ameiba@reed.UUCP (Keith Steiger) (12/20/90)
Well, here goes. I've only conquered five worlds of PowerMonger, but
the best way to start a discussion of PowerMonger tactics is to tell others
what tidbits I have learned. Warning: these statements are only the opinions
of one PowerMonger. Your mileage may vary. So, here goes:
Attack villages in Passive posture. This decreases fatalities on a
group of people you'd rather recruit anyway. Research clearly shows that this
increases the number of recruits you get when you get men.
If feasible, go into the village (I use "get invention" to do this)
and drop food in passive mode. This will drop 25% of your food, but it will
increase the loyalty of the residents of the village greatly, and you will get
still more recruits. And on worlds where sheep are plentiful, food is not much
of a problem.
Recruit in aggresive posture if you aren't intending to come back for
supplies, or in normal posture if you are.
When attacked, fight in aggresive posture. If you merely drive them
off, they'll come back--and you'd much rather they didn't come back.
The blue opponent tends to play aggressively, red tends to play in
normal posture, and yellow tends to play passively. Thus, you may want to go
after the more aggresive opponents first. Sometimes geography (or troop
strength) does not make this feasible; life is like that.
Try to remove all of an opponent's settlements before moving on to
another settlement. Yellow in particular doesn't go after you until you attack
him; thus, try to have only one beehive buzzing at a time.
I have had some success with "ring-around-the-rosie" tactics when I
was outnumbered: attack a village, take all of its people and food, and run to
the next village. After a while, I had practically all of the food and most of
the civilian population wandering around with me, and my opposition was getting
wet and hungry. Further research should be done on the subject.
Note the cute little graphic to the left of the status bars. Note how
it changes when you give that captain various orders. Although it's fairly
obvious, I don't believe it's mentioned in the manual.
So, that's all that comes to my mind right at the moment. Please feel
free to tell my that my tactics are dead-wrong, as I haven't tested them much
yet; however, you are required to give me better ones.
--
Keith Steiger--ameiba@reed.BITNET, ameiba@reed.UUCP, tektronix!reed!ameiba
"I am what you see. Myself.... I cannot be otherwise."
Disclaimer: Reed College tries very hard to ignore its students' opinions. 2flntopaz@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (12/22/90)
In article <15813@reed.UUCP>, ameiba@reed.UUCP (Keith Steiger) writes: > Well, here goes. I've only conquered five worlds of PowerMonger, but > the best way to start a discussion of PowerMonger tactics is to tell others > what tidbits I have learned. Warning: these statements are only the opinions > of one PowerMonger. Your mileage may vary. So, here goes: > > Attack villages in Passive posture. This decreases fatalities on a > group of people you'd rather recruit anyway. Research clearly shows that this > increases the number of recruits you get when you get men. > > If feasible, go into the village (I use "get invention" to do this) > and drop food in passive mode. This will drop 25% of your food, but it will > increase the loyalty of the residents of the village greatly, and you will get > still more recruits. And on worlds where sheep are plentiful, food is not much > of a problem. > > Recruit in aggresive posture if you aren't intending to come back for > supplies, or in normal posture if you are. > > When attacked, fight in aggresive posture. If you merely drive them > off, they'll come back--and you'd much rather they didn't come back. > > The blue opponent tends to play aggressively, red tends to play in > normal posture, and yellow tends to play passively. Thus, you may want to go > after the more aggresive opponents first. Sometimes geography (or troop > strength) does not make this feasible; life is like that. > > Try to remove all of an opponent's settlements before moving on to > another settlement. Yellow in particular doesn't go after you until you attack > him; thus, try to have only one beehive buzzing at a time. > > I have had some success with "ring-around-the-rosie" tactics when I > was outnumbered: attack a village, take all of its people and food, and run to > the next village. After a while, I had practically all of the food and most of > the civilian population wandering around with me, and my opposition was getting > wet and hungry. Further research should be done on the subject. > > Note the cute little graphic to the left of the status bars. Note how > it changes when you give that captain various orders. Although