MEPBM - Re: Create Army=5000gold

From: Patrick F. McGehearty <patrick@rsn.hp.COM>

Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000

I changed the subject so people in this newsgroup that want
to read about Middle Earth PBM can find the discussion and
so that those who don't want to read about it can avoid it.
I almost missed it myself, except recognized the amount
and order name as matching our favorite PBM game.

In article <34CE4091.44A0@io.com>,
Stanley, the Daredevil Crow! <samcraig@io.com> wrote:
>Why on earth would anyone DO this?
>Split army doesn't cost you anything!
>I have a commander in my capitol with 100 troops.
>Next turn I'm going to want to make a new commander so this turn my
>current recruits 500 HI; next turn he gives those HI to the new
>commander. Name new comes bfore split army so he could do it(I finally
>recieved the rules).
>5000 gold saved.
>Sure this trick only works in pop centers where you allready have an
>existing commander; but since you only create Cs in your capitol thats
>the most likely place to create a new army anyway.
>By that logic the "No hire cost" SNA in ME1000 is not even worth 4k, let
>alone 7k, and would severly curtail the worth of it in 1650 & 2950.
>
The ability to create armies without cost can be really valuable in
certain positions and games.  First, you have to assume that the economy is
tight.  If prices are high, and you have lots of camps, then you don't care
what anything costs.

Suppose the enemy has a powerful army on your heavily fortified popcenter,
with a high rank commander in charge of it.  Let us assume the army is not
powerful enough to capture the popcenter.  Whatever recruiting army you
have will be gone by the time recruiting comes around.  If you do nothing,
your popcenter will be threatened away the next turn.  If you hire an army,
then you prevent a threaten, reduce his strength a bit, and tie up his
forces for another turn.  If you can keep this up for a few turns, your
reinforcements can arrive (you do have allies or other recruiting bases
don't you?).  I have been in exactly that situation, and burned a lot of
gold at 5K per army before driving off the enemy.

Another time it might be useful is if you have several recruiting bases.
If you can hire for free, then you only need send out your commanders and on
the next turn, they all hire and move to a common point.  Instant army
without paying maintainance along the way.

Not saying that I would take the option, just pointing out possible uses for
it.  I liked it when I was the White Wizard in ME2950, even though I never
really needed it, since I went to the Free side instead of the Dark side.

>BTW,
>My ME1000 would be
>market at =/-20%   7k
>Ems at 40          6k
>Scout@ x2 7k OR Scout@+20 & Conjure Mounts 7k total.
>
>With town money going to extra camps for the market ability.
>
>Or the Elven approach
>Can learn Teleport 6k
>Mages at 40        4k
>Stealth bonus*     7k
>Scout@+20 OR Cs@40 3k
>
>With at least one mage with the three artifact spells and teleport.
>(& the victory condition 10 more artifacts than you started with)
>*If playing on a team I might change that to "market@+/-20%" if everyone
>else was using it too... Corner the market every turn!

I'm not sure what approach I would take, as I have not studied the options
in full detail yet, but I favor starting with an E60 over naming E40s.
Start with several E40s and an E60, and you don't need to name any more
emissaries in the early game.  Put down camps quickly, then when the
popcenter limit is reached, improve a few of those starting camps to MTowns
(since they start with a loyalty matching your highest emissary), and your
economy should be well established.  Then you can either go with an agent or
military orientation according to your tastes.  The +/- on economy is
certainly nice, but replacable by good planning.  Agent bonuses though can
keep your nation alive if the game turns into a agent war.

- Patrick McGehearty
(who really doesn't know what he is talking about with respect to FA1000
games.  May just have to get started on that variation soon...)

References

Create Army=5000gold
"Stanley, the Daredevil Crow!" <samcraig@io.com>
Tue, 27 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000