PlanetBaen Mobileread Alliance

Elfwreck · 05-02-2012, 02:13 PM

This could get moved to the Lounge, possibly, but since it's a game that gives free ebooks I thought it might belong here.

While there's already a discussion thread about Planet Baen, it's a bit scattered as we tried to figure out what's going on with the game. This is a post to consolidate some of that data and give newcomers a better idea what to expect.

This is nowhere near as organized as I'd like, but I thought it'd be nicer to get *something* up now than to wait a week or two until I've got time to write up something smooth.

The Basics:
Play online game; win free ebooks. Winning one or two is easy; more takes putting actual time into the game. It's a slow strategy(ish) worldbuilding game.

Sign up with your BaenBooks email address; the coupons are only redeemable by the address you use for the game.

Game is in beta testing; you're being paid ebooks to find the bugs. Baen wants feedback (at the Baen Bar), and they also want players; they'll only find out what works & what doesn't by getting a lot of people involved.

Gameplay:
Game takes place in "cycles" of four hours realtime each. Every "cycle" you get new stuff: your population grows, you get more money, you produce energy and military, and so on. Every cycle, you can spend "surge points" to tap into your assets and grow faster. This lets you complete tasks and spend money to level up.

When you level up, even in the middle of a cycle, you get a new batch of surge points. At the early levels, it's common to level up a few times in a single cycle.

The Board:
The board grows to a maximum of 8x8 (at least so far). Assets recharge in 4 cycles, 2 if they're on a Quick Charge space.

City Cores:
City cores are special; advice on how best to deal with them isn't yet clear, but some info is available. Everything else is safe to just throw around at random, at least at the early levels--the penalty for fixing low-level mistakes at level 5 or 6 isn't much.

Other Assets
You need Energy. That's the bottleneck at the mid-to-high levels, and probably remains the bottleneck. (Well, actually, *money* is the bottleneck, but you get a lot more money by letting things sit there and grow than by using money assets. And things grow best when they have enough energy.)

Military is your protection against Whacks (random problems). Bliss is your backup resources when you're low on energy or food. Population is what you'll need at higher levels to grow faster.

These terms will very likely make no sense until about level 3 or 4.

You get an ebook for every 5 levels. (I think. Someone tell me if I'm wrong.) Getting to level 5 is easy. Getting to level 10 takes time; the switch from "~5000 bucks to go up a level" at the low end to "340,000" to go to level 8 is substantial.

Projects:
At low levels, you have to complete projects to go up levels: Buy resources, put some of them on your board (you can only have 4 unplaced resources at a time), and then pay to complete the project.

Fixes:
Mistake fixes cost money, which takes time to develop. Walking away from the game for two days is probably the least frustrating way to get the resources necessary to rearrange one's board. (This is very likely a bug; Baen will need a way to convince people to come *back* after they've left.)

Allies:
You get allies. (Well, you can get allies.) Allies are the other players; they can hand gifts to each other (and they do, because the gifts go away if they're not handed out). Gifts are apparently randomly available; if they're tied to one's politics or current assets, nobody here has figured out those details yet. People can probably throw gifts at random strangers as well. There doesn't seem to be any in-game benefit or change based on your allies, other than "get lots of them for more ebooks."

You get an ebook for getting 10 allies--it's unclear whether that's "people you add" or "people who mutually add you." However, the cost of allies doubles for each one; getting 10 is relatively easy; getting 25 for the next free ebook is very expensive.

Politics:
The game involves politics. Nobody here seems to know what they mean yet. It's possible that some resources aren't available based on politics, and it's possible that some do, or will, produce different amounts based on political skew. So far, we mostly seem to be ignoring politics.

The Mobileread Alliance:
Here's the list of players from Mobileread, which you can ally with, and many of them will ally back. If someone doesn't, assume that money is tight. It's easy to ally with the first half-dozen; after that, it gets noticeable; after 10, it gets downright pricey.

Different MR name and PB name:
Mobileread: PlanetBaen
AnemicOak: Rolo
ATDrake: Alexander the Drake
bgalbrecht: Francis7
BrianIsMe: Brian
Codetoad13: Marlowe York
colinsky: CRAIG
colleenFL: Ky
Crusader: MegaMan
DHNightshadow: Mercurius
ghostyjack: Bristol Bob
koland: BOTK
kraby: Proffy
Lemurion: Stark
MikeB1972: Mike
Pegster: Kalethea
rolalinii: Hild
scottken: ArchyToothless
travger: Trav

Same name at MR and PB:
Abtacha
Askyn
Cromag
Elfwreck
Freeshadow
gbm
Ginwen
Iphinome
Kaleissin
nightcolors
Oly
Orlok
sapphiresilver
theenframed
weedfreak
wyndslash
Xg4bX

Unknown name, but also playing:
khunnylex

ATDrake · 05-02-2012, 02:29 PM

As previously mentioned, I'm "Alexander the Drake".

