"Battleboard Starting Positions (BSP)" by Overworked - 04 February 2003
Starting position on the Stars! battle board is pre-determined - and based on the player order; i.e. the third race in order will always start in the same relative position.
[this is essentially a cut and paste of my post to the SBD forum with a few edits, I figure having a copy in this forum for reference is worth a few minutes work.]
This was worked out in a few alliance games, and used to great effect. In one case we had a team member not join a battle in order to make sure the main enemy group got sandwiched by two 1000+ beamer stacks.
Of course, LEit was the person who actually created the diagrams posted below, and all credit goes to him for this.
- Kurt
Additional Comment:
Battle preparation is a task of every good admiral. Your fleet's avenue of approach to the battlefield is part of this - depends on forces available, intelligence on enemy forces and capabilities. This can be reflected by making use of the information below.
This can be done by the expedient of transferring a single ship to allies the turn before. At this point you enter the grey world of how players/hosts define such activities as "fair". Much like defining "chaff", or acceptable "fleet split" rules, I suspect that defining rules for "battle board positioning" are going to be a matter of taste. In my opinion use of this knowledge should not be banned (and arguably, how can you prove it?), though players might want to show a little discretion about the methods used in attempting to manipulate it.
<begin> For players above 9: A is 10 B is 11 C is 12 D is 13 E is 14 F is 15 G is 16 These are in order by player number. Just take the lowest player in the battle for 1, next lowest for 2 and so on. 2: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . 4: . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . 5: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6: . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7: . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8: . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9: . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . 6 . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10: . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . 5 . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . . 8 . . . . 9 . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11: . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . A . 6 . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . . B . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12: . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . B . 4 . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C . . . 3 . A . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13: . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . 5 . 6 . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . 8 . . . . . D . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . A . B . C . . . . . . . . . . . . 14: . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . E . D . C . . . . . . . . . . B . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . . . . . . . . . . . 15: . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . E . D . C . . . . . . . . . . B . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . F . . . A . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . . . . . . . . . . . 16: . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . E . D . C . . . . . . . . . . B . . 2 . F . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G . 9 . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . . . . . . . . . . . <end>
