which I could get to in 3 turns. We only managed to do 7 turns the first day so we were just getting our hauling done by day's end. The map was the very common hex map that we have seen over and over (and over) again. If Rick reads this - retire the hex map - PLEASE! During the first day FBI would start a new game every 90 minutes or so. I had decided to play in Covert Operations and Nuclear Destruction as well as Starweb because I felt I could easily keep up with these 'easy' games. Mike joined me in Covert Ops as we had experience playing in a father-son private tournament we had organized. Ken was only going to play Riftlords but every time FBI started a game Ken would ask me if it was fun (I would say yes) and he would join. He hadn't even read the rulebook but would rely on me to explain the rules between and during Starweb Turns. Hectic didn't even begin to describe the condition of our alliance's table. In addition Doug brought his grandson Timmy who joined into Covert Operations. We had the 4 of us looking over each other's shoulders to play Starweb while trying to hide our Covert Ops turns from each other. Quite comical really. Doug was deeply entrenched in 3 Heroic Fantasy games, which is why he took the relatively easy position of Art Collector. In the early afternoon Ken asks, "When is lunch"! I laughed. I remember this too well. I inform him that there is no lunch. No supper break either. Ken is pretty sure he has descended into some level of Hell where you must game in 115-degree weather with no opportunity to eat or do anything else. We rescue Ken and take him to our room where we dine on Turkey sandwiches and beer. It's good to be an experienced Convention Gamer. Remembering last year I made sure we checked out happy hour at the poolside bar. Nirvana! All hotel residents were entitled to unlimited free drinks between 5 and 6:30 PM. Let us just say that our alliance made use of this feature - DAILY! At the end of Day 1 our alliance had a really quick meeting. It was obvious we had to strike ASAP to get the war rolling on enemy territory and there were only 2 sites - Vampyr off of Moose and the Fortran border with Caesar. We then had time for dinner in an Italian place nearby, a dip in the pool, finished our turns and to bed by midnight. On Day 2 we let the war machines roll out. It took until about T10 to actually land. There was no resistance initially and we were feeling pretty good about things. I had some exploratory fleets that finally wrapped around the edge of the universe to Fortran (about 30 ships) that I was able to use to hit him at 3 additional places over the initial invasion by Caesar. The next turn I hear a cackling laugh by Fortran at a nearby table and my heart sinks. I think to myself "I've been 3to1ed and it's all over". Actually, he had engaged me and then abandoned all 3 worlds to me. I never actually found out what was so funny. Until T12 we fight this two pronged war while doing the usual. We give worlds to Caesar, art to Shaula, ships to Moose. Moose says he has noticed that resistance on the Vampyr border that exceeds his forces. The problem is only Shaula is close enough to reinforce. I am actually 4 turns from Moose. I finally stop expanding around T11 and now find the outreaches of the Nostradams border. We are encroaching on Fortran when all of a sudden it happens. Around T12 (maybe T13). There is a huge incursion of Vampyr into Moose (despite them continuing to defend vs Moose inside Megamouth. Moose had slipped in over the Vampyr border). Also, Fortran continues to resist us but is giving ground when a large Nostradams fleet hits Caesar. Our team has a quick little meeting between turns. We add up the ships and it seems the enemy has a little more than we do but what they have done is barely hold us off and counter invade us. It was a very good move. Moose says the enemy is 2 turns from a major invasion of his HW. Caesar is equally fearful for his HW. The problem is - which position do we push while fighting the war to keep us alive? Caesar has not kept pace with Megamouth. The opposition has decided from T1 to feed the EB at the expense of both pirates. It looks like their Apostle did the same as I have outstripped their apostle after owning only about 18 rocks. We can't push our EB to the win. Our Art collector has only 47 art - less than half and we calculate the game will go 18 turns. In the turns we have left Megamouth will have more than 2000 points on him and it will be touch and go for an AC win. So they turn to me. My alliance wants to know if I can Jihad and win without pulling any of the war fleets out of commission. Well, Megamouth was pulling in 900 points/turn while I was getting 400. If I could build 1 PBB per HW and destroy a