E-books from alliances have been recently tweaked so that to get the 2nd alliance book, you now need 25 allies.

To keep City Cores from giving you unwanted stuff when you surge (too much Bliss or Population that you can't handle yet), place assets which produce the things you don't want in the squares around the cores, which will subtract from the core surges 1/2 their value. E.g. You have a Factory Farm that surges 400 Energy and 400 Population with every go which you can't yet feed and you only want the Energy: put some Population assets worth at least 800 combined around the core, maybe 200+300+250+100 and that will keep the core from giving you the excess Population every time you surge it.

The game seems to be trended towards giving free-market libertarians more in the way of Bucks and system gifts (apparently people who're strongly oriented towards that on the selection sliders get 6 per cycle instead of the 3 that I get as a No Party centrist). However, apparently the free market people are unable to buy certain desirable resources which are labelled as Government and have to do without. It is supposed to cost you Bucks to change your political alignment, with a higher price at higher levels.

You can gift & re-gift to random people, not just ones on the alliance lists. At a certain point your hoard will declare itself full and you will stop receiving system and player gifts.

Elfwreck · 05-02-2012, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ATDrake

As previously mentioned, I'm "Alexander the Drake".

Sorry; fixed now.

Quote:

E-books from alliances have been recently tweaked so that to get the 2nd alliance book, you now need 25 allies.

Eep. I'll edit in a while.

Quote:

To keep City Cores from giving you unwanted stuff when you surge (too much Bliss or Population that you can't handle yet), place assets which produce the things you don't want in the squares around the cores, which will subtract from the core surges 1/2 their value. E.g. You have a Factory Farm that surges 400 Energy and 400 Population with every go which you can't yet feed and you only want the Energy: put some Population assets worth at least 800 combined around the core, maybe 200+300+250+100 and that will keep the core from giving you the excess Population every time you surge it.

Thanks.

Also worth noting: to upgrade a city core, you need exactly three unsurged, upgraded (current level), different-producing assets around it. And when you upgrade the city, *all* the assets touching it, surged or not, will be absorbed into it.

Quote:

The game seems to be trended towards giving free-market libertarians more in the way of Bucks and system gifts

When the game is more stable, I'll set up another ID and find out how far one can get with vegan hippie colonists who disdain military and unrenewable resources. (Not that they won't have any; 0 military is likely almost impossible--but I want to find out what the minimum effective level is.)

Freeshadow · 05-02-2012, 04:39 PM

Politics i.e. Freedoms change the bonus money assets produce each round.

The formulas for how things influence each other are shown when you click on the line in the summary box, i. e. the one where your level is shown in too.

Elfwreck · 05-06-2012, 09:56 AM

All Freeholds are on the same timer-cycle (confirmed at the Baen Bar) to eventually allow cooperation between them.

You cannot place a City asset on a Quick Charge space nor within the radius of another City asset.

All Whacks charge an amount of Military to make them go away; the majority cost "1% of your Bliss," but some cost 5% of Bliss, or 5% of your current Military, or a percentage of your Baen Bucks.

There is not yet a list of all Whacks, their cost-to-go-away, and their penalties if not paid to go away (except to note that they all cost a lot more to take the hit).

koland · 05-06-2012, 10:20 AM

Unless, that is, you get hit with 15% of bucks in military (the crows seem variable, as I've seen as high as 15% and as low as 1%; regardless, it is almost always cheaper to take this one, at higher levels).

Elfwreck · 05-06-2012, 11:27 AM

As far as I can tell, the purpose of military is to take Whacks. I'd never have an objection to paying a % of Military; the only worries I have is getting hit with a % of Bucks that I don't have military to cover.

It's possible I'm blasé about this because I have a swarm of Military gifts stacked up in my hoard, and if/when I run through those, I'll be more concerned.

The game needs something to *do* at the higher levels.

