From the Mouth of Sauron Issue: E-1 Date: 12-17-93 An Experiment This is an experiment. Prior to the start of game 117, I ran a newsletter to help coordinate team information and strategy. The newsletter was discontinued with the start of the game, since many of the members have e-mail and the remainder could be contacted by phone far more quickly. Alas, the U.S. postal service simply proved less than adequate in comparison with other methods of exchanging knowledge. Given the much faster response time inherent to e-mail,I thought I'd give a shot at putting together an electronic newsletter. There may be alot of interest, there may be none; I'm curious to see what you all think of the idea. I'll run a couple of issues to 'test the waters' and see how people respond. If there's sufficient interest, The Mouth will go out every Friday. If not, the newsletter will be discontinued and revert back to a simple file of updates on encounters, artifacts, and so forth. Newsletters rely upon contributions by the readership. If you like the idea of a newsletter, then by all means feel free to send in a contribution. Possible subject ideas might include (but certainly aren't limited to): - questions concerning game mechanics, encounters, etc. that you'd like to have answered by a veteran reader. - strategy and tactical ideas. - humor (my favorite) - personal opinions on styles of play - analysis of various nations, allegiances, etc. - information or data on the market, combat, etc. - interesting experiences, examples of brilliant or poor play, neat tricks - just about anything you can think of that's even remotely connected to ME-PBM (e.g., essays on Tolkien's body hair, whether or not his nephew actually wrote most of the Silmarillion, etc). I'll print anything you send me except for personal attacks upon another player or blacklists. If you submit something, you don't have to do it under your own name. Aliases are fine; just you and I will know who wrote the article or response. Should the writing bug nip you one in the ass, simply send your article to me at my e-mail address with an attached note saying that you want it to go out in The Mouth. Also indicate what alias, if any, you want to use. Don't use neat-looking formats, because I'll just have to reformat it for inclusion anyway (the various systems of individual players cut word-processing documents to hell). Format During these first few issues, the format of the newsletter will run like this: - editorial observations by yours truly - letters (forum) - changes to basic game information (artifacts, setups, etc.) - changes/additions to encounters - rumors of all sorts - questions that someone would like answered - articles submitted by the readership As this counts as the first issue, the only items here are my comments (above) and various changes to artifacts and encounters, plus a few notes. Mayhap the next issue will be somewhat more interesting Information on Artifacts The baselines on the artifact list are slightly off in a number of cases. I never bothered to correct these until now. Most of this information was provided by my teammates in game 117 (who're somewhat more thorough than I am): - Collar of Command, 160: this is a Command +30 artifact, not Command +25. - Dragon Helm of Dor-Lomin, 61: my best information says this is a Command +15 artifact, not Command +10. However, I recently heard a rumor that this artifact has been changed to +30. Anyone with an interest may want to do a 'research artifact'; I'd appreciate hearing about the results. - Ring of Impersonation, 4: this is an Agent +25 artifact, not Agent +20. - Lorglin, 8: This is a mage +15 artifact, not mage +20. - Orb of Seeing, 35: This is a mage +30 artifact, not mage +35. - Galadriel has Nenya (12); Gandalf has Narya (13). This was inadvertantly switched on my artifact list. And for some more rumored secondary powers: - 15 Tinculin: Access to Spirit Mastery.* - 16 Mothras: Alternate list has this as access to Dark Summons, not access to Spirit Mastery.* - 18 Tablets of Dark Knowledge: Alternate list has this as access to Dark Summons, not access to Spirit Mastery.* - 77 Ungolrist: This has a bonus to fighting spiders. - 81 Sil-Maegil: This has a bonus to fighting evil creatures.* - 101 E Voronwe: Access to teleport. - 127 Aranruth: This has a bonus to fighting evil creatures.* - 133 Dagger of Green Wisdom: Access to conjuring ways.* All of those marked with an asterisk haven't been independently confirmed by other sources. I list I recently received actually had an entry for the One Ring. It said that the Ring gives a character a +90 to his best ability and a Stealth rating of 100. Sounds a bit far-fetched to me. One other list I had in my possession said the Ring gives a character a +60 to his best ability and also a stealth bonus, but that hasn't been confirmed either. Rumors Rumors abound in the game, most ludicrous. Rather than attempting to make an educated guess, or spending hours poring over data to see if you can confirm or deny what you hear, I suggest you ask Bill at GSI directly. To date, I've sent my a half-dozen letters chock-full of questions, and as a result, I've learned an astonishing amount concerning how the game works. It also helped to dispel a number of far-fetched but much-treasured 'old gamers tales' concerning encounters, the economic system, combat, and so forth. Some examples: - the defensive bonus provided by fortifications is 10%-20% of the constitution value of the owning army. Towers give the force a 10% bonus, citadels a 20%, with everything else falling in-between (I think these figures were clarified in the November issue of Whispers). - Most ideas on how the market system works are hogwash. It's rather complicated, but follows many real-world rules of supply and demand. Quickly, market prices aren't determined by treasury alone; it's possible for a single player to buy out the entire stock of a resource on the market (I've done this a number of times); sells don't have built-in limitations, other than what's provided by the overall capacity of the market; pricing is interconnected and limited by an 'averaging' factor; the basic laws of supply and demand play a very big role in determining prices and capacity; and much more. - for most encounters, you can skip the '290' order and go directly to the '285' order, providing a response. Of course, you have to know what you're facing, since you won't get an option list like you do with the '290' order. - dragons can encounter more than one person during the turn. If a dragon finds someone in the hex, others (who don't get the encounter description) can do a '285' and react to the dragon. They'll do so individually, so characters can't 'gang up' to fight a dragon (although they could fight it one after another, eventually cutting it down if they're all good enough). These are just a few examples of what Bill has told me in our Q&A sessions. It pays to talk to the game creator; no player will ever know more than a small fraction of what he does. If you have questions that you want answered by Bill, you can just drop him a card directly. In addition, I compile lists and send them off to him every once in a while, so I'll be more than happy to forward any questions you have by putting them down on the list (makes life easier for Bill if they come in one letter). Loyalty Ranges There's some interest in learning what loyalty ranges correspond to the description you get when an emissary does an 'Influence Other'. Rebellious seems to be 1-15, marginal 16-25 or 30, etc. Anyone who's interested can send what data they have to me; I'll compile it and put the results out in the next newsletter. Revised Files The data files I have on ME-PBM have been revised substantially since I first sent them out a few weeks ago. The formatting problems inherent in the expanded margins were also taken care of, for those of you who have systems that trash files with long line lengths. I also revised the results, so that the 'escape' entry was cut into 'escape unharmed' and 'escape injured'. If you want the revised files, simply drop me a line and I'll send them out. Those of you who've indicated you want the revised files anyway will get them along with this newsletter. Also, for those who've indicated they want entire files, I'll probably only send these out once every couple of weeks if I get alot of changes, or once a month if I don't. I'm sure that you don't want to pore over a new list just to find a couple of new additions. Encounters I'm always looking for new information on encounters. Anyone with a hankering to add to my list is more than welcome to do so. Curtain Call That's the end of the first electronic issue of The Mouth. Hope you found it worthwile! Tom From the Mouth of Sauron Issue: E-2 Date: 12-23-93 From the Editior It's been a few days since I put out the first issue of the electronic newsletter. In that time, the response has been tremendous. You'll note that the material sent to me over this period of time has amounted to more than 20 pages (on my system) of fun stuff for this second issue. And more is on the way. In case you potential authors are interested, there are currently 17 people on the mailing list. So far as I can tell, the newsletter circulates to at least 40 people after it's first week of production, many of whom don't own a computer but get it from someone who does. So, your potential audience is large and growing. Remember, you can use a pseudonym is you don't care for people to know who you are, or you want to express some view that may seem unpopular. The only person that'll ever know is me, and I won't remember who the heck wrote the article by the time I send out the next issue. Anonymity is a sacred state which I'll do my best to protect. What you send in doesn't have to be serious. As per the first issue, you can do or say just about anything and I'll tack it on. Humor of any sort is very much appreciated. I hope this adds something to your play, or day, or both. And to all: Happy Holidays! Artifacts Here's various interesting changes to the artifact files: - Mothras (16) has now been listed as having three different powers in different games. I suggest you remove it from your list; it doesn't appear to be stable in any sense of the word. - Tablets of Dark Knowledge (18): one player says this actually has access to Dark Summons. As yet this hasn't been confirmed. - Cuiviegurth (165): this weapon has no stable secondary power. - Gersebroc (139): this was incorrectly listed as having a bonus versus dragons. It actually has a bonus vs dragons AND fell beasts (just as the ring of Barahir does). Another player gave me a list with a few minor changes to the combat bonuses of some weapons. None of these have been confirmed, but I'm listing them here in case any of you can settle the matter: 108 Craig-olf-ti + 750 129 Bow of Thunder and Bone +1000 131 Caranlhach +1250 142 Kirrauko +1250 176 Spear of Bladorthin +1000 In another minor snafu, Thrakurghash was inadvertantly left off the evil combat weapon list. Stats follow: 58 Thrakurghash +500 E Witch-King It should be noted that Daeron doesn't carry either Tinculin (his harp) or Daeron's Rapier, as some seem to think. Others have suggested that certain characters are carrying the following items, but I can't confirm this. Galadriel: Tintelpe (along with Nenya and Galadriel's Mirror) Balrog of Moria: Cuiviegurth and Calris. It'd be easy to confirm or deny whether or not these artifacts are actually being lugged around by the listed characters. A 'Locate Artifact True' for Tintelpe, Cuiviegurth, and Calris would put the matter to rest right away (I might located Cuiviegurth just to get a shot at recruiting the Balrog into my army). Encounters Some more encounter info to add to your files: Generic Dragon-in-Lair Description: encounter a dragon laying atop a huge mound of gold, apparently sleeping. Location: Anywhere dragons are found. Options Result ATTACK the dragon All: combat State ALLEGIANCE OFFER an artifact CLAIM the treasure for your nation Steal some GOLD All: combat* Steal an ITEM All: combat* Say (one word) FLEE All: escape unharmed Note: It's rumored that those results marked with an asterisk allow a character to steal some gold or an artifact if his agent score is high enough, but I can't confirm this. This particular encounter doesn't seem to be attached to any 'name' dragon. I've been told that it's been found in the Blue Mountains (no name dragons there), and that the challenge rank of the generic dragon is only about 100. I can't confirm the challenge rank against any secondary source at the moment, but I have seen this encounter and know for a fact that the results as they stand are good. Lossoth: only encountered in the Northern Wastes (hexrows xx01 to xx03), the Lossoth are a Free-aligned army encounter. If they run into Neutral or Dark Servant armies, they'll attack, killing several hundred troops. It isn't known if they'll join a Free army, nor what benefit they'll provide if they do. Olbamarl: this is a RUMOR ONLY! It's said that in a random adjacent hex to Olbamarl, an army commander can get an encounter with an old man who'll show the army a way to march into and out of Olbamarl. I've never encountered this, nor has anyone that I know; it could be a load dished out by some obnoxious player. Open Seas: inadvertently left off the original list. The Corsairs and those who have certain 'safe travel' artifacts aren't affected by storms and won't get lost. However,they're still subject to attack by sea monsters and pirates. Shelob: an unconfirmed rumor states that BURN the web and woman results in combat, but that Shelob starts out injured by the fire (giving you a better chance of cutting her down). I can't confirm it, but it certainly makes sense. Also, change Shelob's estimated challenge rank from 100-120 to 100. Jeremy Richman reported that he's used the "Elbereth" response twice and had no change in the scene (but no attack). I've never encountered Shelob, so I don't know if this is the 'escape' (when encountering Daeron and saying 'Luthien', there's also no change in the scene, but afterwards you can walk away without being attacked). Giant Spiders: change the estimate challenge rank from 50-75 to 50- 60. Slyardach: State ALLEGIANCE = combat for all allegiances. Slyardach's estimated challenge rank seems to be somewhere between 50 and 75. If Slyardach is defeated, the character will get 20,000 - 30,000 gold and a bonus to his highest skill score (like a normal challenge). Demon of Aglarond: Much new info on this creature. Apparently there's been a bit of confusion regarding this beast. The demon appears in the encounter to look much like a balrog, and both creatures often track around Aglarond (as my Dunnish armies found out to their dismay). Because of this, a number of players have run in to the Demon in the same place, and assumed it was the nasty that slew 1,000 of their troops just a few turns ago. Turns out this isn't the case. The Demon is just a demon, with a challenge rank of between 50-75. It isn't a Balrog. There are still two balrogs (Durin's bane and one other), but they're no relation to the Demon. This one had quite a few people going. Dragons Yet more info on everyone's favorite reptiles: Ando-Anca: if any of you have this dragon listed as being recruitable by DS for 100,000 gold, please erase that. Ando-Anca can't be recruited this way. It isn't listed as such in my master file, but apparently it somehow appeared in the Dragon Encounters I sent Keith Peterson. Please check your files to make sure the results didn't get turned around on the encounters (you can message me for confirmation if you like). Aivnec: For Dark Servants, Act MEEK = injured/killed. Bairanax: change Offer one HUNDRED thousand gold from 'All: recruit*' to 'DS: recruit*'. It's been confirmed that Bairanax can't be recruited by Free Peoples or Neutrals using this response; it hasn't been confirmed that the Dark Servants can do so. Culgor: change FLEE from 'combat' to 'injured/killed' for all allegiances. Khuzadrepa: DEMAND obedience for all allegiances = injured/killed. Change Act MEEK for Free Peoples and Neutrals from 'combat' to 'injured/killed'. Leucaruth: ALLEGIANCE = injured/killed for all allegiances. DEMAND = injured/killed for the Dark Servants. Lomaw: MEEK = injured/killed for all allegiances. Uruial: MEEK = escape unharmed for DS. This has been stated by two separate players, but I'm still unsure of it's accuracy (they might be working off the same list). Changes to Encounter Listings In almost all cases, encounters work on a sliding scale of numbers (a random roll, if you will), with particularly bad things happening on a low roll, and good things happening on a high roll. Thus, it's possible to 'critically' fail and get eaten by Throkmaw while DEMANDING his obedience, or for a dwarf to survive kicking Leucaruth in the shins and calling her a wuss. I've never particularly cared to distinguish my results (a chance of escape is good enough for me), and about six months simply combined the various listings for my own benefit. I'm now in the process of separating things back out again so that the encounters more accurately reflect what's likely to happen (not what WILL happen). Please note that very few encounter options always end up with exactly the same result every time; there's almost always a chance that something utterly horrible or unexpectedly good will happen to your character. For those of you who like definitive answers, I offer my deepest condolences. In light of this, you should be aware that the listings for encounters give the most probable result to your response, not the absolute result. This is especially true of dragons, many of whom are extremely fickle. Also, any responses marked with an asterisk ('*') are probably true but can't be vouched for 100%. I still need more data in these cases. The results are now divided into 'combat', 'injured/killed', and 'escape unharmed'. Combat will most likely result in the death of the character (or monster), except where otherwise indicated (giant spider attacks). Injured/Killed sometimes results in death as well, but there seems to be a fair chance of getting out of the encounter alive (usually with one health point). Escape unharmed will, except on days when the dragon is particularly grumpy, usually get the character out without a scratch. P.S. Thanks to Keith Peterson, both for his rather massive additions to the encounter and riddle lists, and for his pointing out that I should explain the 'sliding scale' concept to allow others to better interpret the results. Thanks also to Brian Mason, David Foreman, and all the others who contributed but who's files I erased before thinking to write their names down. NPC Skill Ratings This information is available on compuserve. All dragons are listed as Marshals/Archmages, but their skill ranks are obviously beyond 100. Celeborn: Command 60-69, Agent 10-19, Mage 20-29 Daeron: Command 20-29, Agent 10-19, Emissary 70-79, Mage 100+ Galadriel: Command 20-29, Agent 20-29, Emissary 70-79, Mage 100+ Gandalf: Command 30-39, Agent 30-39, Emissary 60-69, Mage 80-89 Saruman: Command 30-39, Agent 10-19, Emissary 70-79, Mage 100+ Sauron: Command 100+, Agent 80-89, Emissary 100+, Mage 100+ Shelob: Command 40-49, Agent 10-19, Mage 70-79 Tom Bombadil: Command 100+, Agent 100+, Emissary 100+, Mage 100+ Estimated Challenge Ranks based on skills alone: Celeborn: 79 Daeron: 121+ Galadriel: 122+ (212+) Gandalf: 115 (165) Saruman: 123+ Sauron: 143+ Shelob: 95 Tom B: 156+ Note that it's possible for an NPC to have a skill rank greater than 100. It's also been speculated that some NPC's have challenge ranks higher than their skill ranks would indicate (the Wizards), and that a number of NPC's have health ranks greater than 100 (dragons, Sauron, Tom Bombadil). The challenge ranks seem to be close to what seems to be correct for Celeborn, Gandalf, and Shelob. Daeron's challenge rank is probably somewhat higher than this, as his mage rank is almost certainly above 100. Same goes for Saruman and Galadriel (Saruman doesn't carry any artifacts, but seems to be stronger than Gandalf anyway). Concerning Sauron and Tom Bombadil, the figures are obviously low. Tom is far more powerful than any other creature except Sauron, and perhaps even Sauron would lose that battle. Sauron's challenge rank without artifacts has been estimated to be greater than 300; he's never been defeated in challenge, to my knowledge (although it'd be interesting to see what would happen if a character carrying the One Ring personally challenged Sauron, or transferred it to him if Dark Servant). Riddles There were so many additions to the riddle list this last week I'm going to be sending the complete file separate from the newsletter. The amount of information literally doubled. Miscellaneous Changes The Northmen town at 3105 is named Buhr Thurasig. The original file didn't give a name for this town. Rumors This actually isn't a rumor but a confirmed account. Some players have noticed that agents THREE hexes away from a target army have been able to SCOUT ARMY and track it, despite the fact that the order says the army must be within two hexes. It could be that the army during some point in the turn marched within two hexes of the agent, but it neither began nor ended it's movement within two hexes of where the agent was when he issued the order. As you'll note, this is in direct contradiction to the description given under order 905, and probably a glitch of some sort in the program (it may now be fixed). Requests A group of players is trying to figure out a baseline for threat attempts, given the command rank of the commander, the size of his army, the size and fortifications of the population center, and the loyalty of the population center. If you'd like to pass along this info to me, I'll print up all the results as they come in. Also, Brian Mason made a rather neat suggestion: interested parties could send in their opening moves for a nation, while others could critique their strategy in the next Mouth. If this seems of interest, I suggest we start with the Woodmen (nation #1) in the next issue. Anyone who has some ideas on what the Woodmen should do during the start of the game, send them along! I have a personal request: I'm interested in some little-known encounters which people rarely seem to get. This includes the Lossoth, Ents, Hobbits (all tribes), Woses (all tribes), and especially good ol' Tom Bombadil. Has anyone out there (other than those I've already talked to) ever run into these? Has anyone ever heard of a player actually finding Tom Bombadil? Try as I might, I can't track down a single person who's met the guy, and have only the vaguest rumors on him (other than the fact that he exists, and all of his skill ranks are above 100). Holidays Like most of you, I won't be available for the holidays. Please don't sent email from the time you receive this letter to January 1st. Because the mainframe will be down, all mail will be accepted, then trashed when the system can't find my account. You won't get an error message, your mail will just fall into Limbo, and neither of us will ever know about it. I'll be back in business by January 1st, but won't respond until I come in on January 3rd. You can start sending mail again on the 1st or 2nd and it'll get to my account okay. The next Mouth will also go out around Friday, January 7th. Devil's Advocate I love forum sections; people get in such interesting, and sometimes heated, debates. If anyone wants to put something up for review by others, or start an argument about a particular topic, feel free to fire off a letter! So come on and rile up your fellow gamers; remember, you can use a pseudonym, so no one has to know who said what (except me, and I'll forget soon after anyway). Population Center Development by Brian D. Mason Abstract One of the most important aspects of the early game is deciding where to create or post camps. While many nations lack the emissaries with the necessary skill level to create camps, despite it being an easy skill, almost all possess one or more commanders with the skill level necessary to post camps, an average difficulty order. One of the most difficult decisions in the early game is deciding where camps should be located. This article will discuss some of the reasons behind the placement of camps: which type of character should do it, resource production, financial considerations, and security. Then the strengths and weaknesses of various nations will be discussed, as well as some possible camp locations. Who Should Place the Camps? Many of the nations have commanders who, when travelling with an army, have the command skill which would allow order 552 (Post Camp) to be executed with a very good chance of success. Also, very few nations have emissaries with even the modest skill level needed to execute order 555 (Create Camp) with a good chance of success. Despite this, those nations without good ( > 30) emissaries would be advised to create one using order 725 (Name New Character), and then subsequently have that emissary execute order 734 (Name New Character as Emissary) as many times as necessary. Having a character in an army posting camps is not advisable for several reasons: one, it does not improve the command skill of the commander, two, when posting camps rather than training troops or training the army the commander does not improve his command rank and the training rank of the army or troops is not improved, and three it costs twice as much. For the additional cost of posting three camps you could name an additional character and have gold to spare. A stable of about three good emissaries can be used at all stages of the game, in creating camps when their skill levels are low, in improving population centers and bribing/recruiting characters or double agents when their skill levels are moderate or high. As it becomes more difficult to place camps at later stages of the game, it is important that you create emissaries fast and get your camps created quickly, especially if you start the game with few good emissaries. Resource Production The most important factor in camp placement is determining what types of which resources you need production, and where in nearby hexes these can be located. The spell reveal production is relatively easy to research (if you do not already have a character who can cast it) and this can determine locations which can supply the most needed commodity. Another option is having an agent Scout Hex (915), however, that has the detrimental effect of only determining production value of one hex (although with much greater precision). Another disadvantage of the Scout Hex option is that it takes an agent into a hex with no objectives where he may be unable to cast a skill order on the following turn. It is usually better in the early game to have agents improving their ranks or out performing more specialized agent tasks. Below is a list of the mean production of each hex type taken from several games, and setups of many different nations, as well as additional contributions from other players. The production has been modified such that this is the production value of a camp in warm weather (that is, 100 percent production values). Keep in mind that the climate in your area will effect these mean production values and that mountainous terrain also will typically have one or two grades cooler climate than surrounding plains. The first column gives the resource type, the second column describes the rows, the first row being the terrain type, the second row the number of sites in the sample. Within each production type the first row is the number of sites in which that product is present, the next row the average of those sites and the final row the average of all sites. Some of these (especially desert terrain) may suffer from small number statistics, so the results may skewed. Also, note that no information is given for swamp hexes. Table 1. Statistical Treatment of Resource Development Commodity Terrain Plains Desert Forest Rough Mountains No. Sites 138 8 62 108 87 Leather No. With 138 8 5 31 0 avg. per 363 294 408 302 0 total avg. 363 294 33 87 0 Bronze No. with 0 0 8 32 86 avg. per 0 0 366 295 304 total avg. 0 0 47 87 242 Steel No. with 0 1 4 33 48 avg. per 0 290 144 189 219 total avg. 0 36 9 58 97 Mithril No. with 0 0 0 0 45 avg. per 0 0 0 0 26 total avg. 0 0 0 0 11 Food No. with 138 0 62 43 0 avg. per 1138 0 1223 956 0 total avg. 1138 0 1223 381 0 Timber No. with 0 0 59 51 0 avg. per 0 0 426 365 0 total avg. 0 0 405 172 0 Mounts No. with 135 8 4 61 0 avg. per 80 76 108 74 0 total avg. 78 76 7 42 0 Gold No. with 0 0 3 82 82 avg. per 0 0 1733 1753 1857 total avg. 0 0 84 1331 1410 Clearly, from inspection of the list, the type terrain with the most varied production type is hills/rough, which can produce all types of materials except mithril. For nations which are relatively weak in metal production for armor (primarily the Free Peoples) the most profitable terrain type are mountain hexes. However, mountain hexes often contain dragons, which rarely have good effects on the loyalty of Free People population centers, or the health of the Emissary posting the camp. Sometimes a safer strategy is to place them in hill/rough hexes which have been already determined to produce the desired resource. Another advantage to the hill/rough option is that those hexes typically have better climate which has the effect of increasing production. Looking over your production and estimating needs for your nation and then placing camps to produce what you need is often a good plan. If you start with few mounted troops and few sources of the supplies that are needed to build them (mounts, leather, bronze or steel if desired for armor and weapons) it is unlikely that you can get that all cavalry army you want on the field anytime soon. However, if you are fighting someone who is aware of your nation strengths and weaknesses then planning to build them in later turns might be an good plan. Financial Considerations Sometimes camps can be placed to make resources to sell. For many nations, selling supplies is a vital (and sometimes necessary) means to float your economy. Despite the initial outlay, almost all hexes can produce in just a couple of turns the supplies which could be sold to pay for themselves, even if they do not produce gold directly. Some nations can choose one or two resources which they can use to buy and sell on succeeding turns to drive up and down the price of that commodity. This "playing of the market" can be most effective when several nations cooperate to buy all of a commodity and then sell all the following turn when prices or high. Increasing production in this commodity will allow you to generate larger profits, or give you the production you need to develop on the one hand, and execute buy/sell orders with, one the other. Gold production does not decrease with increasing population center size however other resources do. Each increase in the size of a population center will require a few turns to recoup the losses for development. Listed below are the turns needed to "break even" on population center improvement at several various tax rates. In considering a break even cost, it is necessary to not only consider how long it takes you to recover the cost of investment, but also how long to catch up to the amount that the population center would produce. Table 2. Turns to Recoup Cost of Inprovement Pop Center Type Cost 40 % Tax 60 % Tax 80 % Tax 100 % Tax Village 4000 4.00 2.67 2.00 1.60 Town 6000 6.00 4.00 3.00 2.40 Major Town 8000 8.00 5.33 4.00 3.20 City 10000 10.00 6.67 5.00 4.00 In addition to the time needed to "break even" on the cost is the lost production over the interval. Depending on the commodity the production loss may or may not be trivial. It is generally a good idea to improve population centers whose production type you do not need. Security Another important consideration in improving population centers is the safety of the population center. Don't improve population centers you cannot hold. There is no need to improve population centers for your enemies to take. Also, in developing population centers try to put them in locations which are hard to get to or not on the maps of other players (expecially neutrals and enemies). If you have a surplus of secure areas then allowing your allies to develop in some of them is often a good idea for team play. Also, population centers without fortifications, characters, or armies present will begin to disintegrate if the loyalty drops too low. Nation Strengths, Weaknesses, and Camp Placement Now, a short rating for each nation is listed below. Ranked as good, average or poor are emissary strength and possible camp placement as well as a short listing for where might be good locations to place camps for that nation. Locations can be rated as good, average, or poor based on their relative security from enemy nations. If this region is not on your map (where you can keep an eye on it) the location rating is downgraded. Also, if you are competing with many other nations over a small area to develop (e.g. many of the Dark Servants in Mordor) the location rating is downgraded. Table 3. Rating Population Center Development Potential Population Emissary Center Nation Strength Development Suggested Locations Woodmen Average Poor West of Anduin and South of Lothlorien Northmen Average Good North of River Running Eothraim Poor Average Same as Northmen Arthedain Average Average West Downs Cardolan Average Average Southwest of map and West Downs Northern Gondor Average Good Future Rohan, North of White Mountains Southern Gondor Good Good South of White Mountains Dwarves Poor Average Far West in and around Blue Mountains Sinda Elves Good Poor same as Woodmen Noldo Elves Good Good same as Dwarves Witch-King Good Average North of and in Northern Misty Mountains Dragon Lord Good Poor Somewhere in Mordor or isolated area Dog Lord Average Average Somewhere in Mordor Cloud Lord Poor Average Somewhere in and slightly South of Mordor Blind Sorcerer Poor Average Somewhere in and slightly East of Mordor Ice King Poor Poor Somewhere in Mordor Quiet Avenger Good Average Far South Fire King Poor Poor Somewhere in Mordor Long Rider Average Poor East of Mordor Dark Lieutenants Good Poor Somewhere in Mordor Corsairs Good Good Southwest of Map Haradwaith Average Poor Near Current Locations Dunlendings Poor Good Sothern two-thirds of Map Rhudaur Poor Average Between pop centers and Misty Mountains Easterlings Poor Average Far East An alternative strategy to selecting secure locations would be to select locations far from you and not appearing on any other nation map. These locations, if developed, could serve as jumping off points for campaigns. Obviously, cooperation is needed among the Dark Servant players in deciding what parts of Mordor to develop. Care must also be taken that the very good emissaries of the Witch-King and the Dragon Lord have somewhere to develop. Also, the Free People pairs of the Woodmen and Sinda, Noldo and Dwarves, Arthedain and Cardolan, Eothraim and Northmen also need to cooperate in developing population centers. Most of the Neutrals can work independent of others with the possible exception of the Haradwaith and Corsairs. Conclusion Population centers can have noticeable effects on your nations place in the game and effective placement of these population centers can dramatically effect your outcome. The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions to Table 1 and the comments of Tom Walton, Glen Mayfield and Jeff Holzhauer. Train Your Characters! by David Foreman I have been playing MEPBM for something like 2 1/4 years. In that time, I have come across several 'truths' about the game that I hold self evident. The most important of those truths is this: THE LACK OF A PROGRAM FOR TRAINING YOUR CHARACTERS CAN MAKE YOU LOSE A GAME THAT YOU SHOULD WIN! What do I mean by this? Simple (no my middle name is NOT Ross!) You should have a default set of orders for your characters at all times. These orders are issued whenever you have a character with a 'free' order, and the character should ALLWAYS be at a location or in a situation that allows that default order unless you have a good reason for the character not to be. Obviously, you will sometimes have objectives for your nation that preclude the issuing of the default orders. That's fine. Simply be mindful of the default set ALL THE TIME so that you can maximize your character stats in the long run. Why do I care about stat improvement? Several reasons: 1) First, characters become more useful as they increase in rank. As it says on 18 of the rule book, to do average orders, you need a character with 30 - 70 rank for a reasonable chance of success. My definition of reasonable is '80% of the time the order succeeds', and that range is closer to 50-100 rank. For hard orders, a rank of 60-100 is specified. 2) Defense. For most agent and emissary orders, the higher rank the target character is, the harder the order is to accomplish. Higher stat characters are better able to resist the enemy. 3) Victory Points! One of the things you are ranked on is characters. It takes a LONG time to get a nation up to the top of the character pile (unless you are the Noldo!). What are my default orders? I will list them in groups, and for various 'levels' of characters. These groupings are laid out in a table, and should be relatively easy to follow. Please email me with questions! <30 30-50 50-70 70< Command 430 430 430 430 Agent 605 Ally Ally/ Foe 610 Foe Emissary 520 520 525A 525F 500 550 500F 555 500F Mage 710 710 710 710 Comments: 'Ally' (or 'A') means find a team mate who is willing to let you attack his pop centers. Preferably, he will have friendly relations with you, as this increases your chances at success. 