it's fairly > obvious, I don't believe it's mentioned in the manual. > > > So, that's all that comes to my mind right at the moment. Please feel > free to tell my that my tactics are dead-wrong, as I haven't tested them much > yet; however, you are required to give me better ones. > > -- > Keith Steiger--ameiba@reed.BITNET, ameiba@reed.UUCP, tektronix!reed!ameiba > "I am what you see. Myself.... I cannot be otherwise." > Disclaimer: Reed College tries very hard to ignore its students' opinions. Well, I've conquered 8 worlds and your strategies are almost mirror images of mine. Though one thing I do different (if I'm badly outnumbered) is to start a couple of towns making bows & arrows for me. I noticed on one world your army started off with a lot of bows and they really kicked butt with them. David Poland 2flntopaz@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
ameiba@reed.UUCP (Keith Steiger) (12/23/90)
In article <27594.2771f87a@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, 2flntopaz@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: >Well, I've conquered 8 worlds and your strategies are almost mirror images >of mine. Though one thing I do different (if I'm badly outnumbered) is >to start a couple of towns making bows & arrows for me. I noticed on one >world your army started off with a lot of bows and they really kicked >butt with them. > >David Poland >2flntopaz@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu Okay, how do you set a town making bows? More precisely-- 1. How do you set a town inventing without your army sticking around? 2. How do you guarantee that they won't waste time on big projects, like catapult or cannon or sword? Once, I had a town START DIGGING A MINE on me. That WASN'T what I had in mind. Also, how much more useful are pikes over hand-to-hand combatants? Furthermore, let me set up a hypothetical (but common) situation. You start on an island. Yellow is almost everywhere, you start at one tip, and Blue starts at the opposite end with juicier villages and a bigger starting army. What (if anything) should one do? Try to head directly for him, or play "ring-around-the-rosie" with rampaging tactics? Has anyone use alliances or trade to any advantage? Still waiting for you people to tell me why I'm hitting brick walls.... -- Keith Steiger--ameiba@reed.BITNET, ameiba@reed.UUCP, tektronix!reed!ameiba "I am what you see. Myself.... I cannot be otherwise." Disclaimer: Reed College tries very hard to ignore its students' opinions.
2flntopaz@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (12/23/90)
In article <15822@reed.UUCP>, ameiba@reed.UUCP (Keith Steiger) writes: > > Okay, how do you set a town making bows? More precisely-- > 1. How do you set a town inventing without your army sticking around? All I've really done is start the town inventing using the army and let them invent for a minute or two, then leave. Most of the time the townspeople will get their own initiative to continue doing whatever you were. To guarantee bows I usually pick a city nested near the woods somewhere inland away from the water. Most of the time they make bows but like you said, they sometimes make things I don't want (like boots!). > 2. How do you guarantee that they won't waste time on big projects, like > catapult or cannon or sword? Once, I had a town START DIGGING A MINE > on me. That WASN'T what I had in mind. > > Also, how much more useful are pikes over hand-to-hand combatants? > Aren't pikes hand to hand combat weapons? > Furthermore, let me set up a hypothetical (but common) situation. > > You start on an island. Yellow is almost everywhere, you start at one tip, > and Blue starts at the opposite end with juicier villages and a bigger > starting army. What (if anything) should one do? Try to head directly for > him, or play "ring-around-the-rosie" with rampaging tactics? > I usually head for the yellow guys first. Hit a couple of towns using passive posture then use aggressive posture to collect men from the town. Then find out where the blue army is and attack with aggressive posture to totally obliterate him from the map. After this you shouldn't have too much problem conquering the rest of the island since you've removed the biggest threat. > Has anyone use alliances or trade to any advantage? Not so far, but I've only conquered 16 worlds. Maybe later in the game. > > Still waiting for you people to tell me why I'm hitting brick walls.... Very hazardous to your health...:-) > > -- > Keith Steiger--ameiba@reed.BITNET, ameiba@reed.UUCP, tektronix!reed!ameiba > "I am what you see. Myself.... I cannot be otherwise." > Disclaimer: Reed College tries very hard to ignore its students' opinions. David Poland 2flntopaz@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