Right now, I've got enough Bucks to jump to level 11, but if I do that, I'll get slammed with energy fees I can't yet match; I'm considering waiting 1 more cycle and building up energy before I make the level jump. I can't see that it matters to gain levels as fast as possible--I've got a long way before getting to level 15 no matter what I do.

bgalbrecht · 05-06-2012, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Right now, I've got enough Bucks to jump to level 11, but if I do that, I'll get slammed with energy fees I can't yet match; I'm considering waiting 1 more cycle and building up energy before I make the level jump. I can't see that it matters to gain levels as fast as possible--I've got a long way before getting to level 15 no matter what I do.

In general, I think the best strategy seems to have at least 10 thorium reactors upgraded to your current level plus another 5 somewhere on the grid to use after an upgrade. You should be able to surge 5 reactors in the quick surge section and get your energy up to the amount needed by your population in a cycle or two, at which time, you can either use gifted population or surge a population asset. I think that it's OK to at a 5% bliss loss because your energy is too low. When you upgrade, level up all of your assets, otherwise they'll only be able to surge their minimum value even if they were upgraded at a lower level.

travger · 05-06-2012, 04:25 PM

Thorium reactor gives better yield at higher levels:

4100/9= 455.5
6150/10= 610
8200/11= 745
10250/12= 854
12300/13= 946
14350/14= 1025
16400/15= 1093

as do all assets.

Elfwreck · 05-06-2012, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

I think that it's OK to at a 5% bliss loss because your energy is too low.

It looks like if you're running at a bliss loss from energy or food, you don't get the 2% automatic population growth, so that's a reason to keep up with it unless you're deliberately dropping bliss to keep the Whack costs down.

cromag · 05-06-2012, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

All Freeholds are on the same timer-cycle (confirmed at the Baen Bar) to eventually allow cooperation between them.

You cannot place a City asset on a Quick Charge space nor within the radius of another City asset.

All Whacks charge an amount of Military to make them go away; the majority cost "1% of your Bliss," but some cost 5% of Bliss, or 5% of your current Military, or a percentage of your Baen Bucks.

There is not yet a list of all Whacks, their cost-to-go-away, and their penalties if not paid to go away (except to note that they all cost a lot more to take the hit).

I was recently hit with a Plague Whack that took a percentage of my population in military. I paid it off rather than taking the Whack.

Freeshadow · 05-06-2012, 08:57 PM

Below you see a screenie of my asset grid; as we know, the placement of the fsctory farm is something we have to live with. the red $ marking an asset means I just put it on to sit around and spit out money - no upgrades intended.

Feel free to discuss effectiveness or copy if wanted.

Ginwen · 05-06-2012, 09:24 PM

I'm curious why not upgrade those. It could be a display error, but when I buy a public ansible link and upgrade to my current level (14) for 62,000 baen bucks, it updates my output per turn by 10k, so only a bit over 6 turns to make it back. It doesn't say any more on the tile, but anything I upgrade appears to add to my total bucks per turn.

Freeshadow · 05-06-2012, 11:16 PM

Ginny you speak about bucks output per cycle?
Strange because in my case this remains static.
Just checked two ansibles of different levels.

Ginwen · 05-07-2012, 01:50 AM

It looks like it's static on the "plat", but when I upgrade, it goes up on the total bucks per cycle display.

