STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP (THE SEDG) (Sponsored by Flying Moose Technologies' Starweb Analyzer - VOLUME 30, April 1, 2000 CONTENTS Feature Article - STARWEB 2000 by Walter Schmidt Questions - Museums in Starweb 2000 SEDG Web Page URL The Captain's Log - Starweb 200 Playtest - by Elliot Hudes The Swap Corner Correspondence - The Play testers comment Summary FEATURE ARTICLE Subscribers - I have the pleasure of providing you with the first look at some of the features of the long awaited Starweb 2000 revisions. I have outlined many of the significant changes in the following article, and since the Captain and a few others have been play testing it, the Captain's Log for this issue includes some of their findings. So with no further ado... Walter Schmidt FEATURE ARTICLE - STARWEB 2000 by Walter Schmidt Starweb 2000 Rules 8th edition Copyright 1976, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1988, 2000 by Flying Buffalo Inc IV. THE CHARACTER TYPES You are one of six possible types of beings. Each character type (being) gets points for doing different things, as described below. A. THE EMPIRE BUILDER. Your people believe in manifest destiny. It is your goal to control as much of the universe as possible. You and only you can build, re-design and maintain Transfer-Portals that have as their destination a world known to you. It does not matter how many worlds it takes to get there. As long as you know all the connections between two worlds, you can build the TP, which occurs before movement. Once built it attaches itself to the originating world as yet another destination world. The cost to build a TP is a number of T ships equal to twice the number of worlds in the length of the world- chain that are above three. The cost to re-design a TP is a number of T ships equal to one-half the number of worlds in the length of the world-chain that are above three. But no TP can be re-designed until it has been used at least once. If a world with a TP is owned by other than an Empire Builder, all TPs are frozen, they can not be re- designed, until an Empire Builder again owns the world. The number of TPs allowed at any world is equal to the number of that world's original connections. But only an Empire Builder can perceive which of a world's connections are TPs. SPECIAL POWER: Other non-allied players can use your TP, but do so for a fee of ships equal to three times the number of worlds in the length of the world-chain that are above three. This fee will appear as T ships attached to the originating world at the beginning of the next turn. If this fee reduces the key's ship count so it no longer has ships, the key will arrive at its destination as a neutral-key with zero ships. Your allies can use your TP without any fee. As an Empire Builder you can use any TP without fee, as a courtesy extended between all Empire Builders that can not be revoked. B. THE MERCHANT. You are interested only in trade. You and only you can purchase and sell Artifacts for a fee of ships. All artifacts can be purchased for a fee of five ships and sold for a fee of ten ships. SPECIAL POWER: For trading a set of artifacts that obtain a special end-of-game point bonus for the purchaser, you too will gain that bonus. And while you do gain ships from the trade of Artifacts, at the end of the game any Artifacts in your possession that were obtained by trade will cost you ten times the maximum points that could be earned by any player, as will any set of bonus-point, trade-obtained artifacts. C. THE PIRATE. You are interested in plunder, and you get points for plundering worlds. You and only you can set traps that do not destroy the keys and ships that blunder upon them, but rather capture them. These traps follow the current Ambush rules with the following exceptions. The capture rate is quadrupled not doubled, i.e., 1 ship captures 2 ships. The first turn after a Trap order has been given, the ships will only ambush - consider this the trap preparation turn. The second and following turns ships can only trap. It is only the turn after a Trap has been Unset, that ships can do other than Trap - consider this the time needed to dismantle the trap. Any non-ally ships that are captured by a trap increase the total of the trapping ships on a one for one basis. This, except when all ships on a key are trapped, in which case the key and all its ships ownership revert to the Trapping Pirate. Only the Pirate that set the Trap will know his ships are in Trap-Mode. However, if a Pirate probes a world that contains any Traps set by any Pirates, his probe will recognize those ships for what they are - a Trap. SPECIAL POWER: Following the Pirate's "more than three to one" capture rules, a Pirate can also capture or take over another Pirate's Traps. On the turn the capturing Pirate takes over the other Pirate's trap, the ships he just obtained are considered to immediately be in non-trap