Barren Realms Elite

@paradox

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PC Games hints

 · 3 months ago

Hints and Tips for Barren Realms Elite

-or-

The Anarchist's Guide to Destruction and Mayhem

By Crystal Palace

Version 2

UPDATED 7-27-93: I originally wrote this file for the locals here in Reno NV. I uploaded it to the systems that play in our league, and about three weeks later, the sysop of Heavy Metal International informed me at a BRE Mupt that there had been over 300 FREQ's and long-distance logins for my file. I had NO idea that this would happen. The file as I wrote it assumed the reader was familiar with what had been happening in our own BRE Net. At any rate, with the popularity of this file, and the fact that a reader in Canada would have NO idea what I was referring to if I mentioned a local event, I've decided to update the file so that anyone reading it could get the most out of it. Updates to Version 1 are prefaced by an *] symbol. If you have any questions, I can be reached on the Solar Realms Echo (FidoNet) or you can contact me directly via netmail at Heavy Metal International (702) 825-5357 Fido 1:213/840.

*] It all started when I became inundated with accusations of cheating at the game. As anyone who has played the game long enough knows, there really is no way to cheat in this game. Some of the players started asking me "how do you do that" so rather than write the same thing to half a dozen people, I wrote this file.

At the request of Utopia, and others I'm going to put down here exactly what I do to achieve, and then maintain a top-ranked realm. Hopefully, this should wipe clear any doubts anyone may have about the legitamacy of my empires. As of this writing, I'm the Planetary Master of every single BBS in the Net. On Music Hall, everyone knows me as Crystal Palace. I go by the following names on the other systems:

 Mostly Windows : Crayola      (Both games) 
 Macster        : Dark Castle  (Game #1) 
                  Blackbird    (Game #2) 
 Poor Man's     : The Citadel  (Formerly ToonTown) 
 Music Hall     : Crystal Palace

At any rate, the primary reason for my success has been the constant support of my teammates on Music Hall, and my own experience playing Strategic Wargames. A lot of what you learn in these types of games can be applied to ANY game, including BRE. Here comes lesson number one. Learn and OBEY the following Cardinal Rules of Warfare:

1. Never try to fight a two front war.
2. Know your options. (for gameing, know the rules)
3. Know what your forces can and cannot do.
4. Strategy is dictated by available tactics.
5. Never commit the bulk of your forces. (Maintain a reserve)
6. Know thy enemy.
7. Once commited to the offensive, STAY on the offensive.
8. Think.
9. Aggressiveness is a force multiplier.
10. Greed kills.
11. Fear Works.
12. Destroy the enemy's ABILITY to wage war, not the enemy.
13. *] Fight on your own terms.

Ok, now. How is it my empires rocket to the top in such a short time? Well, I've developed a systematic step-by-step approach to empire development. Here we go...

*] NEW START-UP TACTIC!

The lazy man's way to riches!

This method takes quite a bit longer to work, but it's guaranteed to bring you at LEAST 1000 regions ON YOUR VERY FIRST TURN!

It only works when you are STARTING a new game. What you do is after you've named your realm, QUIT. That's right. QUIT. What you're going to do is keep logging in every day, and just checking your status. What happens is, while your realm is sitting there with only 2 regions, the game automatically gives you "gifts". A lot of times what you'll see is that you've "stolen" 200,000 coins from the Emperor, or you've received 3,000 tanks to aid your survival. Let this keep happening for several days. What you're trying to accomplish is letting your resources develop for several days until you have LOTS of cash, and a military you can sell off. On your first turn, follow the tactics outlined below, but also SELL any military that has been given you. 3,000 tanks will get you something in the region of 1.5 MILLION coins. (If they're only selling for 500 coins each, they usually sell for much higher than that.) Since on your first turn, regions usually only cost about a thousand each, you'll end up at the end of your FIRST turn with over 1,500 regions!

Can't beat that now can you? Another tactic you can use is to INVEST the cash you receive. Let's say you've been given a gift of 200,000 coins, but you don't feel you have enough yet to start playing. Use the I-P Ops menu (which costs you no turns) to visit the bank, and invest any cash you have for 24 hours. (more if you want) Remember, every 1,000 coins is worth another region. Investing 200,000 for 24 hours gets you 224,000 coins, or an extra 24 regions.

