10-22-2007, 11:10 PM
Confessions of an MEPBM Newcomer
BRIAN HANCOCK reports his first experiences of Middle Earth PBM ...
WHILE AN experienced PBM gamer, I recently completed my very first game of Middle Earth 1650 moderated by Harlequin Games. I had the good fortune of finishing in the top three on the winning team, and would like to share some of the things I learned to help aspiring new players compete with the veterans. For the veteran readers, I hope you find this entertaining!
Picking a position
The first, and arguably the most important, decision you must make when playing ME 1650 is the choice of which nation to run. In ME 1650 this is especially important, as the capabilities of the various nations vary widely, and they are not balanced versus each other. Some nations like Northern Gondor are extremely powerful, and can do almost anything with a modicum of success, while others like Cardolan have many weaknesses and no real strengths, significantly limiting the range of possible actions. If you are an individually competitive player do not chose one of the weaker positions - you will constantly be behind the power curve of the other nations and will become frustrated.
Winning the game
The rules provide two basic ways to win the game:
Meta-strategy
Strategic actions in ME 1650 can be largely grouped into one of two categories:
Character-based actions
The most effective character-based actions are those which aim to reduce your opponents' ability to wage war: personal challenge, assassinate, steal, curse (a spell which kills enemy characters), influence their population centres away; or those which enhance your own ability to wage war: train, hire army, locate artifacts. As characters are able to ignore terrain penalties for movement, they can often move very quickly, and quite stealthily to complete their missions. In ME1650 the Dark Servant (DS) team is character advantaged.
Army-based actions
Army-based actions are traditional 4X game (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) moves geared towards capturing/destroying enemy population centres while protecting your own. The actions involve a host of logistics ranging from recruiting, to feeding, to moving successfully to a viable target. Armies, while quite useful, are very expensive to maintain, move slowly and predictably, and require large amounts of ongoing resources (food) to stay effective. Troops tend to die very quickly. In ME 1650 the Free People (FP) team is army advantaged. A natural question you may ask is which is better, armies or characters? While to some extent this depends on your individual circumstances, and all positions will want to field some degree of both, the generalized answer is characters. Characters cost less to maintain, have greater mobility, are less vulnerable, and more flexible in application than armies.
Economics
Economics in ME1650, while critical, are relegated to a support role. A team cannot win the game through wealth alone, but they can surely lose it via the lack thereof. Gold is used to create armies and characters, as well as to maintain all of a player's existing assets. At first glance the commodity market looks intriguing, but unfortunately the market model is not particularly robust. As goods in ME 1650 have very little intrinsic value, the primary purpose of the world market is to dump as many goods as quickly as possible in order to generate gold for maintenance, etc. With a few notable exceptions (eg purchasing timber to replace a sabotaged bridge) commodities are rarely purchased.
Diplomacy
One of the great pleasures of the team version of ME 1650 is the strong aspect diplomacy plays in the game. In most games diplomacy consists of persuading your neighbours to attack you last, or sending them various taunts. In Me 1650 fully 20% of the positions in the game do not belong to either of the major factions, and must join one or the other before the game ends. This provides enormous incentive to converse, persuade, cajole these third parties into your faction. Diplomacy is absolutely vital, and it is possible to win the game solely on the basis of superior diplomatic effort. Despite this, it is remarkable how few players engage in diplomatic activity. Contact your neutral neighbours early and often. Remember that ME 1650 is an entertainment product, and a neutral will likely join the team that can give them the most entertainment value for their currency.
Communication and teamwork
In most faction-based PBM games, a small fraction of the players can form a team, usually in order to win the game. In ME1650 there are two mega factions each possessing 40% of the players of the game! Large teams promote meeting more players, and require a much greater degree of organization, leadership and social acumen to succeed. Due to the complexity of ME 1650 there is a great deal of ever-changing information that must be gathered and distributed. Sharing information among team mates is absolutely vital, and it is common practice to share entire turn files with one another. Even if you are a new player to ME 1650, the very first thing you should do is flip to the last page of your setup turn and compose an email to all of your team mates to get the ball rolling. The second thing you should do is setup a user group at Yahoogroups.com, inform your team mates of the address, and upload your turn. In ME 1650 the faction that communicates early, often and completely - and thinks of its team mates interests at all times - tends to win, even against much more experienced opposition.
