Trade War Newbies: In for the Long Haul

Trade Wars is a long term game. It takes a month to Shield a Mountainous planet. There is strategy, there is endurance, there is luck and wisdom. Killing other players isn’t winning unless it is at the end of the game. Non-Tourney games have unlimited reincarnation. Further, to log on and kill others means you play by yourself. You can not win on a game in which you are the only player. Chasing others off the Game is automatic losing. The Sysop, doing a periodic sweep of his games will rebang the Universe.

As a newbie, your first duty is to avoid games where psychopaths lurk.
They will make you hate the game and never play it again.

One bad experience, especially if it is your first, can be devastating.

A Search of games at www.thestardock.com will reveal that some have only one player. If it is a new game, meaning the Universe has just been Banged, get on. If it’s an older game, (about ten days) and there’s
only one player, do a screen capture before you join.

You will see the players and their ranking. This might not be much to go on, join, and read the daily logs from the beginning. If you see for the past few days it’s only ‘The Ferrangi moved’,  this means nothing
is going on and the  players might have abandoned the game.

However; ‘active’ one Player games are 99.999% being played by a psychopath who wants to play with himself; (we call this masturbation).

Psychopaths, at the far end of their sickness will blow up Space Stations. Takes a lot of fighters, gets nothing, but hey…this guy is very sick.

Psychopaths will throw mines in all lanes he can, park fighters in promising corners just to prevent you from using them.

If you find yourself on a game with a psychopath, self-destruct and find another game. You self destruct as a symbol to the idiot that you are not qualified to deal with his disease.

Let me emphasise, You can NEVER win a game if you are the only player. If you are using the game for practice, so go around and around until the Sysop rebangs the universe fine. You can try playing evil if you’ve always
been good.

Another tip is to avoid games with high or unlimited turns. These games are being played by programs.
I don’t know where the enjoyment is to activate a script, go to sleep and wake up to find out what your computer did all night, but it takes all kinds.

Always look for low turn games. No more than five hundred turns at the top, two hundred and fifty at the bottom of the scale. These are games played by people who know the game. They don’t use scripts, they
aren’t off their meds.

Many seasoned players will help Newbies. You can send them messages, chat to them if they are on the same time as you are or send them mail. But be careful, some of them can’t be trusted, so have some caution.

A final point;

Never get sentimental;
There is always another game.