Strategies and Hints for Barren Realms Elite by: Phantom and Jaguar


Version 1.2 Release date: 11/23/95
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Table of Contents:

a. Cardinal Rules of Warfare

I. Starting
a. Tax/military production
b. Regions

II. Population

III. Military
a. Pros/Cons of military unit
b. Maintenance
c. Covert Operations

IV. IP War
a. Trading/Specializing/Co-ordination
b. Planetary Tactics
1. Attacks
2. S-3 Sabres
3. Quick Strike IP Wars
4. SDI Defense

V. Cash Operations
a. Investments
b. Savings
c. Cash Relief/Loans

VI. Diplomacy
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Here comes lesson number one.
Learn and OBEY the followingCardinal Rules of Warfare:

1. Strategy is dictated by available tactics.

2. Know your options. (for gaming, know the rules)

3. Know what your forces can and cannot do.

4. Maintain a reserve force.

5. Know thy enemy.

6. Once committed to the offensive, STAY on the offensive.

7. Stay calm and think clearly.

8. Aggressiveness is a force multiplier.

9. Greed kills.

10. Fear Works.

11. Destroy the enemy's ABILITY to wage war, not the enemy.

12. Fight on your own terms.

Start up tactic ----------------------------------------------------------------- Starting is the MOST critical part of the game. If you start well you will have better chances of having a good game. First of all you should look at the number of years you have in protection (contrary to some people's belief, PROTECTION IS GOOD!!!). You will probably have anywhere from 20-70 years of protection. The less years you have the more you have to build your military early. Normally I don't build up any military until after the third day. -----------------------------------------------------------------

STARTING
As soon as you start I would set my industrial regions to produce 100% carriers(producing 100% carriers and selling them is more profitable than setting them to produce gold). Send out trade agreements at this point. You should not send or agree to any free trade agreements except with players who you know gots skillz. Free trade agreements damage your popular support if there are riots in the other person's empire. When you get to the planetary food market you can sell your excess food to make some cash. When you are established in the game (after about 50-60 turns) you should keep a surplus in case food becomes unavailable at the planetary food market.

---------------------Tax Rate---------------------
Do not get any loans from the bank yet...most of the time the bank won't let you borrow enough money to make a difference. When you get to the Purchasing Menu, go to the System Menu using the (*) option. I usually set my tax rate to around 9-10%. This allows for a large population growth which makes huge amounts of cash later in the game. Often times my population makes more than my other sources of income. If you find your population growth is slowing or stopped just buy a few urban regions.

---------------------Military Production--------------------- You should not buy any military or industrial regions during your first few days. However, in games that you don't have many years of protection (below or around 20), it is necessary to prepare for battle.

---------------------Regions--------------------- Ok, now, we're going to purchase as many regions as possible. At this point, any military given to you to start the game should be sold. Often times you receive a large tax refund at the beginning of the game, this helps greatly in getting off to a good start. I never buy any urban, industrial, or agricultural regions on your first turn. The type of money making regions you buy is up to you, it all depends on what type of player you are. Here is how I would buy regions on the first turn, given the money to purchase 150:

	Given	After Purchase
Coastal	3	153
River	0	0
Agricultural	2	2
Desert	5	5
Industrial	0	0
Urban	0	0
Mountain	5	5
Technology	0	0

NEVER BUY INDUSTRIAL ON YOUR FIRST TURN unless absolutely necessary. At this stage in the game, you need every penny to purchase more regions. NOT to throw away feeding and equipping a useless military. I buy mostly coastal/river regions in the first couple days, because I believe they are the best for cash production. Rivers produce huge amounts of cash but they kick over to produce food occasionally. After I have about 300 coastal regions, I start buying rivers, so that when they produce food I have the coastal regions to support me.