population of 125 (these were the best in the game) I could boost my points to 1400/turn. Megamouth has about a 3000-point lead on me but by T18 I could be neck and neck. The problem was that I could do it if we still had 4 HWs. Lose one and I could not. The alliance was not keen on dismantling any of the war fleets for my use because we already had 50% of our HWs in jeopardy. Besides, I couldn't use the war fleets until I flew them back to our areas to hit the same Jihad target - Caesar. I looked at my alliance and did my best to read their minds. Moose had dismantled his winning war fleets last year to let me win. He was certainly getting tired of being a winning pirate who runs away. Caesar was telling me "Just tell me you can do it - and we will". But I wasn't sure. At last I realize "War is hell" and I tell them "To hell with the points. Let's kick some alien butt"! The end of Day 2 was around T13. The enemy alliance doesn't know our decision yet. We finish the day with another run at the Italian Restaurant, inviting the enemy alliance to sup with us. On Day 3 we fight in earnest. It quickly becomes obvious that our team isn't trying to score. This causes some interesting things to happen. Vampyr stops fighting Moose and starts firing AP. Obviously Moose is his Jihad target. Moose is so blinded by bloodlust and frothing at the mouth he continues to both defend his area and push deeper into Megamouth. In retrospect we realize we should have ignored Vampyr and let him score as he was trailing the leader by 5000 points. Moose could have then concentrated on the Nostradams invasion and hurting Megamouth. Oh well - once you get the taste of battle and blood it's hard to stop. Meanwhile, on the Caesar/Fortran border, I bring all my ships (haulers included as I determine that I have enough metal) and we play chicken. I keep going deeper into Fortran while Fortran/Nostradams go deeper into Caesar. Nobody bothers with my area - after all, it's totally converted. I also send invasion forces into Nostradams but there isn't enough time to hurt him. At the game end, I have nuked the Fortran HW while the enemies are at the Caesar HW. Strangely, Moose's HW never got invaded. In fact, if I had tried my Jihad gambit I may have been successful because we would have had every build until the end of the game. Also, some of our ships were defensive and could have been turned over. I noticed something else. As Vampyr tried to score he doubled his score accumulation and would pass me by games end. It was obvious he wanted to make a point and be the best Apostle of the game. I was a little peeved - the little piss ant was Jihading for 4 turns and I told my allies I could beat him with 1 turn's Jihad if they let me. On the second last orders of the game I create 5 PBBs and slide into 4rth place (above Vampyr) with 1700 points to spare :-). I have to nuke the Caesar HW while the enemies are there to do it . The game ends how we expect with Megamouth the EB winning. Our alliance takes 2nd thru 4rth place with Shaula the AC in second, Caesar the EB in third and I'm fourth. At the FBI Dinner (in a great steakhouse) that night we compare notes with the enemy alliance. I find out that Nostradams had no intention to hit any of our HWs. He felt that the threat of losing our HW might slow us down and encourage us not to go for a Jihad win. They feared that if we repelled a HW hit we could just slide to the win and felt that they could do more good being threatening. In retrospect I could have easily built the bombs I required but what can I say, the enemies mind games worked! You have to admire your opponents when they play a good game. In retrospect we could have done a lot better if we hadn't gone with an Apostle/EB combination diluting down the number of worlds available for each. True, the enemy alliance did this but they favored their EB. Highlights: Sitting at a table with my SW alliance and freely sharing our turnsheets while trying to cover our Covert Operations turnsheets :-). Swimming in the pool between turns (we had become experienced enough to finish all our turns early enough not to have to stay trapped in the convention hall all day). That incredible turn in Nuclear Destruction where Ken and I figured we controlled 75% of the countries and declare war. One Battle turn later we are both eliminated. How did we go so wrong? At least we had more time for Starweb. When we realized that we could put up Signs and started putting up humorous ones such as "Run Away"! The poolside thermometer that only went up to 110 degrees and seemed to have the arrow always plastered above it. Sneaking beer into the convention hall (these were the only rules we could circumvent :-). I must say that as much as I enjoyed gaming face