BBS Toolkit/BBS Toolkit.iso/doors_1/imp352.zip/IMPERIUM.TIP

Text File | 1990-11-16 | 23KB | 432 lines

Imperium:
---------
 Tips for playing better    -- or --
 "How to swim in a pool full of sharks"

by Chris King
----------------------------------------

  Imperium is a multiplayer strategic wargame for two to fifteen
players. Each player starts out with a single city, a sysop con-
figurable number of units, and a blank map. The object of the game
is essentially to conquer the world. Victory conditons will proba-
bly vary from bbs to bbs but in the end, "He who has the most cities
will win".

Caveat Aleator
  "Let the Player beware", since the setup of Imperium allows the
 sysop to have so much control over the way the game initializes
 and plays it's difficult to come up with any particular
 strategies or tactics that'll work even most of the time. One of
 the most important things that a player should do at the outset
 of a game, is check out the game setup: What are the costs of
 each units, how strong are they, how much damage can they take,
 how quickly do they move...these factors can (and do) vary
 widely between games. But even with such widely varying setups
 there are certain things that new and old players should
 consider and keep in mind while playing.
  One other consideration, while not 'fair' in the strictest
 sense, is a simple fact of the way the game operates... moving
 early. The player who moves before his enemies has the advantage
 of being able to eliminate units that could be later used
 against him during that day. So the early bird does capture more
 cities.


General Strategies:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Early in the game (<10% cities)

  Concentrate on expansion. Avoid conflicts with your near
  neighbors and agree on borders. Fighting with your neigbors
  early on in the game wastes your units and theirs while allowing
  more distant empires to grow unchecked. Build armies on your
  frontiers and more costly units closer to the center of your
  empire. Post sentry units on the borders that you have
  established.

  Note: If you arrive late for a game and are about to
        be eaten by a vicious neighbor, run. Don't waste units
        trying to beat off the wolf, hold your cities as long as
        possible while pulling back units to safer(?) rear areas.
        Even if you eventually run out of places to go, you'll be
        much better set up to bloody the aggressors nose and hold
        off his chance of victory by fighting another day.


 Breakout (10-20% cities)

   Generally it's at this point in the game that alliances start
  to break down. You've discovered/captured all the cities you
  can within your established territory, it's time to go knocking
  on somebody elses door. Try to keep the number of actual people
  you are fighting down to a minimum (i.e. don't attack all of
  your former allies at once), who you decide to attack should
  depend first on your deployment of forces, secondly on the
  enemies local forces, thirdly on the resources (cities) in the
  region you're going to attack, and lastly on the terrain of the
  region.
   When you attack a neighbor, if at all possible you want to
  have the numbers on your side. Heavy units should move in first
  to soften up the territory for your armies and transports, but
  they shouldn't advance too far ahead or the openings they create
  will close up again before the armies arrive.
   Strike at cities first, units second. By depriving your enemy
  of cities (even if you can't hold them) you are eliminating his
  reinforcements and airfields. When attacking units (and this
  will vary depending on the game setup) go for the armies and
  transports first. Without these, the enemy can't take back
  cities. Attacking in this manner can often offset an imbalance
  in forces. Avoid attacking regions you haven't scouted
  thoroughly, you'll waste time and units hunting for the
  resources rather than quickly moving in and capturing them.
   When you initially capture cities you're going to want them
  producing quick turnaround items (armies would be best, but if
  tanks or fighters cost less...) since you don't want to waste
  time waiting for costlier items in cities that might be retaken.
  Build costlier units in areas that are back off the front lines
  and more secure from enemy attack.
   Try and use the terrain to your advantage. Block mountain
  passes with stacks of units; force your enemy to take longer
  routes by keeping sentries and blockades on the more direct
  routes (nothing like a couple of battleships in a channel to
  keep the tranports away). Plan your attack routes as carefully
  as the terrain warrants, sneak attacks and careful use of
  engineers and dredges can severely undermine your enemy's
  defenses.


