From the Mouth of Sauron
Date: 12-15-95
Issue: E-40
Note: all authors retain exclusive rights to their material.
Reprinting is allowed for non-commercial game use only.
The Mouth is edited by Brian Mason and Tom Walton. All
correspondence can be sent to them at:
Brian Mason - mason@chara.gsu.edu
Tom Walton - damayan@ix.netcom.com,
kazandar@rio.com
Back issues of "From the Mouth of Sauron" and the general info files
are available at chara.gsu.edu via anonymous ftp.
First Word
==========
Not much new for me. I've gone from a record (for me, at any rate)
of playing five games at one time to the much more managable number
of two. I don't know how those of you who play six or so at a time
can manage it! I find it a bit bewildering and had to start writing
turn due dates on my planning calendars to make sure I didn't mess
them up. Of course, I'm not sure that my play was up to my usual
standard of play, but you do what you can.
In looking back over some old games, I see that I got my first turn
report in me-pbm way back on January 7, 1993. It's hard to believe
I've been doing this for three years, but there it is in black and
white.
I don't know that any board games with rules which are essentially
as simple as those are in this game would have held my attention
for this long. I think I can attribute my enjoyment over the past
several years to quite a few people. From my earliest ally, Glen
Mayfield, and earliest adversary, Tom Walton, I found the pure joy
in interacting with other players. Over the past three years I've
played with and against some of the finest players in this game,
and have always found a challenge. To those who have played with
me and against me, to those who have been bested and to those who
have kicked me from one end of the map to the other,
my sincere thanks. Hope to see you in upcoming games.
Brian Mason
Encounters
==========
From Lawrence Tilley
--------------------
With back issues, I also downloaded a file mepbm.165, with all the
start up data and encounter lists. This file seems to contain the
same data which is available from Predd's WWW site, the Allsorts
Home Page, and also seems to have altered little from the original
file I had 18 months ago. (Long before I had e-mail, it was a
floppy copy of the file e-mailed by you to Hoger Eichmann). Is this
file updated, or should I be looking elsewhere? Correspondents to
the Mouth often talk of "your database" - is it this file to which
they are referring, or a more regularly updated one?
The file states for example " Lamthanc will eat the commander of any
army he joins if the army doesn't enter into combat for extended
periods of time." But you have apparently twice refuted this in the
Mouth.
[Tom's note: we certainly have. This piece of tripe was spread by
a half-dozen or so players who objected to my initial attempts to
gather a database and distribute it freely. I must admit in finding
a certain pleasure in the knowledge that they failed miserably in
their efforts.]
There's a specific reason for asking all this of course - I'm
looking for a safe DS way to recruit the Dragons Turukulon and
Bairanax. Phredd's Web pages aren't showing all the dragons yet.
So if you have any information more complete or up to date than the
following, please let me know:
5.04 Bairanax
Options FP Neutrals DS
State your ALLEGIANCE escape
State your NAME
DEMAND obedience
Act HAUGHTY
Act MEEK escape escape escape
Offer TEN gold combat combat combat
Offer HUNDRED gold recruit*
Offer ONE artifact
Offer TWO artifacts
SAY (one word)
FLEE injured injured injured
5.21 Turukulon
Options FP Neutrals DS
State your ALLEGIANCE
State your NAME escape
DEMAND obedience injured injured
Act HAUGHTY combat combat
Act MEEK injured injured
Offer TEN gold injured injured injured
Offer HUNDRED gold injured injured injured
Offer ONE artifact injured injured injured
Offer TWO artifacts
SAY "Turkulon" injured injured injured
SAY (one word)
FLEE combat combat combat
injured = injured/killed on both tables.
Turukulon is recruitable, but perhaps only by the Dragon Lord. The
correct response is thought to be 10,000 gold or 1/2 artifact(s).
And secondly....
