At first, thanks to all who made this possible. At last I am no longer restricted to merely read what you geeks were posting, but can participate in the freakshow!!!
Now to my issue: I am playing gunboat, and it is harder than I ever imagined not to talk about it (except to my imaginary gerbil friend, but he is not much of an inspiration) .
There are times when I would give the little finger of my left hand to know what is going on in the large parts of Middle Earth which I cannot see on my maps.
I know we all swore a holy oath not to talk to each other, but…hey…just a little bit wouldn’t hurt, would it. Like, what happened 5 turns ago? We could all register anonymous with user names like drl/cor111, numbers standing for game number. Cooperation with allies would still be forbidden, but a little taunting? So it would be up to everybody how much he reveals from his gameplay while communicating with his enemies.
It is so hard no to brag about the cool things I did, and some of them will be forgotten when the game ends and we start a post-game discussion (which I am nevertheless looking forward to).
What do the others say? Clint, pleeeeeaaaaaaaaase…
I am currently playing in a gunboat game. I think Clint/HQ discussed making a change to all future GBs. The change would have all nations from the perspective sides sharing pdf’s or at least nation maps once every 5 or 10 turns. It is frustrating not knowing anything about the status of your teammates, but I still enjoy the relative freedom the isolation brings. Playing GB has definitley improved my overall game play.
The only thing I really dislike is not having enough info to determine if one should drop or continue to play. In my current game I judge that my side is very close to complete domination, but the other side probably does not know this. The game has become less enjoyable because of our apparent upperhand. I would not drop the game without first discussing the subject with the team (of course I won’t drop anyway because I believe we are winning), but I feel like everybody in my game is just subsidizing HQ’s bottom line. I doubt this was something Clint and boys forsaw when they developed the variant.
I agree with Ben: I am in GB mainly because I do not have a lot of time for diplomacy and coordination with teammates, and have found it quite enjoyable. I can wait until it’s over to do some taunting, and I don’t really care how well or badly my “side” is doing: I can focus on my own two nations, and just try to beat the h*** out of the other nations. My map allows some limtied coordination, as I can see when others in my region are having problems, and I can help if I choose (and if I can). The actual lack of coordination with teammates has opened some new avenues of attack and play which were not really possible before, and I’ve enjoyed trying those out. In short, if it ain’t broke… Just my 2 cents (which is worth progressively less and less with the current administration, but who’s counting).
I’m also in a GunBoat game and the reason that I’m in it is mainly because I don’t need to co-ordinate or communicate with anyone. I’m in too many games where I need to communicate/co-ordinate alot (most of my team-mates say I talk too much anyway so it’s probably a good thing!).
Now with GunBoat, I don’t need to worry about that and I can just do my own things. It’s really cool using the information you have available which then relies on skill and sometimes blind faith for example with a joint attack on an enemy pop center with your allies. i.e. from previous battles you know the size of your allies army and you realise that if you both attack then you can take the pop center…however will he attack as well ? If not then all of your army will die…so do I attack or not…decisions, decisions. I’ve already been guilty of this situation but I daren’t discuss it further incase I break some rules…My point is that stuff like that is making GunBoat like an entirely new game for me. I can only imagine what it was like now in the beginning of MEPBM where people actually had to learn the game.
Also for those who want to know about things in other maps…well isn’t the much maligned mage with scry spells now suddenly useful ? Come on in a normal game, how many of you name new mages ? I don’t think that I’ve ever named one…now a mage with a scry spell or palantir is worth his weight in gold.
Absolutely agree with you there, Brendan. Its nice to actually dig out some of those spells that you almost never use to gather information or having to send out a character to figure out who’s icon that is and why its where it is and what its up to!!
Part of the initial plan for the game was that the no-diplomay aspects would bring the old feel of minimal co-ordination back into the game. I am enjoying the game as well and know exactly what you mean about wanting to discuss and hoping that you’re ally would attack with you. Some funny things have happened - including ridiculous things that would not normally have had a chance to occur in the normal game so it’s very interesting that way.
In future we might allow players to send a 100 word diplo every 5 turns to their allies.
As for winning or losing - VPs are an indication of that. As well as looking in the Front sheet, the later games have a list (updated AFTER the turn is sent out) of dead nations. Very interesting.
All the games are very stable at present I would say.
I know I have already bugged you about the “stability” of my GB game. Based on my nations’ ability to observe the game world, my objective view is that you are incorrect. However, my personal hope is that I am mistaken and that my nations’ current positions are an indication of my future dominance over both opponents and allies!
I concur with the majority opinion in this thread that GB is an outstanding variant.
Originally posted by Clint As for winning or losing - VPs are an indication of that. As well as looking in the Front sheet, the later games have a list (updated AFTER the turn is sent out) of dead nations. Very interesting.
Ohhh, hadn’t noticed the dead nations bit. Thanks!
I know I have already bugged you about the “stability” of my GB game. Based on my nations’ ability to observe the game world, my objective view is that you are incorrect.
Who are you? I can look into it then if I am not in the game (or someone else if I am). I’m in game 36. Ed in game 136, Sam in game 137.
100 words every five turns, eh? Well, that is more than I hoped for, since I was asking for taunting my enemies. But I see that this would put those with no access to this board at a slight disadvantage. I hope that I don’t have to use all the words for excuses to my allies… ;o)
As Brendan said, coordinating an attack is not so easy and I know a certain ally who will be quite upset smashing his troops on a certain castle wall while some others watched… we have to hand that down to language problems.
A cool thing would be a new emis order “deliver message”, your emis would have to be on a target nation pop centre and a short text of up to 50 letters could be transmitted, turning up in the next turns nation messages. Well, I guess that is 2nd edition stuff… sigh
GB is a great variant it adds individualism and the fog of uncertainty increases the enjoyment. Although communication is banned there are subtler ways of guessing who is still in and what they are doing.
For me scouring the rumours & events for news becomes more important. IMHO allowing 100 word diplo’s may detract from the game. As a suggestion maybe to allow a little more understanding of what is happening the rumours could be used more.
There are a few standard formats for rumours
x was transported from to
Encounter involving x at x
Armed conflict involving x and x at x
Personal challenge
etc.
Allow each nation to send up to 2 rumours to their own allies each turn in this standard format just filling in the blanks.
A nation who uses spread false rumours in another nation PC may have a chance of scrambling some of the rumours.
On a separate issue GB is much quicker because you don’t need all that time for communication within the team, I personally would like to play a 1 week game.
Probably! Might be worth trying to offer a one weeker next time you guys set up a Gunboat though? If no one bites, then change it to the usual two weeks? Just a thought
Probably! Might be worth trying to offer a one weeker next time you guys set up a Gunboat though? If no one bites, then change it to the usual two weeks? Just a thought
Um not sure there would be any point to that. Get me half the players and I’ll consider it…
I DO like the idea of 2 rumours to be sent by diplo each turn in formulaic pattern suggested above (and I like that better than the 100 word diplo)
It’s an option - some players like this others don’t. Forward diplos each turn would be a right pain for us though so we wouldn’t want to do that every turn.
Hey clint - to make it easier you could just paste all the “rumours” into the text of the game message? (ideally you would have 2 game messages - 1 for FP and 1 for DS, but perhaps not necessarily?)