pochron@cat52.cs.wisc.edu (David Pochron) (12/24/90)
Here are some more stuff that I have learned. I've already driven a wedge of 20 conquered territories down and across the world map! - If you are attacking a town or village and you are outnumbered, attack in aggressive mode at first! After you have "evened the odds" a bit, switch to passive mode. Your leader will respond on the fly! Then recruit the heck out of the place if you want. - Get good weapons before attacking large blue settlements - them guys are mean and tough! Bows are good, but catapults are better! You can be under-manned by alot and still win if you are aggressive and have a catapult or cannon. - Speaking of inventions, there is a minimum amount of men you need to create inventions. Usually, 50 or 60 men are needed to make a cannon or catapult in good time - it may be some sort of "logarithmic curve" that determines how fast you invent. Leaving food in a town may help also during the inventing process. Once I had only a few men, and wanted them to create weapons. After 5 minutes, nothing! (not even plows!) (This requirement is NOT mentioned in the manual!) - Watch out for sneaky computer tactics! The computer (all colors) will make it a point to invade your "home fortress" and HIDE(!) there in large numbers. I have loss several a territory because I've sent my men home, or have run out of food, or they fled from a battle, only to have them all wiped out by a large army waiting for them! If you think you want to "take back" your fort, forget it if you have little men, as there is an advantage to being in a fort, and they will wipe you out. - Tactics: It is not always a good idea to attack a town from a long distance away. Put your leader in passive mode and send him to the edge of the town. When the townspeople are busy doing something else, attack! You WILL be at an advantage. - Although I think someone mentioned you couldn't, you indeed can have lots of carrier pigeons flying about. I will usually fire off several commands to another captain and then go about my business with my own captain. - When you recruit new men, don't assume the stock your army is holding is automatically distributed - it isn't! Drop all of your items, then pick them up again to have the extra stuff distributed. (like boats) - I haven't had any use for trading or forming an alliance - it is always so fragile that attacking an army of another color even breaks it! Enough said for now... -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David M. Pochron | from Rescue Rangers, _A Fly in the Ointment_ pochron@garfield.cs.wisc.edu| Gadget to Dale: "Keep the hands off the body!" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
edg@ingres.com (Ed Goldman) (12/28/90)
In article <15813@reed.UUCP> ameiba@reed.UUCP (Keith Steiger) writes: > > Attack villages in Passive posture. This decreases fatalities on a >group of people you'd rather recruit anyway. Research clearly shows that this >increases the number of recruits you get when you get men. Yes. It's definitely seems to be in your best interest to have most of the villagers left alive after you've taken a village. > > If feasible, go into the village (I use "get invention" to do this) >and drop food in passive mode. This will drop 25% of your food, but it will >increase the loyalty of the residents of the village greatly, and you will get >still more recruits. And on worlds where sheep are plentiful, food is not much >of a problem. It's not clear to me yet what effect loyalty has. Seems like if you recruit in aggressive mode you still recruit most of the village. Sometimes dropping food has no loyalty effect at all. I generally only drop food if there's none in the village and I want them to invent something. Question: On food-poor worlds what's the best way to get a village to make food? Invent ploughs first? > > Recruit in aggresive posture if you aren't intending to come back for >supplies, or in normal posture if you are. > > When attacked, fight in aggresive posture. If you merely drive them >off, they'll come back--and you'd much rather they didn't come back. Both good strategies I've found. I usually recruit in agressive. > Note the cute little graphic to the left of the status bars. Note how >it changes when you give that captain various orders. Although it's fairly >obvious, I don't believe it's mentioned in the manual. I think it's mentioned. >-- > Keith Steiger--ameiba@reed.BITNET, ameiba@reed.UUCP, tektronix!reed!ameiba > "I am what you see. Myself.... I cannot be otherwise." > Disclaimer: Reed College tries very hard to ignore its students' opinions. Other questions and comments: 1) Has enyone found good strategies for: use of other Captains? Trading? Making alliances? I've only tried alliances when I needed food -- it seemed to work OK for a while. 