to face I would have liked it more if we had more than 8 players. So here is the pitch. If you enjoy Starweb there is nothing more enjoyable than a long weekend in sunny Arizona playing it face to face with a bunch of good-humored gamers. Give it a try! Elliot ----------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? Remember my challenge last turn? Here it is explained again. What is (? was) the highest score seen in Starweb? Watch out this one is a trick question. I learned this interesting bit of trivia from Frank Lowther at he Convention this year and he and Mike Wulkan have my for their explanation. Apparently, the score is 32,767, but when it exceeds that the program wraps to -32,767 that is the highest number that can be stored in 2 bytes or 16 bits -1. This has been demonstrated in the past and I am unsure if FBI have made any changes to rectify this and accommodate higher scores. Can anyone confirm that they have achieved a higher score and that it appeared on their printout? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 - Doing My Turn - Part I 990906.2254-4 By Walter Schmidt walts@dorsai "Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination." - William Burroughs And since we wouldn't want any _one_ player to become too proficient, I've decided to go into some (more) detail about how I organize that simple-to-say process of "doing my turn." Having thought about it a while, it became clear to me [BUT to anyone else, clear as mud!] [Hi Alter] [HI Nemo] that it will take at least two Logs to do it justice. So consider this Log, part one of two. What better way to start this off by listing the twenty-four [TWENTY-four?!? My God - he's going to suffer us through a novel.] [Oh boy - with apologies to Quantum Leap] steps that on average, comprise one turn. These steps can be further thought of as being four Phases: Getting Ready (steps 1-5); Thinking About It (steps 6-9); Doing It (steps 10- 20), and; The Finish (steps 21-24). I am particularly fond of step 24. The twenty-four steps are: 1. Process Turn [using software], or manually 2. Update Map 3. Set-Up Fleet Control 4. Set-Up World Control 5. Set-Up Raw Material Control 6. Identify Current Potential Friend or Foe 7. Identify Potential World Visit Needs 8. Set Sign 9. Set Message Everyone 10. Begin Order Coding - in world numeric order, except for homeworld, do: 11. Build - and as needed update 3 - 5, for each of the 11 - 20 12. Transfer 13. Unload 14. Hook/Unhook 15. Load 16. Fire/Conditional Fire 17. Character Specific Orders 18. Move 19. "Met" Messages 20. Do Homeworld Orders - 11 - 19 21. Go do something else for a day or so 22. Decide to change or not change items 6 - 20 23. Email/Send turn 24. Have a drink of Tequila; knowing this turn will be the best it could be! The first Phase, to my processing is steps 1 through 5, where I'm really just getting things set-up. What things you might ask - well... 1. Process Turn [using software], or manually a. Firstly - yes, there is some differences between the beginning, middle and end game. As the spirit moves me I'll point out those differences. But to my current way of thinking - unless those differences are significant, I'll leave them for a follow-up article [A second novel - be still my beating heart] [that will be quite enough Alter]. b. I have to start somewhere. And while one can say that all these steps, are the steps necessary to process a turn - that's not what's meant here. Rather, I'm starting with the process of organizing that which I use to organize my turn [RIGHT! Nemo, you've just lost the bulk of your readers - can't you just use normal English like the rest of us?] [Alter, I allow you to exist because I truly believe you add something - even if just by giving our readers something to think about. The operative phrase here is "I allow..."] [YOU made your point]. c. Now as I was saying - there are a few things I do - before I start the turn. As I use the Flying Moose Technology Starweb Analyzer Program (SWAP for short), that's going to be my frame-of-reference. I also receive all my turns via email - saves on the processing. SWAP uses the format PLAYER_NAME.Tx, where x equals the turn number. So when I download the turn, I make sure I've saved it accordingly. This has an added benefit. One of the two things I print out is the downloaded turn. As Windows allows me to associate an extension with a program, all .Txs have been associated with Window's NotePad. To print out a particular turn all I have to do is double- click on the file, NotePad launches with the file open - and I print it out. Editor's note: SWAP will also allow turns named as PLAYER_NAME_Tx.txt so that notepad will also open it without having to go through the steps of associating file