HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: xeons!smak.tarnis@midiline.la.ca.us (Smak Tarnis) 
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: RE: BRIGGS' BASEMENT
Date: 23 Dec 92 14:26:00 GMT
Reply-To: xeons!smak.tarnis@midiline.la.ca.us (Smak Tarnis) 
Distribution: world
Organization: Xeon's Magic Shop BBS - Canyon Country - CA - 805-250-0627


        Join BRIGGS' BASEMENT!!!
        This unique Play-By-Mail has room for new subscribers.
        The Role Playing scenarios are presented as an interactive
serial narrative complete with illustrations put out in a monthly
newsletter format.
        This newsletter has been running for six years, and includes
role-playing scenarios and strategy games.  We have AD&D, and
Spacemaster.  Strategy games include "Pirates of the Caribbean",
"Samurai", and "Rise and Fall."
        Subscribe today!
        (December submissions are due the 7th!)

        November issues are still available!!
                                           
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
From: amead@s.psych.uiuc.edu (Alan Mead)
Subject: Re: Galaxy Results Format
Organization: UIUC Department of Psychology
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 22:10:29 GMT

mckinney@cs.utexas.edu (Durwood Y. McKinney) writes:

>Someone wrote.....
>>>But the problem (or just the fact) with Galaxy is that once you loose
>>>a big fight, you're pretty much out of the game.  There's no real way to
>>>start over and come back later and win.  One (major) mistake and you're
>>>dead.  Once you get too far behind in industry you can never catch up.
>>>
>>>It might be interesting to try and modify the game so palyers were a
>>>lot harder to knock out of the game.  Where you could loose more
>>>battles but not loose the war.  Then the concept of having longer
>>>games would make more sense.

>[armies idea deleted]

>Another simple way to do this would be to simply change the rules where
>an armed enemy warship has to be orbiting a planet at the end of two
>consecutive turns to bomb it.  This would make it easier to defend a
>large empire.

Galaxy's author, Russell Wallace, mentioned some time ago that he has
thought about a second game that, if I recall correctly, would have
more micro comcepts like armies.  I don't know if he has gone beyond
thinking about it, but I also never realized how prolific he is.  I've
seen hundreds of lines of his code on comp.binaries.os.msdos .

Anyway, yet another simple way to make battles less absolute would be
for there to be a limit on the number of shots fired per turn.  Have
any of you seen a battle between two (or more) fleets with a lot of
small ships?  Then big battles would have to rage for more than one
turn (with the possibility that you could draw reinforcements in).

Typically these discussions "degenerate" into debates about "what is
realistic" (which always seems to me to be beside the point) but...  I
think this would be more realistic in the sense that worlds and solar
systems are big!  Do you think that you could find, catch and destroy a
fleet of 500+ ships scattered throughout the solar system in one year?

You would also have to alter the rule that if there are ANY armed enemy
ships orbiting a world at the end of a turn then they bomb (which would
be a good thing anyway IMHO).  But you could allow "incidental" damage
during the battle.  So maybe I lose 5-10% of my stuff for each turn
that there is a battle (ie, a battle involving empires hostile to mine)
above my world.

Just a thought.

-alan mead
From: simons@plains.NoDak.edu (C. Patrick Simons)
Subject: Re: Galaxy Results Format
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 21:46:35 GMT
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network
Keywords: galaxy

In article <DMWVB3LM@cc.swarthmore.edu> hankins@cs.swarthmore.edu (Luke Hankins) writes:
>cinnibar@netcom.com (Jeff Wood) writes:
>
>>Oh, to those with flames, I have no objection to parsers and such to break down
>>the output to something you like better, I myself have one for hypercard to
>>produce star maps.  It's when you start designing AI's that you're losing the
>>spirit of the game.
>
>	Hum.. IMHO, things like this aren't AI in any sense of the word.
>The programmer is simply taking all the boring, repetitous algorithms in his
>head and putting them in code.  Try attacking this person and see how long
>they last if they leave things to their scripts.  Automation is fine in
>peacetime, but war still needs a human.
>
>		-luke
>
>(This is mostly from my experiences in Empire...)

Here here.  I've been playing in a few Galaxy games, just to get used to it
before getting serious.  As I've found in Empire, you can automate lots of
the mundane work, but when it comes down to war, god help you if your relying
on that AI to keep an eye on things.  It might hold up for a little bit, but
they are easy to confuse and break down.

-=C. Patrick Simons/Metzada
Organization: Johannes Kepler University Linz - Computing Center
Date: Monday, 21 Dec 1992 09:56:20 CET
From: <K331280@ALIJKU11.BITNET>
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: re: Legends Powerpoints

Hi |

There is a trick to detect powerpoints more easy, but you have to know at
least one first: Go to your powerpoint and try to go to other provinces
via tho powerpoint teleport. If this works the other province is also a
powerpoint. So this trick allows you to try out more provinces per turn.