Order issues
Some of the orders available in 1650 have very subtle effects, or in some cases the rules text is misleading. Below are some of the orders which I found particularly problematic:
850: Note ME has no initiative system. A smaller, more mobile unit, with better command will not necessarily move first. Such issues are resolved with a coin toss. Also be aware that is very easy to miscalculate army movement due to the presence of small fords etc. Always have your team mates double check any critical move orders.
860: Force March is guaranteed to lower your morale, but it is not guaranteed to move you any further than a normal army move. An army must have the exact number of movement points to enter a hex, and Force March only provides two more.
830: Naval movement requires a long chain of destination variables. It is very easy to enter a single incorrect hex direction and throw your entire course off. Also, storms seem to plague the seas and often wreak havoc with water-based movement. It is also important to know that there are few, if any, useful orders a character can execute while at sea.
665: A bridge can be sabotaged from either of the hex sides it joins. This means that to guard against such sabotage one must write 605 orders for both hexes.
725: The rulebook states that single class characters cost 5,000 gold, and that multi-class characters cost 10,000 gold. This is not in fact true: if you use the 725 order to create a single class character it will still cost 10,000 gold.
728-731-734-737: These orders enable a character of a particular class to create a new character of the same class for the reduced cost of 5,000 gold. Study the schedule for when character slots become available on page 18 of the rulebook, and plan which characters you will name ahead of time. Arrange to have a character of the appropriate class at your capital the turn a new slot opens to take advantage of these orders.
180-185: The rules text states that an aligned nation can only have a disliked, neutral or tolerated state with other neutral nations. Keep in mind that as soon as the neutral declares for one faction or another, he is no longer considered neutral, and relations can be lowered to hated, or raised to friendly.
260: It is harder to execute this order than it is to threaten a pop centre away in its entirety. Do not use.
300: The most efficient tax rate in the game is 60%. The longer you wait to raise it to this level the greater your opportunity costs (in terms of lost revenue and lost camp loyalty) you incur. Try to issue this order by turn 2.
400-420: The only troops that have real value in ME 1650 are heavy infantry, and heavy cavalry, avoid recruiting the rest. Men-at-arms are only valuable for creating low cost seed armies.
780: Use in lieu of 765 only if you have baggage train items (eg war machines) to transfer other than food.
770: Hiring an army costs 5k to create the container. By clever planning you should be able to avoid this order after the initial couple of turns by creating seed armies.
340-357: In order for these transfers to work the nation giving the items must have friendly relations with the target nation. It does not matter what relation the target nation has with the giving nation.
500: Be sure to have the emissaries in your faction issue this order versus one another so your opposing faction cannot.
949: The new loyalty rating of a transferred pop centre is equal to half the emissary rank of the emissary who received ownership. Do not use weak emissaries to receive critical population centres!
710: This order will fail if you issue it at an allied pop centre. It must be issued at one of your own pop centres.
285-290: Encounters can be useful to certain nations with powerful characters, all other nations should strive to avoid them whenever possible, as they will more than likely have harmful results.
740: If you have a character you wish to be rid of, sacrifice him to a faction mate in a challenge instead. Do not use this order.
948: While many of the critical transfer orders (325, 947) express quantity as a percentage, note that this essential order expresses quantity in units. Be sure to double check this or your ally may be very disappointed when 90 units of food arrive instead of 15243!