How do I contribute? - I ought not just receive the Mouth and give
nothing in return. Do you want me just to e-mail you snippets like
these which follow?:
The mepbm.165 file, on the subject of the Ancient Barrow encounter
states "The list suggest you can beat the Wight by REMOVE'ing the
runes on the Barrow. However, I can tell you that it doesn't work
allways (my 54 Emis can - well, could have - witnessed that! So a
challenge rank of 27 isn't enough. The encounter stated, that: "Try
as he might (though the Emis was a She!), the enchantments on the
door seemed beyond her skill to break." This could suggest that a
stronger character could have done it, or maybe just a character
with Mage skill..."
I have just succeeded with an emissary rank 69. The statement was
"Try as he might, the enchantments on the door seemed beyond his
skill to break. He had almost given up when....(lots of lavish
description about fight with wight). He got no wounds and 7000
gold.
The file has little data on the Ghostly Army Encounter. I recently
met the ghostly armies at Pelargir and had my FP agent attack the
men with the fist banner. He lost most of his health in the fight,
and then they went away.
In a 2950 game, no-one picked up the Ring of Wind until turn 8,
despite knowing its location, and at least 6 different characters
visiting the hex. I eventually picked it up with the DrLo Mage
Maben, by FindArt - there was no encounter attached. Players in the
game are wondering if this is a special characteristic of the 2950
scenario. Incidently, Elrond was stealthily lurking there also and
killed Maben by surprise challenge on turn 9 - I'm as sick as a
parrot.
More from Lawrence Tilley
-------------------------
I have been discussing dragon recruitment with my good friend Mark
Seward. It is often useful to know which army a recruited dragon
will join. Conventional wisdom says it's the army of the commander
with the highest challenge rank - we are now questioning this. My
own data is as follows:
Dragons recruited into armies
Source #Armies Chal Comm Size First Far Near
ME3T6DrLo 3 Yes Yes No Yes Yes No
ME51T31DrLo 2 Yes Yes Yes No No Yes
ME51T21DrLo 2 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
ME51T16DrLo 2 Yes No Yes Yes Yes No
ME51T16DrLo 2 Yes No = Yes No Yes
#Armies: Number of armies from which the recruited dragon could
choose
Chal: Where the dragon chose the army commander with the highest
challenge rank
Comm: Where the dragon chose the army commander with the highest
command rank
Size: Where the dragon chose the largest army
First: Where the dragon chose the first listed (alphabetically) army
Far: Where the dragon chose the most distant army
Near: Where the dragon chose the least distant army
This would suggest the highest challenge rank. Mark however has
found:
Back in October in Game #11 I recruited two Dragons to the same
army. The commander had a natural challenge rank of 34 (Com 28, Emis
53). I had six other army commanders three of which had higher
challenge ranks. The character was not first listed, closest,
biggest army or best anything with the single exception of a 53
emissary rank, no other commanders were emissaries but did have
higher command ranks eg 59. No rule seems to predict this one, I
still can not work out the logic of a Dragon joining which army.
Also another couple of titbits from Phil Quirk (can other players
verify the first one?):
If a dragon joins a navy (in a shore hex/harbour), it immediately
leaves when the commander does a MovNavy.
By the way: you can practise cursing on a char. of your own nation
- you are told that you were unable to complete the casting of the
spell, but the casting % goes up anyway. The char. is unharmed.
Spreadsheets for me-pbm
=======================
by Brian Mason
Spreadsheets are useful tools for making many simple calculations
and making future plans in me-pbm. I enclose below the ascii text of
two of the spreadsheets I use most often. The first, army_strength,
is a algoritm which calculates both army vs. army and army vs. pop
center strength and constitution. The other, economy, is a five turn
planner for calculating your economy.
The samples I enclose below were my startup army strength and first
"five turn plan" for Rhudaur in game 97.
The spreadsheets were written using the unix program sc (spreadsheet
calculator) and are available via anonymous ftp at chara.gsu.edu.