'Foe' (or 'F') means the enemy. As most of these orders get easier based on the target nation not hating you, the lower level character should hit a neutral (if you can get away with it) prior to going after the real enemy. These facts actually give purpose to the much ignored 'Perceive Relations' spell, which gives you a better idea of who is easier to attack! All Characters should start looking for challenge opportunities when they hit a challenge rank of 50. My analysis indicates an 80% challenge success when you have a 20 point advantage. A 30 point advantage yields a 90-95% win rate. 40 or more yields a 99+% win rate (HOWEVER... you can expect to lose once in a while. My model (3 million combats, 20,000 for each for 0 to 150 points challenge advantage) yields 12 losses in 20,000 for a character with a 150 point challenge advantage! Command Commanders uniformly get 1-5 (actually 3 or two for the vast majority of 'average' commanders) points for nearly all orders that result in a gain of rank. The three that don't result in 1- 10 for threaten pop center, 1-7 for train troop type, and an 1-15 for personal challenge. Obviously, it is great to get the 1-10 for threatening or 1-15 for challenge. These orders, however, greatly depend on the opponent. The only orders that can be reliably done are 430 and 435. These orders are 'free' and automatic. They also result in an increase in troop quality. Ideally (and when does THAT happen!) The best setup is to have several commanders in an army, and have the army commander train army every turn. That lets the ancillary commanders train troop type or issue a different command order. If the sub- commander gets to train troops, he gets 1-7 + 1-5 or 3+4=7 points of command during the turn. In addition, the training of the troops has gone up by 1- 10 + 1-5 or 5+3=8 points. even when the sub- commander can't issue a training order, he/she goes up 1-5 (3) due to the army commander training. If you have timber available, and especially if you are a nation with a cheap fortifications ability, don't forget that fortifying a pop center gets the commander 1-5 points! Agent Under the new rules, agents aren't what they used to be. It used to be that almost any 40 point agent could steal gold from an enemy that hated you and you'd get 1-10 (5 or 6) points of agent rank and some gold. At worst, you got no gold or points. Now, however, you get hurt, killed, or captured when you fail, even against allied pop centers. So what's an agent to do? Guard things! Under most circumstances, a simple guard will yield 3 points. In addition, if the enemy attacks you, you get 1-5 for every attacker you thwart. In a recent game, I made the mistake of attacking a pop center with 5 agents (a capital). The lowly 30 point guard injured two of my agents and took 3 hostage (he also injured two agents belonging to one of my allies!). He got 1-5 for the guard and 7 times 1-5 for the guys he hurt. When I called the player, he was overjoyed! His agent went from a 30 to a 58 in one turn. Last turn (several turns later) this character ASSASSINATED one of my characters! Once you've hit 40-50, steal or destroy stores on your friends. That will give you 1-10 points, and again, if they like you, your chances are much enhanced. At the higher levels, attack the foe or a neutral. Interestingly enough, it seems that no matter what level your guard is, an agent over 100 succeeds over the guard. I'd be interested in hearing about news to the contrary. Emissary Emissaries don't die or get captured, they just fail a lot. The biggest problem with emissaries is that they have a critical mass. When an emissary is below 50, he is nearly useless offensively. Attempting to issue average orders with a 40 or below emissary is, in my experience, a great way to waste time. Emissaries can be very useful, even at low levels, when working as a team. As with agents, it is good to have friends you can abuse (with permission) to train your low level characters. It takes, on average, 5 to 7 turns to make an emissary viable if all they do is influence own pop center. However, if an emissary at rank 35 manages to improve a pop center, they get about 7.5 points of rank. The key here is to get the emissary to a rank of 50 as soon as possible. After they reach fifty, they advance to 60 and above quickly because almost all the orders they issue result in a gain of 1-10 points of rank. One way to accelerate emissary rank growth is to land three on a small pop center (village or camp). The next turn, have the two lowest rank emissaries issue influence own. The other issues improve pop center. The loyalty increase caused by the two emissaries makes the improve order a lot easier, and the third emissary gets 1-10 for improving the pop center. I used this technique in game 88 to good effect with only TWO emissaries (I got lucky). Mage Mages have few options. They have one skill order that increases rank (prentice), and that gives you 1-5. Unless you want to take a lot of chances, slow growth of mage ranks, with an occasional challenge or encounter, is all you will get. A ROGUE THOUGHT One way to get points on mages that might work, would be for a pair of nations to 'trade' sacrificial lamb characters for the cause of raising stats. Here is how it works: 1) Nation A makes an emissary for 5,000 gold (preferably the naming emissary is a multi-classed character with less than 30 rank. (A 10 rank is the best.). 2) The next turn, nation A uses the 10 emissary to name another, and moves to nation B's capital (or other neutral site owned by B). 3) On turn 3, nation A CHALLENGES nation B's mage, and loses (I assume nation B's mage is a minimum 40, so the advantage is 35 points (40 - 10/2) or 98% win. On the same turn, nation A repeats #2. Nation B meanwhile has also prenticed magery and issued a learn/forget/cast on a spell. Nation B's character will get 1-5 (about 3) + 1-15 (about 8) points of mage rank. After three of these challenge/ prentices, Nation B's mage is at about 30 + 33 or 58 - 65 in mage rank. If the mage had just prenticed, a similar rank could be reached in about 33/2.5 or 13 turns! Of course, both parties would have to create the lambs to be fair. It probably isn't practical until after turn 5 when you go to 15 characters. General Comments: I analyzed about 40 turns of orders to come up with the data for this article. The following general rules may be helpful: 1) A 1-5 order never yields more than 3 points of rank to a character over 30. The order yields an average of 2.5 points for characters of rank 31-45. The order yields an average of 2.25 for characters of rank 46-60, and an average of 2 points up to a rank of 75. I don't have good data over a rank of 75. 2) The 1-7 orders yield a similar trend to the 1-5 trend, but seem to be higher than the +2 at the top would indicate. Assuming 4.5 points for characters of ranks below 40 is not far off. Even at a rank of 65, the 1-7 order sometimes yields 4 points of rank improvement. 3) Not surprisingly, 1-10 orders have a larger distribution. Because of the nature of the orders (They are average or hard as opposed to easy or automatic) the points yielded below a rank of 30 are very good, but rare, as most of the time the order fails. I had a 39 point emissary raise a pop center and got 6 points. I had another emissary (rank 38) get 3 points from the same order. The trend is as follows: 35-50:5 points, 51-60: 5 points, 61-75: 3 points, 76+:2 or 1 points. 4) 1-15 orders vary a great deal. I got 13 points when I killed a Nazgul in game 22. I have gotten 11 points when challenging a poor character with a good one. I have also gotten 3 points when my poor character killed their good character. I don't have enough data points to say. Later gang! Economics in Middle-Earth Compiled by Tom Walton Much of what's given here was obtained through Q&A sessions with Bill Field at GSI, and from the combined experiences of many players. Thanks to one and all for making this possible. I first became interesting in pinning down the economic situation when I started collecting rumors on how the market worked. Most conflicted with each other, some were downright ludicrous; many were started by people who had little other than their own game to base their conclusions on. I knew that they couldn't all be true, so went to Bill to see what I could get. Bill was, of course, his usual evasive self, but on a couple of occasions he 'spilled his guts'. Some of the stuff he had to say was very interesting, and I doubt he'd repeat it if he knew what use I'd put it to. It simply gives players too much power in Middle- Earth. Have fun with it! - market pricing is based upon two factors. Gold available and total production. Gold available includes treasuries, native production, and tax base; total production is essentially a bit more complicated, but is a measure of how much 'stuff' all nations are pumping out every turn. Added to this is the production currently on the market. The actual amount of gold available isn't as important as the relationship between the amount of gold and the amount of production. Example: if all nations have 500,000 gold between them, and total production is 50,000 units, the ratio is 10:1. If total production is 100,000 units, the ratio is 5:1. Prices will be higher in the first case than the second case, because the ratio is higher. - the basic precept above explains many market events that you all have probably experienced at one time or another. For example, in many games prices tend to fall drastically in the first ten turns. This is because pop centers are getting destroyed/reduced (reducing tax base) and the gold from treasuries is being spent on a variety of items. Even though players are selling right and left to increase their treasuries, the market is getting glutted and the gold that's being made is almost immediately lost again on fixed costs: character creation, maintenance, etc. Add to this the fact that players are probably putting down camps right and left, and the relationship between gold available and production drops to an even lower ratio, resulting in a decrease of prices. Nations also get dropped within the first ten turns, further removing tax base, treasuries, and gold production from the game. In many games, this results in a spiral of deflation, where players have to sell more product to make up a deficit, which in turn lowers prices, which means everyone has to sell more, etc. If this spiral of deflation continues, you'll see prices drop to absurdly low levels: 3/1, 2/1, and so forth. Once you hit rock- bottom here, it's very difficult to climb back up to something more reasonable. - Prices among all commodities are interrelated. This is pretty obvious. If prices are low for one item, they tend to be low for all items. If high for one item, they tend to be high for all items. There's a factor in the code which prevents any one product from moving too far away from the current market prices. You won't see steel at 30/20 and food at 2/1, even if the entire market stock of steel is bought out. This means that if prices are low, buying out an entire product will result in only a modest gain in prices and a small profit when you re-sell to the market. If prices are high, the gain tends to be correspondingly higher. Here again, there's a relationship at work which keeps a lid on the pricing of any one market item (in relation to all others). - Selling to or buying from the market is totally random. There's no structure in the code which keeps any one nation from completely buying out an item. It's difficult, to be sure, but any powerful neutral with a large amount of cash will find that it can buy out the entire stock of one market item during the turn, so long as it has alot of cash in relation to the total amount of cash in the game. If EVERYONE has alot of cash, then it won't matter; it only works if YOU have alot of cash and most other people don't. Note: the rumor that a single nation can't buy out an item is still floating around. This is incorrect. I've done it on a number of occasions. - Because buying and selling is random, this means that some nations may be able to clean up while others can't sell if their lives depended on it. It happens. Again, there's no section in the code that 'allocates' a certain amount of selling/buying power to any one nation. It's based purely on luck. However, one good thing is that while buys and sells are randomly ordered, so are the amounts that the caravans will accept from you. It could be you'll sell all of your food, some of your food, or none of your food; but this factor generally keeps lucky nations from dumping everything and keeping the rest from doing the same. Still, be aware: it's possible to have none of your sell orders go through, while other nations make gold hand over fist. This too has happened to me on several occasions. It may not be fair, but then few things in ME-PBM are. - The maximum amount of gold you can make on the market is set upon a factor which represents the total sell amount for the market that turn. Essentially, you can make more gold when prices are high, and less gold when prices are low. The more production there is, the more production you can sell (but of course, prices will be lower and you'll make less). There is no 'maximum amount' set within the code. Most games start so the relationship between all factors limits initial sells to somewhere around 30,000 gold, but this changes rapidly. As prices rise, so will the amount you can make (though inflation will make this gold worth less to you). If you're in a game where both prices and production are rising (very rare), then you can both sell more and make more. This combination is hard to get, though; it means that you either have to have a market 'spiral' taking place, or that both camp creation and pop center upgrades are outstripping war-time destruction at a relatively even pace. Note: the rumor that 30,000 is 'it' is not true. It just happens that the market relationships tend to set it around this level at game start. - Another fairly obvious point: pricing within the item itself varies with the product. Food prices change only small amounts no matter how out of control the market gets. Mithril prices tend to jump around even when the market is at rock-bottom. If you want to make alot of gold by buying the market out and then reselling to it the next turn, pick a high-priced item; the potential change is much greater. It's also good to pick an item that people probably won't sell during the turn (timber and mithril are your best bets, with perhaps mounts thrown in as well). If you buy out food, you might see a price change of one or two gold; buy out mithril, and the sell price can double in a single turn. - Buying out a market item won't always result in a large increase in prices. If too much gold is dumped during the turn, either through buys or maintenance or what have you, the drop in the ratio between gold and production may counteract the effect of the buy, disappointing the players involved. It's even possible to have prices fall after you buy out the market stock, because so much gold has been lost during the turn. This, of course, is potentially disastrous if you were relying on making a profit the following turn. - The market will always buy a minimal amount of each commodity every turn, regardless of current market stores. The minimal mount tends to vary based upon the product; the lower the price, the more it'll buy. This tells you why you can have relatively small amounts of each product in market stores, yet see 120,000 food racked up at the same time. The market will buy more of low-priced items than high- priced items, and will always buy at least some minimal amount of each commodity each turn. It also shows why market stores alone are a small factor in determining overall price ranges (i.e., high stores don't result in extremely low prices). These are simply the basics. The market algorith is extremely complicated and I could detail interesting specifics for pages. But the precepts above will allow you to manipulate the market in a number of fascinating ways. Here are some examples: - You want to raise overall market prices. Start by buying out a single product, then reselling the product the next turn. Do this several turns in a row AND KEEP THE PROFITS. This won't work unless you do. By keeping the profits, you increase the total amount of gold in the game. If you spend what you making, prices will remain steady. Should you do this over the course of several rounds, gold in the treasuries of the involved players will increase the available amount in the game a significant fraction, raising the ratio of gold to production. This, in turn, will force market prices to rise. This is what I call an upward market 'spiral'. Once you start it, prices tend to take off because other players also sell and increase their treasuries. The ratio gets bigger, prices rise more, players have more gold in their treasuries, and so on. It's much like a catalytic effect. Be aware: this is much more beneficial to the Dark Servants than the Free Peoples. If the Dark Servants can get prices to rise enough, then they can sell a small amount of production every turn to make up huge deficits, while keeping a hefty amount of gold in their bank accounts. After a certain point, the Free economic base no longer factors in to the equation, only the amount of orders each player can issue. In essence, the Dark Servants become just as strong economically as their opponents, cancelling the biggest advantage the Free have. Starting an upward market spiral can spell doom for the Free. - You want to stop an upward market spiral. Buy the product that's being used to manipulate the market. Buy alot of it. Wait one round while your opponents sell. Then, on the turn they buy again, sell everything you've got. This'll restore market stocks of the product and cancel any price increase, leaving the enemy with alot of whatever they just bought and no way to sell it back for a profit. This is more effective if you also dump your bank account at the same time. If the Free wanted to kill a market spiral before it gets out of hand, they could sell everything they have of the chosen product to the market at the same time the Dark Servants buy, then reduce their treasuries through character creation, buying small amounts of other items, and so forth. Not only will the target product fail to increase in price, but all prices will drop because of the drastic reduction in total gold. I did this in one game - as a single nation - royally screwing the Dark Servants. I set them up by starting a market spiral - again as a single nation - waited until they got hooked, then killed the spiral and dumped a huge amount of gold. They ended up with a bunch of timber that wasn't worth nearly as much as they bought it for, and empty treasuries. This is where the sheer power of the idea comes in; that any one nation could do this is remarkable. - prices in the game are rock-bottom, and you want them to come up (or vice versa). Destroy enemy camps and raise your own camps up to villages, then towns, etc. In other words, raise the gold available by increasing your tax base, and reduce production by eliminating camps. You can do the opposite by destroying enemy towns and cities and putting down camps as fast as possible. Because of the complicated machinations of the market, much of what you do has to be based on 'gut' feeling. You can't know the exact economic status and orders of all the nations in the game. It's possible to try out a trick and get clobbered for it, because others inadvertently countered it. A notes: the wild price increases of the earlier games seems to have been fixed. There's evidence of a cap, a maximum buy/sell price, on all products. This article details only the basics. I'll be happy to answer specific questions if I can, or address situations which aren't covered in the above. Also, anyone who'd like to add something I missed or left out for space considerations is more than welcome to do so. From the Mouth of Sauron Issue: E-3 Date: 01-07-94 Note: all authors retain exclusive rights to their material. Reprinting is allowed for non-commercial game use only. From the Editor A funny thing happened on the way to my mailbox on Wednesday. I picked up my latest issue of Paper Mayhem and started flipping through it - only to find a most interesting inclusion. Namely, an article called "Blood and Glory", by Tom Walton. Now, what's so interesting about this is that I never submitted that article to Paper Mayhem. Indeed, the only magazine I sent it to was Whispers, and I never signed over exclusive rights to GSI. A bit perplexed (and more than a bit annoyed), I decided to call the editor of Paper Mayhem and ask just how the article happened to end up in his magazine. Turns out that he thought that Bill Field gave him permission to run the article at GenCon. The editor wasn't aware that I hadn't signed over the rights and simply assumed that GSI owned them (which in fact was not the case). Further confusion resulted in the two parties crossing wires over what Bill actually meant, and the editor ended up 'appropriating' the articles for his own use. He was a bit panicked over my call, as he had already taken the second and third articles in the series and included them in the typesetting of future issues of Paper Mayhem. Pulling them now would've created a mess, since he would have had to reformat his magazines, essentially undoing hours of hard work. Because the editor was unaware of the illegal nature of his activities (his mistake being an honest one), I gave him permission to run the other two articles even though I felt they weren't good enough to be published in a 'real' magazine - on the condition that he didn't hand them off to someone else to print, and that I retained exclusive rights to the originals. Now some of you may ask: what the hell does this have to do with anything? And why should I care whether the articles end up in Paper Mayhem or not? Well, to answer the second question first, it's highly important to anyone who writes professionally, even if the article is trash. The rights to written material mean very much to those of us who publish, on occasion, for 'real'. May not mean much to you, but that sort of thing can generate some nasty lawsuits. As for the first question, it applies directly to The Mouth. Electronic rags are under the same restrictions as paper ones when it comes to publication, rights to written materials and so forth - even if it's only a newsletter like this one. In light of this, I need to clarify a few things: - all articles submitted remain the exclusive property of the owner. The Mouth retains no rights for re-publication except within the framework of Middle-Earth PBM itself (i.e., transmission to other players for their own use, or reprinting in future issues). - because the articles belong to the people who wrote them, that means that you can't take the article and submit it to a magazine or any other forum without the author's express opinion, nor can you use their material in any commercial endeavor. In other words, you can't submit the article someplace else and claim it as your own, or make money off it. If you just use it for the game, you can do anything you like with it. If you use substantial sections of someone's article in an article of your own, you need to identify the author (and get his permission, if you plan to publish it). If you simply pass it along unmodified for someone else to read, you have to identify the author and source (The Mouth) - though frankly, I don't think I or the author will really care in this last case. - you can, of course, contact the author directly and try to get his permission for any of these activities. Just wanted to make certain everyone was clear on this. It's SOP in the publishing industry, but unless you happen to be involved in it one way or another the rules might be unclear. From this point on, a note will appear on the first 'page' of The Mouth stating that all authors retain exclusive rights to their own material. A couple of other things before you move on to the good stuff. No one has sent anything in for the controversy/soapbox/devil's advocate section yet. I eagerly await the offerings of those of you who like to start, or get involved in, debates. I'll print personals of any kind under a 'Personals' section. The first appears in this issue. You can use this for any purpose, including trading witty reparte with your enemies (as Whispers does). Remember, you can send in anything you like under a pseudonym if you don't want your real name used. Happy New Year! Tom Updates For those of you who wanted complete updated files, they're happily on their way through cyberspace (or perhaps already in your mailbox). This time, I included encounters, dragons, and artifacts. The riddles file didn't change from what was sent out prior to Christmas, and the nation info files had so few alterations I didn't think it worth your time or mine to send them out. Artifacts In the previous issue of The Mouth, some suggested combat artifact values were listed that were different from those given out in the original files. They were left open for you out there to confirm or deny. Well, you did just that. These values have been well established by various sources. Note that only Kirrauko (142) was incorrect in the files. 108 Craig-olf-ti + 500 129 Bow of Thunder and Bone + 500 131 Caranlhach +1750 142 Kirrauko +1250 176 Spear of Bladorthin +1250 Also, Collowhesta (44) was confirmed by yours truly as having no stable secondary power. Alas that it was so, for I was going to use the 'teleport' spell to great effect. This artifact was removed from the list. Keith Peterson put my suspicion into words on some items. It seems there are three classes of artifacts: those with stable secondary secondary powers; those with no stable secondary powers; and those with a constant random secondary power. This last class seems to always have access to a random lost list, but the exact one varies from game to game. I've included two artifacts as falling into this category so far: 16 Mothras random lost list 18 Tablets of random lost list Dark Knowledge Encounters Ancient Barrow: evidence suggests that the choice REMOVE the runes will defeat the guardian and give the character gold and access to a lost list spell. Daeron: Say "Daeron" = combat; Say "Saeros" = escape unharmed. Note that these responses are probably variable as are most others for this encounter, so don't expect the same results. Mumakil (army encounter): Mumakil will sometimes attack armies they encounter without provocation. Rather surprising, but the sources are good. Tom Bombadil: Tom's location has been confirmed as hex 1409. He doesn't seem to react to characters, so he may be an army encounter (though only under special circumstances). If Tom moves, it hasn't been seen. As Keith Peterson pointed out, I forgot to include the 'spectral armies' encounter on my list. I already threw out the game turn where I had this baby prior to compilation of the files, so if anyone out there has information (even a list of choices would be nice), I'd appreciate hearing about it. Dragons Aivnec: Act MEEK = injured/killed for all allegiances. Offer TEN thousand gold = combat for all allegiances. Offer one HUNDRED thousand gold = combat for all allegiances. Bairanax: Act MEEK = escape unharmed for Dark Servants. Corlagon: Act MEEK = escape unharmed for all allegiances. This is confirmed for the Dark Servants, but not, as yet, for the Free Peoples or Neutrals. Culgor: Offer TEN thousand gold = injured/killed for Free Peoples/Neutrals. Offer one HUNDRED thousand gold = injured/killed for Free Peoples/Neutrals. Daelomin: Act MEEK = injured/killed for all allegiances. This has been confirmed. Itangast: act MEEK for Dark Servants = dragon recruited into army. Khuzadrepa: Offer TEN thousand gold = combat for all allegiances. Lamthanc: one player reported a character death after doing Act HAUGHTY with a Free Peoples. However, he was a dwarf, which has a tendency to bring out the worst in dragons. Until I hear from someone else, I'm going to add an additional note to the dragon file giving injury/death as a possible alternate outcome of Act HAUGHTY. Lomaw: Act MEEK for Dark Servants = escape unharmed. This has yet to be confirmed by a good second source, so it may be just a lucky 'roll' for the player who reported it. Nimanaur: this dragon was inadvertently left off the list. Oops. State ALLEGIANCE = combat for all allegiances. Act MEEK = escape unharmed for Dark Servants. Offer TEN thousand gold = injured/killed for Free Peoples/Neutrals. Offer one HUNDRED thousand gold = injured/killed for Free Peoples/Neutrals; dragon recruited into army for Dark Servants (this last concerning recruitment is unconfirmed). Ruingurth: Offer TEN thousand gold = escape unharmed for all allegiances. Offer one HUNDRED thousand gold = escape unharmed for all allegiances. Scatha: a couple of players have said that Dark Servants who Act MEEK will recruit this dragon into their armies. I can't confirm this (I think both are working off the same list, so it's hard to cross-check), but I'll soon know for certain; one of my own characters is currently testing this hypothesis out. Note: one other player has reported that Act MEEK will result in escape unharmed for Dark Servants, not recruitment. Scorba: change Act MEEK = escape unharmed for all allegiances. Turukulon: DEMAND obedience = injured/killed for Free Peoples/Neutrals. This last turn I won my first battle against an enemy army that contained a dragon. Because I destroyed the enemy in the first round of combat, and because complications such as spells, artifacts, multiple armies, etc. weren't present, I was able to calculate exactly how much damage the dragon did. The result: the dragon, in this instance Throkmaw, inflicted 45,000 points of mayhem upon my army. This case (winning against a dragon) is rare enough that combat values for others of the great wyrms haven't been established (so far as I know). It could be that all dragons are generic, or that combat strength varies from dragon to dragon; I don't know. I also don't know if there's a relationship between challenge rank and combat strength, although I'd make a tentative guess that dragons have a challenge equal to their combat strength divided by 200. If anyone else out there has done what I did and managed to figure out the combat strength of a dragon, I'd like to hear from you. Recruitable Dragons What follows is a list of dragons recruitable by each of the allegiances, for those that are curious. These dragons have been confirmed by GSI itself: Free: Scorba, Throkmaw. Neutrals: Scorba, Throkmaw. Dark Servants: Aivnec, Culgor, Itangast, Khuzadrepa, Lamthanc, Lomaw, Smaug, Throkmaw, Uruial. The following dragons are thought to be recruitable by other players. However, caution should be exercised in these cases; I've yet to find a player who's actually done it for themselves (a prereq for the 'reliably confirmed' data). Neutrals: Itangast, Lomaw, Uruial. Dark Servants: Bairanax, Daelomin, Nimanaur, Scatha. There are a few others on various lists, but I don't include these unless I can cross-check them against a different set of data. As yet, this hasn't happened. Thanks to Michael Hostetter and Darren Beyer for providing much of the confirming information on dragons this time around. Other Corrections The Sinda fleet at 4413 is missing some ships in the original files. It should have 6 warships and 6 transports. Thanks to Brian Mason for pointing out this and other snafus. Along with the first issue of The Mouth went an information file. After reviewing a small amount of my own data, I realized that some of the information was wildly incorrect concerning population loyalties following seizure (although I did point out I couldn't confirm the accuracy of the tables). While the starting loyalties for created/posted camps are correct, I couldn't find the pattern that author suggested in any other sort of activity. Captures, threats, and influences didn't follow the guidelines given by any stretch of the imagination. While there did indeed seem to be some correlation between command ability, army morale, and ending pop center loyalty, this relationship was too difficult to discern without a more in-depth analysis (I'll leave this up to those of you who may be interested). Also, it's clearly obvious that there's some variation based upon purely random chance (looks to be +/- 1-10 points from whatever baseline the program establishes). In essence, the loyalty tables are almost entirely incorrect and shouldn't be used. They've been removed from the 'info' file. Personals Game 131 Brian Mason is looking for other players who're in game 131. If you'd like to talk to him, his address is: mason@chara.gsu.edu Tactics and Strategy: The Woodmen By Brian Mason In a recent study of 31 completed me-pbm games, with 93 possible winning positions, the Woodmen have yet to place in any game (Winners and Losers in Middle-earth, Tom Walton)(Editor's Note: this article is currently awaiting publication in Whispers. It's actual status is unknown at this time). Coming up with a winning strategy for this nation is a challenge. How do the Woodmen compare to other nations? At the start of the game they rank as follows (Allegiance Comparison Tables, Tom Walton)(Editor's Note: the allegiance comparison tables are included in the last article of this issue of The Mouth): among all players among FP Total Tax Base tied for 18th 10th Resource Base tied for 7th tied for 5th Combat Strength 18th 7th Character points 16th 5th Artifacts tied for last tied for last So, in all possible areas, the Woodmen are weak, and are argueably the weakest nation. Their resource base is rather high because they start with so many camps, this contributes to their low tax base. Few of their population centers are in places that might produce metals. Another big problem for the Woodmen is that they have a large deficit, and just to get the nation in the black requires increasing taxes to 70%. If this is done, only two of the Woodmen population centers have fortifications, so if loyalty drops much more, losing population centers is a very real danger. Unfortunately, there are very few ways to cut costs. There are no navies to give away, and the very real threat of attack from both the Dragon Lord and the Witch-King makes retiring troops a dangerous technique to attempt. In a team game the Woodmen can greatly benefit from cash grants from some of their wealthier allies. This can greatly strengthen the position. However, even in a team game this is uncertain at best, so the following set of strategic plans is intended to be suggested moves for the Woodmen with little or no support from allies. Briefly, the strategy is as follows: General strategy: Raise taxes to 70% to get the Woodmen close to breaking even. They will need their gold reserve to create characters and camps. Character strategy: Create a couple of emissaries which will create camps in mountain hexes (hexes 2360, 2407, 2408 in the North and/or 2215, 2116, 2217, 2118, 2219 in the South) to, hopefully, generate gold, and once the reach about 50 in emissary rank, move them to camps and begin improving population centers. High on the list of population centers to improve should be the two Woodmen hidden population centers. One of the best special advantages of the Woodmen is their abilities to have characters with better challenge ranks and the added bonus of possibly having stealth. After the initial group of emissaries are created and the economy is put on a firm footing many agents should be created. This is potentially the area where the Woodmen can effect the endgame the most. Army strategy: The Woodmen armies are weak. Despite this, unless the Witch-King commits troops from the West to attack in the East, Mt. Gundabad is a winnable Woodmen target. Consider the following set of moves. One of the armies at the backup capital force marches to Maethelburg. These two weaker armies will be there to defend these two Major Towns from the Dragon Lord should he choose an early strike against the Woodmen. The other army at Maethelburg recruits 400 heavy infantry and moves to Buhr Fram. If the Witch-King has also recruited 400 heavy infantry and moved to Buhr Fram, the Witch-King will lose and the Woodmen will have about 64% of their troops left, more than adequate to move on and take an undefended (or barely defended) Mt. Gundabad. If the Witch-King has decided to stay put at Mt. Gundabad and recruit an additional 400 troops, then the Woodmen also recruit 300 heavy infantry and move onto Mt. Gundabad. Even with the fortifications at Mt. Gundabad the Woodmen will win having about 51% of their troops left. Once this task is accomplished, futher advanced planning is not advisable as what should be done may depend a great deal on the moves of the Dragon Lord as well as the Dwarves and Sinda. More Character and Skill Improvement By Tom Walton This is a follow-up of sorts on the article by David Foreman published in the last issue of the Mouth. I did a little research in a few of my games (those I didn't throw the turns out on) and came up with the figures below. The table gives the current rank of the character, the bonus of the order (1-5 points for a 'Guard Location', 1-10 points for 'Steal Gold', etc.), and the average gain the character can expect to make if he/she completes the order. I broke down the numbers into the categories that GSI uses, on the assumption that the progression might conform to these ranks. Here's the results: Current Rank 1-5 1-7 1-10 10-19 3.7 4.7 - 20-29 3.2 4.2 6.4 30-39 2.9 3.9 4.9 40-49 2.6 3.6 4.7 50-59 2.0 2.9 3.6 60-69 1.7 2.3 2.9 70-79 1.3 2.0 2.5 80-89 1.0 1.3 - 90-99 1.0 1.0 - Unfortunately, I don't have any data on a few of the slots, mainly because I dumped the turn sheets from alot of my older games. One thing I should make clear: whatever algorithm GSI uses its NOT based upon the categories I used. That is, the break points are not at 19, 29, etc. With this, you can calculate how long it'll take to train up a character to a reasonable skill level (or how strong enemy characters might be). Note that progression in magery is very slow unless you win lots of challenges or have a couple of good encounters; this acts to restrict the number of characters capable of locating the One Ring (and makes sure that it won't happen early on). I've heard that player-characters can't increase skill ranks beyond 100. Since I usually play warlike neutrals, I haven't had an opportunity to test this until recently. In one of my games, several characters are very close to this limit and we'll soon see if, indeed, you can't get past 100. The Lighter Side Editor's Note: The following was written by Jeff Holzhauer, who plays the Duns in game 119. He typed up this proclamation and sent it to all the other players in his game. At his request, Brian Mason sent it to me for publication. Here's proof positive that stuff sent to The Mouth doesn't need to be particularly useful, especially if it's good for a few chuckles: WE THE PEOPLE of Dunland have undergone a great tril, filled with suffering, death, and deprivation. We have been victimized by a foul plague which felled men, women, and children; that slew the righteous and the wicked; the farmer and townsman; the peasant and the lord. We have suffered from poor harvests and floods; freezing winters and rainless summers. We have seen many battles: lord fighting lord, neighbor turned on each other, even brother against brother. We the people of Dunland realize that although the trial has been difficult and many have died, we have emerged stronger than ever. We understand the flaws of our old ways and have made many revolutionary changes. Everyone must work for the common good, not for his or her own advancement. No one will starve. Everybody will have a job, doing whatever he or she is best at. Leadership will be based on ability, not heredity. We the people of Dunland will rebuild our great nation, and we will be greater than ever. Because the people need room to expand, to place their collective farms and mines, to live their lives of happiness and productivity, we have laid claim to our traditional lands: south of the Greyflood and