 Consolidation (25-40% cities)

   This point in the game is similar in many respects to the
  early game. At this point there are generally three or four
  dominant empires in the world, the rest of the players having
  been either annihilated or squeezed down into insignificance.
  In most cases none of the major empires are allied with each
  other but there aren't any major offensives going on either.
  Balance of power might be another good description of this
  phase of the game, because that's essentially why the fighting
  isn't more severe, noone can risk the number of units it would
  take to really attack one of others. Your borders aren't too
  quiet but your empire is large enough to where small brush wars
  aren't a major problem either. What you need to do during this
  phase is highly dependent on the way that the game was setup, but
  there are several common elements that'll need to be done no
  matter what the game. Clear out the little guys; build up your
  heavy units; keep your borders supplied with units; and harass
  your enemies.
   You've been nice to your little neighbors (or serfs) for
  probably 2-3 months now, but you're going to need those cities
  for the final crunch. So, be diplomatic, be forceful, and mow
  them down. It's not nice, but then whoever said ruling the
  world was nice? Don't waste a lot of units on this, regional
  cities plus a few tranports should suffice; the use of nuclear
  weapons isn't called for (and sets an extremely dangerous
  precedent).
   Depending on your empire and the type of map you're playing on
  this is also the time to be building up your navy, tanks,
  fighters, missiles, and engineers. If it's a wet world or a
  world with signifcant oceans battleships, carriers, and
  cruisers are needed to police your portion of it. Tanks are
  going to be necessary to provide both the 'home guard' and the
  extra push on the fronts. Fighters are your eyes abroad, the
  more you have the more you can afford to harass your enemies
  with (if you can afford to drop five fighters into an enemy
  transport, you can bet it'll be worth it). Missiles, as I'll
  discuss later, are not something to be used without a lot of
  forethought, but a stockpile can certainly act as a very
  effective deterrent. Engineers at this point are best used for
  city construction; if you can do it, turn your inner empire into
  a metropolis of cities. The extra resources will be the key to
  your victory.
   It's unlikely that your borders with the other large empires
  are going to be quiet. More than likely the situation will have
  devolved into a trench war where neither side of the border has
  yet built up the necessary forces to make a real break in the
  other side's lines. There isn't an easy solution to this, you
  need to keep the border supplied with units to prevent the
  other empire from taking your cities and it'd certainly be nice
  if you could grab some of his besides. Possible ideas are:
  sneak attacks behind the lines (a single transport, or a few
  armies let through a new pass) to force your enemy to pull
  forces back from the front; use of fighters and ships to damage
  the reinforcements; and the old pull back, outflank, and strike
  at rear of the enemy trick (very dangerous but an effective way
  to breakout of a stalemate).
   Harass your neighboring empires, strike at transports and
  carriers, fly fighters way behind his lines, keep the other
  players from knowing exactly what you're going to do. If
  they're on their toes and they aren't on yours; try to keep
  up a certain level of worry among your opponents (by leaving
  ships off their coasts, tanks in their homeland, etc) but don't
  go too far. An overscared/annoyed enemy is likely as not to
  drop missile in your backyard. While you can take this as a
  compliment to your strategy it does put a crimp in your budget.


 Final Conflict ( >40% cities)

   At this point one of three things has happened: all but one of
  the other contenders have taken out and you and your opponent
  can probably look forward to a couple of weeks (at least) of
  bludgeoning each other to death; you have twice as many cities
  as your remaining two-three opponents, but they are unified
  against you; or you have a decisive lead over the remainder of
  a still fighting world.

   (One on one for the world). In the first case, you might
   consider offering your opponent a draw. Two reasonably
   balanced opponents could spend quite literally months trying
   to capture a majority of the world; which if you like that
   kind of mental/physical/electronic exercise is all well and
   good but you might ask the sysop to open another door of
   Imperium so someone else can play. If your opponent is
   fundamentally opposed to sharing the world with your ilk, then
   your only choices are to give it your all or lay down and die.
    Assuming the former, you and your opponent will simply start
   smashing away at each other, the types and kinds of attacks and
   units to use and when and how to use them will depend entirely
   on the game setup. And since you've been playing this game for
   several months you'll be far better able to judge how to
   conduct this offensive than I.