I've been using this method on every new game I start, and I've averaged over 2,000 regions per game on my first turn. It works, you just need to be patient.

---------------

Name your realm (REALLY?) Don't worry about setting your industry's. After the start-up, your first real decision gets made at the Food Market. You start with 30,000 tons. You only need 1,000 tons during your first year, so sell 29,000 food.

Do not get any loans from the bank yet... save that for later. When you get to the Purchasing Menu, immediately hit * and get into the System Menu. Set your tax rate to 5%. This guarantees monstrous increases in your population, which you will exploit later in the game. (With higher taxes of course, same thing Clinton's doing. *HEH*)

*] Speaking of taxes, the highest amount you can set your tax rate to is 39% without suffering a popular support loss. Be careful with this though. People will LEAVE your realm, but eventually it will balance out. You can use this tactic if your food supply is just barely feeding your people and troops. Set your tax higher, lose some people, and you should be able to feed them on your next turn. Eventually you'll stop losing people, and start gaining them again. Be prepared to feed those people when that happens.

Ok, now, we're going to purchase as many regions as possible. Don't worry about commanders, or your headquarters, or anything else. Those can come later after you're established. However many regions you can buy is solely dictated by how much cash you have. Let's pretend you managed to hang onto 100,000 coins for your first turn, and regions are going for around 1,000 each. You can buy 100 regions your first turn out. This is how I would spend that cash..

   Coastal      : 52 
   River        : 10 
   Agricultural : 15 
   Desert       : 10 
   Industrial   :  0 
   Urban        :  5 
   Mountain     : 10 (purchase 8, you already have two)

You'll end up with 102 regions total. NEVER BUY INDUSTRIAL ON YOUR FIRST TURN! At this stage in the game, you need every penny to purchase more regions. Not to throw away feeding and equipping a useless military. Coastal is the greatest for sheer cash production. Rivers run a close second, but they kick over to food production every so often, so depending on them as a primary cash source is too risky.

*] If you've followed the LAZY start up tactic, then I strongly suggest that you DO buy industrial on your first turn. If you don't, regions will be too expensive on your next turn to purchase them. Buy them while you have the cash to do it.

Now we get boring. You have four (or) more turns left. For the next three turns do NOTHING. Buy NOTHING. Just let your cash build up. On your last turn of the day is when you'll spend your money, and it's also when you want to take out your first loan. Max out, take as much as you can. The reason is that the cost of a region increases each time you gain more regions. It makes sense to only purchase regions when you have as much cash as possible on hand.

If you were to buy regions on every turn, you'd end up with fewer total regions than if you play smart, and only buy regions on your last turn of the day. This holds true for the duration of the game. For your first day, a good average would be about 200 regions total. Do NOT buy industrial yet. You don't need them, and they don't do you any good. Buy them on day two, but hold onto at least a 2:1 ratio of Coastal to Industrial, and an overall ratio of 3:1, so if you have 100 industrial, you had better have 200 coastal, and a total of 300 cash producing regions. Like so...

	 Coastal      : 500 
	 River        : 60 
	 Agricultural : 60 
	 Desert       : 60        Total of 1,000 regions. 
	 Industrial   : 250       Coastal : Industrial 2:1 
	 Urban        : 10            All : Industrial 3:1 
	 Mountain     : 60

This mix helps to insure that you have more than enough cash to support your operations in grand style. You'll never need more than 15 or so Urban regions. Believe me, your people will breed like rabbits. Maintain a healthy Agricultural program, or else.

*] The above changes when your realm gets REALLY large. After I crossed the 14,000 region barrier, my people started to leave my realm. Just purchase a few Urban when that happens, and they'll start to come back.

After you buy your industrial, you'll be tempted to expend those troops to gain more regions through pirate strikes. While in protection, that's fine. You never need more than 3000 troops, 1000 jets, and 250 tanks to attack them with though. Never send more than that. You'll lose more than you'll gain, and you put excess troops needlessly at risk. I've set up one of the game macros to handle it for me.

