- NND ---------------------------------------------------------
Visit my FTP site: ftp://ftp.asstr.org/pub/Authors/Roller/ <--click
Click, or put the address into your browser. All my stories are there.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Roller presents
How to Win at Galactic Frontiers
Galactic Frontiers is a game like Risk. Instead of conquering
countries, you conquer planets. The game is free, and available for the
Macintosh. (Yet another reason to buy a Mac!) I have found no bugs in this
game, after playing it repeatedly.
Galactic Frontiers looks pretty dorky when you first boot it up. But I
have found it to be a very absorbing game. Essentially, you are Emperor
Palantine in Star Wars, and itÕs your job to conquer the galaxy and tax the
hell out of planets youÕve gotten hold of.
The game defaults to the intermediate level. However, your main
enemy in Galactic Frontiers will be ÒInsectaÓ. Insecta runs riot in the
intermediate game, because thereÕs only three players: you, Insecta, and
the Simians. I highly recommend switching to the advanced level as soon
as you get the hang of the game. Having four players holds Insecta in
check a little longer, allowing you to build up your forces before the
inevitable battle with Insecta.
Insecta is a ferocious builder. It builds forts and industry on its
planets faster than you can build them on your own. Simian is reputedly a
tough fighter, but IÕve had no trouble wiping them out very quickly.
Amphibian IÕve never seen, they die before I ever encounter them (wiped
out by Insecta).
ItÕs fun to do battle in Galactic Frontiers, but the key to winning is
to build up your production. At the start of every turn I do the most boring
(but most important) thing first: I check the tax rate of each of my
planets, and increase it as quickly as possible. The tax rates are as
follows: light, fair, medium, heavy, cruel. The underlined tax rate will
neither increase or decrease the possibility that your planet will rebel.
However if youÕre scared of your planet rebelling, you can lower the tax
rate. My advice is to always go for the underlined rate. DonÕt go above it.
Cruel will never be underlined. I experimented with increasing the tax
rate to cruel when rebellion on a planet was listed as ÒimpossibleÓ, but in
the end, especially in the advanced game, you have too many rebellions on
your hands, at all times throughout the game, to give yourself more
headaches by trying to raise the tax rate to cruel. So, my advice is, leave
the tax rate at the underlined rate, but always go for the underlined rate,
even if that planet is likely to rebel. Handle the possibility of rebellion by
building more forts on the planet, or putting more of your starships into
orbit around the planet.
You can only build a maximum of three forts on a planet, one turn at
a time. After that youÕve got to quell the possibility of rebellion by
putting more of your starships into orbit around the planet.
In the early game, build a fort and move on. DonÕt leave any
starships behind. Just keep conquering planet after planet, building one
fort, and moving on to the next planet. When a rebellion occurs, that is
when you will see how many additional forces you need to garrison a
planet youÕve conquered. If the rebellion musters two ships, your fort may
handle that. Build another fort at that time, as the rebellions will
increase in power as time goes by. Early in the game a rebellion will
consist of only two ships, necessitating that you build one or two forts (in
advance). Late in the game, a planet thatÕs likely to rebel will require
that you have three forts, and five starships (all built before the rebellion
breaks out). If you fail to build enough forts and put enough starships into
orbit around a planet, a rebellion will cause you to lose the planet!
DonÕt worry too much if you lose a planet to Ònative forcesÓ. You can
quickly reconquer them. However, since itÕs a pain in the ass to have
planets in your rear rebelling as you attempt to march forward, I always
try to keep enough troops on each of my planets so that no (successful)
rebellions can occur. Check each of your planetsÕ rebellion status each
turn. Planets that are peaceful one turn can become more rebellious as
time goes by.
In the early game, most enemy planets you encounter will be owned
by Ònative forcesÓ. They are easy to conquer. In the late game, most
planets will be owned by Insecta.
You have the option to customize Galactic Frontiers to your heartÕs
content. I recommend the following: Four players, and play to win. (The
game wants to declare a winner at a specific turn. ThatÕs bad news since
Insecta can easily win by points, even if you conquer the galaxy!) Change
the tax rate so that it increases the longer you own a planet. (The game
wants to default to a medium tax rate, but I prefer having the opportunity
to increase the tax rate to heavy. It gives you more ships. Of course, this
gives the enemy more ships too, on the planets he owns.)
