Gavin, you are not only reverseing yourself you are defending a trench that has been abandoned. Harley has already acknowledged they have changed the game. See the List, thread “Middle Earth” dated 11-17-04, two entries.
Reviewing a preconception is one of the hardest things a human can do. Fortunately, both the issue and consequences are trivial. It is not like we are discussing the Nicean Creed.
It is understood that a person who has only played the European (Harley) game would be puzzled. Thise who have played both the European and Anerican (GSI) games can see the differences. To wit:
Immediate fill of drops. Comingleing of mini-teams and individuals in the 'indie' game. The contraction of the Random Victory Conditions as game-winning devices in games and on the PRS. The publishing of player names and contact info. The publishing of which nations were processed, special serviced, etc. A number of 'services' such as 'shadow orders' and provideing pdfs, on request, to team mates.
Now meditate on these changes and you will see that their intent and effect is to promote team play. Here is the shock, Gavin, this game was NOT designed as a team game----hence the need for these changes. You can read the Rukebook from cover to cover and never see the word ‘team’.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t object to the team game. My objection is that, now, it is only a team game.
You will note in Clints last post, above, the entire VC idea is on the agenda: “All bees into the hive, please. No ambitious/selfish/criminal/human behavior is allowed. This is a team game after all”.
Ed - I didn’t contradict myself. I said that they had changed the house rules, but not the game. You and I have a different concept of the what composes the game. To be clearer ME Games have not changed the game engine in any way (unless you have good evidence to the contrary). The house rules however have been ammended in a way that is positive for the game - although I guess you don’t see it the same way.
I have not seen any evidence to see that the designers originally intended the game not to be played as a team game. Yes there is an element of getting an individual win, but first you have to ensure that your team wins. Therefore that always assumed it was a team game but that at the end when you knew you were winning you would go for those extra bonus VCs that would help you win individually - something I feel hasn’t changed greatly (barring sabotaging your own side which Ed you claim is your great tactic).
My early experience of playing Middle Earth was severely marred by player dropouts, often as they would not tell the remainder of the team they were not dropping for several turns and you only found out on the third turn after they had SS’ed for the third turn. This often unbalanced the game in a major way and caused a game that could be fun to suddenly be blighted by random drops. Indeed it was the reason I gave up playing the game for about 4 years. The method of trying to fill dropped positions has helped the game tremendously.
I’m sure Ed that if you requested that your turn was never sent to your teammates then ME Games would be happy to oblige. Obviously if you were keeping your turn secret from the rest of the team I for one would be very nervous of playing with you.
Many players have a well-known playing style. If you know that a player tends to play a reckless military game, you can get an easy kill by suiciding on a couple of pop centres, for example. We should not know enemy mail addresses.
Good point. How would you respond to a neutral who asked your team to provide their e-mail addresses and player names to help him decide whether or not to join you?
You don’t give them and risk losing that neutral. So you attack him. Or ask him very clearly what the implications of not providing this information are and assess your options at that time.
Ah, the beauty of neutrals - so many possibilities (outside the Neutral Code of Conduct, of course…)
Ed - The Alliance game was formulated to attempt to rectify your complaints with a format that eliminated the modern communication mechanisms, had neutrals in the game, didn’t allow drops, had each player only playing one nation, etc. We’re midway into that game and can’t talk about it in specifics.
Yet, if there are rules changes for the Alliance game that will enhance the feel of play, or the allowable subterfuge and whatever it is that you’re looking for, then we could talk about that.
If you’re happy with the rules & feel of play in the Alliance game, then I am not sure what this discussion is about?
Yet, if there are rules changes for the Alliance game that will enhance the feel of play, or the allowable subterfuge and whatever it is that you’re looking for, then we could talk about that.
I’d suggest not yet until the game has ended. For reasons given before.
Stating that the game play has changed since I started and then saying I can’t be bothered to go back to that style, even if it was more fun is not really defeating my own arguement.
This isn’t really a thread about winning or loosing an arguement is it? I thought it was more…
What is the problem that needs to be restored
What are the suggestions that could fix the game
Do any of them have legs and is there a player base to try them
Probably lots of other things I’ve missed…
so not really a win/loose thread…
unless of course there is the “there’s nothing wrong at all with the game”… and by this I mean “don’t change anything, I’m happy the way it is now”.