If you find these useful, let me know and I can make other
spreadsheets available.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Army Commander Name Arfanhil Marendil Seammu
Command Rank 50.00 30.00 30.00
Nation Climate 100.00 100.00 100.00
Nation Terrain 100.00 100.00 97.00
Army Morale 30.00 40.00 30.00
Average Army Modifier 0.70 0.68 0.64
Heavy Cavalry Troop 600.00
Training Rank 30.00
Weapon Rank 30.00
Troop Terrain Modifier 60.00
Troop Tactic Modifier 100.00
vs. Army Avg Troop Modifier 0.00 0.55 0.00
vs. Pop Center Avg Troop Modifier 0.00 0.40 0.00
Armor Rank Modifier 0.00
vs. Army Strength 0.00 5280.00 0.00
vs. Pop Center Strength 0.00 3840.00 0.00
Troop Constitution 0.00 9600.00 0.00
Light Cavalry Troop 600.00
Training Rank 30.00
Weapon Rank 30.00
Troop Terrain Modifier 60.00
Troop Tactic Modifier 100.00
vs. Army Avg Troop Modifier 0.00 0.55 0.00
vs. Pop Center Avg Troop Modifier 0.00 0.40 0.00
Armor Rank Modifier 0.00
vs. Army Strength 0.00 2640.00 0.00
vs. Pop Center Strength 0.00 1920.00 0.00
Troop Constitution 0.00 4800.00 0.00
Heavy Infantry Troop 600.00 600.00 300.00
Training Rank 30.00 30.00 30.00
Weapon Rank 30.00 30.00 30.00
Troop Terrain Modifier 80.00 80.00 100.00
Troop Tactic Modifier 100.00 100.00 100.00
vs. Army Avg Troop Modifier 0.60 0.60 0.65
vs. Pop Center Avg Troop Modifier 0.47 0.47 0.53
Armor Rank Modifier 0.00 0.00 0.00
vs. Army Strength 3600.00 3600.00 1950.00
vs. Pop Center Strength 2800.00 2800.00 1600.00
Troop Constitution 6000.00 6000.00 3000.00
Light Infantry Troop 600.00 600.00 600.00
Training Rank 30.00 30.00 30.00
Weapon Rank 30.00 30.00 30.00
Troop Terrain Modifier 80.00 80.00 80.00
Troop Tactic Modifier 100.00 100.00 100.00
vs. Army Avg Troop Modifier 0.60 0.60 0.60
vs. Pop Center Avg Troop Modifier 0.47 0.47 0.47
Armor Rank Modifier 0.00 0.00 0.00
vs. Army Strength 1800.00 1800.00 1800.00
vs. Pop Center Strength 1400.00 1400.00 1400.00
Troop Constitution 3000.00 3000.00 3000.00
Archers 300.00 600.00 600.00
Training Rank 30.00 30.00 30.00
Weapon Rank 60.00 60.00 60.00
Troop Terrain Modifier 80.00 80.00 100.00
Troop Tactic Modifier 100.00 100.00 100.00
vs. Army Avg Troop Modifier 0.68 0.68 0.72
vs. Pop Center Avg Troop Modifier 0.57 0.57 0.63
Armor Rank Modifier 0.00 0.00 0.00
vs. Army Strength 1215.00 2430.00 2610.00
vs. Pop Center Strength 1020.00 2040.00 2280.00
Troop Constitution 600.00 1200.00 1200.00
Men-at-Arms 600.00 1200.00 600.00
Training Rank 30.00 30.00 30.00
Weapon Rank 30.00 30.00 30.00
Troop Terrain Modifier 80.00 80.00 100.00
Troop Tactic Modifier 100.00 100.00 100.00
vs. Army Avg Troop Modifier 0.60 0.60 0.65
vs. Pop Center Avg Troop Modifier 0.47 0.47 0.53
Armor Rank Modifier 10.00 10.00 10.00
vs. Army Strength 720.00 1440.00 780.00
vs. Pop Center Strength 560.00 1120.00 640.00
Troop Constitution 1320.00 2640.00 1320.00
BASE ARMY VS. ARMY STRENGTH 5134.50 11603.25 4587.45
BASE ARMY VS. POP CENTER STRENGTH 4046.00 8856.00 3803.60
BASE ARMY CONSTITUTION 10920.00 27240.00 8520.00
Realtions Modifier 100.00 100.00 100.00
Army vs. Army w/ relations 5134.50 11603.25 4587.45
Army vs. Pop. Center w/ relations 4046.00 8856.00 3803.60
Offensive Combat Spells
Defensive Combat Spells
Artifacts and Nukes
Warmachines
ARMY VS. ARMY STRENGTH 5134.50 11603.25 4587.45
ARMY VS. POP CENTER STRENGTH 4046.00 8856.00 3803.60
ARMY CONSTITUTION 10920.00 27240.00 8520.00
--------------------------------------------------------------------
# This data file was generated by the Spreadsheet Calculator.
# You almost certainly shouldn't edit it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Turn 1 Turn 2 Turn 3 Turn 4 Turn 5
At Start Gold 43650.00 39846.00 69186.00 59386.00 48086.00
Tax Units 15.00 15.00 15.00 15.00 15.00
Tax Rate 0.40 0.60 0.60 0.60 0.60
Tax Production 15000.00 22500.00 22500.00 22500.00 22500.00
Gold Production 5000.00 5000.00 5000.00 5000.00 5000.00