05-02-2012, 02:13 PM	#1
Elfwreck Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,185 Karma: 25133758 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)	PlanetBaen Mobileread Alliance This could get moved to the Lounge, possibly, but since it's a game that gives free ebooks I thought it might belong here. While there's already a discussion thread about Planet Baen, it's a bit scattered as we tried to figure out what's going on with the game. This is a post to consolidate some of that data and give newcomers a better idea what to expect. This is nowhere near as organized as I'd like, but I thought it'd be nicer to get something up now than to wait a week or two until I've got time to write up something smooth. The Basics: Play online game; win free ebooks. Winning one or two is easy; more takes putting actual time into the game. It's a slow strategy(ish) worldbuilding game. Sign up with your BaenBooks email address; the coupons are only redeemable by the address you use for the game. Game is in beta testing; you're being paid ebooks to find the bugs. Baen wants feedback (at the Baen Bar), and they also want players; they'll only find out what works & what doesn't by getting a lot of people involved. Gameplay: Game takes place in "cycles" of four hours realtime each. Every "cycle" you get new stuff: your population grows, you get more money, you produce energy and military, and so on. Every cycle, you can spend "surge points" to tap into your assets and grow faster. This lets you complete tasks and spend money to level up. When you level up, even in the middle of a cycle, you get a new batch of surge points. At the early levels, it's common to level up a few times in a single cycle. The Board: The board grows to a maximum of 8x8 (at least so far). Assets recharge in 4 cycles, 2 if they're on a Quick Charge space. City Cores: City cores are special; advice on how best to deal with them isn't yet clear, but some info is available. Everything else is safe to just throw around at random, at least at the early levels--the penalty for fixing low-level mistakes at level 5 or 6 isn't much. Other Assets You need Energy. That's the bottleneck at the mid-to-high levels, and probably remains the bottleneck. (Well, actually, money is the bottleneck, but you get a lot more money by letting things sit there and grow than by using money assets. And things grow best when they have enough energy.) Military is your protection against Whacks (random problems). Bliss is your backup resources when you're low on energy or food. Population is what you'll need at higher levels to grow faster. These terms will very likely make no sense until about level 3 or 4. You get an ebook for every 5 levels. (I think. Someone tell me if I'm wrong.) Getting to level 5 is easy. Getting to level 10 takes time; the switch from "~5000 bucks to go up a level" at the low end to "340,000" to go to level 8 is substantial. Projects: At low levels, you have to complete projects to go up levels: Buy resources, put some of them on your board (you can only have 4 unplaced resources at a time), and then pay to complete the project. Fixes: Mistake fixes cost money, which takes time to develop. Walking away from the game for two days is probably the least frustrating way to get the resources necessary to rearrange one's board. (This is very likely a bug; Baen will need a way to convince people to come back after they've left.) Allies: You get allies. (Well, you can get allies.) Allies are the other players; they can hand gifts to each other (and they do, because the gifts go away if they're not handed out). Gifts are apparently randomly available; if they're tied to one's politics or current assets, nobody here has figured out those details yet. People can probably throw gifts at random strangers as well. There doesn't seem to be any in-game benefit or change based on your allies, other than "get lots of them for more ebooks." You get an ebook for getting 10 allies--it's unclear whether that's "people you add" or "people who mutually add you." However, the cost of allies doubles for each one; getting 10 is relatively easy; getting 25 for the next free ebook is very expensive. Politics: The game involves politics. Nobody here seems to know what they mean yet. It's possible that some resources aren't available based on politics, and it's possible that some do, or will, produce different amounts based on political skew. So far, we mostly seem to be ignoring politics. The Mobileread Alliance: Here's the list of players from Mobileread, which you can ally with, and many of them will ally back. If someone doesn't, assume that money is tight. It's easy to ally with the first half-dozen; after that, it gets noticeable; after 10, it gets downright pricey. Different MR name and PB name: Mobileread: PlanetBaen AnemicOak: Rolo ATDrake: Alexander the Drake bgalbrecht: Francis7 BrianIsMe: Brian Codetoad13: Marlowe York colinsky: CRAIG colleenFL: Ky Crusader: MegaMan DHNightshadow: Mercurius ghostyjack: Bristol Bob koland: BOTK kraby: Proffy Lemurion: Stark MikeB1972: Mike Pegster: Kalethea rolalinii: Hild scottken: ArchyToothless travger: Trav Same name at MR and PB: Abtacha Askyn Cromag Elfwreck Freeshadow gbm Ginwen Iphinome Kaleissin nightcolors Oly Orlok sapphiresilver theenframed weedfreak wyndslash Xg4bX Unknown name, but also playing: khunnylex Last edited by Elfwreck; 05-03-2012 at 11:06 AM. Reason: edit ally info

05-02-2012, 02:29 PM	#2
ATDrake Wizzard Posts: 11,517 Karma: 33048258 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Roundworld Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia	As previously mentioned, I'm "Alexander the Drake". E-books from alliances have been recently tweaked so that to get the 2nd alliance book, you now need 25 allies. To keep City Cores from giving you unwanted stuff when you surge (too much Bliss or Population that you can't handle yet), place assets which produce the things you don't want in the squares around the cores, which will subtract from the core surges 1/2 their value. E.g. You have a Factory Farm that surges 400 Energy and 400 Population with every go which you can't yet feed and you only want the Energy: put some Population assets worth at least 800 combined around the core, maybe 200+300+250+100 and that will keep the core from giving you the excess Population every time you surge it. The game seems to be trended towards giving free-market libertarians more in the way of Bucks and system gifts (apparently people who're strongly oriented towards that on the selection sliders get 6 per cycle instead of the 3 that I get as a No Party centrist). However, apparently the free market people are unable to buy certain desirable resources which are labelled as Government and have to do without. It is supposed to cost you Bucks to change your political alignment, with a higher price at higher levels. You can gift & re-gift to random people, not just ones on the alliance lists. At a certain point your hoard will declare itself full and you will stop receiving system and player gifts. Last edited by ATDrake; 05-02-2012 at 02:33 PM.