Swanfleet, west of the Misty Mountains, north of the White Mountains and east of the ocean. We the people of Dunland understand that we live in a hostile world, a world at war, a world of danger and death. Therefore, we are very concerned with the possibility of outside forces interfering with our revolution. We will not tolerate any nation that engages in counter-revolutionary activities. Any attempt to interfere with the development of Dunland is counter-revolutionary. The placement of any population center within Dunland is counter-revolutionary. Any attempt to remove ancient treasures from within Dunland is counter- revolutionary. The presence of any characters or armies within the borders of Dunland, without express prior approval, is counter- revolutionary. We understand that various nations may have a need to pass through our territory at one time or another and we are willing to approve passage on a case by case basis. Approval must occur before the movement, not after. We the people of Dunland have a "zero-tolerance" policy towards nations which engage in counter-revolutionary activities. If we discover even one violation, we will thereafter consider the counter-revolutionary nation to be an enemy, regardless of which side we eventually join. We the people of Dunland are very concerned with the security of our nation and our revolution. We would be very pleased to receive recognition from other nations. We would like to receive from each nation a statement that said nation recognizes the existence of Dunland and pledges not to engage in counter-revolutionary activities. We must have received such pledges from the majority of nations on a side before we will consider joining that side. We the people of Dunland would rather be stout allies than implacable enemies. We would appreciate any help provided by other nations and will look favorably upon any nation that aids us. We would like information on the world outside of Dunland. Information on starting forces as well as current activities. Information on artifacts and encounters which might help or hinder the revolution. We would appreciate assistance in the rebuilding of our nation, specifically, donations of material, land, or population centers. We would appreciate gifts of ancient artifacts which might help us protect the revolution. We the people of Dunland will not shirk our duties or allies. Once we have determined which nations support Dunland and the revolution we will fight beside our brothers with eagerness and ferocity. Our armies will throw themselves upon the enemy and destroy them; our mages will work great magics upon them; our diplomats will seduce their own people from them; and our spies will move amongst them like the wind, leaving only death behind. We will aid our brother nations with gold and material; with information and advice; with ancient artifacts and a modern military. We shall be victorious. Enion and Eribhen Charimen Peoples Executive Committee Unity Honor Strength ------------------------------------------------------------ The Council Debate By Brian Mason For long years the scattered Hillmen and what remained of the Dunedain of Rhudaur had maintained a uneasy alliance among themselves, seeking to maintain their scattered fiefdoms. The Great Plague had changed all that. While quarantine had necessitated the isolation of the people, the devastation which it wrought, along with the death of many a clan leader with blood-feuds with the opposition had led to an opportunity which had not existed since the formation of Rhudaur almost eight-hundred years ago: the possibility of reunification. While not all agreed with the plans and motivations of the various clan leaders, the all had agreed on one item: to hold a debate in open council, and for all the peoples represented to follow the decision of the council. For better or worse, the had decided to become united, and for better or worse to follow the policies established in this council debate. Elections were held at each of the population centers, and each sent a representative to the debate. These eight men assembled in a secret location and after long discussion amongst themselves, two were chosen to argue the two predominant sides. The camp was cool. One of the last frosty mornings of the spring greeted the eight travelers as the arose. Though they had talked much among themselves over the past week, today on the morning of their debate the clustered around two separate fires. The larger group, five men, in drab grey and green clothing, sat upon their knees and warmed their hands over the hot and aromatic pine, crackling in the air. The tallest among them was silent, as they others spoke among themselves words of encouragement and union in the cool dawn. Finally, one addressed the seeming leader of this group. "Strong and noble he is, Broggha, but he lacks your knowledge. Of the eight, five are Hillmen and were the vote held now your view would be the one." Broggha considered his words. He knew that Seammu spoke for all those around him. They were with him, and would follow his lead, but even he was unsure at this late date. "Well I know that, Seammu my friend. But even my mind is unclear, and though I believe what I believe, I will hear and decide on my own, and even then may decide to follow the words and advice of Arfanhil and yield to his plan. A fool is he who will follow a path to the abyss when another is clear." Around the other campfire the mood was not so serene. "Arfanhil, you are a fool! To agree to this debate, to agree to side with the majority opinion when we are outnumbered five to three, to possibly go into battle alongside the Black Captain is madness and betrays all for which we have stood." "Patience, Marendil my brother. Broggha is a brave man, hale and wise. He will not throw his lot one way or the other easily. I know him, and he will hear what I will say, and I will hear him." Finally, the two groups assembled. By toss of lots it was decided that Broggha would speak first. The aged lord of the land upon which they camped introduced him, speaking of his glories in battle, of his wisdom, and rattled on in such a rambling manner that eventually Broggha was compelled to raise his hand and begin his speech. "My many friends. We come here, young survivors of a deadly plague; strong, eager, ambitious. We come here to join together, to bring the many blood-feuds to an end, to decide upon a course of action which is best for all of our peoples. "We are pledged to each other and to the people whom we represent to do only what is best for us all. Some argued that we should welcome envoys, ambassadors, heralds from the many lands around. To hear what they should say, and to barter our loyalty upon the open market. This we will not do!" His fist slammed upon the podium, his eyes were ablaze as he was swept into the fury of his words. "What I say, I say for both our peoples, Hillmen and Dunedain alike. We are proud, we will do what is best for us, and we will not be bought." "Some among us would have you believe that we are a young realm," he glanced towards the three Dunedain present, "less than two score of scores in age, but that is only the time since we were two peoples. We Hillmen first cleansed the woods, we carved out this land and here we have dwelt for ages upon ages. We were here before the tall men on their tall ships came out of the sea. We were here before the Witch-King carved out his realm to our North. We were here before the Lord of Imladris built his home. Our people will outlive them all!" "Two score of scores ago we welcomed the tall men. One of them, son of the King of Arnor, we took as our leader. For some years we profited, but then his line failed, and the leadership faltered, and we disintegrated into what we have become. Almost five score years ago now the Witch-King succored us, and we marched to battle with him. The King of Arthedain, Argeleb I was slain at the hands of our warriors, and we were victorious!" "But the spoils of war were denied us. Promises were made, promises of the rich lands to our south and west, and these promises were broken. Two and a half score years later the Witch-King once again attempted to succor us to his need, and this time we refused. I need not tell you of our loss when we refused him, but those among us of the tall men know well of the loss of one of their citadels: Eldanar to the north." "Once again, the undying one, the Witch-King, marches to war. We fought with him once and were denied the fruits of our labors. Later, we stood to one side and our people were punished. Today we are ready like we never were before. We can march with him and take what we will, we can march against him and take what we will, or we can stand to one side once more. "The path for us then is to wait. Wait until the choice is clearer, wait until the outcome is certain, wait and then decide upon whose side we will fight. For the sake of our people: our men, women and children: wait." Broggha stood tall. His eyes gleamed, and he walked to his stool and sat upon it, waiting upon the words of Arfanhil. Arfanhil waited, longer than deemed sufficient, and slowly rose and walked to the lectern. Both young and old he seemed, youth in his limbs, yet deep and sorrowful were his eyes. He began to speak, in deep sonorous tones. "Well spoken, friend Broggha, well spoken. It is not my desire to come after words so well said, but follow you I must. I have come before all of you to argue another viewpoint. One more dangerous, less certain, and if looked at objectively, less safe than the plan of Broggha." "Guilt. I have come to speak of you of guilt. This guilt comes in many forms and guises, and of them I will speak to you. I am, and my brothers, Marendil and Valadan, riddled with guilt over the deeds of our people one hundred years past. Over the death of the great king, Argeleb I, and the death of so many fine warriors. And what guilt should a Hillman feel? You live off the land, kill only when you must, and use all which you kill. What of these dead, at what cost, and for what reward?" "Honor. Let me speak to you of honor. We marched with that foul sorcerer to the North and he betrayed us. He is without honor. We can march with Cardolan and Arthedain and as three realms reunited as Arnor we can reclaim the honor we lost in the war of 1356. "Revenge. Let us talk of revenge. Of the bodies of our soldiers, dead; dead for naught in the war of 1356, of our women and children, slaughtered in the war of 1409 when we refused to march to war with the Witch-King, of our realm: fragmented, ravaged, raped." "Guilt. Honor. Revenge. All of these are just cause. Yet, what should we do? If it is the right course of action, should we wait, as Broggha argues or should we march to war now? Should we be certain of victory, or does victory not matter so long as the cause just? Of these things we now must decide." For a long while, no one said anything, but was husbanding each their own thoughts. Most of the Hillmen eyes were on Broggha, for in him they trusted, and where he led they would follow. Broggha slowly raised himself and began to speak. "Courage is required in a War. It has been said that even more courage is required when you must relinquish a position you have long held and adopt the view of your opposition. This I will do. Let us be undivided in this." Broggha walked over to Arfanhil and grasped his hand. "Words you have spoken. Wise words, which I will now take to heart. Wise words, which I should be heeded by all. Wise words, which I will now follow though the darkness fall." "Arfanhil, I call you Prince of Rhudaur. Let all Arda remember the truth of your words and let all Rhudaur remember the moment when we stood tall and rejected the yoke of subjugation. Though we may fall, let us fall proud." Allegiance Comparison Tables By Tom Walton These tables were originally created about 7 months ago and then recently updated to reflect changes made by GSI in starting army strengths. I put them together to see how balanced the game was, both regionally and overall, and to see how much difference a neutral made when it declared for one side or the other. Explanatory notes follow. If you can't make out my system here, drop me a line and I'll explain whatever seems confusing. Eriador is that section of the mapwest of the Misty Mountains (the long mountain chain running north-south down the center of the map). Mirkwood is that section of the map east of the Misty Mountains and west of the Rhovanion. Mordor is that section of the map south and east of the Mirkwood forest. Tax Base is the total tax base of the nation/region/allegiance at a tax rate of 100%. Resource Base is the total resource output available to the nation/region/allegiance assuming a 'Warm' climate. The numbers were computed by dividing the percentage production of each population center by 20%. For example, a town produces 60% of a hex's available resources; divide by 20%, and the town's resource base is 3. A city, which only produces 20% of a hex's available resources, has a resource base of 1. The town, on the average, will produce three times what a city does in the same hex. Some nations have an actual resource base lower than that given on the tables, because of the climate which predominates in the region. Angmar (the nation of the Witch-King), for example, has a poor climate year-round, so it's production will be much lower in comparison to that of Dunland (which has a good climate year-round) - even though they have close to the same resource base. Army Strengths don't include training, weapons, or morale, so actual combat figures will be around 40-50% of the totals given. Army defense does include modifiers for armor. Where defense differed from attack by more than a thousand points or so, the numbers are given separately. Note that the effects of weapons, training, and so forth effectively reduce the combat strengths of Mordor's armies by about 10% in comparison to their regional enemies. The Witch-King and Dragon Lord have combat strengths 15-20% lower in comparison to their enemies even when things otherwise seem equal. Character Points simply lists all the points each nation/region/allegiance has available. Stealth is added in at it's full value if the character who has it also has agent skill; if not, it's added in at half its value. Note that this information may be somewhat misleading, as triple and quadruple-classed characters aren't as useful as they may appear to be. Artifacts lists the total skill bonuses for each nation/region/allegiance. Combat lists the strength of the combat weapons available to each nation/region/allegiance. When making comparisons between allegiances, characters, artifacts and weapons were left out of the computations. These items are much more mobile than armies, and are in a sense 'transferable' between regions. Both the Dwarves and Sinda are listed as 'Mirkwood' nations even though both have pop centers and forces in two or more regions. This is because the primary population centers and army forces, as well as their capitols, are located in Mirkwood. It should be noted that the Sinda and Dwarves often intervene in Mordor, which tips the balance of power in this region in favor of the Free Peoples. Free Peoples Skill Nation Tax RB Combat CP Art Com (Region) Woodmen 27,500 34 32,000 358 0,0,0,0 0 (Mirkwood) Northmen 50,000 25 35,000 290 0,0,0,0 0 (Mordor) Eothraim 37,500 30 72,000/ 310 0,0,0,0 1,000 (Mordor) 86,000 Arthedain 47,500 36 35,000/ 330 60,0,0,0 0 (Eriador) 44,000 Cardolan 50,000 25 27,000 290 0,0,0,0 0 (Eriador) N. Gondor 112,500 50 64,000/ 480 50,0,0,0 500 (Mordor) 82,000 S. Gondor 75,000 35 62,000/ 400 0,20,0,0 1,000 (Mordor) 71,000 Dwarves 52,500 34 60,000/ 340 55,0,0,0 3,750 (Mirkwood) 75,000 S. Elves 57,500 17 22,000/ 650 0,40,0,35 1,500 (Mirkwood) 13,000 N. Elves 47,500 21 16,000 1010 25,0,0,105 4,250 (Eriador) Dark Servants Skill Nation Tax RB Combat CP Art Com (Region) Witch-King 45,000 27 42,000/ 645 60,0,30,30 4,750 (Eriador) 40,000 Drag. Lord 30,000 18 32,000 655 0,0,0,110 3,750 (Mirkwood) Dog Lord 15,000 24 38,000/ 505 45,15,0,30 3,500 (Mordor) 42,000 Cl. Lord 27,500 19 42,000 370 25,0,0,0 1,500 (Mordor) B. Sorc. 17,500 23 26,000 405 10,0,0,15 500 (Mordor) Ice King 12,500 25 34,000 400 0,0,0,50 500 (Mordor) Q. Avenger 20,000 22 23,000 450 0,0,0,0 1,750 (Mordor) Fire King 15,000 24 35,000/ 355 10,0,0,0 1,500 (Mordor) 29,000 L. Rider 15,000 24 41,000/ 410 0,60,0,20 1,000 (Mordor) 52,000 Dark Lts 25,000 20 35,000/ 640 30,40,30,30 1,250 (Mordor) 32,000 Neutrals Skill Nation Tax RB Combat CP Art Com (Region) Corsairs 60,000 16 29,000/ 530 0,0,0,0 0 (Mordor) 26,000 Harad 82,500 37 30,000 290 0,0,0,0 0 (Mordor) Dunland 37,500 30 43,000 370 0,0,0,0 1,500 (Eriador) Rhudaur 37,500 25 50,000/ 290 20,0,0,0 0 (Eriador) 46,000 East. 57,500 32 50,000/ 330 0,0,0,0 1,250 (Mordor) 48,000 Nation Totals by Region and Allegiance Skill Allegiance Tax RB Combat CP Art Com (Region) Free Peoples (Eriador) 145,000 82 78,000/ 1,630 85,0,0,105 4,250 87,000 (Mirkwood) 137,500 85 114,000/ 1,348 55,40,0,35 5,250 120,000 (Mordor) 275,000 140 233,000/ 1,480 50,20,0,0 2,500 274,000 Total 557,500 307 425,000/ 4,458 190,60,0, 12,000 481,000 140 Dark Servants (Eriador) 45,000 27 42,000/ 645 60,0,30,30 4,750 40,000 (Mirkwood) 30,000 18 32,000 655 0,0,0,110 3,750 (Mordor) 147,500 180 274,000/ 3,535 120,115,30, 11,500 280,000 145 Total 222,500 225 348,000/ 4,835 180,115,60, 20,000 354,000 285 Neutrals (Eriador) 75,000 55 93,000/ 660 20,0,0,0 1,500 89,000 (Mordor) 200,000 85 109,000/ 1,140 0,0,0,0 1,250 104,000 Total 275,000 140 202,000/ 1,800 20,0,0,0 2,750 193,000 Relative Strength Comparisons Dark Servants vs Free Peoples Region Tax RB Combat Eriador .31 .33 .54 / .48 Mirkwood .21 .21 .29 / .28 Mordor .54 1.29 1.18 / 1.02 Total .40 .73 .82 / .74 Tax RB Combat In Eriador .31 .33 .54 / .48 w/Rhudaur .57 .63 1.18 / 1.01 w/Dunland .57 .70 1.09 / .98 w/both .83 1.00 1.73 / 1.51 Tax RB Combat In Mordor .54 1.29 1.18 / 1.02 w/Corsairs .75 1.40 1.30 / 1.11 w/Harad .84 1.54 1.30 / 1.13 w/Easterlings .75 1.51 1.39 / 1.20 w/Corsairs & Haradwaith 1.05 1.63 1.43 / 1.23 w/Corsairs & Easterlings .98 1.78 1.52 / 1.29 w/ Haradwaith & Easterlings 1.04 1.78 1.52 / 1.31 w/all three 1.26 1.89 1.64 / 1.40 Neutrals vs Free Peoples (In Eriador) Tax RB Combat Dunland .26 .45 .55 / .49 Rhudaur .26 .37 .64 / .53 Neutrals vs Dark Servants (in Eriador) Tax RB Combat Dunland .83 1.37 1.00 Rhudaur .83 1.11 1.16 / 1.14 Neutrals vs Free Peoples (in Mordor) Tax RB Combat Corsairs .21 .11 .12 / .09 Haradwaith .30 .26 .13 / .11 Easterlings .21 .23 .21 / .18 Neutrals vs Dark Servants (in Mordor) Tax RB Combat Corsairs .41 .09 .11 / .09 Haradwaith .59 .20 .11 / .11 Easterlings .39 .18 .18 / .17 Neutrals vs Free Peopls (Middle Earth) Tax RB Combat Corsairs .11 .05 .07 / .05 Haradwaith .15 .12 .07 / .06 Dunland .07 .10 .10 / .09 Rhudaur .07 .08 .12 / .10 Easterlings .10 .10 .12 / .10 Neutrals vs Dark Servants (Middle Earth) Tax RB Combat Corsairs .27 .07 .08 / .07 Haradwaith .37 .16 .09 / .09 Dunland .17 .13 .12 / .12 Rhudaur .17 .11 .14 / .13 Easterlings .26 .14 .14 / .14 Many interesting things can be learned by looking at relative strength values. For example, Harad has 59% of the economic power possessed by all eight of the Dark Servants in Mordor; the Easterlings, on the other hand, enjoy enormous combat strength in relation to their neighbors no matter which side they join; and so on. Comments on this article would be most appreciated. From the Mouth of Sauron Issue: E-4 Date: 01-14-94 Note: all authors retain exclusive rights to their material. Reprinting is allowed for non-commercial game use only. Editorial Happy Friday, folks! As your editor looks forward to seeing 4:30 roll around, a few thoughts.... More writers would be fun. While we have loads of neat material coming in, and I'm willing to shoot my mouth off given the opportunity, we need some different viewpoints to make things even more interesting. If you'd like to give it a shot, go write ahead! And remember, you can use a pseudonym if you so desire; I'm not going to tell anyone who you are (even if I could remember after a week's time). Criticism of another person's ideas are also welcome, as are debates of any sort (they make for great theater). Also, does anyone else out there have some plans for the opening moves of the Woodmen? How about another nation? We'd sure like to hear from you! A hearty welcome to our first UK players. I look forward to hearing about their games and what differences, if any, they've seen in comparison to the US version. Other than that, thanks one and all to this issues contributors, including the many who volunteer information on encounters and artifacts. Until next time, Tom Artifacts Tinculin, artifact #15: confirmed as having access to Spirit Mastery. Mothras, artifact #18: confirmed as having yet another secondary power, which lends credence to the theory that it's among those artifacts that have a random power in every game. Erivagil, artifact #161: this is held by Radagast the Brown at the start of the game. Thrakurghash: this is artifact 68, not artifact 58. Thanks to Mike Hostetter for providing the artifact information this time around. Encounters Celgor (the vampire): Celgor is the most common vampire met in the game. He appears as a beautiful man who smiles disarmingly, showing up at your campfire in the dead of night. The reaction Say "CELGOR" will allow a character to escape unharmed if that character is a Dark Servant. Upon review of a very old encounter list, I also had Free Peoples and Neutrals who Say "CELGOR" escaping unharmed. I don't know why I changed this to 'injured/killed'. For now, I'd suggest a change to your encounter lists for Dark Servants, and a cautionary note for FP/NT that doing the same thing may also allow them to escape. (Thanks to Dena Kiker for pointing out the error). Dragons Scatha: Act MEEK = escape unharmed for Dark Servants. This response does NOT recruit the dragon into an army. Turukulon: Offer TEN thousand gold = injured/killed for all. Offer one HUNDRED thousand gold = injured/killed for all. Offer ONE artifact = injured/killed for all. Darren Beyer reports that he managed to calculate the combat strength of Khuzadrepa in battle. His estimate was roughly 50,000 combat points, +/- 10% or so. Note that with the variance, this means that Khuzadrepa could also have a combat strength of 45,000, as was determined for Throkmaw earlier. Or, assuming my calculations were at the wrong end of the scale, Throkmaw could instead have a combat strength of 50,000. I see one of several possibilities: (1) In terms of combat strength, dragons are generic (all the same). (2) Dragons are broken down into classes (weak, average, strong). (3) Dragons have individual base strengths with a variable factor thrown in (like eagles, mumak, woses and such). Other Corrections and Notes Transport orders: Some players are under the impression that it takes two turns to transfer goods from one nation to the other. The first turn, nation transport your stuff to the capitol (if it's widely separated among various pop centers); the second turn, caravan transport it to the receiving nation. Not so. Nation transport is order 947, Caravan transport order 948. You can transport the item to your capitol to gather it together, then caravan transport it to your ally (with order 948) on the same turn. Just thought I'd point this out. In Your Ear Okay, it seems like no one wants to start an argument, so I'll be the first to foot something controversial. The topic: scorched earth. I'm an advocate of using scorched earth policy under a number of conditions. 'Scorched earth' simply means burning enemy pop centers rather than capturing them. The idea sends many a player into convulsive fits, so it should be good for some heated debate. When to use scorched earth? When you can't hold the pop center if you capture it. Think: if the enemy is just going to come back in a few turns and retake it, what's the point of capturing it in the first place? You get the gold and production for a short while, then turn it back over. Was it worth the lost troops? The lost time and orders? Is it worth letting the pop center fall back into enemy hands? If the enemy has an army that can simply threaten the pop center into submission, then he'll expend virtually no effort in recovering his loss. And if he takes it by capture instead, you're bound to lose loyalty which may endanger other pop centers you own, especially if you play this trading game several times. I advocate using scorched earth whenever you take a pop center you can't reasonably expect to hold, or that your allies can't protect. I also advocate using it if the tactic itself will cause confusion and panic amongst the enemy; seeing their pop centers burned to the ground with no possibility of taking them back often scrambles the brains of the opposition, causing them to do stupid and silly things (like hunker down over their remaining assets). Terror is an extremely effective weapon, which any competent Cloud Lord soon learns. This is especially true of the Dark Servants. They can reach any number of pop centers early on, but can expect to hold only those close to Mordor and their base of operations. The Free Peoples have an overwhelming economic advantage and are easily capable of retaking pop centers that aren't within the shadow of Mordor. By burning the pop centers farther away, you accomplish several goals: you permanently reduce the tax and production base of the enemy; you eliminate potential centers where the enemy could recruit troops; you screw up his loyalty but good, making other pop centers vulnerable to emissaries and threats; and you cause fear among the ranks. As an additional bonus, you no longer have to struggle back and forth over the same bloody towns, stalemating your forces in the Rhovanion. This isn't to say that you should burn everything in sight (although I've done this for kicks in one game, just to see people freak out). What it means is that you don't waste your time, energy, and most especially military resources on a pop center you can't hold and will lose soon after you capture it. This of course assumes you're playing against competent opponents (all bets are off with incompetents). Here's a list of the stuff I'd burn in a game if I were the Dark Servants and the enemy didn't act like a pack of fools: anything the Witch-King can reach (until Rhudaur goes evil); anything the Dragon Lord can reach (he's dead meat anyway); the Gondorian towns along the road north of Mordor (3116, etc.; these towns are perennial favorites for back-and forth fighting); several of the smaller towns around Rhun (to hurt the Northmen, cause panic, and keep from fighting back and forth over the pop centers, as is usually the case); the Eothraim town at 3612 (damn near impossible to hold while the Rhovanion still has Freeps wandering around); and anything farther away that Mordor can reach, with the possible exception of the Eothraim core area. So, let's here some comments! Personals Game 89 I am looking for DS and N with e-mail. Yours truly, Shayne Grey Address: gray3210@mach1.wlu.ca The Woodmen Last issue Brian Mason presented an opening plan for the Woodmen. His strategy generated some response. From Wes Fortin Let there be controversy! Having just read Brian Mason's piece on the Woodmen, several other key points come to mind. First, let's examine why the Woodmen never win. They have the weakest pop center base amongst the Free Peoples. Poor starting armies. Fair Commanders, and a lame economy. For the Woodmen to win, the Free must win. Therefore, they have to exceed the other Free Peoples in Pop Centers (a Gondor Strength), Characters (which Noldo get's this), Gold (Gondor or Noldo), and Armies (hah!). So, if you play the Woodmen nation, you shouldn't expect to win unless you play real dirty (not a wise choice). So, Brian and I agree on this point. However, I strongly disagree with his strategy for the Woodmen. If the Woodmen raise taxes to 70%, that will drop loyalty of all pop centers from 1-30 points. Call an average of 15, and the end result is the destruction of most of the Woodmen's camps. In my opinion, the Woodmen stand a far better chance of economic survival by raising taxes to a max of 50% (loss of 1-10 loyalty. So a camp will drop to a 20% loyalty at worst), and concentrate on using production sells and ally grants to keep your economy afloat. The Woodmen should make emissaries to first boost existing pop centers to villages (max production and some tax base) which will increase their ranks quickly to that magic number 40, to start CreCmp in the forest. The best way for the Woodmen to make money would be to sell Timber to allies for war machines, ships, fortifications, etc. If they won't buy from you (and they should if they make any of these items en mass), sell to the market! Timber prices are usually not bad. For Mountain production - using emissaries to CreCmps here is a waste of time. First, Dragons will grow fat on your emissaries. Even if they survive to make a camp or two, the Dragons will constantly whittle away at loyalties until the camp disappears, or you risk another emissary to keep it around. I agree that mountain production should be done, but by PosCmp with 100 AR and a decent commander. Dragons leave armies alone! Post the camp, stay there and ship timber to the location. They commander they builds fortifications (and gets experience for it), and moves to the next location. With the fortification, the loyalty will never drop below a one, and the camp won't degrade! The result is a protected investment, and no character risk. You may even want an emissary with the army to increase the camp to a village while you're there. Increasing the hidden pop centers is useful, but predictable. If the baddies nail your two MTs and you're still around, thier first thought will be that hidden town that everyone knows about. It's a good short term strategy, but it would be better to build a MT from scratch in, say, the South Mts or Fangorn if you want to stay close. Characters: Because of the Woodmen special ability for Scouting/Recon orders at double rank, and the good chance for stealth, new Woodmen characters should be created with some Agen rank. This doubles the cost of the character, but if you plan on staying in the game for a while, it's worth it. The Woodmen have lots of commanders, so the first builds should be Agents, Emissaries (or Agent/Emissaries - my personal favorite), and if you're not in a team game, a mage. You'll need the mage for artifact spells, intelligence, and a combat orientation wouldn't hurt. Agent/Emissaries are especially useful because they can train in both classes in a single turn. Move the new A/E to the hidden town/camp and GrdLoc/InfYour. In a short time, especially with stealth, you could have several very good characters. Drop into an enemy pop center with a ScoChar and if no one is home, InfOthr/Steal Gold. Great combination! Armies: The first turn, you need to move your armies to guarantee that the three threat points (Dol Guldor, Mt Gundabad, and Goblin Gate) can't get forces onto your MTs. Pretty easy to do. Build 800HI each turn and work closely with Sinda and Dwarves. If the Baddies overcommit their armies against you, the Sinda and Dwarves can take advantage of this mistake. You should be able to trap the enemy in the field. You may lose the battles, but you weaken the enemy for allied exploitation. I think Brian's moves against Gundabad are a bit extreme. Just send a good portion of your capitol force to Buhr Fram, have the remainder do a circle pattern to trap any force from Dol Guldor. Have a good chunk of the 2711 forces move to the village in the gap to intercept any forces from Dol Guldor and the remainder do a circle to again, trap forces from Goblin Gate (the above trapping pattern should also read "Goblin Gate". sorry). Recruit 400 HI, hire another 300HI if you can, and build a character. Turn two will depend on the baddies actions. If they stay and home and build, coordinate an attack with your allies. As Brian said, your economy can't support lot's of troops. Keep an eye on the 3 threat points, and be wary of Cav units from Mordor! Take advantage of openings, and do lot's of selling! If you have a spare capitol order, raise taxes on Turn 2 to 50%, and downgrade relations with the Dragon Lord and Witch King. After Turn 2, things get fuzzy for the Woodmen. Mirkwood is traditionally the most volitile theater in the game. If the baddies overcommit too soon, they're dead! Lots depends on your allies. If the Sinda and Dwarves are shy about building troops, you're in trouble and they need a talkin to. Long term, the Woodmen are critical information gatherers and Scouts. One should be with every Free People agent company! Thanks to Mike Hostetter for the Turn 1 military plan! A Response to Wes from Brian Mason (the author) For my initial strategy of the Woodmen, I was pleased that it generated such a response so quick. I really like most of the ideas which were presented. Of course, as I stated in the article: "the following set of strategic plans is intended to be suggested moves for the Woodmen with little or no support from allies." This is not a condition under which the alternate strategy was developed, what with discussions of financial grants from various sources, and military aid from the Sinda and Dwarves. Prehaps I was jaded by game 62, but this is a "safe" way to approach the game, and if you do get help from your allies, so much the better. Many of my moves are riskier, but I especially like the idea of developing camps in the mountains in the way suggested. Of course, emissaries are eaten by dragons (a hard lesson I've learned all to well in game 97), but the emissaries can be used to create camps in less vulnerable areas, both the forest and in the rough hexes south of Mirkwood. I advocated creating single classed agents and emissaries. Of course, agent/emissaries are quite nice. However, each one costs an additional 5000 gold, and to the Woodmen early on, this is a great deal of gold and these characters are not immediately useful (although later they could be quite nice). The army moves they suggested are much more conservative than mine. I am convinced that it is not only possible, but highly probable, that the Woodmen can take Mt. Gundabad as I suggested on turn three. This strengthens the Woodmen economy, weakens the Witch-King, and eliminates one of the three threat areas as described by the other plan. A Response to Wes from Tom Walton Wes and I went back and forth via email concerning Free Peoples camp creation in the Misty/Grey Mountains. Frankly, I think it's a bad idea all-around, regardless of which tactic you use (CreCamp or PosCamp). Dragons tend to constantly show up, destroying loyalty and making the pop centers easy pickings for enemy emissaries. This comes from some very hard experience from playing both the Duns and Dwarves. Fortifications might keep the camp from degrading, but they matter not a whit if someone shows up to do 'Influence Other'. Worse, if the Dark Servants take your camp, those same dragons will boost the loyalty every time they show up, and act as 'guards' against Free Peoples emissaries trying to steal them back. But more specifically, I don't believe the Woodmen have the orders, materials, or money to waste early on posting camps in the mountains, then fortifying them with towers. Even assuming a 100 A army and a single 40-point commander (for assured tower production), this little army will cost 1,000 gold per turn in mainenance. Add this to the 1,000 timber you need to use (which could otherwise be sold), the 1,000 gold per tower, and the fact that you'll only be able to post one camp every three turns (move into mountains; post camp next turn; fortify and move out third turn), and you get a total camp creation cost of: 4,000 (PosCamp) + 3,000 (3 turns of army/character maintenance) + 1,000 (tower cost) + 3,000 - 6,000 (average timber sell price for 1,000 timber), for a total of 11,000- 14,000 gold. Very, very expensive for a single camp, one which will also cost an additional 500 gold in maintenance per turn for that tower. Assuming that the camp produces enough materials to sell 2,500 gold worth of stuff on the market every turn, it'll take you anywhere from 5.5-7 turns to recoup your investment. This doesn't even count the worth of the lost orders, which I think is even more important at this early stage in the game. Another point I'd like to make is that the Woodmen in combination with the Dwarves and Sinda can take Dol Guldur, Goblin-Gate, and Gundabad all by the end of turn 6, assuming that these three powers are acting as a unified team. Regardless of what the Dragon Lord does, he can't stop this. Without major intervention from Angmar or Mordor, or an early DS conversion of the Rhudaur (with their army foolishly committing in the Anduin rather than helping out the Witch-King), the Dragon Lord is doomed in Mirkwood when faced by a coordinated front. You can accomplish this even earlier if you have additional help from the other Free Peoples (turn 3 is the earliest), but I wouldn't recommend committing so many forces against a single, rather weak position. If the Dragon Lord and Gundabad are conquered by turn 6, the Woodmen are free from immediate threat for quite some time, unless the other Free Peoples in the east fumble the ball, or the Witch-King pretty much conquers most of Eriador. Perhaps this is the factor that's supposed to allow the Woodmen to gain an advantage? Early action followed by long turns of peace and building? I don't really think so, but it's a possibility. Personal Challenge Combat Results by David Foreman Many aspects of MEPBM are not specifically predicable. GSI will tell you (if you ask) that many of the parameters of the game are 'unknown to the players'. Newsletters such as Tom Walton's assist players by sharing information about these 'unknown' aspects. Unlike these unknowns, the personal challenge order is, in fact, knowable. Random factors are involved, which makes the result of a specific challenge unknown, but the mechanics of the challenge are well outlined on pages 52 through 57 of the rules. (A comment. there is a possibility that a character who starts with less than 100 health has a negative modifier to his challenge rank. I have no evidence that this is the case. I believe the detrimental effect the lower health as on survival due to damage during the combat is all the adjustment needed.) A short summary of the process follows. This description assumes that a challenge has been issued and accepted. Calculating the Challenge Rank This is for your knowlege. You can take the challenge rank off of the sheet and ignore this section if you wish. The results you get from this description vary a bit from the turn sheet values due to rounding (I'm not sure how THEY round). 1) From the turn sheet, write down the skill ranks of the character (as modified by artifacts). 2) Multiply the agent rank by 0.75, and the emissary rank by 0.50, to generate the revised ranks for challenge. Command and mage ranks are not modified. 