After the end of the first day (10 turns) my region count will usually look like this:

Coastal : 400
River : 200
Agricultural : 60
Desert : 5
Industrial : 0
Urban : 15
Mountain : 2
Technology : 0

Total of 675 regions
Coastal:River 2:1
All:Coastal 3:2


This is a great money making mix, which is exactly what you want in the early stages of the game. Agricultural regions will provide enough food for your growing populace. Don't worry about technology regions early, they don't help until later. Urban regions will draw a steady flow of people into the empire, the agricultural regions should more than cover the food they require.

The ratios vary according to how many years of protection you have and the hostility of the game. For instance, in a local game, where I would come out attacking my first turn out of protection, my regions might look like this:

Coastal : 100
River : 0
Agricultural : 20
Desert : 5
Industrial : 200
Urban : 10
Mountain : 100
Technology : 0

Total of 430 regions
Coastal:Industrial:Mountain 1:2:1
All:Industrial 2:1

This mix is geared toward preparing for battle as soon as I get out of protection. The farther into the game the more mountain regions I would buy because they are the most stable. Also they boost industrial productivity, making mountain regions my ideal choice in wartime and crisis. Coastal would be affected by war and civil unrest. As the game progressed the mix would be about 40% industrial and 40% mountain regions.

Of course most mixes change as the game progresses. Here is what I would normally have after accumulating 10k regions: Note: military purchasing disabled

Coastal : 2500
River : 2000
Agricultural : 400
Desert : 200
Urban : 200
Mountain : 200
Technology : 500

Total 10k regions
Money producing:Industrial 5:4
Industrial : 4000
All:Industrial 5:2

-=-=-=-=-=-Population-=-=-=-=-=- Most people don't use their population to the fullest advantage. I set my tax rate to 9% on the first turn. My population grows at a good rate and I can feed them easily using agricultural regions. Later in the game, when I am steadily growing and have 5k+ regions my tax gains often times become my key source of income. People earn you lots of cash if you can use your population effectively. If you begin to lose people just purchase some urban regions so you can gain more people.

To get an even larger population you should set your tax rate lower, at 1% on your first turn. When you reach the end of your first day change the tax rate to 2%. For example: Note: military purchasing enabled

	465 Regions	To move around 10k
Coastal	300	1000
River	100	1000
Agricultural	50	4400
Desert	0	0
Industrial	0	0
Urban	15	2500
Mountain	2	0
Technology	0	1000

As you grow set your tax rate to around 9%. This and the urban regions allows for huge population gains. Expect to make massive amounts of cash from taxes.

During the game if you want a boost in population just set your tax rate to 0% for a couple turns. Usually when I do this I gain between 18,000 and 25,000 million people each turn. But be sure to have plenty of food, and buy urban regions so the people won't leave when you raise the tax rate back up.

-\/-\/-\/-\/-\ Military /-\/-\/-\/-\/-\ On day three or four (depending on years of protection) you should start building up your military. What kind of military you produce and buy is entirely up to you, it depends on what kind of player you are. A lot of players are very conservative and never attack, those players should produce mainly turrets and some tanks. Others are very aggressive, they should produce a lot of jets (for offensive) and tanks (for defense and offense). Remember rule 4, maintain a reserve, since jets can't be used for defense you should have tanks.

Attack Points Chart

Unit	Offensive Points	Deffensive Points
Troopers	1	1
Jets	2	0
Turrets	0	2
Tanks	4	4
Bombers	0	0

-*= Note =*- bombers have no offensive or defensive strength. their only 2 purposes:
(1) carry bombs and s-ops
(2) destroy enemies grounded jets when sent in an attack.

