The Third Turn

Once the third turn begins, and after you straighten out the new map connections, you have a map something like this:

Turn 3 map

Now, this is getting interesting! You have encountered another player! The RSW Client has picked a random color to assign to the new player, which happens to be brown in this case.

Let's take a closer look at the worlds on which you have encountered this new player:

World 27 detail World 16 detail World 6 detail

So, what happened? It looks like fleet 7, which we'd ordered to world 27 last turn, arrived there as ordered, and found the world was already owned by the new player, Bill. At the same time, fleet 19--one of Bill's fleets--arrived on your world 16, and captured it from you! (If you click on fleet 19 in the list, you'll see that it was moved from world 27 to world 16 this turn.)

Why did Bill's fleet capture world 16 from you, yet your fleet did not capture world 27 from Bill? The difference is the I-Ships. Bill has left 1 I-Ship on world 27--you can see this I-Ship listed in the Detail panel for world 27, above--which prevents your fleet from automatically capturing the world from them. On the other hand, you have left no ships on world 16, so when Bill's fleet arrived, they were the only player with ships at that world, and so they automatically captured it from you.

You could, of course, now order fleet 7 to fire at Bill's one I-Ship on world 27. That would destroy the I-Ship, and presuming Bill does not send any reinforcements to the world, you would then capture the world from them. But that sort of aggressive act would be sure to put a strain on any diplomatic relationships with your nearest neighbor. Remember, Bill didn't necessarily intend to capture world 16 from you, and chances are good that they will be willing to return ownership of world 16 to you, maybe as part of some broader agreement--but you'll have to work that out with Bill.

Now, world 6 is also interesting. No one owns this world, because both you and Bill arrived there at the same time. As long as both of you have ships there, neither one will capture it, but if one of you moves your fleet away this turn and the other remains, then the one player remaining will capture the world. In general, you capture a world by being the only player with ships there (including I-Ships and P-Ships). Any negotiations with Bill will certainly involve a discussion of the future ownership of world 6.

Note the empty, unowned fleet 13 at world 6. Like the world itself, this fleet is unowned, until there is only one player there with ships there--and that player will then own this fleet. Before that time, you should not attempt to transfer ships to this unowned fleet, since doing so will not capture the fleet; it would only give away the ships.

There's one more thing worth pointing out here: Bill has left a trail of converts behind. There are 13 converts on world 27 (out of 54 total population, or 24%), and 3 now on world 16 (out of 19 population, or 16%). This tells you immediately that Bill must be a Missionary. Many of the other character types are not so immediately recognizable, but knowing that Bill is a Missionary will help you know what concessions they will ask of you (for instance, maybe they will be willing to let you keep world 6, in return for letting them make converts there).

In any case, the real game of RSW has just begun. From now on, everything you do will be colored by your diplomatic success or failure with Bill, as well as with any other neighbors you encounter in the future. You should click on the Messages tab in the game window to send an introductory message to Bill to get things going.

Good luck!