3) Of the four modified and unmodified ranks, the highest is the major rank for calculating the challenge rank. 4) Add the other three ranks together and multiply the result by 0.25. Add this result to the major rank. This is your base challenge rank. 5) If your character is using a combat artifact, divide the combat strength of the artifact by 50. Add this to the base challenge rank above to generate the final challenge rank. Notes: 1) Some characters have a bonus to their challenge rank. This bonus can add 1 to 20 pts of challenge rank to a character. 2) Some players report that offensive combat spells affect challenges. I have no data on this, and in fact doubt that this assumption is true, since the CAST COMBAT SPELL order (225) comes after the personal challenge order (210), and GSI would have had to specifically program this adjustment into the program. Personal Combat Process 1) Add a random number (1-100) to character A's challenge rank. If the random number is less than 6, give character B a bonus of 1-100 points. If the random number is greater than 95, give A a bonus of 1-100 points. 2) Add a random number (1-100) to character B's challenge rank. If the random number is less than 6, give character A a bonus of 1-100 points. If the random number is greater than 95, give B a bonus of 1-100 points. 3) Determine which character has the highest total points (rank + random rolls + bonuses). Subtract the smaller total from the larger total. This is the maximum potential damage that can be inflicted this round. 4) Generate the actual damage as a random number (from 1 to potential damage). 5) Subtract the actual damage from the health of the character whose total points were lower. 6) If both character's have a health over 0, go to #1, else end the combat. The character with health left wins! Calculating Win Percentages The two attachments to this article contain a table and the turbo pascal source code I used to generate the information for this article. The table lists the advantage in challenge rank, the win percentage, the number of wins recorded in 100,000 combats, and the average health the character had for the combats he/she won. I ran 100,000 combats for each combination of challenge ranks. To save time, I only ran the combinations of ranks that were even multiples of 5. A few comments to be made. It is statistically impossible to win a combat if you have a challenge rank advantage of less than -300. Let me illustrate the 299 advantage: Character A B Challenge Rank 10 309 Roll 300 01 (roll 100, + 100 bonus for A's roll and 100 for the bonus roll due to B's roll of 1) Total 310 310 (The best A can do is tie. Eventually the tie will break and A will die. Actually A will almost definitely die immediately! Health Obviously, characters will take damage when they win a challenge unless they win in one round. The accompanying table lists the average health after combat of winners. These data follow the expected trend, that being that a winner will have fewer and fewer remaining health points as their advantage gets lower. This trend reverses itself at about the -40 advantage level. Why? Because at that point, you are one lucky fool to win (less than 5%)! As your disadvantage grows, it becomes a miracle event for a win to occur. In the -40 to -100 range, you are winning because you got lucky several rounds in a row, or someone got a critical hit or miss. Once a -100 or worse advantage is reached, someone MUST get a critical hit or miss every round, and it MUST go your way every round. That's it! I plan to do a follow up article that shows what happens to challenges when one or both characters have less than 100 starting health. Summary Challenges shouldn't be scary things. Using the information in this article, your job becomes determining the other character's challenge rank. Once you know that, it's simple statistics! Win % Advantage 1 -60 5 -35 10 -25 20 -15 30 -10 40 -5 50 0 60 5 70 10 80 15 90 25 95 35 99 60 Note: My analysis shows that a character with an advantage of 175 points loses 1 time in 100,000. I recently lost a challenge where I had a 98% win percentage. I also killed Akhorahil in game 22 with a -70ish challenge advantage! It happens. Of course, if you're Tom Walton, you always challenge if you have a 20% win rate! (Editor's Note: only if you're playing crazy Dunnish barbarians) Sometimes it works, and it certainly screws the opposition up! And by the way... Does anyone have any idea upon what the 'crowd estimates the odds to be'??? These odds don't appear very accurate to ME! Later gang! Middle Earth Play by Mail Personal Combat Statistics Combats Run: 100,000 Advantage Win % Win Count Avg Health -200 0.0000 0 0 -195 0.0000 0 0 -190 0.0000 0 0 -185 0.0000 0 0 -180 0.0010 1 85 -175 0.0010 1 41 -170 0.0010 1 100 -165 0.0050 5 77 -160 0.0010 1 77 -155 0.0050 5 63 -150 0.0080 8 78 -145 0.0030 3 82 -140 0.0180 18 78 -135 0.0130 13 78 -130 0.0290 29 63 -125 0.0300 30 65 -120 0.0400 40 62 -115 0.0530 53 73 -110 0.0640 64 62 -105 0.0700 70 70 -100 0.1030 103 69 -95 0.1240 124 62 -90 0.1650 165 61 -85 0.2130 213 61 -80 0.3000 300 60 -75 0.3900 390 57 -70 0.5440 544 59 -65 0.7950 795 56 -60 1.1240 1,124 57 -55 1.6240 1,624 56 -50 2.3080 2,308 53 -45 3.1870 3,187 54 -40 4.4030 4,403 53 -35 6.3300 6,330 52 -30 8.9820 8,982 52 -25 12.3420 12,342 52 -20 17.3740 17,374 52 -15 23.3070 23,307 53 -10 31.1530 31,153 54 -5 40.3560 40,356 55 0 50.2310 50,231 58 5 59.7380 59,738 60 10 68.7950 68,795 64 15 76.5770 76,577 67 20 82.8980 82,898 71 25 87.7430 87,743 75 30 91.2290 91,229 78 35 93.8130 93,813 81 40 95.4970 95,497 84 45 96.8310 96,831 86 50 97.7250 97,725 89 55 98.4440 98,444 90 60 98.9070 98,907 92 65 99.1350 99,135 93 70 99.4290 99,429 94 75 99.6200 99,620 95 80 99.6890 99,689 96 85 99.7810 99,781 96 90 99.8100 99,810 97 95 99.8710 99,871 97 100 99.8970 99,897 98 105 99.9140 99,914 98 110 99.9320 99,932 99 115 99.9310 99,931 99 120 99.9670 99,967 99 125 99.9610 99,961 99 130 99.9790 99,979 99 135 99.9830 99,983 99 140 99.9870 99,987 100 145 99.9950 99,995 100 150 99.9870 99,987 100 155 99.9960 99,996 100 160 99.9950 99,995 100 165 99.9980 99,998 100 170 99.9970 99,997 100 175 99.9990 99,999 100 180 100.0000 100,000 100 185 100.0000 100,000 100 190 100.0000 100,000 100 195 100.0000 100,000 100 200 100.0000 100,000 100 SOURCE CODE for ... program pcmepbm; uses WinCrt; { Allows Writeln, Readln, cursor movement, etc. } const count = 100000; health1 = 100; health2 = 100; frank1 = 210; trank1 = 210; frank2 = 10; trank2 = 410; var detail, summary : text; h1, h2 : longint; i, j, k : longint; end_hlth1, end_hlth2 : longint; win1, win2 : longint; w1,w2, e1,e2 : real; {***********************************************************************} procedure fight(rank1,rank2:longint;var health1,health2:longint); var roll1, roll2 : longint; damage1, damage2 : longint; flag1, flag2 : longint; i : longint; damage : longint; begin while ((health1 > 0) and (health2 > 0)) do begin roll1 := random(100)+1; roll2 := random(100)+1; flag1 := 0; flag2 := 0; { Was the roll a critical hit or miss?} if roll1 >= 96 then flag1 := flag1 + 1; if roll1 <= 5 then flag2 := flag2 + 1; if roll2 >= 96 then flag2 := flag2 + 1; if roll2 <= 5 then flag1 := flag1 + 1; roll1 := roll1 + rank1; roll2 := roll2 + rank2; { Add additional rolls for criticals} for i := 1 to flag1 do roll1 := roll1 + random(100)+1; for i := 1 to flag2 do roll2 := roll2 + random(100)+1; damage := abs(roll1 - roll2); if roll1 > roll2 then begin health2 := health2 - (random(damage)+1) end else begin health1 := health1 - (random(damage)+1) end; end; end; {***********************************************************************} begin assign(detail,'detail.txt'); assign(summary,'summary.txt'); rewrite(detail); rewrite(summary); randomize; clrscr; for i := frank1 to trank1 do for j := frank2 to trank2 do if (i = (5 * (i div 5))) and (j = (5 * (j div 5))) then begin end_hlth1 := 0; end_hlth2 := 0; win1 := 0; win2 := 0; cursorto(1,1); write(i:5,j:5); for k := 1 to count do begin h1 := health1; h2 := health2; fight(i,j,h1,h2); if h1 > 0 then begin end_hlth1 := end_hlth1 + h1; win1 := win1 + 1; end else begin end_hlth2 := end_hlth2 + h2; win2 := win2 + 1; end; end; w1 := 100*win1/count; w2 := 100*win2/count; if win1 <> 0 then e1 := end_hlth1/win1 else e1 := 0; if win2 <> 0 then e2 := end_hlth2/win2 else e2 := 0; writeln(detail,i:5,j:5,w1:10:4,w2:10:4,e1:5:0,e2:5:0); writeln(summary,j- i:10,w2:10:0,win2:10,e2:10:0,count:10); end; close(detail); close(summary) end. --------------------- A Response to David from Darren Beyer Just a note. You mention that since Cast Combat Spell comes after personal challenge that it can't be included. In Whispers Q&A issues GSI has repeatedly stated that offensive spells DO count the same as using a combat artifact. How is this possible when it comes after Issue Personal Challenge? The only thing I can think of is this: The combat orders are not done entirely in order, it is all done as one section, i.e. eventhough Attack Nation occurs before Attack Enemy, if you issue an Attack Nation against one of two opposing forces, but both issue Attack Enemy against you, you won't attack the one force first with the Attack Nation, then fight the other as he attacks you. All combat goes off simultaneously. Maybe personal challenge falls in this "combat" portion of the order list where the exact sequence of the order does not really matter. A Response to David From Mike Hostetter It seems to me that they have changed the way the crowd calculates the odds. I think that they take the final challenge rank (INCLUDING weapons/artifacts/bonus challenge rank) and compare the values. As to the issue of spells, there are other orders that go off in non-numeric order. For example, when you issue a personal challenge (210), it should go off before your opponent gets a chance to refuse (215), but it doesn't. Also, I recall (but cannot produce) the statement from GSI that offensive magic acts "as acombat weapon" in personal challenges. I'm not sure there is any way to verify this, other than to have a few friendly nations have a slug-fest between some mages and commanders. I'd guess that about 5 combats, with all combattants at 50 challenge rank, with all the mages casting an EXACT damage offensive combat spell of +1000 would prove/disprove the point. Also, my analysis shows that a health delta of 85 (the most it could possibly be since challenges occur after healing) is only a -35 challenge rank! So Argeleb at challenge of 170 and 1 health (at previous turn's end) can laughingly call out Dancu at challenge rank of about 80 and expect to survive (a +55 challenge advantage in effect). I know, I have done this. The Problem with Army and Troop Training by Brian Mason Author's note: This started as more of general gripe session a couple of months ago with the editor via email about how combat and the various troop types are handled. As I diligently trained my troops in game 62 I only saw their ranks slaughtered and overcome by larger numbers of poorly trained troops. The question then presented itself: under what conditions does troop training increase army strength as much as recruiting? What follows is the crux of this analysis. I recommend those of you with chronic insomnia hold off reading this until bedtime. I have little doubt that this will do what counting sheep could never accomplish. After analysis, I've become a bit disenchanted and dissapointed with the way troop types are handled. I think training, weapon, and armor type should be important, and the value of the other troop types should increased. It's disappointing that the best thing to do in all cases is to recruit heavy and nothing else. I'd like to see the various light and archer types should have, prehaps more enhanced value in rough, forest, mountain, and/or swamp terrain. Another way to consider the problem is the following: at what army size does training increase the attack strength more than simply recruiting more troops? Let's define some variables: C = some arbitrary constant representing all other factors affecting combat strength (e.g. morale, commander skill, terrain, etc.), N = Number of troops initially in army, TR = Training rank of these N troops, n = Number of troops recruited, tr = Training rank of the recruited troops (usually 10, but sometimes otherwise depending on the nation), pts = Random value of training success (1-5 for army, 1-7 for troop training). Before the turn in question the troop strength is simply CN. If training is used the troop strength then becomes | pts | | 1 + ---- | * CN. | 400 | If troops are added, then the expression is more complicated | | NTR + ntr | | | | TR - --------- | | | | N + n | | | 1 - ------------------- | * C * (N + n). | 400 | For example, let C = 1, and consider a troop on a major town with a training rank of 60. Assume army training is used and the points increase by 3. So, C = 1, N = unknown, TR = 60, n = 400, tr = 10, pts = 3, Setting these two expressions equal to each other, we find that the increase in combat value is only the same if N = 46,667 troops. In other words, a 0.86 percent increase in the number of troops is better than increasing there training by three percent. I don't think that is reasonable. This, of course, is a simplistic example, and is not considering what happens if the army has multiple troop types, if training is taking place by more than one commander, etc., however, those things do not effect the result. If we take the values above, and solve for different levels of training TR versus total troop number (N) then we get a linear relationship governed by the equation (in y = mx + b form, taking C = 1, n = 400, tr = 10, and pts = 3), TR = 160,010 - 3 N. So, by all means, train your troops. But don't do it with the intention of increasing your army through troop strength. Do it to increase your commanders skill rank as well. If you want to maximize army strength recruit more troops! Editor's Note: For those of who are interested, Brian has a PostScript file which you can use to generate the plot described above. If you want it, simply drop me a line and I'll let him know. From the Mouth of Sauron Issue: E-5 Date: 01-21-94 Note: all authors retain exclusive rights to their material. Reprinting is allowed for non-commercial game use only. Editorial Hello once again. First off, missed mail. Considering the rather enormous amount of email I've been getting since the Mouth took off, it's quite possible that I'll somehow misplace or forget about something you sent me for publication. If you don't see whatever it is you sent me in the Mouth that goes out the Friday after, drop me a line and ask me what the hell I think I'm doing. Since my policy is to print anything that's even remotely connected to ME-PBM, a failure to publish what you sent to me means a mistake on my part. A swift kick in the ass will usually jog my memory. (Note that articles are usually printed in the order received, if only for my own convenience). Two new columns come to light this time around. The first is the "ME-PBM Wish List". This column asks the question: if you were the computer god of this game, what would you change? What alterations would you make in the rules, set-ups, or code? What new things would you add, or old things eliminate? It doesn't have to be realistic; nothing in this column will spur GSI to make any changes to the game. The point here is to tell other players what you think would make the game better, no matter how drastic the suggestion might be. I put in a few examples to give you an idea of what I mean. Commentary is most welcome, as usual. The second column is called "How I Got Shafted in ME-PBM". This serves a different function, and one that one day may actually be of some use. I'm trying to pinpoint the most common mistakes, misinterpretations, and handicaps that new players operate under. So stretch your memory back to that misty far-off time when you were a new player and ask yourself: what about the game was confusing? What orders got your troops wiped out and your characters killed because the rules didn't describe them very well? In other words, if GSI was writing an instruction manual for new players concerning the game, what do YOU suggest they add to that manual so that other guys and gals won't make the same mistakes? Here's an opportunity to vent on the injustices heaped upon you when you first joined Middle Earth-PBM! Within the Mouth this time you're going to find a number of commentaries by Leslie Foreman, the lovely wife of David Foreman. These commentaries were originally run over several issues of the Free People Press (David's baby), giving all of us in game 60 the opportunity to experience Leslie's wit and charm first-hand (and to envy Dave!). Leslie doesn't play the game, she just has the misfortune of being saddled with a gamer-husband; but her observations on gamer antics were something I looked forward to with each issue of The Press. If anything, the commentaries reminded me on a regular basis just how silly the game can really be. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. And thanks to Leslie and David, for giving me permission to run the articles in The Mouth. Finally, any more comments on the Woodmen opening strategy in issues 3 and 4? Any alternatives people would like to submit? That does it. Until next Friday, Tom Artifacts Believe it or not, no changes this time around. Encounters Celgor: I'm told by a reliable source that the i.d. for Celgor is VAMPI, not CELGO (which stands for VAMPIre Celgor). So, if you want to transfer artifacts to him, locate him via spell, etc., use VAMPI as his i.d. I'm also told that Celgor may be the only vampire in the game. Whether this is true or not I don't know; I've never personally run into a vampire to tell you otherwise, although a number of people claim to have encountered a female vampire (Celgor in drag?). If anyone has the answer, I'd appreciate hearing it. Dragons Lamthanc's combat strength has been confirmed at 45,000. This seems to confirm my suspicion that dragons are either generic or fall into a few classes at most (thanks to Tori DeYoung for this one). Any guesses on what the average dragon challenge rank/health total is? Other Corrections and Notes In newer games, Uvatha's skill ranks have been changed. He used to be a C60 A10 E10; he's now a C60 A20 E20. I first noticed this in game 140, but don't know when GSI first made the alteration (my latest setup previous to this is game 54). Okay, let's see if I can get this right...the Sinda fleet at 4413 has 6 warships and 3 transports, not 6 warships and 6 transports. Thanks to Tori DeYoung and others for bringing this mis-correction to my attention. Wes Fortin made an interesting observation and is looking for comments. Essentially, it runs like this: Two armies are facing off. The commander of the first army issues personal challenge to the commander of the second army. The second commander refuses the challenge (the first army commander has a higher challenge rank than the second army commander). In the ensuing combat, the first army wins. Now here's the tricky part: because the second army commander originally refused a challenge by the winning first army commander, that second commander is more likely to be killed after losing the army combat. So what do you all think? Any evidence out there to confirm or deny this? Any commentary? Brian Mason asks the question: What are the combat values of Woses, Ents, Eagles, Mumakil, Fell Beasts, etc.? I've never bothered to track this data, so any information you all out there may have would be most welcome (others are interested in the answers as well). Jerry Clark wants to know: What is a reasonable agent level for an assassination attempt and for a kidnap? This question has a complicated answer, and I'd like to defer it to someone who does more assassinations than I do. Any takers? In Your Ear (Editor's Note: last issue yours truly wrote a piece on using scorched earth tactics within the game for this column. The point was to generate some responses and, if lucky, perhaps even an outraged debate or two. The replies to my article follow:) From Wes Fortin I very much agree with you on that issue, Tom. I'd like to expand on the idea of Scorched Earth some, and state that it is best used in a "commerce raid" style of attack. That is to say, penetrate the enemy with about 2500HI and a 40-50 commander (or less if that's all you've got) and burn his pop centers. Focus on towns or smaller, try to conserve the troops as long as possible. DstPop is easier and costs fewer troops than CptrPop so those troops should be good for 3-5 hits (assuming no opposition by enemy troops). Eventually, this army will have about 300 troops left, too small for much of anything. Either disband it, or try to make it back to the rest of your army to take advantage of the high morale those troops will have. If you have 60+ commanders, I would recommend hitting the same targets with 1000AR armies and using THREAT instead of slash and burn. Use this in combination with a larger slash and burn force, and the enemy suddenly has several targets to contend with and must either absorb the losses, or divert resources to stop your armies. If you plan it correctly, you can followup commerce raids with a big strike to hit the Major Towns and Cities. Commerce Raid attacks are usually productive, and cheap to maintain. They are especially effective for poor economy nations (like the Woodmen and any Dark Servant) facing a large economy foe. More importantly, your enemy will probably be spending more time chasing commerce raiders to save his economy and production and less time launching large assaults against you! Initially, the Free peoples probably won't need Slash and Burn much. It's great against camps, trains wimpy commanders, and might yield a high morale army. In addition to affecting the loyalty of all the target nation's pop centers! But the Freeps usually have enough military advantage to capture pop centers and force the baddies divert their few resources to recapturing pop centers - thus leaving themselves open to further Freep invasion forces. Remember, the Freeps start with about a 2:1 military advantage and a bigger economic advantage. The best way to equalize that is to destroy his economy quickly so the Freeps can't maintain those crushing armies - and slash and burn is a good tactic for those mid level commanders to use! From Keith Petersen Have you considered that scorched earth also destroys the tax base, and thus would lower the prices for market? Hence, not only wouldn't DS get the few turns income, they also could lower the prices they'll get for their own goods! From Glen Mayfield I too am a fan of a scorched earth policy, but under different circumstances. For me, a scorched earth policy works best when playing a Free People. The reason for this is simply economics. Most Free People can get by reasonably well without adding pop centers to those they start with. The Dark Servants not only need additional pop centers but certainly can't afford to lose any of those they start with. As a result, a suicide run by a FP army with the intent to destroy DS pop centers well beyond the area they expect to be able to defend can be very effective. Not only will the loss of the destroyed pop centers seriously damage the DS in question but may (coupled with the inevitable tax hike) cost them much needed camps due to loyalty loss. It can start a vicious cycle which leads to the demise of the nation. As with all strategies, this is, of course, more easily written than carried out but I have seen it work to good effect. For the Dark Servants, I see a scorched earth policy as an extreme measure in most cases. As you suggest, when used in an effort to create confusion and terror it can be quite useful (though only when used selectively IMHO). Softening up other pop centers for emissaries by destroying exposed pop centers is also an excellent strategy under the right circumstances. Still , I see these uses of scorched earth as just a small part of a larger strategy which must include capturing FP pop centers. If a DS can only expect to hold a pop center for 1-2 turns then destroying it is the route to take (but you must ask if that was the best place for that army to be ...sometimes yes, perhaps others not.) If you can expect to hold it for 3+ turns but not indefinately you also have to ask several questions: 1) How long can I expect to hold it? 2) Is it productive enough that those turns make it a boon to my hard pressed economy? 3) Can I expect the FPs to waste time and effort to recapture what may not be a location of strategic import? 4) If it has fortifications will it stop enemy movement long enough to prepare a defense? Depending on how one answers these questions, capturing may be the best option even if the pop center is likely to be lost some time in the future. Naturally the best bet is to take something you have a chance to hold on to. Admittedly not always possible. When that's the case I consider scorched earth but not always reaching the same conclusions as your article suggets. Of course that's what makes PBMs fun. Lot's of ways to approach the same question without any 'right' answer. See you in the Misty Mountains (hopefully not as a dragon's dinner!) From Brian Mason In my most recent turn I captured rather than destroyed Mt. Gram. I needed the gold! As you might remember (or could look back and see) in game 62 I took Cargash from you and then developed a "hedgehog" defense. The idea with the "hedgehog" is to capture a fortified population center deep within enemy territory. Then sit on it and recruit troops. The enemy will tie down resources guarding against your moves out of the defense, and raising troops to overcome it. It may allow you a respite from attacks of a single adversary and give you time to raise the troops necessary to go back and relieve the forces. And Another Topic This isn't to put an end to the discussion on scorched earth, but to add to the list of stuff that we can argue over. Remember, any of you can bring up a topic as well, possibly spurring several concurrent discussions on different things. The topic I suggest here is the role of the Neutral. As a long-time player of neutrals and one who loves these positions more than any allegiance nation, I've heard a wide variety of comments on neutrals. These remarks have ranged the gamut, from favorable to scathingly scatological (these last do not bear repeating in polite company). Example: in one of my games, a player said that neutrals added 'excitement' to ME-PBM, and allowed an otherwise defeated side some hope of making a comeback. Another player in the same game suggested that I was somehow morally deficient for choosing a neutral in the first place, and that the only 'fair' thing to do would be for me to drop so I didnt' 'ruin' the balance of power! Different viewpoints indeed. My own view is that neutrals are necessary, else the game degenerates to a slugfest between two sides whose abilities are well-known. Without the added unpredictable factor that neutrals give to the game, the balance of power remains eternally static and incredibly dull. Worse, the option for playing a game of intrigue and diplomacy falls to nil, unless one is low enough to engage in underhanded deals with the enemy in order to gain an advantage. Of course, many players would just as soon dispense with diplomacy altogether. I've noticed that in the later games the allegiances will rarely even part with a few lousy artifacts to gain a neutral's aid, much less condescend to transferring pop centers or retiring characters (grumble, grumble). Even worse, many players operate on the assumption that neutrals should be wooed to their side, then destroyed in the end-game. The reasoning? Neutrals shouldn't be 'allowed' to win. Frankly (and here's where I'm going to get into trouble, I know it), I think people who deal with the words 'should' and 'fair', getting on a high horse to attribute some moral imperative to a game, are unmitigated twits. In defense of those who complain about neutrals, I do believe they hold too much power. If 4 or 5 neutrals declare for a single side, that side becomes unbeatable assuming competent play. I don't like this any better than anyone else (it makes the game too short and too easy), but I can't see a solution other than to either reduce neutral resources (bad move) or limit the number of neutrals who can join any single side (max of 3 on one side). This last would take an Act of Bill, which happens too rarely to hold out any near-term hope. Another annoying habit of some neutral players is to stay out of the war grabbing victory points left and right, then declare for the win at the end-game. This, however, isn't the fault of the neutral position per se, but rather of the winning allegiance. If the dolts had any brains, they would've plastered the insolent neutral swine with character attacks prior to the end of the game. The fact that they didn't is their own fault; no neutral can stand against an allegiance in a character war. My own belief is that any southern neutral which doesn't join the war by turn 8 (turn 10 latest) should be destroyed by whichever side holds the advantage (although I've violated this imperative in several games); as for Dunland and Rhudaur, the time frame differs considerably based upon the course of current events. Of course, the neutrals could police themselves by joining whichever side is losing (thus evening the score), but how often does this happen? Many players seem to take great joy in winning the game by getting all the neutrals on their side, rather than doing so through skill and acumen. Moreover, a number of players who take neutrals often choose the 'safer' path, in the hopes that they'll grab a winning position. There's much more to be said, but I'm looking for replies. I hope my blunt criticism excites some of you to respond. Personals Game 88 The Free People are now willing to discuss terms for your unconditional surrender!!!!! Game 97 Dark Servants, you're doomed by your own foolish hostility. Watch and tremble.... ME-PBM Wish List Here are some examples to get the column started. Within the framework of the game: - alter the 'change allegiance' order so that only three neutrals can join any one side. The last two don't have a choice; either they remain neutral, or they join the opposition. - add a nation transport order that allows you to transport goods from several listed locations, rather than one location or all locations. This would reduce the logistical headache of trying to get goods to various places while in the midst of raising armies (e.g., you wouldn't 'steal' the bronze that an army needs to recruit with). Changes to the framework of the game: - eliminate Rhudaur as a player and divide this nation up among the Witch-King and one other Dark Servant. Move one of the Dark Servants from Mordor to the Misty Mountains/Rhudaur area to even out the regional disparities. Mordor is too crowded anyway. - alter the Dwarven setup by moving Zarak-dum to the Grey Mountains or Iron Hills. Remove the dwarven village on the Sea of Rhun and make the village in the Blue Mountains a town. - Spread Harad out more towards the internal south so that the position isn't 'pointed' at Southern Gondor. This gives Harad a more pressing interest in the south, in the activities of the Corsairs and Easterlings, and leaves him somewhat more vulnerable to attack by either side. Harad wins too much. - Reduce the Corsairs by one major town. The Corsairs win too much. - Move Vamag to the internal south. Vamag's current location sucks. How I Got Shafted in ME-PBM A couple of examples to get this column started: - first game was as the Long Rider. Not knowing anything at all about the enemy, I assumed that GSI in it's ultimate wisdom wouldn't give me a navy markedly smaller than that of my opposition. End result: one sunk navy, 3 dead characters. Solution: the setup includes a listing for ownership of forces and pop centers. Change the listing so it reads 'rumors indicate a small/medium/large army/navy at x location'. - a new player in a game I'm in saw a dragon at his pop center and assumed it was an enemy character. He challenged with Bain and died a horrible death. Since when is Bain so near-sighted he doesn't know a dragon when he sees one? Solution: list the dragon names in the rulebook under the glossary. - in yet another game, a new Northern Gondor player didn't understand just how vital secondary commanders and guards were. He lost four of his starting characters to challenges/assassinations in the first three turns, along with most of his army. He assumed (rightly, from his point of view) that the Dunedain were powerful and capable of standing up to most threats. Solution: include a warning in a player start-up sheet on making these sorts of assumptions. - in still another game, another new Northern Gondor player failed to consolidate his armies in the Ithil Pass (thinking that the enemy wouldn't outnumber his own forces too much). He got creamed and Mordor's armies are now marching through Gondor at whim. Solution: include a warning in a player start-up sheet on making assumptions about the strength of enemy forces. ME is NOT balanced like many other PBMs are. Commentary by Leslie Foreman (Editor's Note: this begins the commentary articles written by Leslie Foreman, as described in the Editorial. Several more follow this one.) The purpose of this passage is to say "Hello" (not Hail or Hark) and to share information concerning two little known conditions, which grip grown men, and cause otherwise calm, sensitive individuals to become easily distracted and agitated. The primary candidates are men who play in GSI Middle Earth - Play By Mail. We will identify the conditions as A and B. The symptoms and visible effects are as follows: CONDITION A: - an over-anxious need to know "has the mail come" - an all-consuming need to surpass the speed of light when going to the mailbox. (I have a rut in my front yard. I can't imagine if we had a mail-slot in the door. Our mailman would have no arms and look like that knight from Monty Python's "In Search of the Holy Grail." CONDITION B: - having your phone become so important to your husband that you feel obligated to serve it dinner. - speaking to and of people(?) that you have never met, and are not sure that you want to (Come now, all of MY friends have names like the Witch King & the Dog Lord). - hearing your husband talking about sacrificing hundreds of "heavy infantry" at "Minas Imsikovit" [pronounced "I'm sick of it" - DRF] when he puts the crickets back outside during the summer. These conditions are not terminal, they are also not life-long. They can and will eventually cease and with them the symptoms will no longer grip your husband. The conditions have been named Pre-Mail Syndrome and Post-Mail Syndrome. In conclusion, as caring spouses of men afflicted with PMS, all we can do is lend an interested ear when stories of victories and defeats are shared, be sure to make ALL of our phone calls before "turn week-end" and to get the h--- out of the way when the mail comes. Commentary by Leslie Foreman Gentlemen, oh I'm sorry, that's Gentle"creatures", HELLO to all of you! I hope that this commentary finds you well. I realized some days ago that I may have some useful advice for some of you in the light that you all travel so much - always moving from this hex to that hex. I thought you might be interested in some of my packing and travel tips. - Remember to put all of your valuables (i.e. rings, etc.) in a safe place BEFORE you begin your trip. If a ring, for example, gets lost or stolen, it is hard to find and it generally takes a long time. - When you begin your journey, remember to hide your gold in several places so it can't be taken all at once. Doesn't the First Bank of South Gondor issue Traveler's Checks? That is really a better idea. - I encourage you to pack some sort of candy or treat to give away on your trip. It has been reported that dragons will ignore, or even help, individuals who provide goodies! Dragons appear to prefer Mr. Goodnoldos, O Sinda and Baby Rhudaurs (a new and welcome addition to the list). - Remember to pack some suntan lotion - I can't imagine a "red- neck" dwarf! Bug spray is also a good idea. (How about a "red-neck" dwarf with major mosquito bites?) - With fashion in mind, I recommend wool with chain mail during the winter and then to change to a cotton broadcloth during the summer. That will allow your skin to breathe in the hot weather. - Never leave without your AAA Guidebook - Annotated Adventurer's Almanac . This will provide information concerning the best places to stay, the note-worthy events that occurred in the area and good tourist's attractions. When choosing a place to stay, here are some suggestions: - Look at the name of the establishment. If you want a good night's sleep, don't chose The One-Eyed Sailor for obvious reasons, if you get my "drift." - Try to find an inn where you can bathe. I've seen some of your pictures and "you look marvelous!" (Yeah, right!) I think you probably smell ripe, too. - Find a place near a nice restaurant. Good food may keep the troops happy and loyal. Who would you follow? Someone with cold Beefaroni in a can or someone with London Broil on the grill? - With aesthetics in mind, I recommend an establishment with that "homey" feeling and soft muted colors in the room. I personally prefer that the barrel for the water and the blanket on the straw be in coordinating fabrics. And always ask yourself, Did they leave the lantern burning for you? Finally, a reminder. As your mother told your during your youth, you always need to take a clean change of chain mail. You never know when you may be 'durthanged'* and need to be rushed to the local doctor. Hope these tips are helpful and that your travels are successful. * 'Durthanged' verb, to be utterly destroyed. Came into usage in game 60 after the Eothraim destroyed the capital of the Ice King. News Flash By David Foreman (Editor's Note: Dave wrote this after Harad managed to convince us that he was in all probability the worst player ever to burden Middle Earth. Harad was so bad, in fact, that he was administratively removed from game 60 and all other games he was in at the time - the only instance I know of where GSI actually yanked a player out and told him not to come back.) NEWS FLASH: Harad brain cell located! Mages from South Gondor have developed a new spell - 'Locate Character Truer' that allows queries on body parts. We have of late been after some of the parts of our slain brothers, and needed a spell that was a bit more specific than the standard 'Locate Character True'. It has to be cast by four mages in tandem because it has a Difficulty rating of "Really Super Hard." During Beta testing we needed a medium range target, and used a known Harad character name. When the vision came to the caster, the info gleaned was as follows: Main Body Mass: 2734 Other Parts: Brain: The Brain was not located, further attempts