Sorry this was not meant to be a comment aimed at winning / losing the arguement. What it was meant to show is that because of the changing nature of communications (ie. making it easier) people see that the old way was inefficient on time. As a result in general (Ed and a few other excepted) people do not want to go back to a time where they had to put so much extra work in to achieve a similar result. This is why these types of variants get less players (since it is so much more effort). There is a small core of people who do want this, and I think that things like the Alliance game helps fulfill that need.
The original discussion I seem to remember included an idea to have an online version. This is interesting as it takes the dynamic too far the other way, making it too easy to play (and thus lowering the expectation to pay for such a service). As a busines model for ME Games this is very poor - since games like Travian are already on the market and are free.
There were comments made earlier as to the how well the game fits into the flavour of the books. Ed seemed to imply that it used to have much more of a flavour tie in than now (which I disagree with). I’m a big fan of boardgame design and follow the German game designs quite closely. Very often these games have a very thin theme attached to a game mechanism. I would say that the ME PBM game is a medium to heavy theming (although there are a number of areas where it is not fully tied in). These are possible areas we could improve in the game - though I suspect a number of systems within the code would require a rewrite to do this. Clint has hinted that they could look at the VC system to make this more realistic and I suspect that this may be an area where a minimal change could provide a much better thematic tie in.
MEPBM is “easy to play”…? Consider an online app that takes you out of the internet/forum/email instant communication world. You log into an application, take JOverseer or Palantir combined with Autominister, for example, and get to see all your information, enter orders, etc. Whether you have a complete list of allies and information or NONE is completely in the control of the application programmer - you don’t have pdf’s and xml’s to email around the world. The game is played between the nations - not Gavin and Brad. Communication between nations is handled with a built in messaging system - recipe cards.
And, this is where the concept of opening the game up to other markets is to be explored. You and I are irrelevant in the scheme of things - we’re here paying our money and for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere. Clint should listen to what we “want” less and what we “think” will move the game forward more…
To be honest I wouldn’t say that ME is that difficult to play. The principle of giving each character two orders that are processed in sequence is quite easy to pick up.
The thing that is difficult is bringing the information gap between what is in the rulebook and understanding when things are likely to succeed. Also some of the behind the scenes things that occur (like when the maintenance of the nation is payed for). For example a beginner doesn’t know that a C10 will likely fail at a downgrade relations order. Yes the rulebook says that the order is Hard, but this doesn’t give the person playing the game an idea of the level of commander needed to normally succeed.
Creating such a guide to explain these things would probably be a really good thing to help beginners get into the game. At one point we suggested we got all E3’s collective advice together as he is a font of knowledge on these things.
The problem I have with the idea of an online game is that the market is not there for it. As I’ve already said there are such games out there already like Travian that are free to play that have a very fickle player base - payed for by online adverts. Most of these people would NOT pay to play a game - even if it was Middle Earth themed.
I’m also not sure whether ME Games license would cover this or not. The Tolkien estate is very tight on how they parcel up licenses and such a game may cut across the Lord of the Rings Online license.
the rulebook certainly gives a guide for Easy, Average, Hard orders.
I’ve published a ME Players Companion that I’ve posted on this forum every few months for years it seems, since my original ME Order Companion was published in Bree. Take a look for it.
there are hundreds of games online. I’ve played Fall of Rome a couple times and expect to again. Say it’s 1/4 as complex as MEPBM, but otherwise a turn-based, order-based game. Runs every 3 days, charges $8.95 a month, less than $1 a “turn” using their fully automated Java based app. There are quite a number of loyal and regular players.
Good point about the license, but it’s certainly worth investigating, as the PBM market continues to retract - and is only likely to accelerate in these coming years, yes/no?
Consider an online app that takes you out of the internet/forum/email instant communication world. You log into an application, take JOverseer or Palantir combined with Autominister, for example, and get to see all your information, enter orders, etc. Whether you have a complete list of allies and information or NONE is completely in the control of the application programmer - you don’t have pdf’s and xml’s to email around the world. The game is played between the nations - not Gavin and Brad. Communication between nations is handled with a built in messaging system - recipe cards.