Once you're out of protection, do NOT attack the pirates unless they attack you first. You gain more regions in retaliatory strikes than you do if you attack them first. It's a waste of your military for a small gain of 1 to 5 regions. You'll gain 8 to 16 (or more) in retaliation strikes. The most I've ever hit a pirate for was 23 regions.

On day two, you can start spending money on industry. Also get your headquarters started, and grab some commanders. For every 5,000 troops, you'll need 100 commanders. You'll rarely need, or use, more than 10 Agents. If you have extras, sell them. This brings me to another point. Don't be afraid to sell your military. If you're in a cash crunch, or just want to buy a ton of regions, sell off your military. Think this one out though. It'd be really silly to sell your military if you've been subjected to recent attacks. Remember rule number five of warfare is to maintain a reserve at all times. I sell my military only if I have not been attacked, and want to take the Planetary Master spot. I did that a couple of days ago on Mostly Windows. Crayola sold everything and spent it all on regions. Devil's Dungeon was threatening to take the PM spot, and I wanted to hang on to it. The cash I gained enabled me to purchase an extra 100 regions on my last turn, guaranteeing me the top spot. I spent those 100 regions almost exclusively on industrial, to make up for the loss of the military in the shortest possible time.

*] Here's a useful hint. The more Agents you have, the harder it is for enemy terrorist ops to succeed. If you can afford them, keep as many as you can on hand. If you're being hit with a LOT of terrorist ops, buy a bunch of 'em. (like, a thousand or so). Fewer and fewer terrorist ops will succeed against you if you have an overwhelming number of agents at your disposal. I was wondering why that option to attack enemy agents existed in the I-P menu, and I believe this is why.

Military strategies and tips

Ok, now, what's the best military, and why? Well, Missile Bases are probably the best thing to have in large quantities. They shoot down Jets, Blow up tanks, and vaporize troops. They are the all around best thing to have for defense. Tanks run a close second. If you're going to be throwing your weight around in attacks, you need LOTS of these. When I'm on the offensive, (which is ALWAYS), I set my production as follows.

 Offensive Military Mix    Defensive Military Mix 
  Troops        : 30 %       Troops        : 10 % 
  Jets          : 20 %       Jets          :  5 % 
  Missile Bases : 15 %       Missile Bases : 40 % 
  Tanks         : 30 %       Tanks         : 40 % 
  Carriers      :  5 %       Carriers      :  5 %

Strategic hint: Jets are useless for Defense, so when calculating how much military to commit to an IP attack, always send 100% of your jets. If you're worried about being attacked while your forces are out attacking someone else, holding your jets back in reserve does you NO good what-so-ever.

*] I discovered that success breeds emnity. If you are starting a new game, and you KNOW you are going to be targeted with attacks as soon as you're out of protection, then set your industry like so:

 Troops          :  0% 
 Jets            :  0% 
 Missile Bases   : 60% 
 Tanks           : 40% 
 Carriers        :  0%

This is actually the best thing to do while you are in protection. You can always buy as many jets or troops you'll need to attack, but Missile Bases and tanks are much too expensive to be spending your money on.

If you want to use your industry to produce coins, DON'T! It's MUCH more profitable to set your industry to produce 100% carriers, and then SELL them! With an industry of 500 regions, you'll produce roughly 1,000 or so carriers per year. They sell for over 1,000 each, so you'd get around 1 million coins per year. Quite a bit more than if you set your industry to produce coins only.

Remember, MAINTAIN a reserve at all times! If you launch an IP attack without maintaining some type of reserve force means you have NO defense against incoming attacks. This type of situation assumes one of three things.

1. You don't have sufficient forces for a reserve, in which case there's not much you can do about it.
2. You've just made a stupid, terrible mistake, and are about to lose massive numbers of regions because you have no defense.
3. You've taken a calculated risk that you wouldn't be attacked while your forces were elsewhere. If you calculated correctly, then you succeed in your efforts, if not, go back to item 2.

Ok, now that we have the basic strategy for empire development out of the way, we can move on to the real reason you're reading this file.

The I-P Wars

Rule number four of warfare states that your strategy is dictated by available tactics. The difference between the two is that if Tactics are what you do in detail, strategy is what you do on the whole. Music Hall has been screaming our strategy over the Message net for the last several weeks. Our Strategy is total, complete, TEAMWORK.