will never succeed. Other: Single Brain Cell @2227-Dol Amroth Cause of Separation: Desire for companionship Commentary by Leslie Foreman After spending the last 17 months observing ME-PBM games #22 and #60, I have come to the conclusion that the name 'Play by Mail' is a misnomer. After listening to conversations and reading The Press I feel that ME-SOBM (Soap Opera by Mail) would be better suited. Here are the headlines from the next issue of "Soap Gaming Digest:" - Will the Corsairs ever realize just how poorly planned their attack was? - Will Tarondor ever recover from the knowledge that he murdered the mother of his illegitimate love child? (Shelob's daughter) (That's mine! DRF] - Do the "Duns" have a fervent wish for a new nickname? - Is it Elladan or Elrohir that has the birthmark? - ALIENS ABDUCT RINGLIN, TAKE TO FIERY HOMEWORLD! His personality is altered and he is returned to WACO (Wander Around Counting Orcs) the rest of his days as a religious zealot. - Is Elrond the illegitimate son of Sauron? - Has Pope Phil ever considered selling New and Pricey Artifacts? (You know, be a NAPA salesman?) ...and last but not least..... - Has the Harad had a lobotomy? The answers to these and other questions may never be known, but it sure is fun looking for them. Good Gaming, guys! Commentary by Leslie Foreman PREFACE- Don't expect hysterical laughter this issue.... I have been involved with ME-PBM since December, 1991. When Dave described this "game" to me, it certainly sounded like something that HE would find fun and interesting. Now truth be known, I have enjoyed many aspects of the games in which Dave is involved. I have learned a lot about the game, about people in general and about Dave. Watching him plan his strategy is an exercise in thoroughness. I would like to attribute that quality to Mike (Noldo) Hostetter. Dave and I have spent a lot of time discussing the group dynamics of the players of ME-PBM. We have also discussed the dynamics within a group of characters as well as the expected response from the enemy. There is one more relationship which is important in the playing of ME-PBM, and that is between the player and the non-player(s) in the home. There are certain rules of etiquette, for lack of a better term, which need to be considered at all times by all members of the relationship. Etiquette for the Non-Player: - It is important to remember that it takes time to write up orders. Be sensitive to that fact and allow the player to have some quiet time to think and to plan. - It is important to "play dumb" on the phone when talking to one of the other players. Be friendly. Be cheerful. Be careful - I accidently mentioned something I wasn't supposed to when another player called. It wasn't anything major, but I learned my lesson. - If you have a answering machine and you happen to be at home during the day, I recommend that you only answer the phone 20% of the time. It is likely to be someone who "just wants to leave a message." - If you have a fax machine and you happen to be at home during the day, I recommend that you never answer the phone. It is probably someone who "justs wants to send a fax." - DO NOT LAUGH at any misfortune which befalls your player's characters, army or team. Even though you find it funny that he in concerned about a make-believe dragon killing his make- believe commander and therefore his make-believe army will be disbanded, it is not funny to him. Etiquette for the Player: - It is important to remember that it takes time to be an active member of the family. Be sensitive to that fact and set aside some quiet time to think and to plan about the future. - It is important to "play dumb" when talking to a non-player who is not knowledgeable about the game. Be friendly. Be cheerful. Be careful - don't accidently mention the game dynamics to someone who isn't interested or who already has questions about your 'gaming interests.' - If you have an answering machine, I recommend that you turn it off during the evening hours when you are getting all of your phone calls. If you time it right, it will only ring once and all of the other calls will come through as "beeps" so all you have to do is 'click over.' It is polite to keep the phone from ringing again and again. - If you have a fax machine, never leave it on automatic. there is no need to deafen the telemarketer with that TONE, or your mother for that matter. - DO NOT GET ANGRY when a non-player laughs at your misfortune. Please try to see the other side of the situation. The non player truly sees it as a game and has not lost a grip on reality. In conclusion, I want to stress the importance of cooperation, consideration and compromise. They are important between gamers as you all know. They are also important between players and non- players. Before you know it, the game will be a part of your life and it can be a unique and creative way to spend time together. Personal Challenge Combat Results (Editor's Note: last issue, an article concerning this topic was submitted by David Foreman. Keith Petersen responds): I'd have to check further, but it has always been my understanding (and the understanding of several others) that all skill rolls are open ended. You can keep rolling ad infinitum so long as you roll 01-05 or 96-100. (I've played ICE, and their system is open ended). So a 300 pt skill wouldn't be insurmountable (statisticly non- significant, probably! ), but not impossible. (Editor's Note: this concerns the assertion that combat spells affect challenge ranks. Keith asked GSI directly (you beat me to it, Keith!), and this is their reply): Keith, This rumor is untrue. Combat spells have no effect on personal challenges. I am unsure about where in WOTW this rumor started. Do you have any more information regarding it? Please realize also that most of the material in WOTW is player-submitted, and as such, GSI is not responsible for the accuracy of its content. Good Gaming! Jason, GSI (However, Darren Beyer tracked down an issue of Whispers which addressed exactly this question. Here's the result of his research): To my knowledge the question dealing with Combat Spells and challenges was published by GSI in the QA section of Whispers 3 times (though I was only ably to find the latest two issues). The two I've been able to find were the April 1993 and the December 1993 issues. The question in the December 1993 issue is on page 10, second question. It is written as follows: Q: How does the "combat bonus" for artifacts and spells affect personal combat? Naval combat? A: The "combat bonus"" value is translated into values for: Personal combat = value/50 (i.e. a 500 bonus becomes 10) Naval Combat = value/100 (i.e. a 1000 bonus becomes a 10) This is pretty clear, the question clearly asks how artifacts AND SPELLS affect personal combat. If this is a misprint by GSI, its been around since the first Whispers QA section (almost two years ago) and has been wrongly reprinted multiple times. Any light you can shed on this subject would be appreciated. Top Tens The following 'top ten' lists are a bit specific to game 60 (to appreciate the full humor, you need to have played in it). I thought I'd pass them along anyway. Top 10 Reasons Why the Free Peoples Have Yet To Win the Game By Michael Robinson 10. Noldo dress uniforms taking too long at the cleaners 9. Cardolan won't stop sending gold to the Witch King 8. FP: dwarves, elves,&hobbits; DS: orcs, trolls, & dragons 7. In other games Northman players reliable part of FP team, unlike one Northman player we could mention 6. Galadriel whacked in the knee by jealous rival 5. Gondorian "Don't ask, don't tell" recruitment policy 4. Dwarves on ponies 3. Arthedainian penchant to confuse the terms Bobbitt and Hobbit 2. We're just waiting for the Corsair fleet to arrive And the number 1 reason the FP have yet to win the game 1. Gandalf's gone fishin' Top Ten Reasons the Servants haven't won the game: By David Foreman 10: Mages refuse to go to the bathroom in groups of three or less 9: Agents were named by Richard Simmons 8: Murazor accepted the offer of a midnight liaison with Cirdan 7: Sauron has NO sense of humor 6: Throckmaw has REALLY bad breath (I should know). 5: Recent agent operations planned and executed by out of work members of the Republican Guard 4: Blind Sorcerer troops on camels 3: Would YOU follow a leader named UKLURG??? 2: Population center development policy determined by visiting delegation led by Warren Christopher And the number 1 reason the Servants haven't won the game: 1: The Ice King STILL hasn't figured out why the 'Welcome Mahcared' banners at Durthang didn't work (Editor's Note: Brian Mason was struck by the creativity bug recently, resulting in a deluge of useful material. Rather than print each article in a separate issue, I decided to put them all together here.) The Problem with Army and Troop Training, Part II By Brian Mason Gentle Reader: In reading through my article of "The Mouth" #4, I came across an error in my derivation. This is intended to correct this. The increase in army or troop strength through training was given in the second equation as: | pts | | 1 + --- | * CN. | 400 | This equation is in error, as it does not take into account the increase in the army or troop strength due to the increase in the command rank of the army commander (assuming it is he and not a subcommander doing the training). The correct expression should be: | pts | | com | | 1 + --- | * CN * | 1 + --- |, | 400 | | 400 | where com is the increase in the command rank of the army commander. The third equation is not in error, so if we again take C = 1, N = unknown, TR = 60, n = 400, tr = 10, pts = 3, and, com = 2. We arrive at a smaller value for N of 31,904 troops. While this is significantly different than the value given in the first iteration of this analysis, it does not change the conclusion that troop training is not nearly as effective at increasing army offensive strength as recruiting more troops. The result which surprised me the most is how the equation worked out. [1 + (pts/400)][1 + (com/400)]N = {1 - [TR - ({NTR + ntr}/{N + n})]}(N + n) * 400 yields (400 pts)[1 + (com/400)]N = [400 - TR + (NTR + ntr)/(N + n)](N + n) (400 + pts)(N + Ncom/400) = 400N + 400n - NTR - ntr NTR + ntr ***note that the training of both types cancels out! 400N + Npts + Ncom + Nptscom/400 = 400N + 400n N(400pts + 400com +ptscom) = 160,000n The final result then is 160,000 n N = -----------------------. 400pts + 400com + ptscom A very surprising result! The choice of 2 for commander skill rank increase was not arbitrary, but was selected as it represented the average skill rank increase for a commander using army training if his skill level was between 50 and 59 (More Character and Skill Development, Tom Walton, The Mouth, #3). It would be interesting to see if the increase in training of troops is strictly random (1-5 or 1-7) or, like skill rank increase, is a function of either training commander skill rank or previous troop training level or both. Preliminary results (below) would seem to indicate that this is the case, and also, that the choice of, pts = 3, might be optimistic. A new PostScript file of this plot as well as the IDL program which plots it is available upon request. The program now plots army size versus the number of troops. Arriving at an Equation to Represent Skill Rank Increases by Brian Mason However, to more accurately predict what skill rank increase might be predicted the values presented in this article were analyzed to determine possible trends. Inspecting the values presented in More Character and Skill Development (Tom Walton, The Mouth, #3) trends are noted, the first, rather obvious one is that as the skill level increases the skill rank increase drops. It is unclear whether the dropoff is linear or some other function of x. It is unlikely that the other function of x is some higher order polynomial as those tend to have points of inflection, and changes of sign in the slope: things which are not observed in this data set. So, in addition to linear, another choice would be exponential. If the choice is linear, the solution is rather simple. Taking a least-squares fit approach to a discrete data-set we arrive at the following solution: L I N E A R L E A S T - S Q U A R E S F I T --------------------------------------------------- | | x | f | x^2 | xf || p |(p-f)|(p-f)^2| |----|-----|------------------||----|-----|-------| |pt 1| 14.5| 3.7| 210.2| 53.7|| 3.6| -.1| .01| |pt 2| 24.5| 3.2| 600.2| 78.4|| 3.2| .0| .00| |pt 3| 34.5| 2.9| 1190.2|100.0|| 2.9| -.0| .00| |pt 4| 44.5| 2.6| 1980.2|115.7|| 2.5| -.1| .01| |pt 5| 54.5| 2.1| 2970.2|114.5|| 2.2| .1| .00| |pt 6| 64.5| 1.7| 4160.2|109.6|| 1.8| .1| .01| |pt 7| 74.5| 1.3| 5550.2| 96.9|| 1.5| .2| .02| |pt 8| 84.5| 1.0| 7140.2| 84.5|| 1.1| .1| .01| |pt 9| 94.5| 1.0| 8930.2| 94.5|| .7| -.3| .07| |----|-----|------------------||----|-----|-------| |sum |490.5|19.5|32732.2|847.8||19.5| .0| .14| --------------------------------------------------- 490.5 M + 9 B = 19.5 32732.25 M + 490.5 B =847.75 -240590 M - 4414.5 B = -9564 294590 M + 4414.5 B = 7629 54000 M + 0 B = -1935 M= -.035 B= 4.119 B E S T F I T E Q U A T I O N P (x) = 4.12 - 0.035 x However, there is an objection with a linear fit of this form. The quality of fit drops off considerably with commanders of rank 90 and above. It predicts a value which is below the allowable skill rank increase. Namely, it predicts a 0.7 result when 1 is the minimum increase. The problem would get worse at higher skill ranks, but whether player characters can go above 100 in skill rank is uncertain. The quality of fit, however is quite good with the sum of the difference between experimental and predicted values zero, and the squared difference only 0.14. Using the same approach for skill rank increases on the 1-7 scale a linear result arrived at is: P (x) = 5.25 - 0.044 x. The quality of fit here is not quite as good with the difference 0.0 and the squared difference 0.39. Again, using the same approach for 1-10 skill rank increases, the result arrived at is: P (x) = 8.17 - 0.078 x The quality of fit here is very good with the difference 0.0 and the squared difference 0.13. If the choice is exponential, the solution is more complicated, however it is still a simple proble to solve. Again, taking a least- squares fit approach to a discrete data-set we arrive at the following solution: E X P O N E N T I A L L E A S T - S Q U A R E S F I T ------------------------------------------------------------ | | x | f |g-(ln f)| x^2 | xg || p |(p-f)|(p-f)^2| |----|-----|----|----------------------||----|-----|-------| |pt 1| 14.5| 3.7| 1.3| 210.2| 19.0|| 4.0| .3| .09| |pt 2| 24.5| 3.2| 1.2| 600.2| 28.5|| 3.3| .1| .02| |pt 3| 34.5| 2.9| 1.1| 1190.2| 36.7|| 2.8| -.1| .01| |pt 4| 44.5| 2.6| 1.0| 1980.2| 42.5|| 2.3| -.3| .07| |pt 5| 54.5| 2.1| .7| 2970.2| 40.4|| 2.0| -.1| .02| |pt 6| 64.5| 1.7| .5| 4160.2| 34.2|| 1.6| -.1| .00| |pt 7| 74.5| 1.3| .3| 5550.2| 19.5|| 1.4| .1| .00| |pt 8| 84.5| 1.0| 0.0| 7140.2| 0.0|| 1.1| .1| .02| |pt 9| 94.5| 1.0| 0.0| 8930.2| 0.0|| 1.0| -.0| .00| |----|-----|----|----------------------||----|-----|-------| |sum |490.5|19.5| 6.0|32732.2|220.9||19.5| .0| .24| ------------------------------------------------------------ 490.5 M + 9 B = 6.0266356 32732.25 M + 490.5 B = 220.92804 -240590 M - 4414.5 B = -2956.064 294590 M + 4414.5 B = 1988.3524 54000 M + 0 B = -967.7123 M= -.0179206 B= 1.6462988 B E S T F I T E Q U A T I O N P (x) = 5.19 e ^ (-0.0179 x) The objection to an exponential fit still exsists, but is not quite as strong. The exponential fit only breaks down at skill levels of 100 or greater where the predicted value drops below 1. How significant this objection is depends on whether player characters can go above 100 in skill rank. The quality of fit is about the same as the linear with the sum of the difference between experimental and predicted values zero, and the squared difference 0.24. Using the same approach for skill rank increases on the 1-7 scale a exponential result arrived at is: P (x) = 6.93 e ^ (-0.0184 x) The quality of fit here is poor. While the difference is only 0.1 and the squared difference 2.00. Again, using the same approach for 1-10 skill rank increases, the result arrived at is: P (x) = 10.56 e ^ (-0.0194 x) The quality of fit here is better with the difference 0.0 and the squared difference 0.22. In all cases the quality of the linear fit is better than that of the exponential fit. The only thing the exponential has going for it is better behavior at higher skill rank values, and this is the very place where the information is most sketchy. After looking over the data the most likely possibility is that the result is a non-continuous linear function. For example, linear as described above between 10 and 89, and above 89 the result is always 1. Also, it must be pointed out that the predicted result is only the mean skill rank increase with the actual value for each skill rank increase some non-continuous distribution function around this mean value. It is possible that the distribution function is just a simple Gaussian distribution which then rounds all values outside the allowable range to the extreme value, either low or high. PostScript graphs of these plots and the IDL programs which generate them are available upon request. Looking for Statistical Trends in Data by Brian Mason The past few articles, on character development, army and troop training, and establishing equations for character development have led me to look into other data for similar situations where it might be possible to predict development of various parameters more accurately. Specifically, I decided to look at increases in morale rank for no activity and increases in training rank through army and troop training. It must be pointed out, however, that I consider all this information preliminary and the numbers not statistically significant to go through a more comprehensive leasst-squares analysis like the previous article. In looking for other possible trends, previous turn reports were inspected to see for any possible correlations between the amount of points a troop gained in training compared with the commanders skill rank and with the training rank of the unit on the previous turn. For troop training the numbers were insufficient to look for any possible trends. The results are below. Troop Training based on Commander Skill Rank Skill Rank Number Mean St. Dev. ============================================ 10-19 2 5.0 0.0 20-29 1 2.0 0.0 30-39 0 --- --- 40-49 4 3.5 0.5 50-59 2 4.5 0.5 60-69 0 --- --- 70-79 0 --- --- 80-89 0 --- --- 90-99 0 --- --- Troop Training based on Previous Training Rank Skill Rank Number Mean St. Dev. ============================================ 10-19 4 3.2 0.8 20-29 1 3.0 0.0 30-39 1 5.0 0.0 40-49 0 --- --- 50-59 0 --- --- 60-69 1 5.0 0.0 70-79 2 4.5 0.5 80-89 0 --- --- 90-99 0 --- --- For army training the results were somewhat more interesting. If we first consider the results based on the commander skill rank, there are no results from 10-19 and above 69. Also, the numbers at 20-29 and 60-69 cannot be considered as significant as the sample is not large enough. However, the results from 30-59 are compelling. They would seem to indicate that the higher the commander rank, the more the troop type will gain in training points. They might also indicate that my selection of three points as an average training increase is optimistic. Army Training based on Commander Skill Rank Skill Rank Number Mean St. Dev. ============================================ 10-19 0 --- --- 20-29 1 2.0 0.0 30-39 29 1.4 0.5 40-49 17 2.0 0.7 50-59 16 2.2 0.9 60-69 1 4.0 0.0 70-79 0 --- --- 80-89 0 --- --- 90-99 0 --- --- The results for army training would seem to indicate that the previous skill rank of the troop does not correlate with increase in skill rank, although it could be that the sample outside the 30-39 range is too small to spot any trends. Army Training based on Previous Skill Rank Skill Rank Number Mean St. Dev. ============================================ 10-19 4 1.3 0.4 20-29 0 --- --- 30-39 45 1.8 0.7 40-49 15 2.1 1.0 50-59 3 1.7 0.5 60-69 0 --- --- 70-79 0 --- --- 80-89 0 --- --- 90-99 0 --- --- The results for morale increase based on commander rank might indicate a correlation between morale increase and commander rank, however, the total variation seen is less than half any standard deviation. Clearly, more data is needed to verify this preliminary conclusion. Morale based on Commander Skill Rank Skill Rank Number Mean St. Dev. ============================================ 10-19 0 --- --- 20-29 0 --- --- 30-39 24 2.0 0.8 40-49 27 2.1 0.8 50-59 26 2.3 0.7 60-69 12 2.3 0.7 70-79 0 --- --- 80-89 0 --- --- 90-99 0 --- --- There does not appear to be any correlation between morale increase and previous morale rank, though, again, more data might help bear this out. Morale based on Previous Morale Rank Skill Rank Number Mean St. Dev. ============================================ 10-19 0 --- --- 20-29 0 --- --- 30-39 9 2.3 0.7 40-49 54 2.2 0.8 50-59 18 2.2 0.8 60-69 8 2.1 0.8 70-79 0 --- --- 80-89 0 --- --- 90-99 0 --- --- Tactics and Strategy: Cardolan by Brian Mason Hard lessons have been learned. In game 62 the editor of "The Mouth" as the Witch-King positively drubbed my Cardolan (Editor's Note: Brian fails to mention that even though Arthedain dropped on turn 7 and both Rhudaur and Dunland went evil, he still managed to hold all of us off for about 24 or 25 turns - hardly what I'd call a 'drubbing'). The experience in that game has led me to develop what follows as a starting strategy for Cardolan. I will start in a similar manner as my previous "Woodmen" article, but will fall then into a more specific turn-by-turn description. I will make specific moves for characters and (at least, to myself) count economics to the last piece of gold. While these will not necessarily be the same in every game, they certainly would have been true for one game. How does the Cardolan compare to other nations? At the start of the game they rank as follows (Allegiance Comparison Tables, Tom Walton): among all players among FP Total Tax Base 7th 4th Resource Base tied for 12th 7th Combat Strength tied for 19th 8th Character points tied for 23rd 10th Artifacts tied for 20th tied for 8th Cardolan is weak in very many areas. But the strength of the economy, its somewhat isolated location, and its ability to hire armies can make up for many mistakes. Probably the most important capability of Cardolan is to hire armies at no cost. Without the split command orders, new Cardolan armies can be hired on the spot free of charge. Only Rhudaur and the Fire King share this ability. But the Fire King does not have the population centers Cardolan does and Rhudaur must spend a turn by first hiring the army as Men-at-Arms before it can begin recruiting better quality troops. The strategy is as follows: Pre-existing conditions Characters: Aethelan is at 1317. Earnil is at 1614 with 900 men-at-arms. Echorion is at 1514. Finduilas III is at 1513. Hallas is at 1510. Imlach is at 1219 with 300 heavy infantry and 600 men- at-arms. Lanaigh is at 1510 with 600 heavy cavalry, 300 light cavalry, 300 heavy infantry, 300 light infantry, and 600 men-at- arms. Pelendur is at 1113 with 300 heavy infantry, 300 archers, and 600 men-at-arms. Specific sales will be made. There will, no doubt, be errors in the sale values from game to game, however, the results do give a flavor for what can be done. Buy and sell amounts and prices will be based on game 62 values. Opening Strategy Turn one moves: Aethelan hires an army of 300 heavy infantry and moves the army northeast to 1513. Earnil recruits 400 heavy infantry and moves his army to 1513. Echorion influences the population center and hires an army of 300 heavy infantry. Finduilas sells all leather and prentices magery. Hallas guard Lanaigh and moves to 1513. Imlach conducts troop maneuvers and moves the navy to 1614. Lanaigh recruits 300 heavy infantry and does a recon. Pelendur recruits 300 heavy infantry and moves the army to 1513. Turn two moves: Aethelan transfers all his troops and names a character of emissary rank 30. Earnil names a commander and moves his army to 1710. Echorion recruits 300 heavy infantry and moves his army to 1710. Finduilas sells all food and prentices magery. Hallas changes the tax rate to 70% and moves to 1614. Imlach recruits 400 heavy infantry and moves his army to 1710. Lanaigh recruits 300 heavy infantry and moves his army to 1710. Pelendur recruits 400 heavy infantry and moves his army to 1710. Turn three moves: Aethelan sells all food and moves and joins Earnil's army at 1806. Earnil conducts army maneuvers and moves his army to 1806. Echorion transfers command to Earnil and moves to 1317. The new commander hires an army of 400 heavy infantry and sells all mounts. Finduilas researches a spell and prentices magery. Hallas hires an army of 400 heavy infantry and guards 1614. Imlach transfers command to Earnil and moves to 1113. Lanaigh transfers command to Earnil and moves to 1514. Pelendur transfers command to Earnil and moves to 1510. The new emissary names another emissary and moves to 1609. Future turns: At this point, Cardolan is in a very precarious financial situation. While it has a large per turn deficit, it also has a large gold reserve of around 60000. However, continuing rotating sales of the four commodities it produces the most of: food, leather, mounts, and timber, should keep it in the black. It is currently poised to become the strongest military force West of the Misty Mountains. Earnil has an army of 7800 troops ready to strike at Angmar. Commanders are sitting at population centers, all within one-turns march of 1513, capable of recruiting 2000 troops per turn. It also has two new emissaries, and is poised, on turn four, to make a third. If I were playing Cardolan I would move Earnil's army towards Cargash hoping to meet armies which it could destroy and destroy any population center it comes across, recruit at all available population centers, and create an emissary. Cardolan can build up armies faster than any other nation, and in a prolonged war of attrition, it will come out on top. So, contrary to conventional wisdom, I would go after the Witch-King's armies, hoping to wear him out. Another important option which Cardolan should use would be to encourage significant early cooperation with the Noldo. Specifically, give the Noldo all the Cardolan ships (which at the end of turn one will be at 1614). This will give the Noldo a heightened naval power and will concentrate all the far northwest naval forces in one group so that they may form an effective fighting and naval operations force. Also, this will save Cardolan 1200 gold per turn. In addition to this the Noldo should be encouraged to sabotage all Cardolan harbors and ports. This will allow Noldo agents to improve faster, heighten (to a small degree) Cardolan security, and save Cardolan a further 1250 gold per turn. This is an extremely aggressive strategy, and one which demands constant attention to finances. Cardolan's production should be used to generate more income to keep the armies growing. After two turns recruiting, the "in Cardolan" forces will total almost 5000 while Earnil's army will either be very small or destroyed. I would combine these 5000 troops together and start the process all over again. From the Mouth of Sauron Issue: E-6 Date: 01-28-94 Note: all authors retain exclusive rights to their material. Reprinting is allowed for non-commercial game use only. Editorial This issue of the Mouth is short and sweet, compared to the last few (about 1/4 the size). Enjoy! TO ANDREW JACKSON: you aren't on my mailing list and I never sent you anything. If you're getting the Mouth, it's being routed through by someone else. Bother them, not me. If one of you sent Mr. Jackson the Mouth, he doesn't want it. His address got cut out by my router, so I can't respond to him directly. There won't be any more complete file updates. I don't have the time to do a separate mailing for that anymore, so you'll just have to update the originals on your own. Sorry about that. Artifacts No changes. Encounters Enchanted Pools: it seems there are two pools in the game. One is the Dimrill Dale encounter for the Dwarves, which has no option list and automatically bestows a certain amount of gold upon the lucky short person. The other is a pool which can be found by any allegiance, and has the option list originally given for the Dimrill Dale encounter. It seems that the two were somehow confused and combined into a single encounter, which just isn't the case. If anyone has any information on the magic pool encounter (which ISN'T Galadriel's Mirror, by the way; that's a magic artifact that Galadriel totes around with her) there are a number of confused people who'd like to hear about it. Add CAST a spell at it: no effect for Dark Servants. Enchanted River: you can lose more than health points and spells with this encounter. One character lost 10 command points when he drank from it. Slyardach: if you defeat the demon in combat, you'll get gold AND/OR a lost list spell, along with a bonus to skill rank. It's possible to get a spell without gold or vice versa. Dragons Angurth: ATTACK = combat for FP/NT, dragon recruited into army for DS! Yes, I know this sounds weird, but it's true. A DS who attacks Angurth will end up recruiting the dragon.... You'll note that the ATTACK option doesn't appear on my dragon encounter list. I was under the impression that anyone foolish enough to do this was going to end up with big trouble, so I didn't bother to add it. But this new info means that ATTACK might actually be viable in a few cases. Silly me for not considering the possibility. Still, I'm not going to be the one who tests this out.... Corlagon: Offer ten THOUSAND gold = combat for Free Peoples. Ruingurth: Act MEEK = escape unharmed for all allegiances. Scatha: State ALLEGIANCE = combat for Free Peoples and Neutrals. Turukulon: State ALLEGIANCE = combat for all allegiances. Thanks to Alex Maetzing, Jeremy Richman, Keith Petersen, and others for providing this information. Alex, if you're out there I don't have your i.d. I can mail to you direct if you provide it to me. Other Corrections and Notes Northern Gondor: should be listed as having artifact 95 (Gildagor), not artifact 85 (Navron). The Dwarves: nation advantage should read 'heavy infantry start with a training rank of 30', not 'troops start with a training rank of 30'. Concerning Uvatha's skill rank changes to C60 A20 E20 detailed in last issue, the earliest I've been able to track this back is game 138. In earlier games, it's probably safe to assume that he's still a C60 A10 E10. Anyone with contrary information, please speak up! Wes Fortin answers the question that Jerry Clark posed in issue no. 5: what's a reasonable agent level for an assassination or kidnap attempt? The equation seems to go like this: Success = Net Agent Rank + Stealth (variable/random number between 0 and the stealth rank) - 2*Agent Rank of Guard - 1/2 Highest base rank of the target. Kidnap may be 5-10% easier than Assassinate, so low agents should do this and execute instead. Recently, agent rules changed. According to Bill Field, the only difference is that the consequences for failure are steeper. No agent task is more difficult. However, Guards are more effective now (effectively double rank). In Your Ear Nothing this time. Personals Game 141 I'd like to get in touch with anyone who is playing in game 141. I'm playing the Cloud Lord. You can email me at: schnurr@bnr.ca - Eric Schnurr ME-PBM Wish List From Glen Mayfield When contemplating strategy for the Witch King, I came up with a very simple change which should help both the WK and Dragon Lord without altering the balance of power. Simply move the Dragon Lord's map 2 hexes west. This would really help both of these hard pressed positions formulate plans and anticipate the enemy. How I Got Shafted in ME-PBM From Dan Arai I have a few comments on the latest Mouth. So long as we're talking about how we got screwed up in our first games, it might be a good idea to compile a list of each nation, listing strengths, weaknesses, and things to look out for. I've just joined a sort-of team game, playing the Long Rider. It would be very helpful to have a reference of the starting enemy armies in my are (say, able to get to me within a turn or two), what my weaknesses are, and what my strengths are (two practially incapturable pop centers, Din Ohtar, etc.) This, along with the nation set-ups would be a great thing that we could give to the new players in the game to make the process of getting their feet wet a little easier. Yet More on Challenge Ranks In an attempt to clear up the confusion that GSI sowed with their Q&A response concerning challenge ranks and combat spells, Keith Peterson obtained from them this official response: The answer as published is correct (for artifacts in challenge and for spells in naval combat) except for the part about spells in challenge. The rules mention the above two elements, but do not discuss details - the answer in WOTW does! The rules make no mention of spells in challenge rank. Sorry for any confusion regarding this issue. GSI Commentary By Leslie Foreman As is the general way of these commentaries, something just pops into my mind and I feel obligated to commit my thoughts to paper. Today, it occurred to me, that my house is a house of games. ALL GAMES!! We have computer games, we play cards, we play board games, we play reality-based games (like Pay Dirt) and, of course, there is ME-PBM in our house, just to name a few. It also occurred to me that many of these games have some common threads. To illustrate, let me compare ME-PBM to the grandfather of all games, Monopoly. I bet you would have never thought of them as being similar, but let me share some of my observations. The most obvious similarity is that both games have places to own. Each of these locations has a unique name which identifies it. For example, I may own St. James Place or I may own 2819, but this place will not be gold. ( I have always been partial to the gold properties. Maybe that's why I don't play ME-PBM, none of the places are gold, or red or yellow or blue or green or anything fun, for that matter!) The second similarity is that once you own a place, it is yours to do with as you see fit. I am used to seeing houses and hotels, so I guess that in this game the camps are green and the cities are red. What color do you suggest for the villages, towns and major towns? I know that GSI would love to print out color maps, don't you? There is money involved in both games. I would love to see ME-PBM use paper money, and not just an account on the computer. Each player would have a strong box with his/her funds in it and would have to count out the bills and send them in with each turn. I am trying to picture the players sitting around with paper, pencils, maps, previous turns, rule books, other information and orange & purple money. It would be extremely difficult for the people who are in several games. Query - can you borrow from one game to fund another? The money is yours, right? There are several things that need to be altered slightly to make it more interesting for some of the players. I recommend that you collect $200 each time you cross hex 2219 - this is the one in the middle of the map. I know that many of the players would love to be able to get even a little money "every time they pass 2219." I wish that there was a 2219 in my neighborhood - I would visit it often. Another change that is necessary is to alter the pieces that you would move around the board. I don't think that the shoe and the iron will cut it anymore. Well, maybe the iron could belong in ME PBM, but I can't see Elrond or Gothmog sporting a Sunbeam, can you? Maybe the new pieces need to be some armor, a dragon, a staff, a ship ( for only those countries who need a navy) and a war machine. One rule that I have played with Monopoly is that you pay all of your fines, etc. into the pot in the center of the board and the person who lands on the Free Parking space gets all of this money. Is this the way that you play, too? I feel that we need to incorporate this idea into ME-PBM. I think that when you meet a dragon in the game you should be able to get the pot which has been established. From what I understand, when you meet a dragon you very frequently can kiss that character good-bye. That being the case, the Free Parking space in ME-PBM would be the last good thing to happen to you before you die. Seems fair to me. Finally, there is one thing about Monopoly which I have never understood. There are some people who play it as a game and it is over quickly. There are other people who play, excuse me, LIVE a Monopoly game until it is over and that may last forever. I am delighted that games, such as Monopoly and ME-PBM, provide so much enjoyment and entertainment for so many people. Everyone needs to have their hobby and others needn't understand. Well, I guess it's time for me to get back to my cross-stitch. Talk to you soon. Good gaming to you (and good stitching to me.) Cardolan: Initial Game Plan Last issue Brian Mason wrote up a game plan for Cardolan for the first half-dozen or so turns. This article evoked a couple of responses: From Dan Arai One comment about the Cardolan--My first game of ME is 115 as the Cardolan, and I have played about 6 turns so far. The strategy seems pretty good except on a few points. #1. It is very important to coordinate with the Arthedain. They are they other military force capable of challenging the Witch-King immediately. In my game, I am currently sitting on Mt. Gram with an army of 7000 troops, while the Arthedain are a hex south of the Witch King's capital. The Dwarves and Woodmen are poised to attack the Witch King's third major town. Nobody has heard anything from the Noldo, and yet we will probably destroy the Witch-King within another turn. One definite assumption made in this analysis is that the Witch-King is being played by a competent player. The Witch-King in my game is either very stupid or has just missed many turns. In getting to Mt Gram, I never had to fight. I successfully threatened a pop center along the way, but I haven't lost any troops. Had I recruited the number of troops suggested, I would probably have bankrupted myself by now. I have a smaller force defending the homeland, but since the Witch-King is doing little or nothing, I am fairly safe. Another thought is to have Aethelan be a sub-commander in the army. Each turn, he can guard the army commander, and train troops, thus getting his skills up. By turn 7, heis C29 A36, making him one of my most valuable characters. And personal challenges and assassinations do happen... From the Mouth of Sauron Issue: E-7 Date: 02-04-94 Note: all authors retain exclusive rights to their material. Reprinting is allowed for non-commercial game use only. Editorial I've only one thing to say this time around: the Mouth needs your help! Yep, the magic well of articles and comments that filled this electronic rag to overflowing nearly ran dry this issue. And the Mouth is only as good as it's contributors. So all you writers and question-posers, take keyboard in hand and have at it! Anything, anything at all that's even remotely connected to ME-PBM will get published. I don't do rejections unless you get nasty about another player, and so far no one's done that (well, in public anyway). On the brighter side, there's a good deal of info on dragons this time around. Some of this was discovered by yours truly, the hard way. Oh, my aching dwarves.... TO WEI WANG: you didn't send your address along, and my system doesn't pick it up. I can't put you on the mailing list until I get it. If anyone out there knows who Wei is, please tell him this - I can't find him. Artifacts No changes. Encounters Demon of Aglarond: apparently one reader didn't get the Mouth with the correction to the Demon of Aglarond. The Demon is NOT a balrog, but ranges the same area as 'a balrog' (White Mountains/Gap of Rohan) and affects loyalty at pop centers. The Demon has a guesstimated challenge rank of 50. Radagast: Radagast seems to be either a character AND army encounter, or just a character encounter. He appears as an old man in brown robes feeding a flock of birds. Options are: ATTACK the man CAPTURE the man and take him hostage INTERROGATE the man for info FEED the birds REQUEST the man's name ALLOW the man to join you SAY _____ (only one word) FLEE The results of only one option are known, and even this is unconfirmed: FEED the birds = escape unharmed for Dark Servants, learn new spells/get skill increase for Free Peoples. Swamp Thing: actually, this is the lake encounter in the file. If you kill the monster you'll most likely get a tidy sum of gold (11,000 reported). Thanks to Arnold Mohammed and Dena Kiker for this information. Dragons Angurth: DEMAND obedience = combat for Free Peoples. Bairanax: Act MEEK = escape unharmed for all allegiances. FLEE = combat for all allegiances. Daelomin: DEMAND obedience = combat for Free Peoples and Neutrals. Itangast: Say NAME = combat for Free Peoples and Neutrals. Act MEEK = injured/killed for Free Peoples and Neutrals. Klyaxar: Offer TEN thousand gold pieces = combat for Free Peoples and Neutrals. Khuzadrepa: Say NAME = combat for all allegiances. Lamthanc: SAY "Riddle" = combat for Free Peoples and Neutrals. Lomaw: Act MEEK = escape unharmed for all allegiances. Ruingurth: SAY "Riddle" = escape unharmed for all allegiances. Scorba: SAY "Riddle" = injured/killed for Free Peoples and Neutrals. Smaug: Offer ONE artifact = injured/killed for all allegiances. Offer TWO artifacts = injured/killed for all allegiances. Thanks to many people whose names I forgot to record for the credits in this section. Other Corrections and Notes The Arthedain pop center at 0707 is Culwic, not Forwic. From Doug Bergstrom Question: How accurate is that equation for assassinations? Seems abit odd to me since this is a hard action. Question: Does anyone out there seriously think that the Dark Servants could win a grudge match? From Eric Schnurr It seems that the loyalty of a pop center you get thru INFOTHR comes in at 2/3 the Emissary rank that took it away. I haven't done much Emissary work so please verify it and let me know. (I only have two data points to work off of.) In Your Ear Nothing this time. Personals ME 27 Dem Forests Be Smoking Again! ME 43 Are we having fun or what? ME 104 You free peoples barely gave me a chance to join you and now you complain that I am in first....OK already, it is just a game. Good job! Note: if you want your name or position attached to personals messages, please indicate this. Otherwise, they go in anonymous. ME-PBM Wish List From Jeremy Baxter increase the ratings of light troops by 50% so they are a viable alternative to the heavy types in rough and mountainous terain. Allow a free RECON from an army not moving evaisively each turn. Disband armies automaticaly after you hit 100% tax instead of knocking you out of the game. Prevent Neutrals declaring for the winning side if the larger side has twice as many active nations as the smaller. This would be fun, If a neutral waits too long they have to declare for the losing side - or even the odds by taking out one of the victorious nations. If you wait too long the victors will just ignore you so preventing a victory by inaction. Spells to produce false armies, scramble character i.d.s, lie about artifacts held etc - a bit like spreading rumours This way you could try and convince a player that one of his allies just nicked his prize artifact - etc. Make the presence of characters in a town, especially agents doing Guard Loc increase the chance of reporting foreign characters. From Doug Bergstrom Wish List: 1) Allow Eothraim startup to have characters at capital. 