Re: Me-pbm: camping in the times of yore.

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

Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000

In article <34D0AA03.6342@acsu.buffalo.edu>,
Mark G Jaede  <jaede@acsu.buffalo.edu> wrote:
>Stanley, the Daredevil Crow! wrote:
>
>> Allright then grab all you can; but after the limit is hit scout around.
>> If you find a good hex downgrade a pop center to a camp and then abandon
>> camp & make a new one in the new place. I suppose you'd only want to do
>> that if the place you were abandoning was still just a camp since it
>> costs so much to make a city or what have you(cost to make a city=30k).
>> No one is going to waste orders trying to build a new camp if they know
>> the limit has been hit so you should be able to abandon camp and build
>> camp without interference.
>
>"Stanley,"
>
>You're the guy who has not played the game, right? I hope you won't take
>offense when I say that you need to stop with the speculations and play
>already. If you would play at least one game you would start to
>appreciate how unproductive this particular line of reasoning is.
>
Now, now, Mark - be easy on the guy.  He's signed up for a game and
is chomping on the bit to get started.  Besides, his ideas which are
untainted by experience might just reveal a new approach with unexpected
advantages, since we all are biased by the recommendations of others that
have gone before.  Having said that, I mostly agree with your advice below.
Here are some possible exceptions:

There might be some interesting possibilities for a nation like the Dwarves
where non-agent characters can scout.  If they happen to have a spare
commander, he could go out scouting hexes with an army in tow.  If a
particularly useful hex was found, he could stay there and attempt to post a
camp every turn until he succeeded.  Popcenter slots do open up after the
limit is reached either when a popcenter is destroyed by an attacker or when
loyalty drops cause a camp to go away (dragons and loss of capitals are
common causes of loyalty drops).  You don't always know when that might
happen, so you try every turn.  If you are not the Dwarves, you can try this
approach by putting an agent in training in the army with the commander.
Every turn, the agent guards the commander and scouts the hex.  When he
is good enough to be useful, replace him with a new agent.  The final idea I
have for scouting for popcenter locations is when your enemies think you
have been eliminated by taking all your starting MTowns, but you build a out
of the way MTown and intend to slowly rebuild.  In that case, all your
characters are avoiding the enemy so he won't realize you are still alive.
Might as well use them to scout for new popcenters are anything else.

>First, you need to grasp that you will never have enough orders to do
>all you want to do, and a great deal of good play consists of weeding
>out the orders you don't absolutely need to give or could postpone for
>one more turn. Scouting hexes is almost invariably a non-essential
>order. Doing it involves moving an agent and issuing the scout order.
>You get info on just one hex, which probably has just average
>production, and then you move on and do it again. Your agent doesn't
>advance in skill, he doesn't kill any enemies, and you haven't
>constructed any camps. It's just not worth it. Scout Hex is only
>worthwhile on the occasions when you have an agent going somewhere and
>he has a spare order you don't know what to do with. And if you are
>using your agents well you are very rarely sending them into random
>empty hexes. More likely they are in pop centers to guard your
>characters or hunt for enemies or steal gold. The main benefit you will
>get from Scout hex will be the ID of an enemy army commander.
>
>As to the business of abandoning one camp to build another one with
>better production, it too is so inefficient in use of orders that you
>should probably never do it. Further, there is no guarantee that you
>would be the one to get the new camp slot created by the abandonment of
>your own camp. Far more likely it would go to some other nation trying
>to create a new camp in the same turn.
>
>--
>Mark G. Jaede: jaede@acsu.buffalo.edu

Don't abandon a camp to build another.  Destroy your enemy's camp instead. :-)

- Patrick McGehearty
patrick@rsn.hp.com
ps. Too bad about Khamul in me72 ...

References

Re: Me-pbm: agents, scouting, and bears, oh my!
Patrick F. McGehearty <patrick@rsn.hp.COM>
Wed, 28 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Me-pbm: camping in the times of yore.
"Stanley, the Daredevil Crow!" <samcraig@io.com>
Thu, 29 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Me-pbm: camping in the times of yore.
Mark G Jaede <jaede@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Thu, 29 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Create Army=5000gold
"Stanley, the Daredevil Crow!" <samcraig@io.com>
Tue, 27 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000