   (The United Forces against Tyranny). Yep, that's you the
   Tyrant. This is a real difficult situation to win, while you
   have numeric and production superiority over any one of your
   opponents, together they are equal to or superior to you. A
   great deal depends on the position of the empires, the setup
   of the game, and the stability of the opposing alliance, but
   there are several strategies you might try: Annihilate one of
   the opposing players; hold your borders and build; or attempt
   to dominate one aspect of the game.
    In the first case, annihilating one of the other players, you
   need to strike as quickly as possible, not to conquer but to
   simply destroy one of the other players (see I told you that
   missile stockpile would come in handy). Depeding on the
   geography obliterate the border between your empire and
   theirs, take out all their ports, bio-strike their units. The
   important thing here is the shock value that it'll have on the
   rest of the alliance. There is the possibility of taking some
   major damage of your own at this point, but we're hoping that
   the other empires are after your empire not simply your head.
   While conducting the strike you also need to make a push to
   keep the other players occupied, either with minimal troop
   landings on their shores, or a heavy push along their borders.
   When all the dust dies down, go back to the beginning of this
   section and re-evaluate the situation.
    In the second case, we are assuming that you have a
   production advantage over your opponents and that you have
   nothing to lose by heavily fortifying your borders while
   continuing to build up your forces. The choice of forces is
   important, but armies, tanks, (and transports, depending) are
   going to be absolutely necessary. When you've managed to
   achieve a significant edge in total forces (and score which is
   dependent not only on the quantity of forces, but their
   strength), 20-30% is a good measure, break down the walls and
   go hunting.
    In the third case, dominating an aspect of the game, assumes
   that you have an advantage due to geography or good planning
   in one aspect of the game or another (in this case I'm using
   aspect to refer to either air, land, or sea). I've seen many
   victories pulled out by players who were able to use their
   navies to control the oceans were able to hold off enemies
   with greater city resources by denying them any access to the
   water. Land domination works in a similar manner, using tanks
   (in large quantities) to cruise by enemy cities on a daily
   basis killing off new units before the enemy had a chance to
   utilize them. Air superiority is a bit trickier since fighters
   have a limited range, but in combination with a good network
   of cities and carriers fighters can keep you informed as to all
   your enemies movements as well as giving you a long range
   attack arm.



General Tactics:              (or making better use of your units)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Armies:
  ~~~~~~~
    Your victory in the end will more than likely depend on your
   abililty to deliver armies swiftly and numerously to your
   fronts than on any other single factor. Armies are the only
   units that can capture cities. So, no matter how powerful all
   your other forces are, if you don't have enough armies in the
   right places, your empire can't grow. If you don't grow you're
   gonna die. As a general rule armies should number 40-60% of
   your total forces.


  Fighters:
  ~~~~~~~~~
    Fighters serve two vital purposes, scouting and support. In
   the early portion of the game your fighters will spot out the
   nearest free cities much faster than your armies can. This
   frees up your armies for doing things like taking the cities,
   which then increases the territory that your fighters can
   cover. When attacking an enemy your fighters can provide key
   information with respect to enemy unit locations and types and
   can be used to soften up areas for your incoming forces. Or if
   you're in trouble and losing ground your fighters can provide
   support by harassing the enemy and thinning his forces and by
   scouting out the locations of incoming attacks.

  Tanks:
  ~~~~~~
    Generally the strongest land unit, tanks are best used for
   both front line offense and behind the lines defense. Leaving
   one tank in the backfield for each city might be a bit much
   but a 3:2 ratio will ensure that your cities, if not
   completely safe from a sneak attack, can at least hold off and
   slow down the enemy long enough for you to divert some forces
   from elsewhere to assist in the attack.
    When using tanks on the front lines to soften up the
   territory for your armies, it is vitally important not to let
   the tanks outrun the armies by more than a day or two. Any
   longer than this and the enemy will have time to rebuild /
   reinforce the cities / territory before your armies arrive.

  Destroyers:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~
    Destroyers are usually your fastest ships, both in terms of
   production time and in terms of speed. They also tend to be
   one of the weakest attack craft. The best use for destroyers
   in the early game is to scout out the coastlines around the
   world out of range of your fighters; locating all the other
   empires; and seeing what other ships inhabit the sea. Later on
   in the game, Destroyers make good escort ships for Transports,
   good coastal patrol boats, and reasonable enemy transport
   hunters.

  Submarines:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~
    Subs are considered to be high offense/low defense ships.
   Which means that they hit hard but can't take much damage.
   This generally makes them highly effective coastal defenses
   against transports and scouting destroyers, but against larger
   ships they are usually outclassed both in speed and power. The
   decision on whether to build more destroyers than subs should
   be based on cost and strength, if subs cost about the same as
   destroyers you should as a rule keep about twice as many on
   hand. They're, without a doubt, your most cost effective
   coastal defense.

  Troop Transports:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Worth their weight in gold, these ships are (if the game
   needs them). No matter how many armies you have, if you can't
   get them to where you need them (quickly) then you're not
   going to conquer the world. Tranports are not generally
   considered attack ships (check the setup), and shouldn't be
   used to attack other craft unless you have an ocean full of
   them or no armies left to put on them. The most obvious use
   for transports is in moving armies/tanks/engineers across
   bodies of water that they can't cross in a timely manner (if
   at all); another use is in speed delivery. Depending on the
   setup, transports move 1.5-3 times faster than armies, you can
   move the troops down the coast a lot faster by boat than by
   foot.

  Cruisers:
  ~~~~~~~~~
    Cruiser are medium class attack ships, on a good day they can
   eat three destroyers and a sub for breakfast. Cruisers tend to
   make the best hunter/killer ships in terms of cost; these are
   the ships you generally use in breakout to destroy your
   enemies reinforcements before they arrive, with two cruisers
   operating together you can generally take out a transport and
   its escort with a minimum of damage. Cruisiers tend to work
   best when played as open-water attack ships; generally being
   wasted in coast defense and overwhelmed when approaching enemy
   shores.

