From: gwills@graceland.att.com (11265-Graham Wills) Description: Re: Awful Green Things A new Awful Green question: Game balance. In the games I've played, it seems like the crew has a fairly strong disadvantage. They get eaten a lot. I've tried carefully testing weapons, mad heroic attacks and strategic fortifications, but it all leads to the same result. How do other people find the balance? What are good crew strategies? -Graham Wills Of course when both the fuel and the comm beamer do 1 die fragments and the gas grenades grow and the extinguishers have no effect, as in the last game I played, hope definitely stops welling eternal. -- Graham Wills Data Visualization / Software Research (11265) gwills@research.att.com AT&T Bell Laboratories, Indian Hill, Naperville IL From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) Description: Re: Awful Green Things I used to think that the crew couldn't lose. But after playing several games and keeping track of the results, I now think it depends a lot on the initial starting roll. If the green things get one of the weaker starting forces (e.g., rolls of 1-3) I think the crew should very rarely lose. But with the stronger starting forces the green things might even have a slight edge. David desJardins -- Copyright 1994 David desJardins. Unlimited permission is granted to quote from this posting for non-commercial use as long as attribution is given. From: curtis@euclid.uoregon.edu (Aaron Curtis) Description: Re: Awful Green Things I'm also of the opinion that the game is unbalanced toward the Green Things, but not so much that the game is unwinnable by the crew. My strategy is to try as many weapons as possible as soon as possible. The crew is doomed without an effective weapon. Try to use Leadfoot and the electric fence to herd the Green Things into one area of the ship, so that when you do find an effective area effect weapon you can use it to wipe out many of them at once. No strategy is foolproof, as you could get particularly bad chit draws. But, if you test all of them fairly quickly, you can learn early that you are doomed and try to escape via life pod. Then you can start the next game that much sooner. -- Aaron Curtis curtis@euclid.uoregon.edu From: pmwg1641@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Peter M. White) Description: Re: Awful Green Things The only meaningful strategy I have seen in this game is to test area effect weapons with wild enthusiam, starting with a fire extinguisher. You pretty desperately need 1 or 2 area effect weapons that do 3 dice or shrink for the crew to stand a good chance. --Peter p-white@uiuc.edu P.S. Ahhh...the memories. Like hiding behind the electric fence holding a "shrink" hypodermic, waiting for Them to come. Or Fire Extinguisher! FRAGMENTS!!!! Runawayrunawayrunaway. From: vis@world.std.com (Tom R Courtney) Description: Re: Awful Green Things People often overlook the lifeboats in their planning. A good crew strategy is to try to secure the lifeboat area and threaten to leave on all three ships. You can try to jam 111+ points on the big boat, and a total of 111+ points on the small boats and head for home. I never did an exact probability calculation, but eyeballing seemed to yield a 40% chance of a boat getting back to Snudl-1. That means if you get all three boats off, you have about a 50% chance of winning the game on points. That means a possible crew strategy is to run for the boats, testing to see if they get a good area weapon. It also means the Green Things can't just hole up and grow, but either have to fight for the lifeboat areas (not so easy with the Robot so close,) kill enough crewmembers quickly to give only 1 shot at winning, or turn the game into a coin flip. Closing off the boat areas is not an insurmountable task for the green things, but it is something they have to worry about. Tom Courtney From: ccamfiel@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Chris Camfield) Description: Re: Awful Green Things In article , 11265-Graham Wills wrote: >Of course when both the fuel and the comm beamer do 1 die fragments and >the gas grenades grow and the extinguishers have no effect, as in the last >game I played, hope definitely stops welling eternal. That's when you RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!! Oops, I mean the lifeboats. :) The crew's survival depends a lot upon what weapons do what, which makes it a question of luck, really. High damage area effect weapons are a must-have. If not, you probably are in trouble... -- Christopher Camfield (ccamfiel@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca) "Oh