mode. D. THE ARTIFACT COLLECTOR. As the richest person on a rich world, your jaded tastes are excited by the idea of owning unique things. The new Special Artifacts according to their associated power initially affect you and only you. For all other character-types upon finding a Special Artifact, it's effected is as of a "standard artifacts not of your category." While the list of Special Artifacts is expected to grow, presently the following have been added. Note that while each Special Artifact's mass is slightly more than 50% of that of a Black Hole's mass, each Special Artifact also can cancel out any and all effects of such great mass, as long as it is the only Special Artifact attached to a particular world or key. Any Special Artifact, whose affect is controlled by a counter, has that counter increment regardless of a change is location or ownership. Special Probe: provides a Full-Probe of all worlds connected to the current location of the Special Probe. This includes identification of any TPs or Traps. Special Key: allows for turn movement of six-world chain length. Special Key-Ship: cannot be destroyed. Special Industry-Ship: cannot be destroyed and allows existing industry to build ships with all available metal, every other turn. Special Population-Ship: cannot be destroyed and ensures your population is your own. Special Transport Portal Ship: cannot be destroyed and allows for the design and re-design of TPs at no cost. It also increases the maximum number of TPs a world can have, by two. Special Metal: provides metal equal to twice the number of a world's industries, every other turn. Special PPB: when dropped by a Berserker or Apostle, to whom it has been gifted by an Artifact Collector, it has the applicable effects, but also to all 1-ring worlds. When dropped by an Artifact Collector or one of the other three character-types, to which an Artifact Collector gifted it, its mass instantly doubles. Special Null: does nothing, nor does it allow any other Special Artifact at the same location to function, regardless of ownership, by temporarily converting the effect of all such Special Artifacts into that of "standard artifacts not of your category." This "conversion" occurs before any Special Article effect can occur, and stays in affect as long as the other Special Artifacts are at the same location as the Special Null. SPECIAL POWER: Twice each game, you can gift a New Artifact such that its associated power(s) will affect the player to whom you gifted the artifact. Its new owner can not further gift such a gifted artifact. Although, the new owner can attach the Special Artifact to an Artifact Collector's key at the cost of no longer enjoying the effect of the once owned Special Artifact. E. THE BERSERKER. You are a computer in charge of a race of robots. Your prime directive is to kill all life wherever you find it. You and only you can shoot and kill "goodlife" for points. Each G-Shot, regardless of source kills five populations and gains you points. And if you destroy all the existing population and have at least one G-Shot extra, you capture the world with, initially, a population of 1 robot for each extra G-Shot. The G-Shot's results are not affected by any existing P-Ships. SPECIAL POWER: If you attempt G-Shots at a world that has human and robot population, the G-Shots first destroy all "goodlife," and then destroy robots at 2 robots for each G-Shot, with points for the "goodlife" killed, but no points awarded or lost for the robots destroyed. If you also destroy all the existing robots and have at least one G-Shot extra, you capture the world with, initially, a population of 1 robot for each extra G-Shot. F. THE APOSTLE. You are a religious fanatic (or political fanatic, if you prefer). Your purpose is to convert the entire galaxy to your particular point of view. You and only you can "get blood from a stone." As such, and since your fanatics can make do with much less than the rest of us, all limits on worlds owned by you can be "used" to an amount double their value. Further, the Apostle's convert rate is now 25%. This can be increased to 100% by the use of a Planet-wide Propaganda Bomb, which follows the requirements of a Berserker's PPB. SPECIAL POWER: If you take control of another Apostle's holdings, using existing capture/control rules, for ridding the universe of a heretic and not just an unbeliever, all limits on worlds so capture by you can be "used" to an amount double their value. Walter Schmidt ----------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS - Can anyone answer these? In Starweb 2000 do the new Special Artifacts contribute to museums? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- STARWEB EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUP - is now available on the web. Look for our new MAPPER'S SECTION on the SEDG Web Page. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURE - THE CAPTAIN'S LOG By Elliot Hudes ( Well, I suppose it's time for me to tell you how I spent my winter holiday [Yah, we all want to hear about your visit to Hell!] ALTER - it really wasn't that hot - quit yer bellyaching. [Next winter we are going to try visiting the sun!]. Enough about that. During my children's March break from school I decided to take Rick up on his kind offer to come down to Arizona and Play test his brand spanking new version of Starweb rightly called STARWEB 2000. It was a nice chance to escape the ice and snow of Canada [And bake our keesters off]. ALTER - HUSH! I spent most of the flight studying the new rulebook. Many of the basics were the same thank goodness but there were a lot of add ons and new twists. It was nice to see that the merchant's points/metal was curtailed back to 5 and that Berserkers were only getting 100 point bonuses for their PBBS. I even liked the fact that Apostles could pack in their fanatics like sardines. This would make the martyrdom route a viable way to score and win. Some of these special abilities the characters were being given gave me pause to wonder which position was now best situated to fight, score and win. After settling in at the hotel I joined Rick Company in the suite they rented. Since Flying Moose Technologies didn't have the Starweb Analyzer geared up for the new variant I had to go back to pencil and paper - grumble, grumble [Now whose bellyachin'?] Gee, Alter I thought you fell asleep. [Wouldn't be hard to]. There were only 6 of us playing and Rick wanted us to try each of the character types. It was in a web specially designed by Chuck to house this smaller game. I recognized Frank my honorable opponent from last year's tournament. He was playing DUARF the Apostle. Rick was playing in as DEKAF the Art Collector but I didn't know the other 3 players. There was Lee from Chicago playing RAKNEM the Berserker, Ken from Southern Cal playing AHCTOG the merchant and Alaska Bob playing BACKSTAB the Empire Builder. Finally I decide that it was a Pirate's life for me. And so my character was LOOFLIRPA the Pirate. I was aching to build those pirate traps and see how many ships I could capture. I looked over the rules and thought it would sure be nice for the war effort if I allied with the Empire builder. With the right amount of enemy probing he could create a Transfer-Portal to an enemy HW and I could overwhelm him. I was also thinking of goading a neighbor into attacking me and laying out a huge Pirate trap on the ground for him. I approach BACKSTAB and he's interested. Our alliance is set - it's to be Pirate-EB. I figure on ignoring the art - the descriptions gave me a headache and I couldn't see the advantage of any of the special art. That was my first mistake. So the first 4 turns were done in rapid succession. It was the usual rapid expansion and grab as much stuff as you can. I meet AHCTOG the merchant on T4 and agree to sell him art for the 5 ships per piece. Why not, I can use ships. He will likely turn it over to DEKAF but who cares. That's one happy border. In addition I meet DEKAF the AC, DUARF the Apostle and my buddy BACKSTAB. I have no idea where in the universe RAKNEM is hiding. According to plan I start sending small keys into DEKAF to probe his area and find the HW. Similarly I send in a couple probe ships into DUARF. I won't invade him. I just want him irritated enough that once I do start trouble he thinks about invading me. I find the Special-Industry Artifact and the Special Metal - Artifact. Man, Rick's gotta find better names for the new art. I also consider the effect of attaching and unattaching the SI and SM in cycle... to the same world. And although risky I take them right to the border world with DUARF. I drop the Special-Metal onto this 3-industry world and gift the world to my EB. Let's see what we can do here! I hear rumors that DUARF and RAKNEM have allied. They want to see if the Apostle can double stack the worlds and let the Berserker nuke them. Each of them can then get double the points that they could in the usual SW game and it sure would make up for the loss of points berserkers got for their PBBs. It's not a bad gambit but it's completely nonwarfare based. I smile and wonder how well they will do once I start moving on DUARF. DEKAF (AC) has allied with AHCTOG (merchant) but the merchant is claiming neutrality and wants to haul for me. Forget it! He manages to haul for BACKSTAB also. BACKSTAB needs a large metal base to allow him to build his TPs. We spend the turns 5-9 hauling, hauling, and hauling. I've thoroughly mapped out DEKAF's area before he has destroyed my probes. Similarly, I've annoyed DUARF with my probings. I've discovered an interesting effect. I gave that DUARF border world to my EB buddy who has been building industry. He had taken the 3 industry world to 5 and the special art I found seem to be feeding off each other. One turn the metal increases by 10 (twice the industry) and the next turn the Special-Industry builds all the metal to industry. I jumped in 2 turns to a 15 industry world. 