2) Make Vamuag hidden and give QA one decent commander. 3) Add a quick line to char description when assassinated..i.e. Bain was found under boulders, Argeleb thought wine tasted funny, Akhorihil didn't recognize the new guard...this would add a little flavor. 4) Ask neutrals if they want to be in a grudge match prior to game start (there is a "REAL" bias against them). Editor's Note: I definitely agree with this last. Playing a neutral in a team game is much harder than playing one in a regular game. The coordination of a team allows them to eliminate you much more quickly and with greater confidence, meaning they aren't as eager to recruit you as they might otherwise be. How I Got Shafted in ME-PBM Nothing this time. From the Mouth of Sauron Issue: E-8 Date: 02-11-94 Note: all authors retain exclusive rights to their material. Reprinting is allowed for non-commercial game use only. Editorial Weeelllll, ask for articles and you get them...and get them...and get them.... Thanks to one and all for answering my call for stuff. Because of your quick response, this is the largest Mouth yet - over 30 pages jam-packed with useful info and articles. My mailbox was filled to overflowing! Of course, I'll need more articles and such come next Friday, so get those keyboards primed.... First order of business: honors and well wishes to David and Leslie Foreman, who in about a week's time will have another young'un to brighten their lives! You probably won't see them around here for a while (a couple of years?), as they'll be dealing with the joys of caring for a new-born infant - like getting up every two hours to feed it. In terms of adventure, the one they're about to embark on would make even Sauron quail in his boots.... Hope everything goes A-OK guys! And tell me a name when you have it, so I can plaster the happy news all over the Mouth! Second item: I lose things. Names, articles, info, my mind, etc. If you don't see something here that you sent in, it's because I lost it. Just send it again, I can usually get it right the second time around. Remember, if I don't print something it's due to my own penchant for being easily distracted. It's not because I don't like you, or because you thumped me but good in a game we play together, or even because you commented on the dubious nature of my parentage (and a couple of you have); I'll send the Mouth to anyone, print anything they write regardless of what I might think about the person making the submission. The Mouth is for everyone who asks, and while I'm wearing this hat I put aside all of my personal prejudices. I won't cut anyone out of the loop. If you don't see something, just send me a note and say "what the hell's going on?" I'll reply with "huh?" and then we'll correct the problem. Third item: addresses. My system doesn't pick up your address when you drop me a line. Many have said "please add me to your mailing list", then failed to include their own in the note. In order for me to get you on that list, you MUST write your complete internet address out WITHIN THE TEXT OF THE NOTE. I can't stress this enough. I can't track you all down, so you need to make an effort here otherwise you'll never get on the list. If you know someone who's saying "how come I didn't copy and you did?", this person in all likelihood is one of the people who didn't supply me with this critical info. Please inform them that they need to do so. Lastly: I'm in the enviable position of being able to comment on articles in the same Mouth as they appear. If the authors would like to respond to my comments (if I have any), say the word and I'll send them to you so that you can do so in the same Mouth. That's assuming you send me the article early enough to make the turn-around. That's all this time around. Enjoy! Artifacts No changes. Encounters Radagast revisited: got alot of responses on this one. Here's what's been confirmed about our elusive and muddle-headed Brown Wizard: - he's a character encounter, not an army encounter. - FLEE = escape unharmed for all allegiances. - FEED the birds = get locations/owners of 1-2 random artifacts for Free Peoples, escape unharmed for Dark Servants. - he's still the only wizard with a lair. Lake/Swamp encounter: I'm told this is actually two different encounters that have similar openings. This won't make any difference in terms of the response set, but you might want to separate them out in your encounter file just to avoid confusion. By the way, I'm told the monster is mewlips. What follows is the ghostly army encounter I've been trying to hunt down: (My character) lay in his camp in the depths of the night, with a dark, cloud-filled sky overhead. He tried to rest. The chill night winds seemed to taunt him by blowing hardest when he nearly captured sleep. Suddenly awakened by another freezing blast, he heard the sound of tramping feet rise over the moan of the wind. He leapt up, looking for the source of the sound. Moments passed before he finally saw them, a ghostly contingent of fighting men, marching behind an eagle banner. War cries erupted behind him and he spun around to see another spectral war party charging forward. At the head of the charging party, a man bore a clenched-fist banner on the tip of the spear. Answering cries came from the first group of warriors and battle seemed imminent. ATTACK all COMMAND both sides to stop Attack the men bearing EAGLE banner Attack the men bearing FIST banner Declare your ALLEGIANCE OFFER to mediate a truce Say ____________ (only one word) FLEE FLEE = escape unharmed for all allegiances. Attack the men bearing the FIST banner = escape with minor injuries for Neutrals (data too small to tell what this really is). Most common locations: Southern Mirkwood area including the plains, southern Dunland near the White Mountains, Gap of Rohan. Balrogs: there was an error in an issue of the Mouth. Balrogs randomly affect the loyalty of neutrals; they don't automatically decrease it, as they do with Free Peoples. Thanks to Dan Arai, Glen Mayfield, Keith Peterson, Jeremy Richman, Michael Robinson, Brian Mason, Robert Lepper, Eric Schnurr, and others for the encounter info. Dragons Culgor: SAY "Sauron" = injured/killed for all allegiances. Nimanaur: Act MEEK = injured/killed for Free Peoples and Neutrals. Offer TEN thousand gold = dragon recruited into army for Dark Servants. Ruingurth: change all options except ATTACK the dragon to = escape unharmed for all allegiances. ATTACK the dragon = combat for all allegiances. Smaug: DEMAND obedience = combat for all allegiances. Turukulon: SAY "Turukulon" = injured/killed for all allegiances. Uruial: State your NAME = injured/killed for all allegiances. There's an unconfirmed rumor that any Dragon Lord character who States his NAME will recruit any recruitable dragon. Sounds pretty darned far-fetched to me, but since I'm the Dragon Lord in one game I might test it out for you all. COMBAT vs INJURED/KILLED results: A couple of players have asked wha the difference is between these two results on my dragon lists. Here's how I distinguish them: Where it says COMBAT, the majority of the results given to me by other players ended in death for the characters who chose that response. Where is says INJURED/KILLED, the majority of the results given to me by other players ended with the character escaping severely wounded (1 health point). For example, if 10 players chose DEMAND obedience from Smaug, and seven of the ten died gloriously, then the result would be COMBAT. If seven crawled away to live another day, the result would be INJURED/KILLED. I distinguish between the two because INJURED/KILLED gives you a better chance of escaping a bad situation than COMBAT does. And for many players, a chance to escape in any form is all they want. Other Corrections and Notes From Jerry Clark How does an army get overran? Is it by outnumbering you 8-1, 9-1, or what? Is overrunning based on number of troops or strength points? From Keith Peterson I recently learned something very interesting. In two cases I know that the One Ring ended in the same square as it was lost in (in both cases the characters who lost it moved, but it was apparently lost BEFORE movement). In games that have ended, the location is given on the end game sheet. We used this in these two games (one of which I played in) to find out where the Ring ended up. Why are agent actions rated hard? I asked GSI this once (esp. considering stealing can be done at 40 pts pretty easily)(Editor's note: I've had rotten luck with 40-point agents since the change to the rules, but okay luck with 50-pointers). The answer - they are assuming guards. Without a guard, most agent actions would be merely avg difficulty (sabot fort obv. doesn't fit in here). Can a DS team win? The DS are currently winning 9 nations to 1 in the first game. I think we'll manage to hang on. We're also winning (different team) in #77. this also is just a matter of time, with the FP down 3 nations and we're down none. I think I know how stealth works in determining whether your character is spotted. There are two main factors: the skill of the character and the loyalty of the pop ctr. (There is a third -- some character are famous, or well-known according to GSI; this gives them a better chance of being spotted. Most NPCs probably fit into this category). Simply subtracting stealth from your skill ranks wouldn't do much. Elrond is still always going to show up. However, if his stealth was subtracted from the loyalty of the pop ctr, he might not. Consider that a character with 30 stealth and 30 pts of stealth artifacts would reduce a 100 loyalty pop ctr to only 40, and has little chance of being spotted. A starting MT with 75 loyalty would become only 15! From Wes Fortin Response to Doug Bergstrom regarding the Assassination/Kidnap equation and the listed Difficulty of orders in general: The equation is pretty accurate. It assumes both sides have equal relations with each other, otherwise there is an modifier there. And, GSI says the targets agent rank also serves as a negative modifier, experience dictates a fraction of that rank, perhaps one half. As for the Easy/Average/Hard designations for orders. According to GSI, those agent actions listed as "hard" are actually "average" difficulty. The "hard" designation assumes guards. As with all orders, the listed difficulty does not necessarily reflect a preset modifier to the roll (as many newbees originally suspect), but a position on the bell curve. Most orders have modifiers built in to them, but this is not what causes the various designation of the order. For instance, CreCmp is listed as easy, but veterans know that you better by close to 40 Emissary rank. Some easy orders, such as GrdChar rarely fail, and are probably Agent Rank + 35% or greater chance of success. For example, look at Steal artifact. It's Agent Rank - (modifier for differences in relations - see army combat for approx values) - 2*Guards Agent Rank. Most average orders have little, if any, modifiers built in to the code, so if we have a 50 Agent trying to steal an artifact, the relations between the nations is the same (so no modifier there), and no guard, the Agent has a 50% chance of success. Toss in a 20 Agent guard, and the odds are more like 10% - pretty hard! GSI seems to build the starting skill point ranges in the difficulty listings around a 50% chance of success. If most "Easy" orders are +35% to rank, then 10 - 40 is a 45% to 75% range, Average orders are, on the average, equal to skill rank so, 50 - 70 equals 50% - 70% odds, and Hard orders are, on the average, Rank -35%. So, in the above example of CreCmp, that order is probably more like Rank +15%. 10 Emissaries can succeed, but not often! Editor's note to new players: newly created camps always come in at a loyalty that's one-half the skill rank of the emissary. This is another reason you don't want a 10-point emissary to create a camp; the loyalty will be 5. You'll have to hang around for turns to increase the loyalty or the camp will instantly degrade the moment your character leaves. For camp creation, an emissary of 40 or better is usually good (gives loyalty 20+, which allows some 'slack' before hitting that magical disintegration number of 15). From Jeremy Richman I recently heard from an ally that both Rhudaur AND Haradwaith can hire armies of ANY type at no cost, not just MA. My source told me he'd just got off the phone with Bill Feilds; I couldn't believe it, so I asked GSI via CI$, and sure enough they confirmed this (!!!) in the following words, (though it is an unsigned response): <> Wild, huh ? All this time and probably virtually all Harad/Rhudaur players have taken the time to hire MA first. Tidbits: 1. Frumgara is the only Northmen character with command skill who doesn't start in charge of any army. Therefore, most NM players have him move to the capital and join the army there. So an enterprising BlindSorc could move a mage there and without even scouting, issue a challenge against Frumgara and be likely to surprise him; likewise, the LR could send an agent there and expect to find him there, for challenge or 615/620. NM: be warned! It may be worth the loss of orders/recruiting for the army commander at Frumgara's hex to transfer command to Mr. F while the previous commander is the one to move/join at 4013. Don't be too predictable! From David Foreman To the question on the assasination equation: All I can safely say about assasinations and hostage taking is that in my experience there appears to be a large random factor. Regardless of what GSI has said to me to the contrary, I have experienced enough fickleness in the assasination results to wonder what kind of random number generator is being used! In game 104 we (the Servants) had bad luck that defied all statistical expectations. We went something like 3 for 23 with Ji Indur and Erennis! And let me state that these were cases where no guard existed! In game 133 we (the Free) lost two 40 pt commanders on turn 2. Since we knew where Ji Indur, Erennis, and Din Ohtar were, you figure it out! ****** On the subject of the Servants winning: The verdict is still out. It appears that what GSI did, more than anything else, was define, in print, the effect of guards. To hear them talk now, a 30 point guard can repel a 60 point agent. A 50 point guard repels a 100 point agent. A 75 point agent basically unassailable AS A GAURD. (As a target, NOT!) In the blitz game, the entire military might of the Servants is needed to overcome a defence by the Free. Again, without the aide of allies, the WK is dead, as is the Dragon Lord. I believe that the answer to the question must be broken into pieces to be answered. Grudge games are a lot different that singles. Experienced games are a lot different than newby games. A few general comments: 1) In a non-grude game, the ability of the individuals is the most important singe factor. The nation doesn't matter unless there are others that are strong nearby. 2) In a grudge game, the servants can't win unless they coordinate a LOT. Free teams can be split into regions and play a reasonable game. 3) If you are experienced, play the servants. It is more of a challenge. If you are new, play the free. It's more interesting when you don't understand the rules. From Eric Schnurr I would like to see some suggestions about opening strategies for the Sea of Rhun area. How can the FP drive out the Long Rider? How can the DS kick out the Northman, Sinda, Eothraim, & Dwarves? How about an opening strategy for the Dragon Lord? How can they keep from getting driven out of Mirkwood? I'm looking for some advice on how to make best use of Mages. Do you solely have them find/retrieve artifacts? help out armies? track character movements? Is it worth 3/4 mages full actions to make a curse squad? Is it possible that there is a difference between amount of production in hexes that have starting pop centers and hexes that don't? Based on my limited experience, this seems to be the case (at least concerning rough/hills and gold production). In Your Ear Nothing this time. Sigh.... Personals Miscellaneous Games Looking for: Evils in Game 60, Free Peoples in Game 96, and Evils in game 133. Wesfor@raxco.com Game 104 To the gang in 104: Sorry I couldn't hang around. We were beat and other games beckoned! David Foremen (AKA the QA). Games 133 and 142 Anyone in 133 on the DS side or 142 on the Free? dforeman@vdoe386.vak12ed.edu ME-PBM Wish List From Darren Beyer A reply to letting neutrals know they are in a grudge match. Having played a neutral in a grudge match, I know that it is not as much fun as playing in a standard game. In a standard game a neutral can typically stay neutral longer, can gain a lot of info from talking with different factions, even attack a nation that isn't cooperating or communicating with its side without gaining an "enemy status". Yes the neutral game is much more fun in the standard game, but saying that it is more difficult to win as a neutral in a grudge match than in other games is simply not true. Consider: 1) You still have ample time in the beginning of the game to get your nation off to a good start, building characters, camps, armies, etc. 2) In a grudge match, typically the sides are more evenly matched than in a standard game, there aren't the nation drop outs, lack of communication, etc., associated with a standard game so the neutrals contribute more in the tipping of the scales and are thus valuable. 3) The "side" in a grudge match will typically give a neutral more to join, than the "individuals" of a standard game. There is a greater pool to draw from and the neutral can also negotiate from both sides at once, thereby upping its worth. 4) Once you've declared for a side, unless you've really back stabbed the other side, they will tend not to pick on you as much (for a while). For one, they may not know you've gone "good" or "evil" and two, they may not see you as a big threat until you start acting against them. This gives you more time to build, change you capitol location, etc. I played Rhudaur in a neutral game and was toggling between first and second (with the Noldo) on the good side (second and third in the game behind the Corsairs) in the 1200 - 1400 victory point range. I believe I had a viable chance to place in that game, something, according to Tom's Whispers article, has not been accomplished before. Unfortunately, the good side turned out to consist of a large number of boobs who decided to drop the game because the Corsairs and Dunland decided to go evil. Oh well. Granted, I would much rather play a neutral in a standard game and would like to know ahead if I was getting into a grudge match, unfortunately for GSI, so would 99 and 44/100 percent of the neutral players out there. GSI already has a hard time filling neutral positions and would never be able to keep up the grudge match pace if neutral players could decide ahead of time if they wanted to be in such a game. Besides, a neutral player, upon finding he/she is in a grudge match, always has the option of calling GSI and dropping the position prior to game start, where GSI can find a replacement. Not something I would do, but always an option. Darren A Reply to Darren Beyer From Tom Walton I've played neutral nations six times now (3 grudge, 3 non), and my own experience disagrees directly with Darren's on all points. To respond: 1) In team games I've had less time to organize and build prior to declaration. The team, being better organized, is more easily capable of making a massive strike against a neutral early on (especially with characters), knocking that nation out. This isn't true in a normal game, where disorganization within allegiances is the rule. 2) Neutrals make LESS of a difference in a team game because both sides are much more organized. In a normal game, sides tend to break down into small regional groups, meaning that a neutral carries much more weight within it's particular geographic location. 3) I've had much worse luck trying to get even small concessions in team games than non-team games. Because the allegiance is capable of coming down on the neutral like a ton of bricks, they tend to be much less willing to give up stuff to recruit a neutral. Instead, they concentrate on showing the neutral how coordinated they are, both to impress that neutral and to imply a threat ("join us or you're toast"). 4)If you stay neutral too long in a team game, the teams start to get nervous and may pre-empt you with a strike (thinking you'll go to the other side). Also, teams seem much more likely to take offensive action early on, because they know that as a group they can destroy a single neutral quite easily. I've seen a number of neutrals creamed this way because they failed to declare early. Team games have always been hard on my neutral nations; I've done much better in non-team games, taking first place early on and holding it. The people are also quite a bit friendlier, as they need you far more than they otherwise would (can't count on the support of nine other players). A new trend I've noticed in team games: some teams seem to harbor a rabid dislike of neutrals regardless of how soon they join the allegiance, and will destroy them in the end-game to prevent them from winning. I can understand this if the nation didn't declare for 20 turns; but when a neutral joins an allegiance prior to turn 10, only to get backstabbed because 'neutrals shouldn't win', this makes it much more important to carefully assess each team before joining a particular side. Complaints concerning this behavior have gone up markedly over the last few months. In all, I haven't found team games to be very much fun when playing a neutral. Given the treatment that I and others have received at the hands of teams, I'd recommend, strongly so, that you drop a grudge match game as soon as you find out you're in one. You'll be out the $12.50, but in my opinion it's worth it simply to avoid throwing good money after bad. And if you write an article for "Whispers", hey, you're only out a free setup! From Wes Fortin Put every troop type on even ground, in certain situations. The game is far too slanted towards heavy troops. They give you more bang for your buck, so the only reason to have light troops is economic, or you want an army soley to THREAT pop centers. For instance, Archers were hell on old battle fields - striking several vollies into closing ranks before combat with the heavy troops actually started. In MEPBM, they are pretty pathetic, usually dieing in the early phases of combat. GSI made the attempt to compensate with Tactic vs Tactic, and failed miserably! From David Foreman Allow the move & join command to join companies as well as armies. Add a parameter to the move navy command that lets you pick up all the ships in a hex and move, rather than just the transports. Afterall what is the justification for just getting the transports? When a character is created, there are a number of orders that they could reasonably be expected to be able to perform prior to the next turn. For example, capital orders like 948 and scouting orders. Therefore... Let's add a section of the turn sheet with nothing written in name and stat blanks. Orders written in those blanks would apply to the names in the blanks if those names are valid for the nation at the time the order is executed. If a player enters a bad name (character name is duplicated and therefore changef) that's tough luck. Then there's the move to ships and move order... For a price (say 6 points for CAV and 4 or 5 for INF) let an army move to a hex where ships are anchored, get on board, and keep on trucking. The order would be something like this: 880 w w sw PU w sw sw normal where the PU is PICKUP SHIPS. Of course, this would be transports only! AND BY THE WAY.... Provide a parameter to the move navy command to allow you to pickup ships and move all at once. The current requirement for two orders is silly, and can't be reconciled with reality given the auto pickup of transports. Create a new order that allows you to move a product to multiple locations. After all, how hard can that be to arrange? (For the programmer AND the caravan driver). For example: 949 Food 2212 3012 3000 2227 2000 0808 2000 would move food from 2122 to 3012 3000 units 2227 2000 units 0808 2000 units If insufficient stores exist at 2212, subtract from the last listed destination etc. Make casting a spell a 1-5 skill rank improvement. After all, most of the command orders result in rank improvement. Why not the poor mage? Editor's note: how about making casting a spell a 1-5 point gain in certain situations, i.e., army combat, curses, etc., where the character is at risk? Otherwise people'd simply prentice/cast for 2-10 points every turn in the safety of some forgotten pop center. From Jeremy Baxter A Move and Join Company order - otherwise you waste loads of orders trying to form a company. An influence Morale order so emmisaries with armies can do an order. How about Influence others morale too. Kill Guard - an Agent order occuring early in the Agent sequence! How I Got Shafted in ME-PBM From David Foreman Evasive movement hasn't been a normal part of my standard orders. I rarely find that I need to be hidden from scouts, and I frequently am moving as far as I can, which makes evasive movement a bad idea. I recently got shafted by this oversight when I took my standard set of game precepts and got blown out of the water. Here WERE my notions on army movement: 1) Evasive movement makes only your icon visible to enemy scouts and maps (TRUE) 2) When moving evasively, you can sometimes walk past an enemy army (TRUE) 3) When moving evasively, pop center fortifications don't stop you if you get lucky. 4) Armies that you walk past are uneffected if you get past them (FALSE) 5) Evasive armies can't overrun (FALSE) Why all the questions??? Here's why. SETUP: 2227 2400 S Gondor troops moved e e e NORMAL 2327 1500 N Gondor troops moved e e NORMAL 100 N Gondor troops 2427 800 S Gondor troops moved w w NORMAL 2527 975 Dk Lts troops moved w w w EVASIVE 2628 500 Ice King troops moved nw nw w ??? NORMAL So what happened??? Here it is! 2227 975 Dk Lts 800 S Gondor 2327 2400 S Gondor 2427 1500 N Gondor 500 Ice King 2527 EMPTY Dk Lts (Gothmog) moved from 2527 to 2427, where he encountered the 800 S Gondor troops. He moved past them, leaving them undisturbed. He then moved to 2327, where he encountered the 2400 S Gondor troops. These troops detected the Dk Lts army. All remaining movement points were expended while the S Gondor army 'searched' for the Dk Lts army. The Dk Lts army then encountered the N Gondor army (small) and overran it, killing both commanders with the army. The army then continued to move, and stopped at 2227 as ordered. The 800 S Gondor troops moved from 2427 to 2327, and then from 2327 to 2227. If I understand the math, this army was passed by Gothmog at 2427, then caught and passed it at 2327! The 2400 S Gondor troops detected Gothmog at 2327 and stopped to search. Since they found nothing, they sat alone at 2327 at turn end. The 1500 N Gondor troops encountered Gothmog at 2327, but missed him. The Ice King army moved along the road and stopped when it encountered the stationary N Gondor army. The N Gondor army at 2327 was obliterated by Gothmog when it was overrun. All of this was confirmed by Bill Field! he had to run the turn several times to check it all for me. Implications: 1) A small army with a good commander can walk past almost anything. 2) Small armies can be overrun on fortifications. 3) An evasive army can stop an enemy in its tracks and keep on moving. 4) From Bill Field... The test for overrun is done on the basis of the number of troops ONLY. The strength of the troops is not used at all. Comments welcome! And by the way, the next turn Gothmog attempted to capture pop center and died during the assault! Later gang Food and Army Movement By Jeremy Richman It is often possible for armies to move their full movement allotment even with insuffient food. What it takes is a second army (of the same nation) in the hex. The main force commander (or a subcommander) transfers to the secondary army, using order 355, all but 100 of his troops, preferably choosing to retain non-cavalry. At least 101 food units are brought into the main force, either by pickup (order 340 I believe), purchase, transfer from the secondary army (order 345 by its commander or subcommander), or is already present. Food is consumed approximately after order 355, so the (now-shrunken) main army "eats" and can move full movement for the turn. Then the commander of the (now-swelled) secondary force transfers command (780) to the main-army commander. Even though the bulk of the troops didn't eat, the original main army has in fact technically been fed, so it still gets full movement. Notice that the secondary army no longer exists. BTW, since all this happens before army movement and encounters, there is no danger from having only 100 troops in the big army -- they can't be overrun nor encountered by an NPC prior to the order 780 to transfer troops back to them. HOWEVER! An agent nailing the either army commander prior to order 780 could definitely put a spanner in the works, so you have to be careful how you use it. Of course, in return for full army movement you may be sacrificing character training, since you are using orders to transfer command, troops and food that might be used for rank-improvement. Admittedly the transfer of troop and command are miscellanious command orders, but if the character doing them is a multiple-class character s/he is still potentially missing out on at least one training order. If you are willing to miss even more training, and have a spare character with command skill, you can move for quite a while on only (say) 2000 food and even a huge army. You have to start with two armies, as above. Say army 1 and 2, with commanders A and B, and extra commander C in army 1. First turn: 1. Subcommander C (army 1) transfers all but 200 troops to Commander B (army 2). 2. 2002 food (say) is brought into army 1, as discussed above. Army 1, now with 200 troops and 2002 food, eats 200 of it (assuming non-cav), leaving 1802. 3. Commander A (army 1) splits 100 troops (order 765) to Subcommander C who is now a commander, of army 3, which also gets 901 of army 1's 1802 food. 4. Commander B (army 2) transfers command to (and joins) Commander A (army 1), dissolving army 2. Result: Commander A, with new subcommander B, commands army 1 with all but 100 of the troops; Army 1 was fed at the key time and can move fully. The remaining 100 troops are in a separate army under Commander C; this army was split from a fed army (and has at least 1 food unit) and so can move fully as well. All subsequent turns, until the food runs out: 0. To help you to follow this example, I've given #food remaining, assuming this is for turn 2, directly following the steps above. Just remember on each following turn there is 200 less food total between the various armies. 1. Commander C, with 100 troops and 901 food, transfers all 901 food to Commander A, giving A's army 1802. 2. Subcommander B transfers all but 200 troops to Commander C, swelling C's 100 man army. 3. Commander A's now 200-man army eats 200 of the remaining food (bringing it to 1602). 4. Commander A splits off 100 men (half his present army) to subcommander B, tranferring half the remaining food (801). 