extentions. d. Next I process the turn in SWAP. 2. Update Map a. Using one of SWAP's nifty-keen features, the drudgery of drawing and re-drawing one's map has been removed. This includes SWAP listing just the unmapped connections associated with a particular world, or all unmapped connections. When you receive your next turn - and see that what you mapped "at top," should really have been mapped "at bottom," no sweat. You can drag and drop! b. So, I update my map - and print it out. It's the second of the two things I print out. 3. Set-Up Fleet Control a. SWAP allows me to produce a list that is just the fleets of a particular player. So I create a file that is my fleets and then edit it so that all it contains is: the key number; the number of ships attached; any raw material carried, and; the world at which the key currently resides. b. As I process my turn, I "add" the world to which I am sending the fleet. c. But I don't print this out. Rather, I insert it (and all other control files or comments) in the Order File that SWA creates. Sort of as remarks-lines that I use to leave notes to myself. 4. Set-Up World Control a. Similarly to my Fleet Control, I produce a World Control that contains: the world number; owner; industry; metal, and; mines. Why the owner? Unlike the Fleet Control, I include worlds other than my own. These can include worlds I just lost, worlds that are unowned, and worlds that I want to remember for a particular reason. b. As I process my turn, I "add" any fleets that I might be sending to that world. 5. Set-Up Raw Material Control a. If you have been following the last two steps, you might have already guessed that I have already set-up what amounts to my Raw Material Control. My Fleet Control includes any cargo carried, and my World Control includes the information needed to determine where all my raw materials can be found for the next turn. Having finished the first five steps, I am now ready to start figuring out that which is what I want to do, and then get to it. And, I think this is a good place to break until the next log - Shai Dorsai ! Nemo Editor's note: Cap, thanks for the interesting Log on organizing your turn. For Volume #16 I will make my feature the same on "How I organize a turn" to coincide with your Part II so that we can compare. To make this even more interesting I would like to invite any readers who still do their turn by pouring over turnsheets with pencil and paper to send me their turn cycle organization of events for publication. It should make for an interesting contrast and read. C'mon guys, it's an easy way to get your byline in the next SEDG! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE So far I haven't received much correspondence for the last article so I will take some time to say a few things. First, I hadn't added any new maps to the SEDG web page in a few weeks. But that has changed. There are a couple of new maps for SW-L/25 and SW-X349 on the web page for your enjoyment. I know that I promised a low key, low volume newsletter but I would appreciate some help. I would like the circulation of this newsletter to grow so if you are playing in any games presently why not email your allies a copy of the SEDG and ask them if they are interested in subscribing. I may be underestimating the readership because the web page gets a fair number of hits. I still have that wish list for articles. I have a couple SW buddies who have contributed some material and I have enough to cruise to Volume #30 easily. After that I will have to put the SEDG out on more casual basis as I write or receive good articles. I know there is only a limited amount anyone can write about this fine game but I would like to see this forum last at least until Volume 50 before going into sporadic publication. Here is my wish list for articles. Remember you don't have to be an expert or cover the topic completely. For Example Volume #13 containing Lee Knirko's interesting article on Multigame play really only deals with his favored way of playing and his favorite character combinations. There is still a lot of stuff that can be said about Multigames. Here is that wish list again. Tales of the Black Box (a combined effort - I'm pooling info from many sources. Backstabbers, Spoilers and brats. Know any? Multi games - call for articles - best character mix, strategies, and alliances. Anonymous games - call for articles - strategies, how to form alliances and get help in war without communication. Bitter end games - call for articles - character types, alliances, strategies. Time Travel Starweb. Pandora's Box. (Anyone remember that one :-). Interesting Diplos! More maps for the SEDG! Well, that's it for Volume 15. 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