2 turns later (T10) the world has jumped to 45 industry. I'm so euphoric I can't take it. I immediately build a 45 ships Pirate Trap and decide that I want to keep building Trap ships here as the special art continues to do it's thing. This uses up 1 turn of builds but as expected the next turn I am given 90 metal. On T12 I should be able to build 90 more T ships and have a Pirate trap of 135 ships by T13! I just gotta get DUARF to invade me. I get my ally to tell his merchant that I'm invading DUARF in force on T11. Let's see what happens there. Meanwhile, my true intention is to get a huge armada instantly to DEKAF's HW via Transfer Portal. Boyoboy - LOOFLIRPA the Pirate is going to kick some Alien Butt!!!! I don't really care who wins but it would be great to take out 1/3 of the web! I gift my HW to BACKSTAB. I ask him to create a Transfer Portal to DEKAF's HW. It is only ring 6 to me but I ask him to make a circuitous route in the portal to make the connection about 12 rings deep. This will cost us only 18 ships. As for the length of the Portal, well, I can use the Portal for free but the portal also allows the enemy to use it from the other end. While some might play it safe and create the Portal away from their HWs I am going to have some fun and link our HWs. If he uses the Portal as a nonally it will cost him 27 ships (3 times the length of the Portal above 3rings). This effectively creates a 27-ship ambush in our way. I like it. The plan seems to be coming together. On T11 The Portal is activated. I decide to use T12 to launch to his HW. T12 arrives and I have 120 ships available to hit DEKAF down the Portal. I send 10 ships over the DUARF border to show him I really will be rattling his chain. T13 - I land on the DEKAF HW. I have 120 ships. It looks like I have taken them totally by surprise. There are 85 ships there and some various art. It looks like they have a couple of the Special art - The Special Key and the Special Probe. Nothing that can help them now. The industry is shut down and I am ready to cause some mayhem. I've decided to bring my next builds in and most of my hauling ships (another 30) and to shoot half my ships AH and the rest at keys. Meanwhile my fondest wish has come true. My border world with DUARF sees a 103 ship joint armada of RAKNEM/DUARF land to show me the error of my ways. The ships are TRAPPED!! The keys are mine. I make the order to unset the trap so that on T14 I can have those 103 ships plus my 135 ships and send them into DUARF in conventional fashion for a good old fashioned invasion. T14 - Something funny has happened. I've captured the DEKAF HW as predicted and I seem to have 180 ships there. There are almost no ships in the air and they didn't fire on me????? I look at my HW and see it. They took two keys down the Portal and accepted the ambush. They have 26 ships and each key has a special artifact on it. I have my outbound hauling fleets (30 ships) and my builds (also 30 ships). I know what happens next - they are going to transfer both special arts to one key and they both have >50% the mass of a Black Hole. I choose one to fire on. Now that I notice it how did they have enough ships at the HW to do this - how could they be sure of the survival down my Portal? T15 - it all comes clear. I take 100 ships back down the Portal to rescue my HW. I have chosen the wrong key to destroy. The two art have come together on one key and survived. A black hole ensues and I lose my HW, my 100 ships and many keys. It is obvious how I was outmaneuvered. At the old DEKAF HW an armada of AHCTOG (Merchant), remnants of DUARF come in and they are accompanied by ships owned by ..... BACKSTAB. True to his name he gets me. The game ends on T17 but not before I have ransacked the DUARF empire with all those ships I trapped from RAKNEM and DUARF. Without their ships and a hearty battle they never get to try out PBBs of their doubly populated Martyrs. The game ends with the Empire Builder BACKSTAB in first place. Those two special arts kept at it until he had a world on T17 that had 255 industry and he had no trouble using ships to industrialize surrounding worlds. I'm not sure it's that good having that Special Mine/Industry art laying around. The Merchant came in second followed closely by the Art Collector. It was an interesting game but I think there are still a lot of rough edges. The ability to develop goodlife worlds by the Berserker makes him even meeker than before. There is no need for battle at all for him. The Apostle does have an increase ability to play using martyr points over Jihad now but I'm not sure this doesn't lead to too much pacifism also. I really enjoyed the use of Transport-Portals and Pirate Traps and think the Pirate and Empire Builder positions are the best in the game. The Special art is so good that I'm not sure that anyone will give them to an Art Collector. All in all a lot of fun and a good game. Rick - when will we be able to sign up? Elliot ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURE - THE SWAP CORNER If you try to run a Starweb 2000 turnsheet through the Starweb Analyzer it will crash. Sorry :-). