RSW

Hi All

If you were in Slave 3m I would very much like to hear from you about the game. If you played one of the new characters which included Architect, Skip Tracer, Arms Dealer, Warlord or Scavenger I would appreciate your feedback.

For information about the setup of the new characters please look up the Forum Post titled 'Playtesting New Characters'.

1) Arms Dealer - scored very poorly and it takes too long to create ships. Basically in this game he needed 4 ships/4metal to create 1 ship to the homefleet. He gets 8 points per ship built. I think his susceptibility to being shot and his poor firepower are essential elements cuzz if he is powered up he can't be allowed to use his own ships for a military advantage. He must sell them.

I'm thinking that we shouldn't allow him to double or triple load metal because that makes him able to compete for the trader's business. But perhaps he should be able to create 1 ship for every 2 metal he has on board. Also he should probably get a few more points - let's say 10/ship built.

2) Architect - I played this one to 2nd place. In keeping with using my powers for Starbridge building I tried not to get directly involved in fighting. Unfortunately I did want to fight Roger and that probably cost me the game (one more bridge and I could have won). I figured out some good strategies for using the bridges to get closer to an enemy HW and to link allied HWs to improve firepower of my alliance. I don't think this position needs a boost.

3) Warlord - His 1.5 shots per ship makes him an impressive foe. This position has been tried now in 4 games and in a game where I've given it 2.0 shots/ship and resistance to being shot the position is a bit too powerful. Unfortunately our Warlord was in a very successful military alliance and was in 8th place with less than 1/3 the score. I think this position just needs a boost in points for his military ventures. I'm thinking of doubling his scoring so it looks like this.
Points Per Ship Destroyed = 10
Points Per Target Ship Destroyed = 20
Points Per Fleet Captured = 40
Points Per Target Fleet Captured = 80
Points Per World Captured = 150
Points Per Target World Captured = 300

4) Skip Tracer - Our Skip ran around the universe and was everywhere. He ranked 4rth and his score was only 1000 off the win. I noticed him running thru enemy territory with his drive to get more points for new worlds visited and his relative resistance to ambush. He fulfilled the role of being motivated to spy on unallied territory cuzz he couldn't maintain scoring by just flying thru his known allied area. I think this character was just right.

5) Scavenger - hard to say about this position. He was under fire from the winner of the game. Any position will look poor if it's losing a military battle. So it's hard to say whether he needs beefing up in score or power. But he does have the ability to scavenge ships he destroys and capture neutral keys. So he is better off in battle than an emperor, positronix, trader or collector. Despite this he ranked 9th and his scoring was all geared to capturing ships and keys at 10 a piece. My inclination is even if he loses a war he should have destroyed some enemy ships and died with a decent score. This doesn't appear to have happened. So I think I would boost this player to get more points. Let say 20/ship captured and 15/key owned.

It will obviously take a few playtests to get the balance of power and scoring correct. I'm giving this post about a week for feedback then I'm going to setup a new playtest. Perhaps sometime soon these characters will get a template by RSW and be offered as standard positions throughout their games.

Ok - now talk to me .

Elliot
Somnos

I think scavenger played fine except that I didn't play it well

Arms Dealer:
Being de-fanged is one thing ----- as long as you've got good allies. It was a challenge that I thought I dealt with pretty well. But the cost of building ships was absurd, and no client was willing to make the necessary investment. The problem is that first you have to build 4 times as many ships onto the Dealers fleets as he's going to be building out at the front. Why bother? If you're going to build all those ships, why not just have the Dealer ferry them to the front? Except he gets no points for doing that. In a long game with a huge map and lots of metal lying around in out-of-the-way places, it might be different. In a regular game with a regular map, and the Arms Dealer parameters set up the way they were in this game, the position is utterly worthless and I would never play it again.
That being said, the position is salvageable by changing the parameters, but I don't believe Elliot's suggestion goes nearly far enough. To be worthwhile, if the price is going to be 4 metal/ship the dealer needs to be able to quad load. Period. It's the only way the position would be playable. To solve the "super merchant" problem, once a Dealer's fleet is more than single loaded he can't move; he has to either build, jettison, or unload. Problem solved.
If the Dealer could quad load and everything else (except movement) stayed the same, I'd give it another shot. Without the ability to quad load I wouldn't bother.
Dale (ZenCat)

Hi Dale

It would take a tweak of the programming to make the ships immobile when overloaded. I would have to talk to the moderator of RSW to see if he is willing to go this route or to just change the ratio as I suggested. Problem is - later in a game when the arms dealer has 200-300 ships he could conceivably create an equal number of ships per turn (if he can find the metal). That might be excessive. Perhaps a triple load might be better.

In any case this position will definitely get some sort of boost for the next play test.

Elliot

The 2nd Playtest with the new characters is ready to be played. It is Greatly3t.

Descriptions of the characters are elsewhere on the Forum. Here are the next modifications.

Old Characters
Emperor - 1 pt/world in addition to regular scoring.
Positronix - only 100 pts per PBB plus kill points
Raider - Increased plunder pts - 100/80/60/40/20
Missionary - increased martyr and Jihad points.

New Characters
Architect - no changes. Still builds, moves and destroys starbridges.
Arms Dealer - can build ships - 2 metal/ship and has double loading capacity like a trader. Points are now 12 pts/ship created.
Warlord - keeps his 1.5 shots/ship. Increased points - ships destroyed =10, targetted character = 20. Fleet capture is 40/80 targetted. World capture is 150/300 targetted. Can still capture robotic or converted worlds.
Scavenger - score boost of 20 pts/ship captured. 15 pts/key owned. Still can scavenge neutral keys and scavenge 1/4 of damaged enemy ships.
Skip Tracer - no changes - 1/2 firepower and only 1/2 ambushed he scores by seeing new worlds!

Go Ahead - sign up. Only 11 spots.

Elliot