A variety of crises occur in Galactic Frontiers, besides the endless
hordes of Insecta that keep attacking your planets. WeÕve discussed one of
these crises already: rebellion. Another crisis is plague. A plague will
slowly kill off your starships and your forts. ThereÕs nothing you can do
to stop it. DonÕt be a dummy and add more ships or forts to a plague
planet, the plague will kill everything in itÕs path. It also reduces your
Industry from whatever level itÕs at to zero, within a few turns. Since
Industry plus taxation allows you to build starships and forts, a planet
with no industry will contribute nothing to your empire. HereÕs what to do
in case of a plague:
1. Abort any incoming ships. The plague will kill them.
2. Watch your ships and forts slowly die.. too bad!
3. Reduce your industry to zero on a plague planet... you can use the
starships that creates (despite the fact that theyÕll die within a few
turns.)
4. Now... what to do with the starships stranded on a plague planet?
Increase that planetÕs class. This will allow you to make even more ships
on that planet when the plague has passed.
Another crisis that can hit a planet is rioting. Riots are unrelated to
the possibility of a planet rebelling. To quell a riot, send in ships.
Yet another crisis is Nova. If you get a nova warning for a planet,
immediately dismantle all the industry on that planet. This will give you
an additional number of starships. Turn by turn, lower the planetÕs class.
This will also give you more starships. Fly your starships away as fast as
you can. If the planet does indeed go nova, it will destroy everything on
that planet. Sometimes a planet doesnÕt go nova, despite a nova warning.
In that case, you can rebuild both your planetÕs industry and class.
In the ordinary case, when you are conquering a new planet, donÕt
worry about increasing that planetÕs class. It will increase your
production of starships, but at a cost of the starships that you currently
have. The only time I increase a planetÕs class is when the planet has
succumbed to plague. In that case, I may as well use up the starships,
since they are going to die of plague if I donÕt use them.
In Galactic Frontiers you have the opportunity to build radar. This
will warn you of enemy ships on nearby planets. However, my advice is
not to bother with radar. After you play the game a few times youÕll get a
feel for what your enemies can throw at you at each stage of the game. If
you want to have Òel cheapoÓ radar, send a single ship to the nearby enemy
planet. That will tell you how many enemy forces are on that planet.
If you send in just enough starships to conquer a planet, without
sending everything you have, you can learn whether or not a planet has
plague. ThereÕs nothing more disappointing than to send a huge invasion
force to a planet that has plague. All you can do is watch them slowly die.
You win the planet, but lose all your ships to plague. DonÕt move starships
that have landed on a plague planet. If you fly them off to another planet,
you will spread the plague from one planet to the next. IÕve stupidly
infected half a dozen of my planets doing that.
Try to get out and about in the galaxy as quickly as possible. If you
just sit in your little corner of the galaxy, building up each of your
planetsÕ class, you will eventually find yourself inundated by a huge force
of Insecta. You must get out and find Insecta, especially since you can
only see that part of the galaxy that is near to planets you own. The rest
is darkness, where no human has gone, and I guarantee you that out in that
darkness Insecta is building up its forces, faster than you can! Your only
hope is to take the war to Insecta, while keeping enough of your troops on
the planets you own to quell rebellions.
ItÕs said that the real universe is flat, and this is true in Galactic
Frontiers. Since youÕre playing on a square, flat game board, try to use the
edges to your advantage. Go for a corner of your own, then for half the
game board. If you can get that far, youÕre almost sure to win.
DonÕt ignore an attack by Insecta. You may have your own plans, but
Insecta is relentless. Once it focuses on a planet, it doesnÕt give up until
it owns it. Then it proceeds to attack your next planets, one by one.
Whatever you may have decided for taking the war to Insecta, regard an
attack very seriously. You must stop the attack by Insecta before
resuming your own plans.
Stall your starships in flight until youÕve built up a sufficiently
large invasion force. You will have ships coming from all parts of your
empire. You should collect them together before you launch an attack. You
can either collect them on a planet you own, or in outer space. The benefit
of collecting them in outer space is that theyÕre hidden from the enemy
while theyÕre in flight. Another benefit is that they can move to the
planet you wish to attack a little faster, if they fly directly, rather than
Òplanet hoppingÓ from one of your planets to the next.
Galactic Frontiers gives you the opportunity to build a Stargate.