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CORRESPONDENCE Editor - here are some comments from the Play testers regarding their characters. Bob/BACKSTAB the EB said: NOTE TO ELLIOT: it stands to reason you want Transfer Portals from high mine count worlds to your homeworld. It also stands to reason you want to design and redesign the TP to include a circuitous enough route that for an enemy to use the TP would be very costly - maybe a ten chain world. We used this to good effect versus DEKAF. It also stands to reason that to minimize the cost of a very long- distant TPs is a three-step process: build a shorter chain at "cost- 2x;" use it; then extend it at a cost of 0.5x. Of course, in times of war and for a cost, a long TP can be built and used - all in one turn. All of a sudden, in a multi-player/partner game you do want to have an EB on your side. Ah, but as a defense - one has Pirate Traps! Also - sending a one-ship key through an enemy's TP will get it to the destination - as a neutral-key with zero ships. And if that one ship happens to be the Special Key-Ship, and it meets the requirements such that its power is working... Ken/AHCTOG the Merchant said: The new merchant rules make them very competitive with Art Collectors. The gains could be great but so can the losses. A Merchant, as part of an alliance could end a game by reaching the end-point total, yet have his score significantly reduced - thereby allowing the potential of another in his alliance to win. For example have the Merchant store ten traded artifacts on one world and at the end of the game he loses 5,000 points! Elliot/LOOFLIRPA the Pirate comments: One could set a trap at a homeworld to prevent the enemy's long distant Transfer Portal. But once sprung, do you leave the trap set - to intercept a possible following attack-wave, or do you turn it off so you can start "using" the ships. And if you're on the attacking side - do you always attack in two or more waves. And, if you don't have other ships around you who are not in Trap-Mode, and you don't Trap all the enemy ships, for one turn your Trapping-Ships are sitting ducks. Rick/DEKAF the Art Collector commented: Put two together or rather two Special Arts together and you get a black hole with all existing assets scattered not destroyed. And that is how we got your HW :-). Consider, move two Special Artifacts to an enemy world and then combine them on the same key. If you're the enemy you hope you can get the SNull there the same turn the two are combined. Also consider the effect of "using" the SM and SIS in tandem (Editor - I did on the DUARF border). And as an act of G-d, if the results of a Special Artifact's Black hole creation is to have two of them scatter to the same location - can you say boom! Lee/RAKNEM the Berserker said: Well Elliot I was really hoping to use 'G' shots to depopulate those doubly populated DUARF worlds. Losing those ships to you and fending off your advances put a whole in that concept. Frank/DUARF the Apostle said: I echo Lee's thoughts. I was hoping that with a 25% conversion rate and double population that I could cruise to a good score in the wake of the Berserker's PBB fire. Too bad there wasn't another Apostle in the Play Test. I would love to see the effect of capturing the enemy Apostle's HW and seeing everything double including the industry. I see a loophole in this rule though. Two Apostles ally and fire on each other's HW to friendly capture them and the industry becomes 60. Do it again and the industry is 120. Seems like an easy way to abuse the new rules. SUMMARY APRIL FOOLS!!!!! APRIL FOOLS!!!!! APRIL FOOLS!!!!! APRIL FOOLS!!!!! But did you spot the clues??? 1) I deliberately put a mistake in the Captain's Log. There is no way that LOOFLIRPA could have used those Special Artifacts to create that giant Pirate Trap. After all, in SW 2000 only the Art Collector can use the Special Art's special abilities. 2) Notice anything funny about the player's character names? Spell some of them backwards. LOOFLIRPA the Pirate is really APRILFOOL the pirate. DUARF = FRAUD! DEKAF = FAKED! AHCTOG = GOTCHA! AS to the other names, they were modelled for some of my gaming buddies in Starweb. Lee from Chicago playing RAKNEM the Berserker = Lee Knirko playing MENKAR. Alaska Bob playing BACKSTAB = Bob Easton who did me in on my first Convention game! Did any of you figure it out? Did Walter and I GETCHA?? We shall be back April 10th for our usual informative SEDG Elliot Well, that's it for Volume 30. Don't be afraid to submit articles or suggestions. They don't have to be long. Address your correspondence to Elliot Hudes at