Hell no we don’t invite the droppers back!
LOL. oh sure. blame it on me…
C’mon you guys can’t let me down like that! I made a journal entry of about ten lines for every five turns, like 0-5, 6-10 and so on. Thats not that much work. So grab your pdfs and catch up with me, will ya! 
Bernd,
i hereby promise to deliver more post-mortem analysis of my play than 10 lines per five turns. there. satisfied?
Dave
Only when it’s your fault… <g>
I was writing up a paragraph per turn, for the first, I dunno, 8 or 10 turns. It’s just not quite the same to write after the fact, as it is to write with the anticipation of the upcoming turn looming…
I am likewise playing in game 96 and I look forward to interesting discussion afterwards.
But whatever the reason, I do not think a player dropping in a no-drop game should be invited back to another no-drop game.
Alain
You’re right Dave, the DrL and Cors are a weak pairing… Cripple the Cors
and that can effectively put both nations out of the game. I would
prefer to see a paring of DogL/Cors and DrL/BS…
Just my 2 cents
Guy
GB games I have played in ended
36 = FP
136 = DS
84 = FP
97 = DS
6 = DS
No distinct FP advantage here. IMO drops rather then game balance have been the major decider in most of these games so I am interested to see how 94 & 96 pan out. There are also three other GB games running presently 97, 7 and 19 not sure if these are no-drops as well.
In the beginning I did advocate changing the Rhu start-up, but now I am not so sure I believe fiddling with the rules to attain game balance is the way forward. It is difficult without factoring out drops to say if one side has an advantage or not and also playing styles have evolved.
The only Rhudaur I know to have finished a GB intact was in 97 and he put that fact down to none of the FP NW nations turning up. I played it once myself and was creamed by turn9.
I was amazed how little, well actually nothing, the WK did to help out, this was also a common theme on game end from other Rhudaur players. GB is a different mentality although to even the newest of WK players there must be certain obvious benefits of lending the smallest of hand to your DS neighbour the fact that you don’t talk to them, see their pdf’s makes many/most revert to looking after their own and considering the Rhu as a useful little speedbump.
Does this need a rule change or just better play from the WK/DS. Or maybe this is good play as the 7/8 turns of quiet means the Dragons/Curses/Agents are on line and the NW FP have disposed of Rhu but have a real problem with the WK.
Having played or am presently playing 8 GB games it is actually interesting to see how with no collusion the playing styles have adapted and changed. I would agree the DrL / Cors combination is now much harder to play as it has become a primary target for the FP especially with the SG/Eoth combination.
Dwarves take GG, Eoth goes round the backdoor and takes his back-up, rest of Eoth go after DolG and the SG fleet pops up in Corsair land may not be fatal but is at least quite a depressing scenario and all within 2/3 turns.
However, doesn’t mean we should change the set-up to help them out, maybe we will see the CL moving agents to cover the approach to the DrLo back-up and his+LR cavalry heading for North Harad.
Conversely you can take the opposite argument and say it is not necessarily that the game has developed standardish openings but the fact that the SG/Wood + Noldo/Eoth combinations were changed to SG/Eoth that means this is a much more natural strategy for the SG/Eoth to adopt.
Maybe the solution is find pairings that leave no pair with any obvious target/strategy (easier said then done). Or to allocate pairs at random so that even no-one knows what combination they are up against (also with its weaknesses as you know that a Card/Arth or CL/QA combination would be drawn out the hat.)
Having said all that I think I have contradicted myself twice and come to no firm conclusions only to say that there are many nuances to GB that are yet to be explored that means no one really knows if one side or the other has an advantage.
[QUOTE=DaveHolt]Tim - please note that in GB 96, CO & DragL are out. So i’m not sure about your point on CO absorbing DragL losses… But as you say, we’ll analyze after these games are concluded.
I actually like the Dragon lord/Corsair pairing and would be willing to take my chances against Harad/Noldo and Southerngondor/Eothraim. If you get any help from the QA and or Cloud Lord throws in a couple of agents every now and then you can really do some damage. I think as the Dragon Lord however, you do need to be able to get one or two agent artifacts to help your nation out.
The problem in general is the Dragon Lord and Rhudaur are just week postions it doesn’t matter who they are paired with. If you run into a great military Haradwaith player, then yes I think the Corsairs will be in trouble also, but it should leave Mordor unscathed for a while.
Hopefully we can get most of game 94 to play the game again.
tim
How about a different approach… make WK Rhu one of the pairings, and xfer a CL town to each of them, otherwise standard set up. Overall the DS dont get any stronger - but WK Rhu get to coordinate vs the onslaught of the 6 or so nations that can come gunning for them…
I have suggested that to Clint before and I think it is definitely worth a try in one game. The drawback is of course there is no safe fallback in Mordor in this scenario and potentially there will be no additional support send from the other DS. If this position is not forgotten by the other DS and they send some (agent) support at least, I think this would be a good sollution.
Alain
I think the WK/Rhu combo is destined for early death.
In most cases I would agree; unless both raise taxes to 80% and
attacks with everything… It would need a very agressive player
to have any chance of working
And one major town can’t keep either of them alive- ICU for a failed state is much more than a secure capital. What kind of imperialist foreign policy is that?
Well, maybe. But based on the 5 gunboats I have been in, I would fancy my chances (or at least relish the challenge) 
It would be quite hard for Cardolan and Arthedain to commit to all-out attack knowing what the combined might of WK and Rhu can do… and I reckon a good WK/Rhu player can count on either Card or Arth or Dun having a bad hair day for whatever reason…
As Rhu in gunboat 86 I (humbly) thought I did pretty well despite Arth and Card and Duns focusing mostly on me (I was closest) simply because I could see them coming… if I had got any support from WK or financially from the other nation (my DkLts was broke big time having lost 3621 and 3120 early on and had ****ty luck with camps) I reckon I could have had a nice emmy position with enough dragons to frustrate FP attempts an Rhuduar-icide for many many turns. Also in that game Rhu managed to bankrupt Duns with just 600HC, but that is another story 
I think that the Rhudaur modifications are overwhelming-- I expect a massive shift in the flow of the game in the northwest where WK / Rhudaur stalemate the Free-- I’ll be interested to hear how it plays out.
I agree that Rhudaur needed the extra fort that it was given at 1910, but a city/castle, a second fort, and then a major town/fort? Is the goal to create military parity in the northwest? If so, you’re unbalancing the game overall-- the free need to prevail in the northwest to help in other theaters where they are more vulnerable. Are we going to give Dunland a castle at his capital to make up for his vulnerability?
I’ve not seen any unfairness in game balance from the gunboat games I’ve played-- each side seems to have an equal chance of victory. The darks are hurt in gunboat because they can’t coordinate dragons and agents as easily, but the Free can’t talk to each other and can’t see that, say, the Northmen are in trouble.
I’ll be curious to see how the modification plays out, but it seems unbalancing to me.
Everything in this game is subtlely inter-related. You make a minor change and it causes ripples from map edge to map edge and turn zero to turn last. The ‘improvers’ don’t see this, or don’t care. They just want to ride their hobby horse.
Score Card Thus far:
Gunboat 1650 games:
FP wins: 5
DS wins: 7
Ok so thus far, just from the people sampled it looks like a pretty even set-up with DS having a slight upper hand.
Why then are we improving the DS position?
See ya,
Ken
I am still a bit of a newb - have there only been 12 completed gunboat 1650 games ever? Or is that in some current form? What was the difference between the format of those 12 games and the format of the ones before it?