05-06-2012, 08:57 PM	#12
Freeshadow temp. out of service Posts: 2,792 Karma: 24285242 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Duisburg (DE) Device: PB 623	My asset placement Below you see a screenie of my asset grid; as we know, the placement of the fsctory farm is something we have to live with. the red $ marking an asset means I just put it on to sit around and spit out money - no upgrades intended. Feel free to discuss effectiveness or copy if wanted. Attached Thumbnails Last edited by Freeshadow; 05-07-2012 at 04:21 PM. Reason: fact adjustment

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
mobileread.com/mobileread.mobi	oldyellr	Feedback	4	12-13-2011 03:41 AM
Hello MobileRead	das2058	Introduce Yourself	4	06-12-2011 10:33 AM
Request Partnering With The Blackboard Alliance Program	10tklz	enTourage Archive	2	06-02-2010 08:09 AM
Open Book Alliance	daesdaemar	News	0	08-21-2009 08:45 AM
Open Content Alliance launched	Brian	Lounge	2	10-03-2005 07:30 PM

05-02-2012, 04:39 PM	#4
Freeshadow temp. out of service Posts: 2,792 Karma: 24285242 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Duisburg (DE) Device: PB 623	Politics i.e. Freedoms change the bonus money assets produce each round. The formulas for how things influence each other are shown when you click on the line in the summary box, i. e. the one where your level is shown in too.

05-06-2012, 09:56 AM	#5
Elfwreck Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,185 Karma: 25133758 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)	All Freeholds are on the same timer-cycle (confirmed at the Baen Bar) to eventually allow cooperation between them. You cannot place a City asset on a Quick Charge space nor within the radius of another City asset. All Whacks charge an amount of Military to make them go away; the majority cost "1% of your Bliss," but some cost 5% of Bliss, or 5% of your current Military, or a percentage of your Baen Bucks. There is not yet a list of all Whacks, their cost-to-go-away, and their penalties if not paid to go away (except to note that they all cost a lot more to take the hit).

05-06-2012, 10:20 AM	#6
koland Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,560 Karma: 8033155 Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: TN, USA Device: kindle(all), nook, nookcolor, Sony, Kobo, epic, iphone, iPad, pc	Unless, that is, you get hit with 15% of bucks in military (the crows seem variable, as I've seen as high as 15% and as low as 1%; regardless, it is almost always cheaper to take this one, at higher levels).

05-06-2012, 11:27 AM	#7
Elfwreck Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,185 Karma: 25133758 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)	As far as I can tell, the purpose of military is to take Whacks. I'd never have an objection to paying a % of Military; the only worries I have is getting hit with a % of Bucks that I don't have military to cover. It's possible I'm blasé about this because I have a swarm of Military gifts stacked up in my hoard, and if/when I run through those, I'll be more concerned. The game needs something to do at the higher levels. Right now, I've got enough Bucks to jump to level 11, but if I do that, I'll get slammed with energy fees I can't yet match; I'm considering waiting 1 more cycle and building up energy before I make the level jump. I can't see that it matters to gain levels as fast as possible--I've got a long way before getting to level 15 no matter what I do.

05-06-2012, 04:25 PM	#9
travger Evangelist Posts: 480 Karma: 270594 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: palm tx, Windows7, Galaxy A5	Thorium reactor gives better yield at higher levels: 4100/9= 455.5 6150/10= 610 8200/11= 745 10250/12= 854 12300/13= 946 14350/14= 1025 16400/15= 1093 as do all assets.

05-06-2012, 09:24 PM	#13
Ginwen Addict Posts: 261 Karma: 777376 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Kent, WA Device: Kindle Touch/IPad	I'm curious why not upgrade those. It could be a display error, but when I buy a public ansible link and upgrade to my current level (14) for 62,000 baen bucks, it updates my output per turn by 10k, so only a bit over 6 turns to make it back. It doesn't say any more on the tile, but anything I upgrade appears to add to my total bucks per turn.

05-06-2012, 11:16 PM	#14
Freeshadow temp. out of service Posts: 2,792 Karma: 24285242 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Duisburg (DE) Device: PB 623	Ginny you speak about bucks output per cycle? Strange because in my case this remains static. Just checked two ansibles of different levels.

05-07-2012, 01:50 AM	#15
Ginwen Addict Posts: 261 Karma: 777376 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Kent, WA Device: Kindle Touch/IPad	It looks like it's static on the "plat", but when I upgrade, it goes up on the total bucks per cycle display.

Advert

Advert