Completing your turn
After discussing with your team mates what role you are to play in the upcoming turn, find a pencil and use the order sheet provided with your turn as scratch paper to draft your orders. Be sure to look up in the rule book each and every order as your write it to get the required information correct. Once you have done this go to the official Middle Earth web page at: http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/way...es/lib.htm
Click on 'AutoMagic' on the lefthand side to begin downloading a wonderful order input utility that will catch many of your mistakes. AutoMagic is by and large cross platform compliant, and fairly easy to use. Type in (or import the XML file provided with your turn PDF) your character info. Next input the draft orders you prepared in pencil, and correct any errors. Then go to the 'send' section of the utility and copy the text of your orders on the right and post it to your allies on your yahoo user group. This should be done several days in advance of the deadline so that your faction mates can catch any errors, and provide you with critique. After making any necessary changes send Harlequin Games the AutoMagic file to submit your turn. By following this procedure each and every time you submit a turn, you will make few if any errors, and your allies will also know what you are up to. Veteran players often get lazy in order writing, and follow a much more abbreviated procedure which has a much higher incidence of error. One way a new player can effectively compete with a veteran is through superior effort and organization.
Getting information
In the real world information is power, and it is no different in ME 1650. Poor decisions are more often the result of inaccurate/ incomplete information than poor strategy. A new player can level the experience gap between himself and the veterans very quickly by doing a little research. The previously mentioned official ME web page has a plethora of useful information, but the Bible of ME 1650 is maintained by Kevin "Bobbins" O'Keefe, and can be found at: http://www.middleearthpbm.co.uk
This site contains detailed instructions on how to get the most out of every encounter, a complete list of all characters and artifacts in the game, sample turns for every position, and much more. When in doubt, don't take a chance, look it up!
Finally, the customer service staff at Harlequin is among the best I have ever encountered in the PBM world. They are an excellent source of information and will happily respond to any query promptly.
[Kevin O'Keefe is no longer maintaining the website mentioned above, though it has been incorporated into the main Middle Earth Games this site.]
Middle Earth PBM at a glance
Team-based fantasy wargame from Harlequin Games, with a 'Lord of the Rings' setting. £10 for startup & 2 turns (existing players £5 with no free turns), further turns are £4.50.
BRIAN HANCOCK reports his first experiences of Middle Earth PBM ...
WHILE AN experienced PBM gamer, I recently completed my very first game of Middle Earth 1650 moderated by Harlequin Games. I had the good fortune of finishing in the top three on the winning team, and would like to share some of the things I learned to help aspiring new players compete with the veterans. For the veteran readers, I hope you find this entertaining!
Picking a position
The first, and arguably the most important, decision you must make when playing ME 1650 is the choice of which nation to run. In ME 1650 this is especially important, as the capabilities of the various nations vary widely, and they are not balanced versus each other. Some nations like Northern Gondor are extremely powerful, and can do almost anything with a modicum of success, while others like Cardolan have many weaknesses and no real strengths, significantly limiting the range of possible actions. If you are an individually competitive player do not chose one of the weaker positions - you will constantly be behind the power curve of the other nations and will become frustrated.
Winning the game
The rules provide two basic ways to win the game:
- Find and bring the One Ring to Mount Doom
- Eliminate your opponents by killing all of their commanders, taking their only possible capital, or bankrupting them.
Meta-strategy
Strategic actions in ME 1650 can be largely grouped into one of two categories:
- Character-based actions
- Army-based actions.
Character-based actions
The most effective character-based actions are those which aim to reduce your opponents' ability to wage war: personal challenge, assassinate, steal, curse (a spell which kills enemy characters), influence their population centres away; or those which enhance your own ability to wage war: train, hire army, locate artifacts. As characters are able to ignore terrain penalties for movement, they can often move very quickly, and quite stealthily to complete their missions. In ME1650 the Dark Servant (DS) team is character advantaged.
Army-based actions
Army-based actions are traditional 4X game (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) moves geared towards capturing/destroying enemy population centres while protecting your own. The actions involve a host of logistics ranging from recruiting, to feeding, to moving successfully to a viable target. Armies, while quite useful, are very expensive to maintain, move slowly and predictably, and require large amounts of ongoing resources (food) to stay effective. Troops tend to die very quickly. In ME 1650 the Free People (FP) team is army advantaged. A natural question you may ask is which is better, armies or characters? While to some extent this depends on your individual circumstances, and all positions will want to field some degree of both, the generalized answer is characters. Characters cost less to maintain, have greater mobility, are less vulnerable, and more flexible in application than armies.