  Carriers:
  ~~~~~~~~~
    When you go out to attack an enemy's homeland and you land
   your troopships, you're going to be in serious trouble if you
   can't provide suffucient air cover to defend and scout for
   your troops. Carriers provide mobil airfields that allow your
   fighters to range all over the world; allowing you to stage
   troop landings on shores before the enemy has even figured out
   where you came from. As a general rule, Carriers are high
   defense/low offense ships; attacking other ships with a
   carrier is in most cases just going to put the carrier in port
   a lot more.

  Battleships:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    These are the heavy guns in the fleet. High offense/high
   defense ships, Battleships let you take the war to the
   enemy's shore and harass his coastal defenses, destroy the
   ships being repaired in port and transports as they're
   loaded. Using a battleship or two to cruise a sea channel is
   generally one of the easiest ways to ensure that no
   transports are going to try and come that way. While
   destroyers are excellent coastal defense ships, and cruisers
   are open sea hunters, battleships are coastal offense ships.

  Cruise Missiles:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Probably the single most volatile unit on the board, cruise
    missiles can also be one the most varied and game-dependent
    units. Just flying one of these past an enemy city is generally
    considered suffucient cause to drop one on you, finding them
    in/near an enemy's city also a good reason to do all you can
    to destroy/take the units/city. Depending on how the missile
    warheads are set up a player can easily set an enemy back two
    weeks in just be dropping a medium radii neutron warhead in
    the right place. If the game is set up with larger more nasty
    weapons players can be COMPLETELY eliminated with two or
    three missiles. Is it any wonder that everyone is as paranoid
    about them in this game as they are in real life?
     The first person to use one of these in a game is usually
    the first person to be eliminated from the game, everyone
    else tends to jump all over them. If the need does arise when
    you need to use missiles look over the situation carefully
    before arming them, consider what do you really want to
    accomplish. Do you want to erradicate a player completely
    from the game and make certain that nobody moves through that
    territory again? Or would simply destroying all the units
    within a given region suffice? Or maybe destroying all the
    units and freeing all the cities? Generally the level of
    retaliation rises to at least the level of your attack, so be
    prepared when you give the gift that'll keep on giving.

  Engineers:
  ~~~~~~~~~~
     When you need to cut a pass through mountains, fill in a
    swamp, ford a river, or build a new city you need an
    engineer. The 'Army Corp of Engineers' is responsible for
    handling all these tasks and will generally take several days
    to accomplish any one of them. Engineers are what might be
    termed no offense/low defense units, attacking with them is
    usually suicidal. They tend to move slowly, but they get the
    job done.
     If it takes an engineer 4 days to cut a pass or ford a river
    it will take him 2 days to fill a swamp (Half the time). To
    build a city an engineer needs a construction crew, and as is
    typical for government project it takes him as many days as
    he needs armies (So if an engineer need 5 armies to build a
    city, it's going to take him 5 days).
     Engineers aren't terribly useful in the early part of the game,
    when there are plenty of free cities and the terrain has yet
    to be fully mapped. They usually hit their high usage in
    terms of terrain modification during the breakout when the
    need to bypass the normal and obvious attack routes is most
    needed. During the consolidation when there tend to be a lot
    of loose armies floating around engineers can make good use
    of them while increasing a player's cities.

  Dredges:
  ~~~~~~~~
     Dredges are the ship equivalents to engineers, though they
    aren't quite as versatile. Given a certain amount of time a
    dredge can cut a channel of water through a piece of land,
    given half that time and a dredge can cut through a swamp.
    Dredges see most of their use during the breakout, but those
    that survive that period of the game are often used by
    players to give water access to inland cities near coasts.