5. Commander C, still in charge of a now-swolen army, transfers command to (and joins) Commander A, restoring A's original huge size. Result: Commander A, with new subcommander B, (still) commands army 1 with all but 100 of the troops, and has full movement. Commander C has an army of 100 troops which also has full movement. Next turn repeat, but with Characters B and C having exchanged positions, as they will with each following turn. In this example the commander who ends up in charge of the small 100-man army that was split off is vulnerable to overruns (even if it moves with the main army, since army encounters with other moving armies are in random order). Strategy & Tactics: The Dragon Lord By Brian Mason From the author: After my last strategy & tactics submission to "The Mouth" (Cardolan, Mouth #5), I was a bit mistified as to which nation to discuss. I am probably most familiar with the other nations I am currently playing (Rhudaur in game 97 & Northern Gondor in game 131), however, as those games are still active, I don't really want to discuss any of the more unusual actions I took as those nations at this time (too many of my adversaries in those games read "The Mouth"). I have developed other strategies similar to my efforts for other nations, but rather than fall send out something developed in this manner, I thought it might be more interesting, from a discussion standpoint, to throw out a clay pigeon. I've never played a Dark Servant, or a character strong nation, so most of my observations herein will be either simplistic or just plain bad ideas. The choice of the Dragon Lord as something needing a good strategy was suggested by Jerry Clark and was written during a snowstorm at Mt. Wilson Observatory in the 100-inch dome, waiting for the weather to clear so I can do some work. The Big Problem Expected revenue and production: The following are the expected revenue from the population centers given at the start of the game at a 70 % tax rate and the expected gold production. Also, is the expected total production of commodities as well as expected stores. These are computed from "Population Center Development," Table 1 (Brian Mason, "The Mouth," no. 2). Rather than take the expected values for mild, I have taken them to be cold in mountain and far north population centers and mild elsewhere. le br st mi fo ti mo go tax total 143 247 113 010 921 203 036 3421 21000 There is no substantial production of any quantity to equip troops on a regular basis with good weapons or armor (i.e. bronze & steel), or to equip mounts (i.e. leather & mounts). Also, there is not sufficient timber production to make a substantial number of war machines or to improve existing fortifications (with the exception of Lag-auris, which is probably not worth fortifying because it is SO vulnerable). It might be possible in the long term to improve fortifications at some locations (e.g. Goblin Gate, if still held, to more securely hold the pass across the Misty Mountains, or Lug Ghurzun to make it more secure). The most effective use of production would be to sell them for additional revenue. Expected costs: Fortifications: 5000 Armies: 12900 Characters: 12200 ----- Total: 30100 Expected Revenue less expected costs: - 5679 So, even with a significant tax increase, the Dragon Lord is in significant financial difficulties. Also, one of his revenue generating locations is very vulnerable: Nahald Kudan. A Radical Idea A way to deal with the issue is the following strategy. It is (at least to me) a radical strategy. It has been stated (A Response to Wes from Tom Walton, "The Mouth," No. 4) that against a united front of the Sinda, Dwarves, and Woodmen that Dol Guldur and Goblin Gate cannot be held without substantial intervention from Mordor. Taking this as a given, what is the best course of action as you cannot count on the aforementioned intervention? If we take as a given that the Dragon Lord power base in Mirkwood cannot be held, what remains is to re-establish himself somewhere else. I recommend that Khamul name four emissaries and that these do nothing but work on establishing the backup nation (and what will eventually be the Dragon Lord's main holdings). There is nothing on the Dragon Lord map which is not seen on maps of the Northmen, Sinda, and Woodmen. Building a backup nation anywhere on the Dragon Lord map is inadvisable. However, the area in and around Lug Ghurzun is a good location. Examine the following: In the first series of six hexes (3821-3921, 3722, 3922, 3823-3923) surrounding Lug Ghurzun we have four mountain and two hills & rough hexes. Developing those six hexes to towns would cost 72,000 gold, although in most realistic cases this would take at least six turns (turns one & two: create three camps each turn, turns three & four: improve three camps to villages each turn, turns five & six: improve three villages to towns each turn). As seen below, four emissaries are committed to this undertaking. All of this assumes that the creations and improvements occur all the time with no failure. This is probably not realistic, but will serve as a starting point for the analysis. The orders below assume having three emissaries to execute them, even though there are four. This is an attempt to compensate for emissary failure. The following cost analysis considers the six population centers to be developed as a separate cost. Expenses are given and net costs are given considering development and revenue from these six hexes only. Consider the following: Turn one: Create two camps in mountain hexes, one in hills & rough. Cost: 6000 gold. These are anticipated to produce 2491 gold per turn total. Net cost: 6000 gold. Turn two: Same as turn one. Net cost 6000 gold from turn one + 6000 gold - 2491 gold from turn one camps is 9509. Turn three: Improve three camps to villages. Cost: 12000 gold. These, at 70 % tax rates will produce 5250 gold per turn. Net cost 9509 from turn two + 12000 gold for village improvement - 4982 gold production is 16527. Turn four: Same as turn three. Net cost is 16527 gold from turn three + 12000 gold for village improvement - 5250 from turn three village taxes - 4982 gold production is 18295. Turn five: Improve three villages to towns. Cost 18000 gold. These, at 70 % tax rates will produce 10500 gold per turn. Net cost is 18295 from turn four + 18000 gold for village improvements - 10500 from turn four village taxes - 4982 gold production is 20813. Turn six: Same as turn five. Net cost is 20813 from turn five + 18000 gold for village improvements - 15750 from turn five village and town taxes - 4982 gold production is 18081. At current revenue rates, this total cost for all six turns of 18081 is minimal. On turn seven this is payed back, with 7901 gold to spare. These costs do not include the associated character costs, the 20000 gold to get the four emissaries, the 2400 gold per turn minimum maintenance fee for the emissaries, etc. Substantial selling of resources along with possible grants from other Dark Servants may be necessary. However, an additional side benefit will be the emissaries themselves. There are a total of eighteen emissary orders, each allowing for increases of 1-10 points. Dividing these eighteen emissary orders among the four emissaries (five for the first two emissaries to arrive, four for the others) and basing improvement to the emissaries upon "More Character and Skill Improvement" (Tom Walton, "The Mouth," No. 3) the projected emissary ranks are: 49, 49, 54, and 54. This will make a very effective company (coupled with a commander) to move into a begin influencing enemy population centers. General Strategy So, while these new emissaries are developing a new base of operations what should the Dragon Lord forces do? If Mirkwood cannot be held, then go into a scorched earth plan of attack. The place for greatest gain is in Lorien against the Sinda. Turn one: All three of the good mages (with the exception of Khamul) should learn reveal population center and prentice magery. The army at Goblin Gate should add 400 hi and move towards Lorien. The two armies at Dol Guldur should combine after adding 400 hi and move towards Lorien. Khamul changes the tax rate and names an emissary. Lhacglin improves GrdLoc and PrenMgy). Increase in costs: 3200 gold per turn (hi), 600 gold per turn (new character), plus 5000 gold character startup costs and costs associated with improving characters. Turn two: All three of the good mages above learn reveal population center (if unsuccessful on turn one) or prentice magery and then move and join one of the two armies. The army from Goblin Gate moves onto Cerin Amroth while the army from Dol Guldur moves onto Caras Galadon. Khamul moves and joins an army as Lhacglin improves again. Emissary # 1 names emissary # 2. Increase in costs: 600 gold per turn (new character), plus 5000 gold character startup costs and costs associated with improving characters. Turn three: The two armies attack whatever armies they have facing them. The mages cast combat spells and reveal the population centers. Lhacglin improves again. Emissaries # 1 & # 2 name emissaries # 3 & # 4, then begin moving south. Increase in costs: 1200 gold per turn (new characters), plus 10000 gold character startup costs and costs associated with improving characters less costs due to army losses. Turn four: Caras Galadon and Cerin Amroth destroyed. Armies move back towards Dol Guldur and Goblin Gate to hold them as long as possible. The mages move to population centers to learn teleport and locate artifact true. Lhacglin improves once more. Emissaries #1 & # 2 reach the backup nation area, emissaries # 3 & # 4 reach halfway. Increase in costs: costs associated with improving characters less costs due to army losses. Turn five: Armies back at Dol Guldur and Goblin Gate. Mages continue researching spells or begin casting them. Emissaries # 1 & #2 begin build-up. Emissaries # 3 & # 4 reach backup nation region. All of these moves are "idealized." That is, the moves take place with no armies or other obstacles getting in the way. This is probably not realistic, but it serves as a beginning. What the Dragon Lord most needs is gold. Lhacglin might need to move to the capital to execute a sell order every turn to fund continuing expenses as well as the population center buildup in the south. A Final Word There is a rumor, thus far unconfirmed, that the Dragon Lord can recruit any dragon recruitable by Dark Servants by simply stating your name. If this is so, it makes for a significant play balancer. A Reply to Brian Mason from Tom Walton I've played the Dragon Lord now for 8 turns, the Dwarves for 26. Based on my experience, I'd modify Brian's model with the following assumptions: (1) Given competent play among the Dwarves, Sinda, and Woodmen, the towns of Gundabad (Witch-King), Dol Guldur, Goblin-Gate, and Sarn Goriwing can all be taken by the end of turn 6. This happens regardless of how skilled the Dragon Lord is, or how fast he recruits; he simply can't match the starting armies of these foes, or recruit fast enough to repel an attack. Without substantial outside intervention, a solid FP group will drive him into the ground early. Remember, I'm assuming a COMPETENT foe, which might not be the case in your game. So, I'd say assume that Nahald Khudan will be captured on turn 2, Goblin-Gate on turn 3, Dol Guldur and Sarn Goriwing on turn 6. Apply the appropriate economic losses accordingly. If it doesn't turn out this way, all the better for you. I won't even comment on Lug Ghurzun, a juicy target for the Northmen and Eothraim. (2) Raising taxes to 70% is a nice idea, but only Duran is capable of doing this with any sort of success. And unfortunately, Duran sometimes starts at Goblin-Gate. If he does, you probably won't be able to jack taxes beyond 60-65%. (3) Building camps is a great idea for the Dragon Lord; he's going to need them right quick. But I wouldn't put them in the mountains of Mordor. Why? For the simple reason that his loyalty's gonna go to hell in a handbasket from all the captures. Instead, I'd put them in the Grey Mountains; you won't get very much production, but dragons are a constant presence at pop centers located here, and each dragon will raise a DS pop center 1-10 points in loyalty per turn. In other words, the dragons act as built-in emissaries that you don't have to pay for, and are much more skilled than your own characters. As a bonus, you can track recruitable dragons in this manner, and the camp loyalty will increase so fast that even mediocre emissaries will be able to raise these sites to villages and towns within just a few turns. A final benefit: these camps are difficult for the FP to reach; they're off-map of ALL players; and they're next door to two Dwarven towns, where the same dragons are LOWERING the loyalty 1-10 points. When those emissaries hit a skill score of 50+, they can drop in on these towns and steal them in a couple of turns; not a darn thing the Dwarf can do about that unless he wants to station armies over them. (3) When going after the Sinda, make sure you plot your movement to avoid the Woodmen and Dwarves marching for Goblin-Gate. Otherwise, you'll smack head-on and lose your forces. Same thing when marching from Dol Guldur in case the Woodmen move to block. (4) As an alternate plan, avoid enemy armies and destroy all the pop centers you can reach. I did this as the Dragon Lord in my own game; so far, I've lost my village and Goblin-Gate in trade for two camps, three villages, and two towns among nearby enemy nations. I also have an army over the Dwarven town of Norr-dum threatening away with no FP relief in sight. The 'scorched earth' policy freaked the enemy out, forcing him to commit approximately 10,000 troops to attacking/hunting me down ever since the game started. This sort of thing works well in a team game (to help the team), or as a gesture of resistance, but it also makes your nation a very unwelcome center of attention among the Free - so consider it carefully. (5) One option you might want to try. Since the Dragon Lord usually gets thrashed pretty good, have the Witch-King march out right away from Gundabad to take Buhr Fram and engage the Woodmen army. Then have the Witch-King transfer both Gundabad and Buhr Fram to the Dragon Lord. What does this do? It keeps the Dragon Lord in Mirkwood a bit longer; it allows him to recruit at Gundabad, which is generally hard on the Witch-King (who needs his commanders and troops on the western front); it allows another avenue of approach against the Woodmen; and if the Dwarves in the Iron Hills don't march west, it provides a good back-up capitol in the event that Dol Guldur falls (you don't have to relocate to another region). The loss of the 7,500 gold in taxes won't affect the Witch-King much, since supporting the army and characters based here usually costs more than is produced by the town anyway. However, transferring this plus Buhr Fram (2,500 gold or 5,000, depending on whether the WK threatened or captured it) will add a great deal of punch to the Dragon Lord, whose economy starts with a tax base of 30,000 but drops to 20,000 almost immediately (loss of Goblin-Gate and Nahald Khudan). Strategy & Tactics: The Eothraim By Brian Mason Taylor Scott, a good friend of mine, said that when you drive a volkswagen van you have to understand that anything that wants to pass you, will and there is not a thing you can do about it. Likewise, if you are playing the Eothraim you have to understand, that in the face of competent opposition, without tremendous help from your allies, you will lose and there is not a thing you can do about it. The Eothraim start the game with an army which is second-to-none. How, then, can such a blanket statement be made? You have three major problems. One, the armies you face on the north-end of Mordor (Dog Lord, Long Rider, Dark Lieutenants) are combined better than yours, two, you cannot afford the armies you have, much less the armies you need, and, three, you don't have the agents necessary to protect yourself from agent actions. So, what should you do? First, encourage military support from the Northmen and Dwarves. I have seen in recent games, Dwarf players consolidate their three eastern armies first in the Iron Hills before moving them into action. That is not very helpful. Both the Northmen and the Dwarves should move South to engage some of these three adversaries. Second, encourage economic support from your wealthier allies. Lets face it, to get to the Northmen you've got to go through the Eothraim, and if the Eothraim are knocked out then Northern Gondor gets more attention from the Dog Lord and Dark Lieutenants. These two nations, at the least, should be willing to "fork over the dough" so that the Eothraim can keep going. Third, hack and slay, slash and burn, and scorch the earth. You might not be in the game long, so don't capture a population center that can be taken back. Burn, baby, burn. As long as you're asking for the moon and the stars, ask the Noldo to use the Mantle of Doriath to hide your capital. If they do, your position improves significantly. If they say no, well, you're no worse off. The Eothraim should have sufficient production to add cavalry as they are needed. Uirdiks should learn conjure mounts if only to get more mounts to sell. Well timed sells of leather, food, or mounts should be able to help the Eothraim economy as well as keep supplies at the location for recruiting as it is needed. Total economic position = 26250 taxes (@ 70 %) + 168 gold (projected production) - 3250 pop centers - 27000 armies - 6200 characters = 10032 per turn deficit! Group the five at start Eothraim armies into three combat groups: two strong, one weak. The two strong will go into combat immediately while the one weak one begins adding more heavy cavalry. Consider the following: mounts and leather are transported to a major town in sufficient numbers to allow recruiting of at least 800 heavy cavalry. The recruiting army goes there, recruits for a couple of turns and then moves off. When one of the "at the front" armies is exhausted, it moves back to begin recruiting while being replaced by the new army. Thus, at least two armies are kept in combat at all times. Along this line, it is worth pointing out that Buhr Marling (3612) does not appear on any Dark Servant regional map. There are two problems with this strategy. One, the Eothraim cannot afford the troops they start with and two, a character at their capital to do the necessary nation transport orders is vulnerable. The only viable alternative is to lose a good portion of the army (not wise, as it makes you vulnerable) or capture population centers (difficult, and possibly not a good idea). If the armies are decreased in size in combat it can do two possible things: one, if attacking an enemy army, it improves the Eothraim chances for survival, and two, if capturing an enemy population center, it improves the Eothraim economic situation. However, given the ebb and flow nature of actions in Rhovanion, a scorched earth policy is a good idea. What follows are suggested points for the Eothraim to concentrate attacks, as well as staging areas for first turn moves. The primary objective of all Eothraim forces should be to engage armies of the Dog Lord, Long Rider, and Dark Lieutenants. If they can, the following might be possible objectives. Attack group one: The armies starting at 3715 and 3612 move to 4219. On the following turn they will combine. Their objective is to engage forces of the Long Rider, or if not, to force march to 3922 on turn two and then to 3822 on turn three, then destroy the Dragon Lord major town of Lag-auris at that location. The Dragon Lord is the most vulnerable of the Dark Servants at game start (his armies are weaker than those of the Witch-King, and he does not have the potential for neutral allies). Taking out his only secure population center will make it much easier to get him out of the game. Attack group two: The armies starting at 2819 and 3112 move to 3120. Their objective is to engage forces of the Dog Lord and Dark Lieutenants. One the following turn they will engage enemy forces present in the hex and/or destroy the Dark Lieutenant town of Thuringwathost. Reserve group: The army at 3217 will move to 3612, there to begin recruiting to make up for anticipated losses, and to prepare this army to replace attack group one or two on the field. Strategy & Tactics: The Blind Sorcerer By Brian Mason This is an interesting position to play. Unlike many of your Dark Servant allies, you are relatively safe from early Free People attack. This allows you the luxury of developing the position more carefully. There are many possible options for this position. This presents just one of them. Because Free Peoples must either come through Mordor, through the Cloud Lord or around the east side of Mordor and the Sea of Rhun to get to you, you have the opportunity to send all of your troops out to engage the enemy. The question that remains is where? Consider the time to reach the following three objectives, using a variety of movement techniques: one, towards Osgiliath (through Mordor) with 1 navy movement and 3 regular marches, two, towards Pelargir (through mountains to south) with 6 regular marches, or three, towards Dilgul {4217} (around east side of Mordor) with 1 navy movement and 3 regular marches. So, by turn four or six depending on your objective you could have your army engaged. Consider economics, 12250 (taxes at 70 %) + 4072 (expected gold production) - 12150 (army costs) - 2250 (pop center costs) - 7800 (character costs) = - 5878 gold Like the Dragon Lord plan, I would recommend developing the nation with emissaries first. Use the at start gold surplus and that from sales to create emissaries and population centers in gold producing hexes (i.e. mountains and hills/rough). Then improve those population centers so that they generate revenue. A strategy which I saw employed in game 97, and I would advocate when possible involves trading a major town with the Witch-King. It gives the Witch-King a backup capital in a more secure location and a nearby ally (both of which he desperately needs), and gives the Blind Sorcerer a way to get in the "thick" of things without a four turn march. You have the ability to name 40 mages, but who cares about that? You start the game with seven characters who have a mage rank of 30 or better. How do you use them? Always have them prentice magery. This is the only way to get them to the levels necessary to learn hard spells, which they are, for the most part, too low to learn at game start. Have them within range of your army. Just before you anticipate moving into a hex with combat, move a bunch of your mages there. The extra offensive or defensive punch they can provide can turn the tide in a close battle. Winners and Losers in Middle-Earth by Tom Walton (Note: this article originally appeared in the February issue of "Whispers" and is reprinted here for the perusal of those of you who don't subscribe to that magazine.) Having played in Middle-Earth for over a year now, I've become interested in finding out just how balanced the game really is. Which allegiance is most likely to win? Which nations are the most powerful, and which are particularly weak? Do the Neutrals wield too much influence, as some players claim? And was the change in agent orders really necessary to correct an imbalance? Prior to this time, there was insufficient data to provide an informed answer to any of these questions. Opinions given by various players were based upon guesswork, hearsay, and complaint, often with little or no evidence to support anything the player said. Indeed, most players had no experience beyond the few games they happened to be playing in, meaning that they couldn't possibly identify any sort of pattern from their limited exposure to Middle Earth. With the December 1993 issue of Whispers, this has changed. Enough games have ended to provide a solid basis for establishing some general trends and to take a shot at answering these questions. Working off the numbers given by GSI for wins and nation placement, there's now a minimum amount of data to make this article possible. The Data As of December, 31 games have ended, yielding a total of 93 possible winning nations (1st through 3rd place). Of these games, 12 have gone to the Free Peoples and 19 to the Dark Servants, a ratio of 39% to 61%. Given the assumption that each nation has an equal chance of taking one of these positions if all other factors remain equal, you'd expect any one nation to have placed about 3.7 times (25 nations among 93 possible winning slots). Since the spread of the data is still relatively small and subject to error, this article operates on the premise that any nation which has placed 2-5 times is running about average. A nation which places 0 or 1 times is considered a 'loser', while a nation which places 6 or more times is a 'winner'. Nations break down as indicated below, with the number of placements following in parentheses: Free Peoples Losers: Woodmen (0), Eothraim (1), and Cardolan (1) Winners: Noldo (7) Dark Servants Losers: Dragon Lord (0) Winners: Cloud Lord (9), Long Rider (6) Neutrals Losers: Rhudaur (0) Winners: Corsairs (11), Harad (9) All other nations took a winning slot an 'average' number of times. The Balance of Power It seems apparent from an analysis of the economic, military, and character strengths of the allegiance nations that the Free Peoples have a definite advantage over the Dark Servants. Regionally, they're much stronger than their opponents in all aspects except for characters, and here a disparity exists only near Mordor. Consider: the four Free nations around Mordor (Gondors, Eothraim, Northmen) are economically and militarily just as powerful as the eight Dark Servants they face. In Mirkwood and Eriador, the Free so badly outgun the Dragon Lord and Witch-King that victory in the face of competent opposition is laughable for these two positions. Yet despite the enormous advantages the Free possess, they manage to win the game only 39% of the time. This can't be attributed to incompetence or exceptional Dark Servant play; there must be some aspect of the game which favors the Dark Servant nations. This is even more apparent when you take into account the fact that a nation like the Witch-King scores a winning position just as often as most other nations do, despite being surrounded by enemies and isolated from the rest of Mordor. What is the mystery factor? A number of players claim that Dark Servant agent advantages in combination with their artifacts unfairly tip the game away from the Free. As the Cloud Lord has scored the second-highest number of wins overall, there may be some evidence to back this up. Yet if this is true, why aren't the nations most likely to suffer from agent attacks (again, the Gondors, Eothraim, and Northmen) all losers? Perplexing, to say the least. If I were to hazard a guess (and a guess is all it is), I'd say that agents are indeed the primary reason for the preponderance of Dark Servant wins. GSI, with it's inestimably much better information, saw fit to make changes to the agent orders; this seems to indicate that they too believe this to be at least one the determining factors in the imbalance of victories between the allegiances. The Losers The losers among the nations of Middle-Earth include the Woodmen, Eothraim, Cardolan, Dragon Lord, and Rhudaur. Of these nations, the Woodmen, Dragon Lord, and Rhudaur have yet to place in the game. This suggests that these nations suffer some drawback serious enough to preclude an average chance of taking 1st, 2nd or 3rd place. While the Dragon Lord position lends itself to easy criticism, the others do not. None of the four are by any means helpless in comparison to their opposition, nor do they have an identifiable weaknesses. The Woodmen, for example, have no nearby enemies except for the Dragon Lord; once this Dark Servant is driven from Mirkwood, they can enjoy a peace dreamed of only by neutrals, with plenty of room to expand. They same can be said of Cardolan; this nation is often spared the direct and brutal attention of the Witch-King and his potential allies, yet has only managed to place a single time. Arthedain, on the other hand, is the prime target of Angmar; even so, that nation has managed to place four times. Arguments have been made that the Eothraim are particularly susceptible to attack by Mordor. This is true, but the same can be said for the Northmen. Why then are the Eothraim losers and the Northmen not? Why also has Rhudaur alone of the five neutrals never managed to take a winning position? No easy answers suggest themselves. I can only point out which nations seem to be particularly disadvantaged; others will have to suggest explanations for these results. The Winners The winners among the nations of Middle-Earth include the Noldo, Cloud Lord, Long Rider, Corsairs, and Haradwaith. Unlike the losers, it's fairly easy to see why these nations often surge to the fore. Protected from direct enemy action by isolation or neutrality, all of these positions have the time to build upon their particular strengths and jump into the fray after many other nations have taken a savage beating. There are some interesting anomalies. Note that among the allegiance players, the two of the three winning nations are almost completely character-oriented; only the Long Rider could (with some stretch of the imagination) be called a 'military nation'. In fact, the winning nations that truly qualify for this distinction are both neutral, and both are located in the same general area. The question is, do isolation and/or neutrality really count for that much? The Easterlings have the exact same advantages as their neutral neighbors, as does the Blind Sorcerer with respect to the Cloud Lord and Long Rider; yet neither of these nations are winners. Again, some other factor or factors must be at work to give these nations an edge. The Neutrals Having played a neutral nation six times, I've heard more than my share of whining over how 'powerful' the neutrals are, and that they place in the game far too often. Let's take a look at these complaints. Since there are five neutrals in the game, you'd expect that they'd take about 20% of the winning slots on average. In truth, the neutrals garner closer to 30% of these slots; somewhat higher than average, but certainly not high enough to set off any warning bells. In fact, considering that neutrals often remain intact in terms of their resources during the opening moves of the game, and spend the initial turns building up these resources rather than expending them against the enemy, you'd reasonably expect them to last longer than other nations and so reach winning positions more often. But even these numbers lend no credence to the claim that the neutrals are 'always winning the game'. The primary complaint concerning neutrals (other than the ludicrous insistence that they shouldn't exist at all) is that they affect the balance of power between the allegiances far too much. This is rather easy to disprove. In a recent survey of 34 games with 170 neutral positions, the allegiance chosen by 102 of these neutrals was reported as follows (others had yet to change allegiance or had dropped the game prior to changing allegiance): Nation Reported Free Peoples Dark Servants Corsairs 18 8 (44%) 10 (56%) Haradwaith 20 10 (50%) 10 (50%) Dunland 20 15 (75%) 5 (25%) Rhudaur 23 13 (57%) 10 (43%) Easterlings 21 9 (43%) 12 (57%) Total Free Peoples: 55 (54%) Total Dark Servants: 47 (46%) Note: information on 27 of these games was provided by Jeremy Richman, a long-time veteran of ME-PBM. You'll note that all of the neutrals except the Dunlendings tend to break out relatively evenly among the allegiances, and that among neutrals overall there seems to be a slight tendency to favor the Free Peoples. If neutrals had as much sway upon the game as some claim, their power should result in a balance of games won that stands close to even between the allegiances. Yet we know from the data that the Free win only 39% of the time; clearly the neutrals aren't affecting this, other than perhaps in letting the Free win more often than they would if there were no neutrals in the game at all. In other words, any affect the neutrals have on the game is usually minor (there are obvious exceptional instances, e.g., when all five neutrals go to one allegiance) and doesn't appreciably alter the balance of power between the allegiances. Even more interesting, though, is to compare the number of times a neutral took a winning slot when it belonged to one side or another. The following table gives this information: Nation Wins Free Peoples Dark Servants Corsairs 11* 2 (20%) 8 (80%) Harad 9 2 (22%) 9 (78%) Dunland 4 3 (75%) 1 (25%) Rhudaur 0 - - Easterlings 4 1 (25%) 3 (75%) * placed second in one game, put failed to declare prior to game end. The information here confirms the breakdown given above. If neutrals did have a great deal of influence on the outcome of the game, they'd tend to win in numbers equal to their rate of declaration for either side. Yet aside from Dunland, most neutrals win the game only when fighting for the Dark Servants; they most often lose the game when they declare for the Free Peoples! What does this suggest? The impact that any one neutral has on the chances of an allegiance winning the game is much smaller than generally believed. However, for three of the neutrals, joining the Dark Servants provides benefits that often allows them to take victory; for Dunland, these benefits are provided by the Free Peoples. In other words, declaring for the right allegiance is worth much more to the neutral than the neutral is worth to the allegiance. Conclusions Many questions on the 'whys' of victory and defeat can't be answered by an analysis of the data, only offered up for thought. Few things can be said with certainty: - some nations win out of proportion to the average nation; others lose more often than they should. - even under the old agent rules, the Dark Servants weren't unbeatable. Far from it, in fact. - a competent Free Peoples team won't win the game every time, despite their advantages in economic power and the regional disparities versus the Witch-King and Dragon Lord. - nations that one might expect to be losers (e.g., Northern Gondor, Northmen, Witch-King) were not, suggesting their strengths are fairly well proportioned for the opposition they face. - neutrals aren't winning the game vastly out of proportion to their numbers. - the affect that neutrals have upon the balance of power among the allegiances is much smaller than previously thought, and tends to even out both across games and in individual games. This article can only tell you what's happening with respect to the questions initially proposed, not the reasons behind the results. I leave interpretation of the 'whys' up to my fellow gamers, and invite criticism and commentary. However, I'd ask that all criticism of the results be based upon the data, not upon unsubstantiated personal belief or experience, or upon the anecdotal experiences that begin with "well, this happened to me in game such and-such once...". Commentary on the Previous Article From Keith Peterson I read Tom Walton's excellent article (editor's note: Thanks, Keith) in the last Whispers with great interest. His article -- and his request to have facts on your side and not just offer opinions - encouraged me to check a few things out. However, I'd like to make a few observations. We have no data on the roll of drops. In #31, both the Noldor and Northmen could have (would have!) placed if they had played another dozen turns or less. Both lost interest in a game that dragged out. In the end, the three who placed were the only three left (1 FP and 2 DS). I'm not sure how stubborness (and the refusal to drop) should fit in, but it does determine the outcome of some games. We also don't know how closely others finished, or whether others played selfishly or unselfishlessly. Certainly an unselfish Noldor could probably finish high more often. Thirdly, while it is true that the neutrals as a WHOLE are not abnormally high, it jumped out at me that two of them (the Corsairs and Harad) accounted for 20 of the 93 winning positions in Tom's statistics. That's 21.5% by just TWO NATIONS! And that is very statisticly abnormal. (Editor's Note: damn tootin' it's abnormal. GSI needs to make some SERIOUS adjustments to these nations. But also note: these very same nations usually LOSE if they go FP). Now then, to the meat of the discussion. IMHO, Middle Earth is not a military game, or an economic game as much as it is character driven. Therefore, the nations that have the best characters should win. This, and the matter of isolation and protection seem to be the biggest indicators of how well a nations should do. The isolation of the LR, Corsairs, Harad and Noldor serves them all well in this regard. The fact that Rhudaur has the worst characters of the neutrals PLUS is the center of the WK-FP conflict goes hand-in-hand with the fact it has yet to place in any game. Notice the following chart: base + skill + cbt skills artif artif NOLDOR 860 980 1045 WITCHK 630 750 800 DRAGL 610 720 785 DK LTS 610 690 735 DOGL 490 580 610 SINDA 540 570 585 CORS 530 NG 470 520 530 LR 360 440 450 QA 420 420 445 SG 400 425 BS 390 405 415 DWARF 340 395 IK 340 390 400 FK 370 370 390 DUNL 370 370 385 ARTH 330 380 CL 330 355 370 EAST 330 330 345 EO 310 310 330 WO 320 RHU 280 310 NORTH 300 CARD 290 HARAD 290 Notice how poorly the EO, WO, Rhu and Card all rank. Harad's financial resources allow it to quickly fix its shortcomings (it could name four 30-pt characters on turn 1 and put itself in the middle of the pack). Add to the woes of the EO, WO, Rhu and Card that they are all in the midst of intense military conflict immediately. But how to explain the problems of the BS and the DragL? The DragL has the 3rd best characters in the game, yet has never placed. In part, we can blame this on its precarious position. However, the WK has almost as bad a position. The difference? The WK has emissaries and commanders; the Dragon Lord has mostly mages -- and mages are probably the weakest of the four character classes, especially at the beginning of the game. If the DragL mages should survive, for example, to all learn curses, they could be truly fearsome. But that takes longer than the DragL usually has. The BS seems to be the other anomaly. But suppose we consider its mage skill largely useless in building its position up, as being mostly supportive? Consider this new chart, made by subtracting mage ranks from all nations' skills above: NOLDOR 675 WK 670 NG 530 DK LTS 475 CORS 460 DRAGL 425 DOGL 410 DWARF 395 SINDA 365 LR 350 ARTH 350 QA 325 CL 320 EO 300 SG 295 WO 290 DUNL 275 RHU 270 FK 260 CARD 260 EAST 235 NO 230 HARAD 210 IK 200 BS 90 We see here that both the Dragl and the BS have fallen considerably. The BS is in deep trouble with such poor characters in all the non mage positions, and a terrible deficit. We also notice the agent powers (IK, Dunl, CL, and to some degree the LR) can help their nations overcome some of their other shortcomings. Middle Earth is not a simple game. No single explanation (including this one) can explain everything. Obviously, some positions have some problems. The real question is what those problems are AND how to solve them without unbalancing the game. You can't make large or significant changes to the EO positions without possibly endangering Mordor at the same time, not to mention making it more difficult for the DragL, who already has problems. Place Names by Brian Mason Many of the geographical features on the Middle-earth Play-By-Mail map are well known. However, some of them are less familiar. This is not an analysis, per se, simply a listing of geographical features by their proper name and identifying them by hex location on the map. This may add spice to the game, or it might give you some ideas for naming population centers. After all, it's a good bit more colorful to arrange a rendezvous for the passing off of an artifact by saying "I'll meet you in the southernmost Eyrn Vorn" rather than saying "I'll meet you at 0916." Rivers are identified by pairs of hexes marking both ends of a river. Thos appearing in the map but which are not identified herein are not known. All names are given from primary sources (i.e. books by J.R.R. Tolkien) and not from any of the names given from the Middle-earth Role Playing materials published by I.C.E. 0808-0909 to 0806-0905 Lhun 1013-1014 to 1108-1207 Branduin or Brandywine 1219-1319 to 1713-1714 Gwathlo or Greyflood 1713-1813 to 2107-2108 Mitheithel or Hoarwell 1910-2011 to 2208-2209 Bruinen or Loudwater 1714-1813 to 2213-2112 Glanduin or Swanfleet 1321-1322 to 2119-2219 Angren or Isen 1821-1722 to 1921-1822 Adorn 1625-1726 to 1923-2023 Lefnui 2225-2325 to 2123-2223 Morthond 2224-2325 to 2424-2524 Ringlo 2324-2424 Ciril 2527-2627 to 2524-2624 Gilrain 2626-2627 to 2626-2726 Serni 2728-2829 to 2406-2505 Anduin 2928-2929 to 3129-3130 Poros 2828-2927 to 2725-2825 Sirith 2926-2925 to 2825-2824 Erui 2722-2620 to 2118-2218 Onedlo or Entwash 2521-2420 to 2321-2421 Snowbourn 2516-2617 to 2216-2315 Limlight 2515-2514 to 2313-2312 Celebrant 2415-2314 to 2315-2314 Nimrodel 2511-2510 to 2411-2410 Sir Ninglor or Gladden 2406-2405 Langwell 2405-2505 Greylin 2833-2734 to 3432-3533 Harnen 4013-4012 to 3107-3108 Celduin or River Running 3711-3712 to 3608-3708 Carnen or Redwater 3008-3109 to 2505-2605 Forest River 2708-2808 Enchanted River Bridges are identifed by two adjoining hexes. Sofe of these locations are identified as fords rather than bridges, as during the 1400+ years that pass from the time period of me-pbm to the epoch of these maps, some deterioration has doubtless taken place. 