I noticed that there were references made in
another thread to the special FA games I've
organized. I thought I'd take a moment to
explain them.
LAS:
Sometime ago, some player who had gotten rather
frustrated with the power of agents in ME1000
proposed what he called a "Limited Agents Scenario",
where three of the SNA's were forbidden:
1. +20 Kidnap/Assassinate
2. Double-scouting
3. Stealth-rank bonus
I took up the idea and advertised for interested
players, for what in the US is called a team game,
i.e. teams of from 1-4 (or 1-2 if a Kingdom is
involved). I got enough response to fill a game
within just a couple months, and two more were
filled within the next 6 months or so. In addition,
I've played in two LAS grudge games.
Overall I think it has been a big improvement over
regular FA. It doesn't eliminate agents but it
reduces their importance down to reasonable levels,
and tends to delay the time when agents become
overpowering, so that you don't lose four characters
in your capital on turn 2 by four agents who
successfully scouted all your characters. (Including
your newly named 30-pt agent with 30 stealth, as
happened to me. In that game all my commanders
were taken out within about 5 turns.)
NKA:
However, I personally love ME for the economic and
military aspects, and I found even the limited
agent power in LAS to be more than I liked.
(I freely admit I haven't the flair or talent for
managing agents or for defending against them, and
I really don't like having my armies go away from
having its commanders nuked. But I also see agents
as a sort of "leveling" effect. It takes a lot of
planning, resource management and character orders
to mount military campaigns, but just a few high-level
agents can be immensely effective and doesn't require
as much effort or skill to wield. I've had discussions
about this and some players agree, some don't.)
Be that as it may, I decided to try to take LAS one
step further, and I invented NKA, which stands for
No Kidnapping or Assassinations. The only SNA
disallowed is +20 to kidnap or assassinate, and the
615 and 620 orders are completely disallowed. (So,
you either don't have agents or you use them for
other things.)
I have filled one NKA game that is up to turn 6, too
early to really compare it to LAS but so far so good.
I have also filled NKA#2 but we're waiting for the
setups to arrive and for Harlequin to finish getting
current DGE games up and running.
I have been in the process of taking team signups
for NKA#3, which is about 25% filled. With Harlequin
taking over from DGE and being more interested in
ME variants, possibly they will take over from me,
though I'm quite willing to continue to handle it.
But I'll wait to worry about it until they are past
the transition time.
Jeremy Richman
P.S. I'm still taking signups for NKA#3. If you
would like to sign up, send me an email and tell
me your team-size and your choice of allegiance
if you have one. I ask that if possible you
specify a backup choice of allegiance. (So far
in the three LAS games and two NKA games about 95%
of the teams or more have gotten their first choice.)
My email is: JeremyRichman@compuserve.com