Economics
Economics in ME1650, while critical, are relegated to a support role. A team cannot win the game through wealth alone, but they can surely lose it via the lack thereof. Gold is used to create armies and characters, as well as to maintain all of a player's existing assets. At first glance the commodity market looks intriguing, but unfortunately the market model is not particularly robust. As goods in ME 1650 have very little intrinsic value, the primary purpose of the world market is to dump as many goods as quickly as possible in order to generate gold for maintenance, etc. With a few notable exceptions (eg purchasing timber to replace a sabotaged bridge) commodities are rarely purchased.
Diplomacy
One of the great pleasures of the team version of ME 1650 is the strong aspect diplomacy plays in the game. In most games diplomacy consists of persuading your neighbours to attack you last, or sending them various taunts. In Me 1650 fully 20% of the positions in the game do not belong to either of the major factions, and must join one or the other before the game ends. This provides enormous incentive to converse, persuade, cajole these third parties into your faction. Diplomacy is absolutely vital, and it is possible to win the game solely on the basis of superior diplomatic effort. Despite this, it is remarkable how few players engage in diplomatic activity. Contact your neutral neighbours early and often. Remember that ME 1650 is an entertainment product, and a neutral will likely join the team that can give them the most entertainment value for their currency.
Communication and teamwork
In most faction-based PBM games, a small fraction of the players can form a team, usually in order to win the game. In ME1650 there are two mega factions each possessing 40% of the players of the game! Large teams promote meeting more players, and require a much greater degree of organization, leadership and social acumen to succeed. Due to the complexity of ME 1650 there is a great deal of ever-changing information that must be gathered and distributed. Sharing information among team mates is absolutely vital, and it is common practice to share entire turn files with one another. Even if you are a new player to ME 1650, the very first thing you should do is flip to the last page of your setup turn and compose an email to all of your team mates to get the ball rolling. The second thing you should do is setup a user group at Yahoogroups.com, inform your team mates of the address, and upload your turn. In ME 1650 the faction that communicates early, often and completely - and thinks of its team mates interests at all times - tends to win, even against much more experienced opposition.
Order issues
Some of the orders available in 1650 have very subtle effects, or in some cases the rules text is misleading. Below are some of the orders which I found particularly problematic:
850: Note ME has no initiative system. A smaller, more mobile unit, with better command will not necessarily move first. Such issues are resolved with a coin toss. Also be aware that is very easy to miscalculate army movement due to the presence of small fords etc. Always have your team mates double check any critical move orders.
860: Force March is guaranteed to lower your morale, but it is not guaranteed to move you any further than a normal army move. An army must have the exact number of movement points to enter a hex, and Force March only provides two more.
830: Naval movement requires a long chain of destination variables. It is very easy to enter a single incorrect hex direction and throw your entire course off. Also, storms seem to plague the seas and often wreak havoc with water-based movement. It is also important to know that there are few, if any, useful orders a character can execute while at sea.
665: A bridge can be sabotaged from either of the hex sides it joins. This means that to guard against such sabotage one must write 605 orders for both hexes.
725: The rulebook states that single class characters cost 5,000 gold, and that multi-class characters cost 10,000 gold. This is not in fact true: if you use the 725 order to create a single class character it will still cost 10,000 gold.
728-731-734-737: These orders enable a character of a particular class to create a new character of the same class for the reduced cost of 5,000 gold. Study the schedule for when character slots become available on page 18 of the rulebook, and plan which characters you will name ahead of time. Arrange to have a character of the appropriate class at your capital the turn a new slot opens to take advantage of these orders.
180-185: The rules text states that an aligned nation can only have a disliked, neutral or tolerated state with other neutral nations. Keep in mind that as soon as the neutral declares for one faction or another, he is no longer considered neutral, and relations can be lowered to hated, or raised to friendly.