DonÕt bother. It may seem quicker, but it is very expensive. Even when you
have one built, itÕs useless until you build another. You need two
Stargates to move ships between them, and Galactic Frontiers is too fluid
and fast-moving a game to make any use of your expensive Stargates. By
the time youÕre ready to move ships quickly to the front (via a Stargate),
the front has passed to another region of the galaxy.
The key to building a huge fleet of starships is to move them
forward in ÒdripsÓ. It will seem silly to bother moving one starship
forward from each of your planets, especially when it takes many moves
to cross the galaxy. But believe it or not, those little ÒdripsÓ of starships
will soon equal a huge invasion force. With a big force, you can go about
winning the game.
Now I will summarize this game to make play quicker for you:
Class - It makes a planet bigger. It costs one ship per turn to build
class. If you dismantle class, it will go down quicker than it goes up,
which makes it sort of expensive to do. Build class when the planet has
plague, dismantle class if the planet threatens to go nova.
Industry - It makes a planet more productive. The bigger your
planetÕs class, the more industry you can build on it. It costs one ship to
build industry. Build industry up to the level of a planetÕs class.
Dismantle all industry if a planet has plague, or threatens to go nova.
Tax - The key to making starships is class plus industry plus tax. A
planet with no industry will produce no tax, and hence no starships.
Increase the tax rate to the underlined rate. DonÕt go to cruel, and donÕt
lower the tax rate unless the planetÕs likely to rebel and you have nothing
on the planet to stop it: no forts, and no starships. In that case, decrease
the tax rate to light, to (hopefully) keep it from rebelling. If a planet gets
plague, you may as well drop the tax rate to light, since youÕre going to
dismantle the industry anyway. (If you donÕt dismantle the industry, the
plague will wipe it out. If you do dismantle the industry, you can create
starships which you can spend to increase the planetÕs class.)
Starships - These are the ÒmoneyÓ of the game. You need starships
to conquer the galaxy, or to build forts on your planets to prevent
rebellion. You can also spend starships to build a planetÕs class or
industry. (You can also waste starships building Stargates and radar, both
of which I deem unnecessary.)
Forts - A fort costs one starship to build, but provides more than
one starship worth of protection. A fort starts off being worth two
starships. After awhile the fort is worth even more, up to five starships!
(Unfortunately the enemyÕs forts increase in value too, as time goes by.)
Stargates - a waste of ÒmoneyÓ, in my opinion.
Radar - a waste of ÒmoneyÓ, in my opinion.
Insecta - a computer-owned player. Formidable.
Simian - reputedly a tough fighter, but always dies off early in the
game.
Amphibian - reputedly a tough defender, but it has always died off
before I could get to it. (Killed by Insecta.)
Native forces - the original owners of a planet. These are easy to
kill off, and easy to kill when they rebel.
You can alter many things in Galactic Frontiers. IÕm toying with the
idea of making Simian and Amphibian more powerful.
Have fun playing emperor. May you win the galaxy! (Now if only I
could make slave girls out of all the captured females...)
30
----------------------- Spacegirls! -----------------------
-- More stories at: http://groups.google.com/ Search by typing:
roller666@earthlink.net Click on ÒPower SearchÓ
Change ÒstandardÓ archive to ÒcompleteÓ archive.
-- Other providers:
IFLC: http://assm.asstr.org and http://asstr.org
AnyaÕs LilÕ Hideaway: http://www.insatiable.net/
Silver: http://www.mr-yellow.com/goodies
The Backdrop Club: http://www.backdrop.com
Usenet Newsgroup: alt.sex.stories.moderated
-- Great art books by David Hamilton and Jock Sturges are at:
http://www.amazon.com http://bn.com (photos of naked little girls)
-- Naked little girls/politics: http://www.AlessandraSmile.com
Man/boy love: http://www.nambla.de Politics: http://www.lp.org
http://www.isil.org http://www.fear.org http://www.fija.org
http://www.aclu.org
-- Naughty Naked Dreamgirls (Library of Congress ISSN: 1070-1427)
is copyright 2001 by Andrew Roller. Dreamgirls, Naughty Naked
Dreamgirls, and NND are registered trademarks of Andrew Roller.
All rights reserved.
-- Visit me at: http://home.earthlink.net/~roller666/index.html
Or at /~Roller/index.html
(It is case sensitive, i.e. type Roller, not roller).