New Gunboat Alliance game

General
#1

Greeting fellow Conquerors and Vanquished foe alike.

I wish to make people aware of a really enjoyable game option and see if we can get a similar game going. The current variant I’m prosposing is based upon a standard gunboat game and the game 75 Alliance variation!

If you enjoy the fog of war created by a gunboat game, but wish more interaction with your team mates this may be for you. If you don’t really have the time, motivation or commitment to be dealing with 100s of emails a week as can happen in standard games this may also be for you. If you believe enemy teamwork is the reason you struggle to win the day, then this is a way to contain that issue also. Finally if you believe too many enemy neutrals collude then this game format will reduce their efficiency.

The rules for this game would be designed to create the original flavor of play by mail, allowing for some interaction, but not for the close co-ordination that is allowed in standard games.

Nations selection
15 positions available
FP Duos -Sinda/Cardolan, Arthedain/Woodmen, Dwarf/Northmen, Southern Gondor/Eothraim, North Gondor/Noldo
DS Duos -Cloud Lord/With King, Long Rider/Ice King, Quiet Avenger/Fire King, Dark Lieutenant/Dragon Lord
Neutrals -Rhuadar, Corsair, Harad, Easterling, Dunlending

There is a lot of discussion of the inbalance the neutrals can create. I believe they add a lot of flavor to the game, even if they can sometimes decide the game result simply based on there allegiance decisions. Courting neutral power factions is crucial in any game though. For this reason they are left as neutral, but because of there overall influence in the outcome of most games you only play 1 nation.

The FP selections are standard for 1650GB games except the FP nations usually assigned a neutral have been paired together. With the DS this could not be done as the result would be the pairing of the Cloud and Dragon Lords. This double scout/kill option had to be seperated and the logical option was to keep a CL presence in the northwest.

Communications
As per gunboat there is to be no discussion between players during turns. This is an honor based system and seems to work quite well within the ME community.

1 Message may be sent to each alliance every turn. That reduces work load for the moderators and stops people having to create more than 2-3 messages/turn. I’d like no limit on the word content as that saves auditing for size of message. If you write a 1000 word email your allies are just as likely to ignore it all together.

This creates the flavour of opening your allies messages as any ruler would. It allows allies to plan to help each other, but stops them short of putting in turns that totally compliment each other. The information is always a little out of date and subject to variations that happen in the week/s between envoys being sent and arriving at their destination.

Belated reports… Most information eventually flows through to nations by way of rumor, encounter or tale. To reflect this and to allow players to enjoy there exploits in a public forum players may post any results, including misinformation on the forum. The restriction is that this can not be done until 5 turns later. You can post turn 1 data for all to see once turn 6 has been run, but not before.

Changes to standard setup
none.

Rhuadar has neutrality to protect it’s MT so no free fort. The Northmen now have the Easterlings active in there area and that gives them options to counter the Long Ridier and Blind Sorceror forces. No free fortifications here either.

Character interaction
anything goes!

The history of middle earth is littered with examples of both the FP and the DS fighting as factions to attain superiority. Elves and Dwarves could nearly be considered traditional enemies. Examples of this include fighting over both Nauglamir and the death of Thingol. Elves see humans as weak, no longer having the strength of their original blood lines. The dark servants will always fight betweeen themselves to be the first under Sauron.

In game this equates to allowing allies to influence, steal or even assassinate there allies! You may do this to achieve victory points, to gain skill when moving to a conflicting camp hex or for any other reason you can justify to yourself. If you are willing to risk your team disintergrating for your personal needs then so be it. Again this means less auditing by the the moderators. There is nothing to audit, everything goes.

Any feedback or interest in this or a similar scenario is most welcome

Regards

Mike

#2

Yes, Mike, I would be interested. As it happens my current GB is ending this turn and something like this would fit-the-bill. GSI had precisely ONE rule and I have always thought Harley was excessively regulatory and intrusive. This is more like the original but with only 15 players, instead of 25, it could be filled more quickly than the Alliance game.

#3

This does have a lot of appeal to me too. Unfortunately, just received a new grudge game setup this week so I probably can’t find the time for another new game right now. If you could guarantee I got the NG/Noldo pair I’d find a way however… <g>

#4

I think this is a great Idea and would love to try this out – sign me up !! Do we notify ME or is this good enough just posting here !!

Mike

#5

Once Clint receives 1/3 or so of required players mailing him (off forum) he’ll usually “officially” open up a game for filling.