Military Strategies and Tips:

ok, now, what's the best military, and why? well, it all depends on how you play. when i'm on the offensive, (which is always), i set my production as follows:

Military Mix

Unit	Offensive Mix	Defensive Mix
Trooper	15%	0%
Jets	45%	10%
Bombers	0%	0%
Turrets	10%	40%
Tanks	25%	50%
Carriers	5%	0%

pros/cons:

troopers: pros- troopers are very cheap to maintain and to buy. you can buy 7 troopers for the price of 1 tank(tank only has power of 4 troopers). % effectiveness of ip missile attacks is affected by your number of troops and theirs. cons- they are easily affected by t-ops and consume a lot of food.

jets: pros- they have incredible offensive strength. you can buy 6 jets for the price of one tank. cons- they cost a lot to maintain(second only to bombers) and require carriers. they can also be destroyed by sdi and the t-op bomb airbases is used exclusively on them.

turrets: pros- they are very strong defensive units and cannot be destroyed by t-ops. backbone of defense. cons- they cost almost as much as jets to maintain.

tanks: pros- they have equally strong offensive and defensive strength and are pretty inexpensive to maintain. cons- cost a lot to buy, are affected by strength of headquarters.

strategic hint: remember jets are useless for defense, so when calculating how much military to commit to an ip attack, always send 100% of your jets. if you're worried about being attacked while your forces are out attacking someone else, holding your jets back in reserve does you no good what-so-ever.

strategic hint: tanks vs. troopers. troopers are better in the short run because they cost 1/7 of a tank. but after about 450 turns(this has been mathematically worked out, but it would take a page to write it all) the cost of troopers makes them more than tanks. conclusion: in the short run troopers are better than tanks. so if you know you are going to be attacked soon, buy troopers.

--*= Military Maintenance =*-- *=Per Turn=*

Military Maintenance

	Set Low	Set Medium	Set High
Trooper	0.1	0.6	1.6
Jets	0.3	1.2	4.8
Turrets	0.255	0.9	3.6
Bombers	0.32	1.3	5.2
Tanks	0.15	0.6	2.4
Carriers	0.025	0.1	0.4

if you know you are going to be under heavy attack(long term), or you are a purely defensive player, here is what i recommend:

Troopers	0%
Jets	0%
Bombers	0%
Turrets	60%
Tanks	40%
Carriers	0%

if you want to use your industry to produce coins, don't! it's much more profitable to set your industry to produce 100% carriers, and then sell them!

remember, maintain a reserve at all times! if you launch an ip attack without maintaining some type of reserve force it means you have no defense against incoming attacks. this type of situation assumes one of three things:

1. you don't have sufficient forces for a reserve, in which case there's not much you can do about it.
2. you've just made a stupid, terrible mistake, and are about to lose a massive numbers of regions because you have no defense.
3. you've taken a calculated risk that you wouldn't be attacked while your forces were elsewhere. if you calculated correctly, then you succeed in your efforts, if not, go back to item 2.

---------------------covert operations--------------------- the more covert agents you have, the harder it is for enemy terrorist ops (inter-planetary and local) to succeed. if you can afford them, keep as many as you can on hand. if you're being hit with a lot of terrorist ops, buy a bunch of 'em. also terrorist prevention agreements combine the number of agents of the two empires involved to help each other defend against terrorist ops. intelligence alliances combine the number of agents to carry out terrorist ops against someone else. (both agreements work in local as well as ip games)

now: demoralization, dissensions, and bombing airbases. dissensions cause popular support to drop, which in turn causes the morale of the empire to drop. demoralization causes a drop in military morale(directly affecting the effectiveness of an empire's military). bombing airbases destroys the jets of an empire. remember rule 11? destroy the enemies ability to wage war. always send spies to find out the what the enemy has, so you know what to send.

Unit	Hit Them With
Troopers	Demoralization, Dissensions, Bomb Food Markets
Jets	Bomb Airbases
Turrets	Demoralization
Tanks	Demoralization, Sabotage HQ

alright, here's a little something you guys might be interested in, had to put it somewhere:

Net Worth Table

Troopers	0.250
Jets	0.325
Turrets	0.425
Bombers	3.000
Agents	0.500
Tanks	1.250
Carriers	1.000
Regions	12.50

the i-p wars: rule four of warfare states that your strategy is dictated by available tactics. the difference between the two is that if tactics are what you do in detail, strategy is what you do on the whole. a good team must have one thing, teamwork. now, here are the various tactics we use.

