THE BARON

Hints for playing the BARON Character

In the early days of the Second Empire, aggressive World holders, known collectively as the Star Barons, expanded rapidly through the old Empire. Many races found it expedient to join a Baron's fiefdom for protection, for efficient management of planetary resources, and for the economic riches the rapacious Baron's promised. Despite some excesses by these power hungry Barons, these early days of expansion were mostly peaceful and served the common interests of all the races. As these baronies grew however, the Star Barons began to discover one another, other races, other forces, and the universe of known worlds that had seemed so vast began to feel crowded. Thus began what historians refer to as the Imperial Wars of the Second Empire.

- excerpt Encyclopaedia Galactica

BARON SCORING:

Each Turn:

• 4 points for each World owned.
• 1 point for each 10 population owned, or 2 robots, rounded down
• 1 point for each 5 Mines owned, rounded down, not to exceed total World Population.
• 1 point for each Factory owned that processes a Raw Material.
• 1 additional Imperial Credit earned at each fully producing world (factories =Imperial Credits produced) deposited at that factory world.

Gems: DIAMONDS

Relics:

• The Jade Scepter (Also Houri)
• The Iridium Palace (Also Warlord
• The Imperial Crown (Also Raider)
• The Silicon Chip (Also Terminator)

BARON ADVANTAGES: Each turn that EVERY factory on a world produces an Imperial Credit, the world produces 1 additional Imperial Credit, deposited there at that world. Barons can create more wealth than other characters by efficient world management. Not only is this attribute valuable to the Baron in purchasing power, it is also a powerful argument for "managing" worlds for other players. The Baron can produce extra wealth for use of the Starlords who are willing to let the Baron own and manage their worlds for them.

BARON STRATEGIES: You are the Baron. There will be either one or two other Barons in the game. Barons, at first glance are easy to understand. They are acquisitive. You get points for Worlds, Population, Raw Material Production, and working Factories. So your goal is easy, own a lot of worlds, particularly high population ones with factories and mines. And you will want to build mines to get factories to full production. With 350 worlds in each Universe, each Starlord can expect to capture roughly 22 of them. But a Baron will need many more worlds than that to do well before the end of the game. The important concept for a successful Baron is to understand is world ownership. Most players really don't need to own worlds. For some, owning worlds is a distinct disadvantage. But some of the other players you meet in Imperial Wars may need to be convinced of that by their friendly neighborhood Baron.

Barons should be able to easily create relationships with all the other characters in Imperial Wars if you think in terms of what their characters need but your two most obvious matches are the Trader and the Warlord.

THE TRADER
As a Baron, you will likely notice right away that most of your factory worlds cannot fully produce because there are not enough Raw Materials stockpiled on the planet. That’s usually because the world doesn’t have enough mines to produce Raw Materials. Mines are expensive but there are often Raw Materials on nearby worlds if you could get them to your needy factory worlds. Traders can most efficiently move Raw Materials from nearby worlds for you. Your large empire offers a nice safe place for a Trader to perform these tasks for you and he'll make points for doing it. You should consider trading fleets or even giving fleets to a Trader to make this happen. If the Trader will give you some of his worlds you will both prop ser even more.

THE HOURI
Just depends upon which character the chameleon Houri is playing this turn. A really good Houri ally can be whatever you need whenever you both need it. This is almost always a good combination in the short run. Check out the hints for all the character types with the important reminder that Houri's role changes will require quickly adapting tactics for you as well.

THE RAIDER
Raiders can be really uncomfortable neighbors unless you can make some accommodation with them. If they just have to Raid your worlds, show them targets that don’t have factories or Mines and it won’t hurt your points too much. You can trade a Raider some low-value worlds for Ravaging or offer to own his low-value worlds so they can be Raided. In return you'd like some high value worlds from him that you can manage. Production is important to him so he can have more ships to maintain his Raider advantage. While every character treasures fleets, he values them more than most. So you have lots of trade bait.

THE PHILOSOPHER
If it doesn't concern you too much whether your population has some fanatic followers of an obscure cult you can get along with Philosophers nicely. Unless, of course, they try to take over your worlds. Veteran Philosophers are very creative in finding ways to fly through your worlds gaining minions to their beliefs without hitting that 'tipping point' that will send a world into open rebellion. The nice thing about Philosophers is that is not in their best interest to own worlds. Their minions are much less important to them on worlds they own. You should try to gain the Philosophers trust and manage his worlds. If the Philosopher really trusts you, maybe even his Homeworld!

THE TERMINATOR
Barons have large empires and many worlds won't support much population. That can limit production. Friendly terminators can build working robots for you that are not dependent upon the world's economy and will work even more efficiently then people. Let them robotize those kinds of worlds in return for managing worlds for them. Terminators can be valuable if pesky Philosopher minions get too rowdy. Terminators are more than happy to robotize minions and guess what? Your Philosopher won't mind the martyr points he'll receive when that happens. Terminators are always short of resources, especially scout ships, which they turn into robots and they are very weak at the beginning of games. Help them improve production, give ships and protection in your empire, help them pick their targets (so they won't get silly and decide to destroy something you wish they wouldn't) and you have an essential ally in the end game.

THE WARLORD
The Warlord needs to conquer worlds, every turn, all the time, but he doesn’t get points for actually owning them once they are appropriated. As the recipient of his Tribute List, every world seized by force by the Warlord could automatically belong to you. How good is that? How can you get him to make you his favorite Tribute target? He needs fleets with ships on them. If he knew a Baron was creating war fleets for him, perhaps he would rather concentrate on his battle plans than managing his worlds. Maybe you could point out some targets owned by other players, and steering him well away from your worlds…

BARON HINTS FROM THE GALACTIC EFFECTUATOR: The Baron is driven to expand constantly. He needs many high Population, high Raw Material Production, and Factory, Worlds. He must be willing to trade and be creative in orchestrating alliances and intrigues to get them. Open conquest will tend to drive dangerous allies together against his power. The Baron must meet and become friends with many Starlords and seek creative ways to help them in return for managing their empires. Statesmanship is a necessity. There are no ends of complex combinations of character alliances that a Baron can sponsor. The Baron is threatened most by other Players who think they need World ownership. But constructive agreements can be forged with everyone in the game by carefully considering the Character Types of all the Starlords. He is very powerful and very, very rich but he is also very vulnerable because his borders are so long.

Barons will see a lot of worlds and have a lot of things to keep track of. Barons will take the immediate lead in the game and the challenge for them is to continue to grow fast enough to hold that front runner lead. A low ending score favors the Baron. Barons will need to be politically active and to create webs of alliances to hold off enemies and to keep any one player from taking bites out of their vast reach of worlds. There is usually a lot of traffic in the Baron’s empire so a safe place to store artifacts is needed. Barons should place high emphasis on getting as many point generating artifacts as early in the game as possible. Barons need lots of resources for trading so like all Starlords, they need to expand and explore as rapidly as possible in the early turns to find every possible fleet and world that isn’t nailed down.