Sweetwater, sometimes it feels like ancient Rome..." (The JBC) "Hey now, hey now, don't dream it's over..." (Crowded House) From: vutpakdi@hdss22.houston.nam.slb.com (Ron Vutpakdi) Description: Re: Awful Green Things Oh, I'm not really sure that the game is unbalanced towards the Awful Green Things. Kinda comes down to if the crew can find a good area of effect weapon fast enough. My tactics are good H2H crew and Leadfoot going for green things (en masse) and the other crew madly trying out different weapons (usually protected by some H2H crew). Part of the trick is to *not* try out an area of effect weapon on > 1 green thing at once. I once had a crew member toss in a can of rocket fuel in the corridor only to end up with close to 18 fragments. :-} Ron -- ****************************************************************************** Ron Vutpakdi * Schlumberger Well Services vutpakdi@houston.wireline.slb.com * From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) Description: Re: Awful Green Things Ron Vutpakdi writes: > Part of the trick is to *not* try out an area of effect weapon on > 1 > green thing at once. I once had a crew member toss in a can of rocket > fuel in the corridor only to end up with close to 18 fragments. :-} This is not always so bad. Once you have a big pile of fragments, you can use fragmentation weapons on other green things elsewhere on the map, and they are automatically eliminated (because all of the fragment counters are already in play). Admittedly 22 fragments is a lot, but it can be manageable if all of the adults are gone. I've won games this way. David desJardins -- Copyright 1994 David desJardins. Unlimited permission is granted to quote from this posting for non-commercial use as long as attribution is given. From: pmwg1641@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Peter M. White) Description: Re: Awful Green Things desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) writes: >This is not always so bad. Once you have a big pile of fragments, you >can use fragmentation weapons on other green things elsewhere on the >map, and they are automatically eliminated (because all of the fragment >counters are already in play). Admittedly 22 fragments is a lot, but it >can be manageable if all of the adults are gone. I've won games this >way. I have a question that I do not think was covered clearly in the rules. How do fragments grow? As I recall, fragments turn into baby Greenies and eggs turn into baby greenies, but do they grow during the same growth cycle? Geez...22 fragments makes for a lot of baby Green Things. Good time for an area shrink effect. --Peter p-white@uiuc.edu From: vis@world.std.com (Tom R Courtney) Description: Re: Awful Green Things pmwg1641@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Peter M. White) writes: >I have a question that I do not think was covered clearly in the rules. >How do fragments grow? As I recall, fragments turn into baby Greenies >and eggs turn into baby greenies, but do they grow during the same >growth cycle? When all else fails, read the manual. I don't know about the Steve Jackson version, but here is what it says in the TSR version, under "MONSTER PLAYER'S TURN": 1. GROW - All monsters of any one level, i.e. fragments, Babies, Eggs, or Adults are replaced with a monster of the next higher level. Fragments or Eggs grow into Babies, Babies grow into Adults, and Adults lay Eggs. Seems pretty clear and definitive. Tom Courtney From: neal_sofge@rand.org (Neal Sofge) Description: Re: Awful Green Things In Article , vis@world.std.com (Tom R Courtney) wrote: >pmwg1641@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Peter M. White) writes: >1. GROW - All monsters of any one level, i.e. fragments, Babies, Eggs, or >Adults are replaced with a monster of the next higher level. Fragments or Eggs >grow into Babies, Babies grow into Adults, and Adults lay Eggs. > > >Seems pretty clear and definitive. I can see where the ambiguity resides - in the second paragraph, frags and eggs are referred to in one phrase, so it's possible to interpret that as meaning they both grow at the same time. It seems to me that the first paragraph makes a clear distinction between the two, so either frags or eggs, but not both, can grow in a single turn. [I can hear the cry now: RULES LAWYER! But no, I'm a rules _legislator_.] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Neal Sofge (Neal_Sofge@rand.org) | Life is an RPG, run by an idiot, These are my opinions, not RAND's. | Full of badly designed mechanics, Home/FMG: neals@aol.com (slow) | Signifying nothing.