---------------------trading--------------------- ok, you all see the trading menu on every single turn. hardly any of you use the damn thing though, and this is perhaps the single most powerful tool in the game. you should send out tariff trade agreements to all the players on your team (except troublemakers which might have to be dealt with) on the first day. after the end of your protection good players (the ones who cooperate) can send you money, which you can use to purchase regions, use the money you make from the regions to pay the players back (you should pay them back with a little interest just as a thank you). it is like taking out a loan from the bank except you can get much more from established teammates.

---------------------specializing--------------------- specializing and trading go hand in hand. before specializing, each major player should consult one another and decide who is specializing in what. at least one person should specialize in turrets, jets, troopers, and tanks. players should then trade what they are specializing in for what someone else is specializing in. it makes each player much more efficient, but requires a lot of teamwork.

---------------------co-ordination--------------------- without co-ordination a team won't win in big leagues. no buts. no exceptions. plain and simple. co-ordinate attacks, co- ordinate efforts with other planets. elect a good gc who knows the ins and outs of diplomacy. a good team should have a smart gc and probably a military co-ordinator who knows how to attack, when to attack, and where. each person on the team should know what the others are capable of. that way, with co-ordination they can work as one unit.

planetary tactics ok, you and your team want to take down an entire planet. well, here's how. say we're gonna target john do's bbs. everyone starts bombing the planetary food market. if they can't feed their people, they'll launch into civil war, and their empire is reduced to nothing in a day.

we also start sending terrorist ops, as many as allowed, to individual empires. remember, in warfare, if you want to win, you must destroy your enemy's ability to wage war (rule 11). whoever survives longest wins. employ whatever means possible to win. gooies kablooies are of course the most expensive, and effective, weapon, but they cost a huge amount of money. they can bring any team to their knees. employ whatever possible, including t-ops, s-ops, and military attacks.

-\|/-\| normal attack /-\|/-\| a normal individual attack is the same as the individual attack before the three categories were made. if successful it captures 15% of the enemies regions, military fights at 100% effectiveness. i use this as my default.

-\|/-\| quick strike /-\|/-\| a quick strike is similar to a guerilla attack in sre. your forces catch the enemy off guard and are able to fight at 115% effectiveness. however they can only take 10% of the enemies regions, and the two sides end the battle after losing 8% of their strength. with successful quick strikes you can hit an enemy hard and fast. even if you are smaller than your opponent, if you follow up some successful terrorist ops with a nicely timed quick strike you can do some damage to a larger opponent.

-\|/-\| extended battle /-\|/-\| the extended battle is the most draining of attacks. fighters only fight at 85% effectiveness but are able to capture 20% of an enemies regions if successful. if you are going up against a smaller enemy(example: you have 300k net and they have 200k) you probably couldn't win 2 quick strikes, and could probably only win 1 normal attack. so use an extended battle and you will be able to capture 20% compared to 15% for a normal attack.

---------------------s-3 sabre--------------------- i mostly use setting 7, which most frequently destroys regions, or setting 4, which most frequently destroys airbases. however nothing is certain, the dial often "slips" to a number close to the one selected. s-3 settings:

-= = Well, I originally had these in here. But I thought twice about it. If you want em that bad test em yourself. BD I can't give EVERYTHING I know.

Anyway, back to taking out that team. You should first successfully destroy the morale of the people and military. Use chemical bombs and t-ops to reduce population and support. Keep up pressure through constant attacks and nuclear bombs. GET THEM ON THE DEFENSIVE!! Bomb their food markets till there is no food in them, and if you waste and take enough regions they will have no agricultural regions to feed their people. What this boils down to: the entire planet is in deep shit. YOU WIN!!

Another tactic I learned of which seems to work well against a team with good teamwork is the Doomsday Plan. Basically, your team targets the two or three best players on their team. Your team hits the two players with massive attacks, all s-ops and t-ops. The two or three players targeted will be in serious trouble and the rest of the team will aid them. The team will sink it's investments into the needy players, who must eventually collapse. The team will have committed and wasted a lot of their resources in a failed attempt to save the best players.