1211-1212 Sarn Ford 1209-1309 Bridge of Stonebows or Brandywine Bridge 1909-2009 Last Bridge 2109-2209 Ford of Bruinen or Ford of Rivendell 2020-2120 Fords of Isen 3129-3130 Crossings of Poros 2510-2610 Old Ford Mountains are large ranges with beginning and ending hexes being identified. 0703-0608 Ered Luin or Blue Mountains 0811-0813 Ered Luin or Blue Mountains 1804-2104 Mountains of Angmar 2304-3102 Ered Mithrin or Grey Mountains 2006-2207 Ettenmoors 2205-2219 Hithaeglir or Misty Mountains 1321-2824 Ered Nimrais or White Mountains 3107 Erebor or The Lonely Mountain 2809 The Mountains of Mirkwood 3221-4221 Ered Lithui or Ash Mountains 3122-4226 Ephel Duath or Mountains of Shadow Hills and Rough 1005-1108 Emyn Uial or Hills of Evendim 0711-0912 Tower Hills, Far Downs and White Downs 1506-1609 Weather Hills 1609 Amon Sulor Weathertop 1311-1510 Barrow Downs and South Downs 1406-1508 North Downs 1324 Druwaith Iaur 1227 Andrast or Ras Morthil 1725-2124 Pinnath Gelin 2620-2919 Emyn Muil Islands are rare. There are only three "true" islands. While 2721 appears to be an inland island, it actually represents the delta of the Onedlo at its confluence with Anduin. It should be a marsh hex rather than plains. 0203 Himring or Himling 2430 Tolfalas Forests are common, but many are unnamed. 1014-0916 Eryn Vorn 1409-1310 Old Forest 1908-2109 Trollshaws 2506-3115 Taur e-Ndaedelos or Mirkwood 2218-2418 Fangorn or Entwood (or Ambarona, Tauremorna, Aldalome, or Tauremornalome) 2622 Firienwood 2823 Druadan Forest Swamps, Fens, Bogs (altough I believe the corrent P.C. term is Wetlands) 1509 Midgewater 1714 Nin-in-Eilph 2820-2822 Nindalf or Wetwang 2920 Dead Marshes Lakes and Inland Seas 1107 Nenuial or Lake Evendim 4113-4317 Sea of Rhun 3926-3728 Sea of Nurnen There are also various descriptors which pop up in many population center names, for example: Minas = Tower (e.g. Minas Anor) Sarn = Small Stone (e.g. Sarn Lothduin) Cerin = Mound (e.g. Cerin Amroth) Erain = King (e.g. Fornost Erain) Bar = Dwelling (e.g. Bar-en-Tinnen) Tir = Watch Over (e.g. Tir Anduin) Cirith = Cleft or Pass (e.g. Cirith Dunrandir) Nan = Valley (e.g. Nan Requian) Ceber = Stake (e.g. Ceber Fanuin) Ost = Fortress (e.g. Celeb-Ost) Dol = Hill (e.g. Dol Guldur) Barad = Tower (e.g. Barad-Dur) Tol = Island (e.g. Tol Buruth) Eithel = Well (e.g. Eithel Thurin) Annon = Gate (e.g. Annon Baran) From the Mouth of Sauron Issue: E-9 Date: 02-17-94 Note: all authors retain exclusive rights to their material. Reprinting is allowed for non-commercial game use only. Editorial Another happy Friday to you! Of course, you're all going to get this on Thursday, but that's because I'm going to be on vacation until next Tuesday. New guys: many, many new people have asked to be signed up. I can only put a few names on at a time, and my primary contact person is leaving for two weeks of vacation. Unfortunately for you, you're going to have to get the Mouth from a secondary source for a while. File availability: it's been awhile since I said this. I have files on encounters, artifacts, riddles, setups, etc. which you might find useful. For those who've been getting the Mouth for awhile, this is the same set of files I dumped to you when you first signed on, modified by all the info that's appeared in this newsletter. If you want these files, drop me a line and I'll send them to you as time permits. If you already have the files and copies of the Mouth, please! Make the modifications yourself. Mailing via our router here can be a time-consuming task. Again, to those of you who aren't yet on the mailing list, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to wait or get the files from someone who has them. Submissions: I love those submissions! Without your tireless efforts, this newsletter'd be dead in the water. I do have a couple of suggestions for authors: - I have to format the newsletter with a 1 inch left margin and a 2 inch right margin. This is to accommodate people with older systems, where the character length per line is extremely short. If you format your submissions with these margins prior to sending it to me, if would save me alot of work. Why is that? Because longer line lengths get hard-returned and look like this: As you can see, this line length is too long given the 1 and 2 inch requirements. The line 'bleeds' over for a few words and then gets slapped with a hard return, meaning that I have to go through and erase, manually, every such hard return that I find. If I didn't, each Mouth would have twice as many pages as it really needed, and would be very difficult to read. - paragraph styles. Most of you use casual letter-style paragraphs indented from the left margin. The Mouth uses the full-block business style. I use this style because it makes it easier to read the newsletter and better separates sections from each other. If you could use this style as well, I'd most appreciate it. - tabs and indents are fine for your tables and formulas, as is plain old spacing. Do me one favor though, and don't mix methods in the same table. If you do, the table will look something like this: Test .001 Test .002 Test .003 Test .004 Test .005 With complex tables, I have to go in and clean things up so that people can tell what numbers belong in what columns. Again, all the above methods are fine, just use the SAME method within the table. - I don't run spell-checks nor correct grammatical errors. I don't think this is important; so long as you convey your thoughts, who cares if it's spelled correctly? Still, if YOU care, I suggest you spell-check prior to sending the article to me. I just cut and paste the baby into the Mouth file, so all your errors will be retained in the final product. Sorry about that, but I just don't have the time to go over each article word-by-word. Leslie Foreman: Leslie left me two articles, one of which you'll see here in the Mouth. The second you'll just have to wait for. Enjoy, they'll probably be the last for quite some time! Tom Artifacts No new info. Encounters Comment by Brian Mason: On the Lake/Swamp encounter, it should be "monsters are Mewlips," or a "Mewlip." The Mewlips are a species of creature allegedly inhabiting wet areas and comes from the poem "The Mewlips" in JRRT's collection of Hobbit poetry "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil." Ghostly Army: OFFER to negotiate a truce = escape with injuries for Dark Servants. Generic Dragon: a reliable source says it's possible to steal gold from the generic dragon-in-a-lair encounter. The agent who did this was around an effective 90 or so skill rank. Thanks to Brian Mason and Keith Peterson for this information. Dragons Can it be? No new info? Other Corrections and Notes From Keith Peterson Overrun -- we had long discussions with GSI about this on the CI$ forum. The overrun has a threshhold of troops after which overrun becomes impossible. The point of overrun is to stop people from continuously throwing a few hundred troops out and stopping large armies. An army of 400-500 MA MIGHT get overrun by 5000, but an army of 1000 will never get overrun, even if the enemy has 20,000 troops. From Tom Walton I've successfully overrun a number of armies. In two instances, scouts reported the army to be around 900 troops; I ran into them with a better than 5:1 advantage in numbers. In the other cases, I never found out how strong the armies nor, alas, what characters were killed. I will say this, though. For purposes of overrun, each opposing army is compared to your own SEPARATELY. It could be that there are four armies with 500 troops in the hex, 2000 total; but if you have 5,000 troops, you'll overrun each army individually when moving through. I've done this before as well. Also, it isn't necessary to actually move THROUGH the hex, just INTO it. And as a last note, you can't overrun an enemy force that's sitting on one of it's own (not an ally's) fortified pop centers. You can, however, sabotage the fortifications that turn and THEN march into the hex, overrunning the stunned enemy (did that too). From Brian Mason In response/comment to Eric Schurr's questions. Opening strategies have been provided in "The Mouth" #8 for the Eothraim and the Dragon Lord. One on the Dwarves is "in the pipes." (Editor's Note: it's in this issue of the Mouth). I would not presume to write a strategy article on the Northmen or Sinda, for I'd just ask Jeremy Richman and Glen Mayfield for their moves in game 131. I might come up with a few variations, but it's best to let that game "cook" for a while, and then let them write the articles! Which nations, and how can they, form a "curses squad?" I believe this technique was described in "Blood & Glory." Prior to writing my article on Population Center Development, I asked GSI about production values being different for population centers versus hexes open at start. The answered point blank that they were the same. In response to Jeremy Baxter's "Kill Guard" wish list request, if you know who is guarding whom judicious use of assassinate and kidnap with two different agents will allow you to get rid of the guard before the primary target. From Darren Beyer Response to Guards and the Equation I've seen the agent assassination model and one thing strikes me as odd in it, the double the guard agent rank as a negative modifier to success. I would've believed this double guard rank modifier a few months ago when (as the Cloud Lord) I had Kadida have his assassination attempt foiled by a 40's rank guard who captured him in the process, Kadida was an 80 (+20 = 100). This was prior to GSI's annnouncement that agent actions were tougher. Now here I am being much more careful as the Cloud Lord when as the Rhudaur, I have a number of characters meet up with a lone Tormog (Dark Lts agent). Tormog scouted out as an 80's agent and I figured it was likely that he had the Cloak of the Abyss (40 pt stealth item). I also knew that my best agent in the hex (base rank 68, +15 point item, +25 point stealth item) was being tracked and that he was the likely target of Tormog. I issued challenge on Tormog, and tried to assassinate him. In case he refused and acted before my assassin, I had a 65 point agent guarding my good agent. Under a double guard rank, this should have been more than enough even IF Tormog had the 40 point stealth item. The result: Tormog refused, went prior to my agent, and CUT THROUGH MY 65 POINT GUARD!!!!!!! Needless to say I was miffed and muttering "so much for the new agent rules" for days. My friends consoled me and brought to my attention that a lucky role on an 80 agent/40 stealth could have cut through a 65 guard, I agreed and stopped cursing GSI. A few days later... The Dark Lts called me and gloated a little and said that Tormag didn't have the item, he was a base 80 agent with NO added bonuses!!!! Back to being miffed and muttering, I'd never heard of a 65 guard being cut through by an 80 agent even before the new rules, but after ...? Basically, my point is that there is a LARGE random factor in the agent equation when a 100 rank agent gets captured by a 40's guard and an 80 rank agent cuts through a 65 rank guard on his way to kill his target. From Tom Walton One thing people aren't taking into account on character actions, which can sometimes influence things beyond rational analysis: double agents. I balk at discussing this in depth, because I've used this tactic to great effect on some occasions. Taking a double agent is an emissary action and thus happens prior to assassination, kidnaps, etc. If you want to influence a guard's action before assassination/kidnap but don't have the resources available to kill the guard first, you can take him as a double- agent with an emissary. If successful, the guard will in all likelihood conveniently 'forget' to cover his target, allowing the primary assassin to waltz right through and take out his victim. This works very well in my experience, and seems to be easier than actually killing the guard in many cases. Best of all, that guard will remain doubled for all future actions and continue to provide you with interesting information as well. So if you start getting really screwy results with your guards, or your favorite assassin suddenly starts failing every mission against a particular nation, you might consider bringing him in for a little counter-intelligence. You might be surprised at what you find. I surely hope none of my enemies in the game are reading this.... From Holger Eichmann Because I want to learn the programming under Windoze (pronouncements of compassion will be accepted), I have started to write a program, by which you can calculate how many troops you will lose, if you attack an enemy army/town. But now I had to find out that I need some quantitative information, where the game description doesn't want to tell details. (If you don't want to bother to write an article, you can mail me directly: eichmann@ceres.amp.uni-hannover.de. I will collect the answers and write an article, if I get enough response.) 1. Which are the climate modifier of the different nations? I already got the terrain modifier for mild climate of all nations, but the climate modifiers are still needed. 2. The description tells how the different troop types are fighting in the different terrain, but it doesn't tell, what that 'good', 'average' and 'poor' means quantitative. 3. The same with the Troop Tactic Modifier (I think the Tactic vs. Tactic Modifier isn't so important, because normally you don't know the tactic of the enemy). 4. The game description says (p. 58): 'In cases where more than one opponent appears, then strength is split proportionally between the opposing forces and tactics adjusted accordingly.'. Strength is split proportionally to what? To the strength, constitution or number of men of the different armies? 5. Are there some traps, probably I haven't seen like that an army gets some advantage if a friendly town is present (how great is that advantage?). 6. Last, but really not least: How does the battle work? The description says (p. 58): 'What follows is then a round by round activity where, starting with the strength and constitution computed above, the strength of each Army is subtracted from the constitution of their enemy until one or both Armies reach constitutions of zero whereby combat ends.' It says that in every round the constitution of the fighting armies will be reduced, but it doesn't say that the number of troops and therefore the strength will be reduced, too (of course the number of troops will be reduced after battle ended). I can't believe that. This means, e.g. army A (strength: 50000, constitution: 50000) meets army B (s: 25000, c: 49999). After round 1 the constitution of army 1 will be reduced to 50000-25000 = 25000, that of army B to 49999 50000 = -1. Therefore army B will be destroyed and army A will lose half of his troops. But now suddenly before the fight starts, a Man at Arms appears and strengthens army B. Now army A has s: 50000, c: 50000 and army B: s: 25001, c: 50001. After round 1 army A has s: 50000, c: 50000-25001=24999 and army B: s: 25001, c: 50001-50000=1, if the strength isn't reduced, too, as the description tells. Because army B isn't destroyed, fight goes into round 2. After that army A has a constition of 24999-25001 = -2 and army B one of 1 50000 = -49999. Now both armies are destroyed after that battle. If I understand the description correctly, then only one man at arms can cause the destruction of half a huge army (really a great hero, even though a dead hero). So thats all. Of course you can correct the text, if something is written in bad English (I know my English isn't the best) or misunderstandible. Holger Reply to Holger Eichmann From Tom Walton Holger, I'll answer questions 5 and 6 and leave the rest up to those interested: 5. The defensive bonus only applies if you own the pop center in question. The bonus varies between 10% and 20% depending on the level of fortifications, i.e., 10% for a tower, 20% for a citadel, with everything else falling in-between. This bonus is a direct add to the constitution of the defending army, recalculated every round and destroyed prior to any actual damage being done to the army (think of the bonus as Star Trek 'shields'). 6. The combat strength of the armies is also reduced each round. The computer takes losses inflicted, spreads them out among your troop types, reduces these troops accordingly, and THEN recalculates offensive potential and constitution. Thus, two evenly matched armies may fight for many rounds as they whittle away at each other. A large army might destroy a smaller one in one round. In Your Ear Nothing this time around. Personals No personals. ME-PBM Wish List From Brian Lowrey Would like something more discriptive when you kill a character with curses. Currently all you get is the message: "no character with that id exists" - you know the message. From Holger Eichmann It would be of great help, if one can give a parameter to the move orders that one only wants to move, if the other command has been successful. E.g. if an army commander wants to threaten a population center, he would give the commands: 'Threaten Population Center' and then 'Move Army' (only if the threatening has been successful), so he can try it again, if he wasn't successful. Then he needn't to stand around one turn, if he didn't risk to move away and he had success, or he needn't to move back, if he decided otherwise. The same e.g., if an emissary wants to create a camp in a hex with great production or if a mage searches an artifact. And to the improvement wishes to the game description: The game description could describe more exactly, which orders a navy commander can give and which not and which orders will anchors his ships. The description says: 'Most orders that can be given to Armies can also be given to Navies as long as the Navy could anchor its ships and become an Army. If the Navy could not anchor and become an Army, then orders pertaining to the troops or baggage train may be restricted. This does NOT mean that the Navy will become an Army by issuing such orders...'. You can't write things more diffusely. The words 'most' and 'may' alone take care that you don't know whether that one command you want to give will be accepted and will anchor the ships. Additionally the description of the different orders says 'army commander only' for some commands a navy commander in a shore hex can give, too (like 'put troops on maneuvers'). From Tom Walton Okay, so I'm shooting off my mouth this issue. There's just so many interesting things to comment on.... I'd like to see the use of Conditional orders as well. These wouldn't be terribly hard to program and would give the game greater flexibility. Some orders I'd like to see: Track Character: an agent could attempt to track and follow a character who starts the turn in the same hex, essentially following him around the map. This wouldn't work if the character uses magic to move, or is attached to an army. If the agent fails, he might fail to move, move some distance and stop (lost the trail), or even move in the wrong direction! Track Army: allows a characer in your own army to track an enemy army that starts in the same hex. A device to allow one army to pursue another. If the agent fails, the army could simply not move, move a couple of hexes and then stop (lost the enemy), or move in the wrong direction. Moving in the right direction might be bad news, as the enemy could lead your forces into an ambush or an encounter with many agents.... Emissaries: give Emissaries something better to do than uncover secrets/spread rumors as their secondary orders. Or, add nation message rumors to the 'uncover secrets', allowing them to actually garner some useful information with this order. It also makes the 'spread rumors' order more useful. Mage Training: allow one mage to train another with a 'train apprentice' order. The first mage would get no skill increase, the second 1-5 points (if the second could also Prentice) or 1-10 points (if the second can't also Prentice). Limit the train order to characters whose skill rank is more than 10 points lower than that of the trainer. Example: a character will a mage rank of 50 could train another character so long as the second character doesn't have a skill rank of 40 or better. This would allow a nation to train new mages faster, but would be limited by the skill rank of the trainer. Unless you had a very good mage, your training would top out with just a few orders (but make that new mage much more useful in a much shorter period of time). This would definitely help mage-heavy nations, yet wouldn't allow these nations to create supercharacters through faster training. It would also keep the Ring safe from being found early in the game. How I Got Shafted in ME-PBM From Dan DeYoung As a new player, I made certain to read and reread the rule book from front to back (and I vouch for that being the sister-in law/typist) before making my first moves. I made several mistakes which I openly admit were pure oversights which I should have caught from my reading. For instance, I tried to move 14 days movement with the normal `Move Army` order rather than the `Force-march', and I even moved a Navy to a rough hex and tried to move directly off as an army not realizing the ships had to be anchored and this could only occur on a shore/plains hex. Also, I was bummed to find that my Sinda kingdom did not include Galadriel or Celeborn, elven lords in Lorien for ages including the T.A. 1650 when the game was set, but I understand such things as game balance and forgave MEPBM for this. (I, the typist, was also disappointed when I found out Beoraborn (a shape-changer) in the book--real cool character) was a normal man with no extraordinary characteristics--and I had no forgiveness to ME because my characters (the Woodmen) were far from balanced!!!!) One thing which made me crazy that I couldn't figure out until enlightened by a veteran player (Thanks Dave Forman!) was artifact retrieval. I had an 80 pt character on a hex with a report of a trail to be investigated. For 3 turns I issued the #900 order Find Artifact, each turn astounded at my bad luck at not picking up my artifact. Silly of me to assume that Find Artifact should find a missing artifact. Seeing a hidden path did not seem like the kind of thing that should be investigated with an Investigate Encounter, and the rule book does not clue the novice into this. Perhaps I'm just dense. (Maybe it runs in the family!!) I have been told that Find Artifact works on the sea for retrieving missing artifacts. Consistency........ My second gripe has to do with Dragons. As I came to understand the play balance of MEPBM, it has become apparent to me that the Freeps have the large economies and armies while the Dark Servants have character power and some valuable nation abilites backed by strong, though unsustainable, starting armies. This balance is excellent on its own, but Dragon-wise evil condoms tip this balance quickly to the evil side. One Dragon can kill an opposing army of nearly any size in one round of combat, thus offseting the Freep numbers advantage. The Freeps have no such balancing mechanism to offset the character power of the servants (Editor's Note: Throkmaw and Scorba will join the Freeps if you know the right response). Some might argue that the numerous Good NPC's offset this, but to my knowledge in game 88, only 1 kingdom has had characters effected by an NPC. This by no means offsets the 15000+ troops evil dragons have devoured across the Good kingdoms by turn 18. I guess I think they eat too much!!! Also, historically in Middle Earth, I cannot recall Sauron ever having the power to control a Dragon in his armies. Morgoth used them in the Silmarillion and their presence was so great as to inspire a mention in the story at every encounter, so I believe that Sauron himself couldn't use them or we'd have known about it. (He deserves a medal making it through the Silmarillion!) Certainly some fast-talking servant shouldn't be able to do what his nearly all-pwerful master couldn't do. One geographical beef; is there no mountain or hill in all of Middle Earth that a Free People emissary may move on without running a serious chance of encountering a Dragon or Balrog? It seems that Freep metal production has no hope of being developed. Spells are really quite wimpy in this game. Battles seem to occur between many - thousands-of-man armies and spell-casters have little to no effect. Nearly all of the Offensive and Defensive spells are essentially the same, killing or saving various small numbers of troops. Locating artifacts and some scrying spells are virtually the only reason to keep mages around. It also seems that most kindgdoms would need 30 turns to develop a 75 pint mage who could learn spells with any chance of casting them. That's a lot of gold for a lot of turns before a character begins to be worth the money. (I think a solutions to this is to have good people mages have awesome spells if a dragon is present in the army--else small spells keep the game balanced --especially for Woodmen who have no desire for magic (though artifacts would be nice ...I think...since I never owned one.)) My last beef has to do with troops types, and I've heard it from many other players in my game and in the hallowed pages of the Mouth. I really like the way Army movement is measured and tracked in this game, and the fact that equipment and training influence army performance (though the percentages could be shifted some to stress these factors even more), but (this is where the beef is) the fact that it is NEVER worthwhile to have anything but Heavy Infantry or Heavy Calalry is disappointing. In fact, it's a waste of a combat system designed to take various troop types and equipment into consideration. What makes a recriut hired with wooden weapons and no armor a heavy infantryman rather that a light? Such flaws in logic and execution at the value-assignment end are a real shame since the conceopt and capability of the system are magnificent. My list of complaints is long, but minor (I'm sure glad I don't have to type his brother's complaints ) I find MEPBM to be an execptional game and its consistent 2 week turnaroud is fantastic. Maybe if enough of us mention our gripes and suggestions, a good game will get that much better! (Victoria DeYoung as the typist!) Yet Another Editor's Note: Unbeknownst to you all, Bill Field at GSI will receive a list of our 'suggestions' by the end of next week. I've collected, collated, and organized all the comments made here in the Mouth and elsewhere, then taken the most common complaints and suggestions to pass on. No one's name is attached to any of these comments or complaints. The point is exactly as Dan says: to make the game better, and remove the flaws that most of us encounter at one time or another. Using the Mouth and the net as info-gathering devices, I've accumulated the responses from more than 100 players, which should have some weight. It's my hope that the most flagrant flaws will be corrected or at least examined, since it appears that nothing is being done at GSI right now concerning these topics (at least we aren't hearing about it if any rules or code are under review). Still, remember: we're in a seller's market. GSI grows by leaps and bounds regardless. Until this growth levels off, we might have difficulty getting the company to examine the game. The Dragon Lord Editor's Note: last issue, Brian Mason proposed an opening strategy for the Dragon Lord. Here are the responses: From Keith Peterson I enjoyed the work Brian Mason put into the DragL theory. Unless you can get those loyalties pumped up, it simply isn't going to work, however. He's hypothesizing a 70% tax rate, which makes it even more unlikely. Since you, Tom, didn't jump on it, I wonder how many people understand how loyalty affects the ability to improve pop ctrs. The program assumes that the pop ctr needs a base 40% for a village, a base 55 for a town, a base 75 for a MT, and 100 for cities. Anything under that is apparently a direct negative modifier to your chance to improve the pop ctr. Loyalty over that base improve your chance to increase the size of the pop ctr. In Brian's example, you've got 30 pt emissaries making camps -- which will have 15 loyalties (before the decrease for taxes!) Now he wants to make them villages -- but he'll have a -25 to his roll (40 -15). With a good emissary, you might pull this off, but not with a 30-35 emissary. To assume that you'll get to make this a town with a -40 (55-15) modifier is even more unlikely. The Compuserve players have been working under this system for about two years, and it seems to work very well. Players who try to make MTs with 25 loyalty can't, for example. Note that this means that there is a severe penalty for high taxes - you can't increase your pop ctrs very easily -- if at all! Response to Keith Peterson From Tom Walton In regards to upgrades, I've used 45-50 point emissaries to improve camps to villages on a regular basis, when the camp loyalty was only in it's low 20's. I've also used mid-50's/low-60's emissaries to improve villages to towns on a number of occasions, again with loyalty in the low or mid 20's. I've only improved one town to a major town, but did so with a mid-70's emissary on a town with a loyalty in the low 40's. I've found I'm much more likely to fail to place a camp than upgrade an existing pop center, using emissaries of the listed skill ranks. Loyalty is no doubt important, but I have some doubts about it being a direct modifier to the emissary's skill rank. Given that assumption, I should've failed my upgrades about half the time (at least), and to my recollection I've only done so three or four times across twelve games. From Brian Lowrey Unless the Dwarfs screw things up an agressive Dragon Lord and Witch King can take out both the Woodman Major Towns by turn 3. Witch King recruits 400 HI and moves to Buhr Fram. Also takes cav from capital and moves to Buhr Fram. This is a large enough force to take out the army from the Woodman capital if he moves on Buhr Fram; this will also eliminate the Witch King army. Dragon Lord combines troops and moves to 2711. Turn two: Witch King either Kills the Woodman army or Threatens and moves to Woodman Capital. Dragon Lord Captures or Destroys 2711 and Moves to Woodman Capital. Characters: Definitly Emissarys and Definitly the Misty Mtns. Between the Witch King and Dragon Lord creating camps here - well thats a lot of Dragon Names. I also feel its important to build one or two Agents. If you want help from DS Agents you equal the best scouts in the game, effectively scouting for characters you will befriend a lot of agents and the Dragon Lord & Witch King can use some friends. Starting Characters: It is tempting to stack some mage artifacts on Celedring. Pump his challenge rank to 190 and suprise Bain. Very nice +40 ring and a sword for Duran. If you show off your 190 challenge rank early they should waste a lot of orders refusing challenge this will slow them down a bit. This reduces the effectivness of your mages but a 190 challenge rank can be worth a lot early in the game. Mt Gundabad: The idea of giving this up to the Dragon Lord is interesting and worth doing if the Witch King cannot get the Blind Sorcerer or Cloudlord to exchange Gundie. If the WK can get an exchange its better for the Witch King and the presence in Mirkwood is now maintained by either the Cloud Lord or Blind Sorcerer and the Dragon Lord Economys, all of the witch King Economy can now be focused in the west. Outlook: Against good FP players the Dragon lord should be removed from Mirkwood early with one Major town a hidden town and a few camps remaining. This is definitly the economy of a character based positon, this should be planned for. The Dragon Lord has some good characters it could be fun. Help: Besides the obvious help from your teamates I think GSI needs to seriously consider strengthing this position by giving at least one more major town in Mordor. For that matter most Dark Servant positions need some Economic help! Boy this position looks grim when you write it up - its fun to run play though. Commentary by Leslie Foreman When most people think of STRATEGY, thoughts of the Battle of the Bulge, Pearl Harbor, etc. are the events which are likely to come to mind. I would like to propose that strategy is, in fact, a much more widespread idea than one only associated with military campaigns. I hear and see strategy at work every time I watch ME- PBM gamers writing up their turn. I also see strategy at work every time I go to the grocery store. I know that there is a leap of faith here, but stay with me. The first strategic decision you have to make is choosing the parking place in the parking lot. Do you choose a place under the light, near the door, next to the other store you need to go to, between the two stores, etc. Then you have to decide whether backing in is a good idea. I have seen similar situations with the gamers I watch. Basically, "Where am I going to go, and how am I going to get there?" The other parking lot adventure centers around the 'little dance' you do with the other cars who are also looking for the "right" place. This is the time when you are called upon to move evasively so that the Enemy doesn't see you and beat you to the prize spot. Force marching is also called upon occasionally, but it is at that time that the pedestrians take their lives into their own hands because your philosophy is 'I SAW THAT PLACE FIRST!!' Once inside the building, you need to decide on a character type. I recommend a multi-class character, a mage\agent. The mage will allow you to use special abilities and the spy will allow you to move quickly in and out. Of course, there are advantages to all of the character types, but this is the combination which works best for me. There are two special abilities which need to be developed to be a successful grocery shopper. The first is to be able to use coupons wisely. This is truly a gift. I have seen people receive money FROM the cashier at the check-out because they have effectively used coupons. What do you say - a mage rank of 80? The other skill is the ability to figure out the unit price of items on the shelf. Many store now have them listed for you, but not all of the stores do nor are all of the items listed. An 80 mage should be able to do this easily, but with a calculator modifier the job becomes much easier. And then, only the valiant will attempt to figure out a unit price after factoring in the deduction of the coupon. Strategy is again playing a significant role in the grocery store outing. We're not done yet. What about the encounters you do NOT want to have? In ME-PBM there are other armies, characters and dragons. In the grocery store there are neighbors, previous co-workers, friends of you parents, etc. Again. strategy plays a role. HOW DO I HANDLE THIS SITUATION?? Do I walk right up and say something quickly and then leave before they have the chance to answer? Do I skip an aisle and then go back and get the stuff on 5B after 'they' have moved on? Do I abandon the cart filled nearly to the top with yummy stuff I really wanted and flee the store? or Do I suddenly become interested in the article in the STAR about how Bill Clinton is really Elvis in disguise ( only they couldn't hide the voice.)? Again, strategy in action. Last, but not least, is the choosing of the check-out line. Wow, what a task. You have to consider the length of the line. You have to look at the scanning speed of the cashier. You have to factor in the number of items belonging to the patron ahead of you. Heck, you have to consider the age of the patrons ahead of you. Do they have children - and are they well behaved? Are they using cash or a check? Finally, there is that last scan for the "dragon" you missed on aisle 5B - the check-out line is NOT the time to talk to them. YOU CAN'T GET AWAY!!!! Once you have considered your options and examined the data, you guess like you always do and get in a line. Sometimes you do well, and other times "You choose poorly." I asked you in the opening paragraph to have faith in me and I hope that I have not disappointed you. Strategy is everywhere!! I probably have pointed out something which you had never considered before and quite possibly will never think about again. If, on the other hand, you think of this commentary and a small smile appears on your face the next time you go to the grocery store, then I have done well. I have succeeded in making an otherwise tolerated job a little bit more fun. Isn't that what it's all about? Good gaming and good shopping!! HOW MANY WOODMEN COULD A DRAGON LORD CHUCK IF A DRAGON LORD COULD CHUCK WOODMEN.....? By Dan DeYoung Contributing to the continuing discussion of opening moves for the seemingly hapless Woodman kingdom in MEPBM, I offer the following statements- The Woodman can defeat the initial Dragon Lord armies if that Dark Servant commits to a 'berserk' attack in an effort to knock the Woodman out fo the game by turn 3. and This can be accomplished without allied aid! I fully agree that with Sinda aid, the Dragon armies can be stopped handily, and with Dwarven aid, the Dragon can be destroyed utterly, but such aid is often unavailable (in an individual game) or sent elsewhere by farsighted (Editor's Note: you being just a bit facetious here, Dan?) teammates. I offer the following strategic plan for the Woodman based on the following starting force locations which occurred in game #88. This plan assumes a worst case scenario for the Woodman- An all our attack by all Dragon Lord armies determined to destroy the two Woodman major towns at 2711 (on turn 2) and 2508 (on turn3) before inevitably failing to the superior Freep forces in the area. Turn 1- Woodman Order of Battle 2508-Woodman Army 1- 1200HI, 900LI 2711-Woodman Army2- 600HI, 600LI 2711-Woodman Army3- 600LI,600AR Dragon Lord Order of Battle 2715-Dragon Army1- 600HC, 600HI, 300AR, 600MA 2715-Dragon Army2- 600LI, 600AR, 300MA 2409-Dragon Army3- 300LC, 300HI, 300LI Dragon armies 2&3 recruit 400HI each before moving. Celedhring and his 2000 point weapon join Dragon Army1. (This is 'worst case' ). Dragon Army 2 transfers all but 100MA to Dragon Army1. Duran leading Dragon Army1 puts army on Maneuvers and moves directly to 2711. Dragon Army3 also moves directly to 2711 to join in what he assumes will be an easy pummeling of the comparatively weak Woodman forces there, since the powerful Woodmn Army1 cannot reach 2711 in 1 movement. Easy victory, thinks the Dragon Lord. I THINK NOT! The following moves will allow the Witch King to take the Woodman town at 2405, but that army supported only from Mount Gundabad cannot stand against the entire Woodman nation when it finishes with the Dragon Lord turns its attention northward. Woodman Army1 recruits 400HI and moves 1 hex to the hidden town of 2609. Woodman Army 2 recruits 400HI and remains at 2711. Woodman Army3 moves SE to 2612 to intercept the main Dragon Army from 2715 (1200men will not be 'overrun' by the large Dragon force; I had 900 archers intercept the same force in game #88). For completeness ' sake, the Woodman Army3's actual movement might be SW, H