260: It is harder to execute this order than it is to threaten a pop centre away in its entirety. Do not use.
300: The most efficient tax rate in the game is 60%. The longer you wait to raise it to this level the greater your opportunity costs (in terms of lost revenue and lost camp loyalty) you incur. Try to issue this order by turn 2.
400-420: The only troops that have real value in ME 1650 are heavy infantry, and heavy cavalry, avoid recruiting the rest. Men-at-arms are only valuable for creating low cost seed armies.
780: Use in lieu of 765 only if you have baggage train items (eg war machines) to transfer other than food.
770: Hiring an army costs 5k to create the container. By clever planning you should be able to avoid this order after the initial couple of turns by creating seed armies.
340-357: In order for these transfers to work the nation giving the items must have friendly relations with the target nation. It does not matter what relation the target nation has with the giving nation.
500: Be sure to have the emissaries in your faction issue this order versus one another so your opposing faction cannot.
949: The new loyalty rating of a transferred pop centre is equal to half the emissary rank of the emissary who received ownership. Do not use weak emissaries to receive critical population centres!
710: This order will fail if you issue it at an allied pop centre. It must be issued at one of your own pop centres.
285-290: Encounters can be useful to certain nations with powerful characters, all other nations should strive to avoid them whenever possible, as they will more than likely have harmful results.
740: If you have a character you wish to be rid of, sacrifice him to a faction mate in a challenge instead. Do not use this order.
948: While many of the critical transfer orders (325, 947) express quantity as a percentage, note that this essential order expresses quantity in units. Be sure to double check this or your ally may be very disappointed when 90 units of food arrive instead of 15243!
Completing your turn
After discussing with your team mates what role you are to play in the upcoming turn, find a pencil and use the order sheet provided with your turn as scratch paper to draft your orders. Be sure to look up in the rule book each and every order as your write it to get the required information correct. Once you have done this go to the official Middle Earth web page at: http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/way...es/lib.htm
Click on 'AutoMagic' on the lefthand side to begin downloading a wonderful order input utility that will catch many of your mistakes. AutoMagic is by and large cross platform compliant, and fairly easy to use. Type in (or import the XML file provided with your turn PDF) your character info. Next input the draft orders you prepared in pencil, and correct any errors. Then go to the 'send' section of the utility and copy the text of your orders on the right and post it to your allies on your yahoo user group. This should be done several days in advance of the deadline so that your faction mates can catch any errors, and provide you with critique. After making any necessary changes send Harlequin Games the AutoMagic file to submit your turn. By following this procedure each and every time you submit a turn, you will make few if any errors, and your allies will also know what you are up to. Veteran players often get lazy in order writing, and follow a much more abbreviated procedure which has a much higher incidence of error. One way a new player can effectively compete with a veteran is through superior effort and organization.
Getting information
In the real world information is power, and it is no different in ME 1650. Poor decisions are more often the result of inaccurate/ incomplete information than poor strategy. A new player can level the experience gap between himself and the veterans very quickly by doing a little research. The previously mentioned official ME web page has a plethora of useful information, but the Bible of ME 1650 is maintained by Kevin "Bobbins" O'Keefe, and can be found at: http://www.middleearthpbm.co.uk
This site contains detailed instructions on how to get the most out of every encounter, a complete list of all characters and artifacts in the game, sample turns for every position, and much more. When in doubt, don't take a chance, look it up!
Finally, the customer service staff at Harlequin is among the best I have ever encountered in the PBM world. They are an excellent source of information and will happily respond to any query promptly.
[Kevin O'Keefe is no longer maintaining the website mentioned above, though it has been incorporated into the main Middle Earth Games this site.]
Middle Earth PBM at a glance
Team-based fantasy wargame from Harlequin Games, with a 'Lord of the Rings' setting. £10 for startup & 2 turns (existing players £5 with no free turns), further turns are £4.50.