-+-+ Quick Strike IP Wars +-+- A lot of the time you don't want to inflict total death on a planet though do you? After a point, you LOSE more than you GAIN. So, you are a more powerful team, you want to prey on the weak; preferably someone with high regions, low networth. You: Strike quick, take as many regions as possible(no nukes or bombing ops, the point isn't to destroy the enemy). Then, make peace. ALL GREAT TEAMS must have the ability to carry this out quickly and precisely with little or no counterattacks. Usually individual attacks are better in this type of situation, since they give higher regions gains. The key is: All players strike quickly and simultaneously, use t-ops and attacks only. After 2, 4 days at most, send a message of peace. Unless the smaller board is suicidal, they will accept.

--------------------- SDI Defense --------------------- SDI is new to version 0.970+. I don't build my SDI up until I have had 2bil investment cycle for a while, some start earlier. Maximum spending begins at 100k a turn. I greatly encourage anyone investing in SDI to also invest in Technological regions to drive the maintenance of the SDI down. Maximum spending on SDI is 2 billion, even if it is not 100% complete. Anyway, SDI is a valuable addition to the defense of any empire. It destroys 50% of missiles targeted for you, and a large percentage of attacking jets.

Cash Operations

Invetsments: Invest! Invest! Invest! About the time I start producing my military, I begin investing. Usually I have 3-4k regions. My industrial regions produce military, and all my regions come from attacks I make. Unless I really need it I invest all of my money. Invest what you make each day for a 10 day period. In 10 days your first investment should come in, invest this plus what you make that day for another 10 days. This way I begin earning 2 billion a day (the maximum for version 0.964+)from investments pretty fast. Before you spend your investments you should have 2bil. coming in every day for 10 days. Invest what is necessary to earn 2bil in 10 days again and the rest is yours to spend. All your investments should total 20bil gold(version 0.97+).

--*=Savings=*-- often times the savings rate is better than the investment rate. if the savings rate is about 20% and investment 15% just put your cash in the bank for a couple days and invest it for a two day period. if it is much more than a 5% difference just leave your cash in the bank.

--*=Cash Relief/Loans=*-- the amount of cash the stingy ass bank lets you borrow depends on how many regions you have. the more you got, the more it gives. except it usually never lets you borrow enough to help you out, and it charges a ridiculously stupid interest rate. stay clear of borrowing cash unless on your last turn and you need a little money to make an attack or somethin.

diplomacy being a good diplomat is an important part of bre.

rules of diplomacy:

1. do not insult others (except for fun).

2. don't brag.

3. don't make fun of others cause they are sorry.

4. look for every possible advantageous ally.

5. know your enemies capabilities/weaknesses.

6. know your teammates capabilities.

7. don't blatantly cross your teammates/allies.

8. if you are the leader, listen to the others.

9. show you are a capable and strong leader.

10. don't drag out wars. make peace, move on.

if you are the leader constantly evaluate your situation and weigh the preferences of the players, after all, they are the ones who voted you in as galactic coordinator. be as fair as possible. always look for potential allies, even if they might be allies of your enemies. they have the potential to save you later. when you attack someone and beat them don't totally destroy, humiliate, and degrade them. for example, in a previous reset of league 619 the team i was on totally destroyed and humiliated another team. the next reset the same team attacked us early and wiped us out before we had a chance, they hammered us for almost a month. point made.

when you do beat someone(you are bound to if you have read this far) sign peace with them and move on. if you and another team come to a draw, make peace. neither of you will win from a game long war in which neither gain anything.

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ok, here's the summary.

teamwork is absolutely essential for success.

trading is the most important aspect of teamwork.

no single empire can survive against a team of empires.

no unorganized team can survive against a united team.

investing is the way to true individual success.

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above all, this is a game! don't take it too damn serious.

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