We anticipate that as the virus spreads, some players will not be able to get their orders in. With team games, we hope that teammates will be able to step in and submit shadow orders. However for Gunboat games, obviously this isn’t possible.
In the past we have sometimes written orders ourselves to cover players, but this takes time, and so we may well not be able to do that for everyone. So we are calling for volunteers who would be willing to write shadow orders for players who are sick in Gunboat games.
Most importantly, you would need to be available at short notice. In an ideal world, this would mean that if we emailed you at 10am UK time asking if you could write some orders, you could get them back in before 2pm UK time. But clearly this isn’t an ideal world, so within 24 hours - so that the game would only be delayed by one day - would also be fine.
You will need to be an experienced player, as much for yourself as anything else - you don’t want to have to spend hours researching a position or game variant you’ve never played before.
That said, the idea of shadow orders is to simply keep a position alive and viable - to advance a plan if it is obvious, but otherwise to keep things much as they are. So natselling, definitely. Assassinating an enemy character discovered last turn, fine. But launching a major offensive, or attempting a market buyout, not so much. Mostly, characters should be kept out of danger and issued their normal training orders (610, 710, etc.) So you don’t need to know every feature of every nation.
We’d also want the orders in Joverseer file format. So if you submit orders in text form, I’m afraid you won’t be able to help in this instance.
Obviously we won’t allow someone to submit shadow turns for a Gunboat game they are playing in, on either side. And we would expect you to not to spread any information you find in the results.
If you think you might be up for helping out, or have any questions, then please do get in touch.
Thanks,
John and Clint