AFTER PRODUCTION GOLD 63650.00 67346.00 96686.00 86886.00 75586.00
BUY/SELLS
product sold food
income 15896.00
product sold timber
income 35640.00
product sold
income
product sold
income
product purchased
cost
product purchased
cost
product purchased
cost
product purchased
cost
AFTER BUY/SELL GOLD 79546.00102986.00 96686.00 86886.00 75586.00
MAINTENANCE COSTS
Heavy Cavalry 600.00 600.00 600.00 600.00 600.00
cost 3600.00 3600.00 3600.00 3600.00 3600.00
Light Cavalry 600.00 600.00 600.00 600.00 600.00
cost 1800.00 1800.00 1800.00 1800.00 1800.00
Heavy Infantry 1500.00 1500.00 1500.00 1500.00 1500.00
cost 6000.00 6000.00 6000.00 6000.00 6000.00
Light Infantry 1800.00 1800.00 1800.00 1800.00 1800.00
cost 3600.00 3600.00 3600.00 3600.00 3600.00
Archers 1500.00 1500.00 1500.00 1500.00 1500.00
cost 3000.00 3000.00 3000.00 3000.00 3000.00
Men-at-Arms 2400.00
cost 2400.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Ships
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
TOTAL ARMY COST 20400.00 18000.00 18000.00 18000.00 18000.00
Fortification Levels 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.00
Fortification Cost3500.00 3500.00 3500.00 3500.00 3500.00
Harbor/Port Levels
Harbor/Port Cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
TOTAL POP CENTER COST 3500.00 3500.00 3500.00 3500.00 3500.00
TOTAL CHARACTER COST 5800.00 7300.00 8800.00 10300.00 11800.00
AFTER MAINTENANCE GOLD 49846.00 74186.00 66386.00 55086.00 42286.00
CURRENT SURPLUS -9700.00 -1300.00 -2800.00 -4300.00 -5800.00
PRODUCTION COSTS
Ships Constructed
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Minor River Bridges
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Major River Bridges
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Towers Built
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Forts Built
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Castles Built
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Keeps Built
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Citadels Built
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Ports Built
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Harbors Built
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Camps Improved
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Villages Improved
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Towns Improved
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Major Towns Improved
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Camps Posted
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Camps Created 1.00 1.00 2.00
cost 0.00 0.00 2000.00 2000.00 4000.00
Spells Researched
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Characters Named 1.00
cost 10000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Commanders Named
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Agents Named
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Emissaries Named 1.00 1.00 1.00
cost 0.00 5000.00 5000.00 5000.00 0.00
Mages Named
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Armies Hired
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Capital Relocation
cost 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Miscellaneous Costs
AFTER PRODUCTION GOLD 39846.00 69186.00 59386.00 48086.00 38286.00
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Last Word
=========
The holidays are coming up fast, I turn 30 tomorrow as I write this,
and ME-PBM isn't much on my mind at the moment. So I spare you both
my musings and my fiction, and say only that my email address has
changed to: damayan@ix.netcom.com. Like "kazandar", "damayan" is a
joke but one so bizarre you'd have to be me to get it. I can also
be reached at: kazandar@rio.com, and don't plan on changing my
username on this account.
Happy holidays folks! See you after Christmas!
Tom