Starweb Playing Advice-Random Collection

[John P. Schroeder]

Recently, there has been some interest in this newsgroup about Starweb.
I've previously, posted looking for information and hints to playing the
game. The following is probably the best collection of advice I received.

My thanks to Brian Sutin (...!astrovax!sutin), and Noah Falstein for
their help.

Never build industry. Building industry is almost
always a waste of time. Build lots of ships, then build more ships, and
then go get someones homeworld and get it into production as fast as you
so you can build more ships.

Trade away worthless planets to apostles and artifacts to collectors and
take whatever you can't trade for by force.

Merchants are good at the beginning of the game, but always stab them later.
You should always be able to move all your raw materials yourself.

Create a stockpile at your homeworld just in case you need ships later and can't
transfer more RM's.

The more DM's you send, and letters, the better, but phone calls are
the all time winner. Nobody ever wants to trade, so you have to do lots
of talking to get them to do anything. Tell them exactly what you want to
trade, exactly what you want, and where do do it, etc, or it will take
forever to finish the trade, if ever.

The end game is based on the bomb (PBB). Nuke your enemies homeworld, and
prevent him from nuking yours is the basic strategy.

Keep careful maps. Trading map information or using
it to your advantage is one of the keys in battle.

If you are a berserker, be a very friendly one. Don't kill people off early
on- there's little point to it, and your ships are best used expanding.

Expand as fast as possible whenever possible. Some players will be
very slow and cautious, and they'll be englobed by any aggresive players.

If you're a collector, your strength lies in your simplicity. Grab
lots of planets early on - you can trade them later for artifacts, as well
as trading ships and keys. You can win as a collector with only one ship
if you play it right.

If you're a pirate, one strategy is to split your ships with half
of all your ships on one key, and the rest on all the others. Use the small
fleets for exploration and to keep from antagonizing others with captures.
Use the large fleet as a vacuum cleaner on your enemies, growing ever larger.

Most games only last 15-25 turns.