Now, here are the various Tactics we use.

Tradeing:

Ok, you all see the Tradeing Menu on every single turn. Hardly any of you use the damn thing though, and this is perhaps the single most powerful tool in the game. On Music Hall, we have an elite group of players, totaling perhaps 6 to 8 people at any one time. If you think Music Hall is powerful, it is the direct result of these people. To gain access to this group, one must have proven their total commitment to seeing Music Hall as the number one BBS in the BRE net. To give you an idea of just how powerful this collection of Empires can be, I'll give you an example. When the new game started June third, I was doing rather well. I had about 500 regions built up, and on my first turn of freedom, year 0, I sent out a request for trade deals. Since it was my last turn of the day, I waited until the next day to see what happened.

I logged in for Year One of my freedom and had FOUR trade deals already sent to me. Most of it was cash. From those 4 deals I had over 10 MILLION coins sent to me. Regions only cost 25k each at the time, so you can see what happened. I went from 500 regions to 900 regions in ONE TURN. I spent the next four turns on that day generating enough cash to COMPLETELY PAY BACK EACH TRADE DEAL. So what was the net result? I gained 400 regions at ZERO COST TO ANYONE! The four people who sent me the cash got their money back, and I was well on my way to dominating this game.

A powerful tool, yes? Here's another example of raw power. On Music Hall we have a lottery. Each one of the "elite" group draws a number to see what place in line they get. At the time of this writing, OSCAR is the current lottery holder. Now, every single empire in the group is currently tradeing over half their total military strength to Oscar. The results? Oscar's Net Worth just took a MASSIVE jump. There are perhaps 8 realms in the current group, and with the combined strength of 8 Empires, there is nothing and no-one that can stand up to any attack Oscar wants to make. The trade deals also consist of Cash, Food, and Commanders. Everything necessary to support Oscar's troops while she has them. After Oscar is done, she'll trade everything she has to the next person in the Lottery. (as of this writing, that person is none other than myself. *GRIN* ) This tradeing program will continue for the duration of the game, and as each empire gains in size, so too the size of the military gains. It perpetuates itself indefinitely, as each empire still trades half of what they have to the lottery holder. During the last game, the trade value reached something like 700,000 troops, 500,000 jets, and 100,000 tanks, plus food, cash, and commanders.

Single attacks like this gain MASSIVE quantities of regions, and they are used TWICE PER DAY! How? Simple. The person with the troops first sends out their individual attack. They then have to log in later that day and collect their regions and military back. When they do, they usually schedule a GROUP attack against an entire planet, that way everyone can get involved. The Empire with the troops gains twice in one day, and helps insure that everyone on the system that joins the group attack will gain something as well.

Now, this is where things start getting really mean, and if you ever want to take down Music Hall, pay attention.

Planetary Tactics

Ok, you and your team want to take down an entire planet. Well, here's how. Let's say we're going to target Poor Man's. This is how we took them down during the last game. Everyone on our team started Bombing the Planetary Food Market. If you can't feed your people, they'll launch into civil war, and your empire is reduced to nothing in a day.

We also started sending Terrorists out, 10 at a time, to individual empires. Remember, in warfare, if you want to win, you must destroy your enemy's ABILITY to wage war. In a nutshell, whoever can sustain the fight longest is going to win. Bomb their coin banks, food stores, cause dissention and aid rebellions. The targeted empire finds itself constantly having to pay massive amounts of cash to keep his Popular Support and Military Morale high. If the empire is dumping cash into this endeavor, it won't have cash left at the end of the day to afford any more regions, or any more attacks. If popular support is low, then Coastal regions don't produce NEARLY the same amount of cash that they do when support is at 100%. If you bomb their Coin Banks, and Food Stores, they then don't have the cash necessary to buy food, which should be non-existant through planetary Food Strikes. If they don't have the cash to raise their popular support, the coastal regions still won't produce. If they have also been attacked regularly, they may have lost enough Agricultural regions to keep them from feeding their people. What this boils down to is an Empire in serious shit. Power Planet felt the brunt of this. Imagine 80 or more terrorist attacks in ONE DAY. Eventually it became too much to sustain, and his empire went into Civil War. He lost 3,000 regions in ONE TURN.