2) I'm a bit confused by deranking men. Does each individual head back to his home village. What about original troops? Do they go back to the starting castle? The only time I've found much use for this is when I'm crossing water and I know the army's not fully equipped with boats -- don't want a bunch of men just pacing the coast. 3) I find it annoying sometimes that a portion of the army will get "stuck" trying to figure thier way around water, while others make it through. Partilarly annoying when you're attacking with a large army, then discover that only about 3 of them arrived to attack and the rest are going "duh. which way did they go? which way did they go?" back at some beach. Note: I'm talking about a condition where there's clearly a land route to the spot where you what the army to go to. 4) Another annoyance: why doesn't the captain's status box show what's equipped and not just the extra stock? I'm usually more interested in the equipped stuff especially boats. -edg-
rad@avenger.think.com (Bob Doolittle) (12/28/90)
I'm working on the lower-left territory. It has all blue settlements, and they all jump on me if I attack any of them. They are usually vacant, because they are going for my tower in the south. Even if I wait until they all get down there, then take over a town in the north and start inventing a catapault, I don't have enough time until they get to me (once I was able to make two catapaults, but I can't seem to make even one any more). With a catapault, I had a chance - they all group up together in one enormous mass, so I can take them out nicely at a distance. What sorts of things (besides more men) speeds up inventing? What other tactic is effective in a situation like this? Hand-to-hand they outnumber me at least 10-to-1, and they all pick on me if I attack any of them! How can this be so difficult when I'm still on a left-hand edge territory? p.s. in an earlier similar situation, I could hide in the woods and when they went by I could pick them off with arrows without telling my men to attack (my men took the initiative when the enemy got close). Not only did my men not try to engage them in hand-to-hand, the enemy never attacked back either, but just walked by and got decimated. In this way, I never engaged them hand-to-hand until I was ready and they were managable. I can't seem to get that trick to work in this territory. Too bad - it's just what I need.
sysop@insider.zer.sub.org (12/30/90)
> at least 10-to-1, and they all pick on me if I attack any of them! How can > this be so difficult when I'm still on a left-hand edge territory? It seems to me as if the lower and right row both are the most difficult.. at least I'm stuck with all territories that lie there... And I don't have an idea how I could possibly get them... I usually just grab a couple small villages, and then have enough people to take the big ones... but on those islands, there are hardly any small ones... what can I do ? --- SysOp @ INSIDER -- 42 ! No doubt possible !
a499@mindlink.UUCP (Robert Salesas) (01/02/91)
Well, for that land you do three things. Run from the enemy in neutral until you have a catapult. Build bows in one of the towns so your men can pick them off without hand-hand combat. Invent that catapult in 2 or three tries if you have to. Do this. Go north. And when they are alost attacking your tower jump the town and invent. When they are almost on you, leave and take over your tower again. Then go up again and repeat until you have a catapult. 2 don't make a difference you can only use one. Rob
rouaix@margaux.inria.fr (Francois Rouaix) (01/03/91)
In article <1990Dec27.171548.1574@ingres.Ingres.COM> edg@squid.Ingres.COM (Ed Goldman) writes: >1) Has enyone found good strategies for: use of other Captains? Trading? > Making alliances? I've only tried alliances when I needed food -- it seemed > to work OK for a while. > I have this one: if food is abundant in the world, you can try the following. Trade and then ally (with reds and yellows, no use with blues). Then you can wander around freely (don't be aggresive). Kill sheeps that are *out* of towns. Trade (you're not allowed to pick up inventions in your allied towns, but you can buy them). You can now get many weapons or boats. When you consider yourself sufficiently armed, camp in the center of a town. Wait until the people are out of town, and then attack. Nasty eh ? If you have many captains, use at least one of them to spy. --Francois -- *- Francois Rouaix // We are all prisoners here, * *- rouaix@inria.inria.fr \X/ of our own device * *- SYSOP of Sgt. Flam's Lonely Amigas Club. (33) (1) 39-55-84-59 (Videotex) * Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are my own, not those of my employer.