So this is basically, Gunboat with Neutrals and no restrictions on character orders, correct? How will the neutrals communicate again? Do Allegiances have to send to “all neturals” or how do they specify? How can Cloud Lord get together with the Dog to steal Urzahil’s artifacts if Communications is only per Allegiance?

#6

OK – e-mailing Clint now then – Cloud Lord – dog communications should be easy as its unlimited words so can just write – meet me at Oz to transfer to Ji – or something like that – but the neutrals bring up a good question , as you could be writing to all the neutrals and one could have declared but not changed icons and might get important info or something along those lines !!

#7

would love this scenerio but will likely fill before March 1 when I can begin to add new games.:mad:

#8

Greetings again

It is nice to here some interest has been generated by this idea. I’ll try to address some of the points raised above. Keep in mind this is an open suggestion for a game and I am happy to take feedback to ammend the parameters.

My thoughts on neutral interaction is that you can send one message of the same content to any or all of the neutrals that you name.

This allows intrigue and speculation to be rampant, especially for the neutrals. If any FP or DS player does not receive a missive from the relevant envoy then that nation may need to be treated with caution.

As for NG/Noldo as a pearing perhaps the simple “put those two nations together” theory was not best. An option that seems to have balance is NG/WM and No/Arthy.

Pearing anyone with the powerhouse of Northern Gondor is difficult. You can’t be peared with any nation that can fight on the same front as you. I believe Noldo should be kept away from any other character based nations as there co-ordination would be too effective.

I think most games take months to fill so we can have discussions on final structure of the game for a week or two. After that rules can be set and players can then make a value judgement on the merrets of the game.

Thankyou all for your feedback and interest.

Mike

#9

Okay I’ll wait and see what happens here regarding players interest. It looks an interesting variant so we’d like to promote it as best we can. Emailing us direct is the only way I take forward requests. (Had too many say they’d sign up here, and when it came to it they didn’t). So please do that.

A suggestion, and it’s only that, if that’s okay? Effectively with no limit on Words then players will cut and paste their turnsheets into the “diplo”. Did you intend that? I would recommend a long email (say 500 words) if you want. That should be plenty.

We’ll charge a small amount for the transfer of emails as it adds a lot to our work load each turn to do this (relatively to running a game). Probably something like £5 altogether.

Also can I suggest:
Noldo/NM, Dw/N Gondor as an option instead? I think the game will fill more easily then. Your format so I don’t want to stick my oar in too much. :wink:

Clint (GM)

#10

Could you please clarify how neutrals my communicate to the alliances and vice-versa? It looks like the neutrals could each send one note to the FP and one to the DS, but will each FP duo and each DS duo be able to send a note to each neutral?

#11

I agree with Clint NG/Dw and Noldo/NM.

Noldo/NG is to much of a powerhouse :slight_smile:

Otherwise looks very good!

#12

Clint , Should have gotten my e-mail stating I would play :slight_smile: !! And do people really try to paste there turnsheets ?? I don’t think that was the intention here , but just type written messages as we always have more to say then the limit allows :smiley: !! Hmm – your breakdown on Noldo/NM and Dw/N gondor is interesting to !!

Mike

#13

Thats is what he made it sound like , that each duo gets to send a note to each individual neutral to try and persuade them !!

#14

Mike, you might want to determine what goes on, or off, the Front Sheet. Example: No need for the OBN paragraphs, since everything goes.

#15

I think it would be more interesting, challenging and easier to monitor if each position was only allowed to send a single message each turn, but the message could be sent to any number of other nations.

#16

I couldn’t agree more – would definately make it more challenging and interesting if each neutral postion and each duo was only allowed to send a single message !!

#17

I think that would result in neutrals remaining neutral a lot longer…

#18

Yes it would :slight_smile: , I’m for it – anything to make the game more interesting !!

#19

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

It’s about working with limitations. Do you send a particular neutral a concrete offer, or do you include him in a more general message to your allies that might contain damaging information should he decide to join the other side?

I think it would significantly cut down on the banter, and focus on more significant information (or perhaps misinformation, given that Mr. Mills is interested in playing ;)).

#20

I rather think the turn reports should be separate from actual diplomatic communication. Perhaps the turn reports are made available to all members on the same team. Or not. If they’re available, make them available. If they’re not, make them off limits.

As for communication, I thought of the idea of sending emissaries. You can send a single message to nations where you have a character in their capital, meaning the character is delivering the message for you. And limit the communication to 200 characters. Or 500 characters. However long as is agreed, but I suggest it be number of characters, not words.

Well that’s my suggestion. It needs work but may resolve some of the possible issues. Pretty much you can talk to whoever you want but you have to really want to talk to them.