Game Title: The Alliance Game
Game Concept: “The difference between a ‘team’ and an ‘alliance’ is that on a team, members are expected to sacrifice for the commonweal while in an alliance national interest is always foremost. Anything else is a breach-of-duty by a public official.” Ed Mills
Like GB, except:
* 1650 standard scenario
* limit is one nation per player. no exceptions.
* 10xDS, 10xFP, 5xN
* each nation may send no more than one diplo to each other nation in the game, every turn, 50 words or less
* diplos can include subterfuge, lies, etc. (e.g. a diplo can pretend to be from the IK, when it's in fact from NG)
* diplos can not reveal phone numbers, identity, email, or any contact information
* diplos are restricted to in-game information & strategy
* diplos could request help on attaining a VC
* the game is anonymous as to who is playing what nation, but 25 players are known
* First, Second and Third place finishers are determined by nation score plus Individual Nation VCs plus 200pt bonus for OR victory if you are nation who delivers OR to Mt Doom. First place finisher must be on the winning side. 2nd and 3rd place do not have to be on the winning side.
* Game ends when one One Ring victory occurs or when one allegiance (DS,FP) outnumbers the other 2:1 in active nations or when 2/3 of players on one allegiance (DS,FP) concede (dead nations counting as a vote to concede)
* there are no rules against taking any action against any character or nation
* dropped nations die. they are not picked up by another player
* there is no internet posting of information about the game (i.e. no dead nations list like in some of the GB games)
* no .pdf or .xml sharing allowed
* two week game cycle
If you’d like to play, please contact ME Games and give them your (5 nation?) set of nation preferences. This game should be loads of fun. It’s back to the way the game was played in the early days when postal mail delivered the turn every 2 weeks (and you waited by your mailbox with anticipation). There was very little communication between players, no email, no pdf or xml exchange. Lots of fog-of-war. there was certainly potential for in-fighting within an allegiance. So if you want a bit of nostalgia, or if you’re new to the game but want to experience what it used to be like, this is a fun chance to do so.
Thanks to Drew Carson for much help with the rules formation - it was his basic rule set based on Ed Mill’s concept that is the genesis for this format.
Excellent Ed. We might end up “allies” this once, mind you, that likely won’t stop you from trying to do to me what you’ve been trying to do to me in our other games…
Sign me up. Holt’s rules are not specific on how nation preferences are to be handled. Shall we hear from Clint on this one? How about a list of top 3 preferred, and bottom 3 least preferred? But no absolute veto capability in case everyone says they don’t want Noldo. <g>
Drew
Oh one other question: I assume the first diplo is composed after turn zeros are received, but have to be in to MEGames before T1, so that they can be sent out with the T1s? I.E., we are all forced to commit ourselves to openings without benefit of parley with our neighbors? Or should we have lag between receiving setups and first turn due, so that we can send and recieve one diplo before we have to submit T1? I can see it either way; just wanting to be sure we all know beforehand. Completely blind openings a la gunboat may be a trainwreck for some weak positions.
Drew, I think we’re trying to recreate the postal mail days of MEPBM. I had assumed that Diplos only go in coincident with orders, so you are correct that everyone’s openings are not coordinated and are “blind”. This is the same as it was in the old postal mail days.
If people want to coordinate openings, I think that actually makes it worse for the “weak” positions and would lean against that.
Diplos through the company don’t start until you have a file and are only delivered with the following turn. I would expect this is how it “was”, no? Noldo…right, right…better amend my starting positions…
When diplos were hand written index cards you soon got a feel for your team mates hand writing and were suspicious of anything else - that’s a little more difficult when it’s cut and pasted…
JonSteer - you are correct. I have no solution for the loss of looking at handwriting that is practical (sure everyone could handwrite cards and scan them and .pdfs of handwritten cards could be exchanged, but that would be a big overhead i think).
I think we just need to treat diplos with a healthy dose of caution. And there are lots of authentication schemes that people can employ if they’re a wee bit creative.
Well think very closely about the rules as set forth. Diplos are limited to each nation sending only one to each other nation. If you are Rhudaur and you get two from Arth but none from WK…
How do we arrange nation assignment? Everybody sends in 3-5 Nations he wants to play? Or do we, by signing up, just enter a “player pool” and then have a completely random assignment? I would find that cool. You’d have to cope with what you get…
[i]This sounds like a lot of fun. I would definitely sign up for a 2950 version, if one is ever run. 1650 I’m not too sure about, though.
Good luck filling the game. [/i]
Sorry not enough players for that.
Bernd if you want to play please email us directly with your list of nations please.
10 signed up (Bernd will be 11). Need the players who’ve sent me 3 choices to send me 5 please. I can possibly get one more player if the One Ring win condition was removed for reference but I suspect that you don’t want that.
What happens with players signing up together, is there any ruling on that?