This is where teamwork can help out. During the last game Power Planet caught on to what we were doing to him, and started returning the favor. What happened was that Crystal Palace started getting hit with over 80 terrorist ops every single day. The reason why Crystal Palace kept increasing in size and never went into Civil War?

TRADEING! My teammates started sending me massive amounts of cash every day. With that cash, I was easily able to feed my people, raise their support and morale levels, and continue to operate normally. Tradeing also helps to lower the COST of sustaining an empire. I traded my entire military force to another player, and instructed him to IGNORE the deal until I asked for them back, which he did. He then refused the deal, and I had my troops back. During the time they were out, it was much cheaper to maintain my empire. I didn't have to feed or pay for those troops. It was cheaper to raise my morale levels. While the other empire was ignoring the deal, NO one had to pay for those troops, or feed them. They were in limbo until the need arose.

This is another trick to hide your real Net Worth. If your forces have been traded, but the deal is ignored, neither empire's Net Worth increases, and the person who sent the deal actually has theirs decrease.

Cash Operations

Investing is another ignored facet of this game. If you want MASSIVE amounts of cash, it only takes 15 to 20 days to do it. Simply invest half of everything you make in a day, (or more), for 120 to 240 hours. ( 5 to 10 days ) If you do the 120 hour option, and you do this daily, here's what happens. In five days, your first deal comes in. Take that cash, plus the regular amount you normally invest, and re-invest it for another 120 hours. Do this EVERY DAY. In 20 days or so, you'll be absoloutely amazed at how much cash you'll have available at the end of each day. To use myself as an example, I was earning over 60 million a day after 20 days. It -WORKS!- Do it! After 20 days, you can do anything you want to do. ANYTHING. With 60 million, you can buy over 500,000 troops. EVERY DAY! Think about it. As of this writing, I'm into day 4 of my investing. I'm taking the 240 hour option, so my investments are going to come in starting 6 days from now. I'm earning more cash, and on my fourth day into "round two" I'll take in 12 million. That will get me over 25 million 5 days after that if I re-invest it.

*] As of this writing, Music Hall has gone down. However, My last investment went through, and I had 1,000,000,000 coins sent me on my last day. ONE BILLION coins. And that was after only 4 weeks of game play. Investing 1 billion for 240 hours will get you 2 billion, but according to the news about the new version, soon to be released, this may change. Also, be careful with taking your cash above 2.5 billion. According to rumor, the game can't handle the number, and resets your cash to 0 or LESS. I'll update this file again after the new version is released.

With that kind of cash, you can really do some damage to an entire BBS all by yourself. You can Nuke anyone, Chemical Raids, V-39 Skyrunners, Bomb their Coins bank 6 times, or bomb their Food Bank FORTY TIMES in one day. Or you can do like umop apisdn did and BUY A GOOIE KABLOOIE ALL BY YOURSELF.

Ok, here's the summary.

• Teamwork is absolutely essential for success.
• Tradeing is the most important aspect of Teamwork.
• No single empire can survive against a team of empires. No BBS can survive against a united BBS unless they too unite.
• Investing is the way to true individual success.

Above all, THIS IS A GAME! Don't take is too bloody seriously.

If you have any questions, or want a better explanation of the tips outlined here, you may leave me mail on Music Hall addressed to Joseph Harris. I hold nothing back. I like a game that's lively, and tough. It's no fun to stomp everyone in the dust if they aren't fighting back. That's what makes this game so much fun is the competition. It's much more rewarding to win against long odds than it is to run away with the game because no one else is in the same league as you.

*] Music Hall has gone down. (-Sniff- :( ) I ended the game with 14,000 regions after about 4 weeks of play. Regardless, I can be reached on the Solar Realms FidoNet Echo at 1:213/840. You can also send mail or login and check out the action at Heavy Metal International (702) 825-5357. We are playing in League 001, a West Coast Inter-State league including Nevada, California, Oregon, and Washington.

Crystal Palace. 6/12/93
Joseph Harris. 7/27/93