Hint: Powerpoints in all COA's: Hammathod and Marthong
      Powerpoint in all ROI's: Tamor Elosium

Greetings, Mike.
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
From: tcline@nyx.cs.du.edu (Terry Cline)
Subject: Legends
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 17:33:31 GMT

	I played in one of the first Legend games a few years ago as a hero
set up.  I have a few questions, is that set up still around?  If so is it
worth running without any contacts pre-game?  (Running around exploring
etc with no major backing has it's draw backs.)
	Anyone have any tip's on a good hero type set up.  I know alot is
personal preferance, but there may be a few tricks.  I'm thinking seriously
of getting back into PBM.
	And finaly is there a FTP sight that has the Item info gathered so
far along with hint's and/or tips?  I think I still have my old info, I'll
look it over for any items I have to see if they have been posted.  (Unless
they have changed or change from game to game.)  Thanks.
 
Terry
 

Xref: sparky rec.games.pbm:3430 rec.games.board:12753 rec.games.diplomacy:661
From: baj@acfcluster.nyu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Legends: NIC
Date: 3 Jan 93 16:39:19 GMT
Organization: New York University

Hello, all those playing or going to be playing in NIC!

 I just got my setup yesterday for NIC2.  There are a couple of things to
watch out for.

 1) You may not be set up where you requested.  There may be two reasons
    for this, it seems.  a) You are a race that is not allowed to start
    in the area (nice of them to let you know, huh?) or b) There were too
    many people in the area you chose so you got moved.

  I was one of the latter, and am in the middle of nowhere, much to my
  annoyance.  Talk about completely rethinking your strategies.  Grrr.
  Of course, MG didn't bother explaining this little point, but I found
  out that others also had this problem.


   - Barbara
From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Re: Galaxy Results Format
Date: 24 Dec 92 16:10:04 GMT
Organization: IDA Center for Communications Research, Princeton

Curt Welch <curt@oasys.dt.navy.mil> writes:
> I think building industry is fine, but having to grow population just
> makes the game more tedious and time consuming.  The tedium of
> planning the logistics of the transportation of colonist and capitol
> are exactly the type of thing that you could automate.

I think this quote just goes to show how differently different players
see the game.  I strongly suspect that the parts of the game I find
interesting are exactly the parts you find uninteresting, and vice
versa.  What I like about Galaxy is the challenge of maximizing growth
by optimizing the schedule for producing ships, capital, and research,
and for delivering resources to colonized worlds.  (This was a very big
part of the version 2.X game.  It is less significant in 3.X simply
because maximizing growth is so much easier.)

Of course I have also played and enjoyed PBM games which are much more
complicated than Galaxy.  Games which are 10 on the 1-to-10 scale, where
Galaxy is about a 3.  (Eventually I did decide that the 10 was too much,
and that I prefer no more than 8 or so.)

> But once you decide which planets to develop, and how many turns you
> are going to spend building industry, then the rest - i.e.  making
> sure you have your transports in the right place and making sure you
> have more colonist than industry, and making sure you have all the
> correct routes set up, and generating all the B,L,S, and R commands is
> booring and time consuming.  I find I can usually make the initial
> decisions in about 5 minutes, then I quite often spend another 60
> minutes checking and double checking all the logistics issues.

To be perfectly frank, if you are making these basic decisions in 5
minutes, you are doing a pretty lousy job.  How do you decide exactly
how much of each resource you need in each place?  And exactly what ship
designs will be most valuable in the long run?  And when to buy research
vs. when to build ships?

There's a reason that I have the largest industry in each of two games I
am in (Clarke and Alpha).  It's because I take care with these
decisions.  You just can't make these long-term decisions in even
approximately the best way without making some detailed calculations of
their consequences.

                                        David desJardins
From: snolan@postmaster@hq.af.mil (Scott D Nolan)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Anyone play Flying Buffalo Games here?
Date: 24 Dec 92 15:42:34 GMT
Reply-To: snolan@marge.hq.af.mil
Organization: 7th Communications Group

Subject says it, does anyone play FBI games:

Starweb
Illuminati
 etc

And use usenet?

-- 
Scott Nolan
snolan@marge.hq.af.mil

We are lucky we don't have as much government as we pay for!

			- will rodgers
From: xeons!smak.tarnis@midiline.la.ca.us (Smak Tarnis) 
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: RE: BRIGGS' BASEMENT
Date: 26 Dec 92 07:17:00 GMT
Reply-To: xeons!smak.tarnis@midiline.la.ca.us (Smak Tarnis) 
Distribution: world
Organization: Xeon's Magic Shop BBS - Canyon Country - CA - 805-250-0627


        Join BRIGGS' BASEMENT!!!
        This unique Play-By-Mail has room for new subscribers.
        The Role Playing scenarios are presented as an interactive
serial narrative complete with illustrations put out in a monthly
newsletter format.
        This newsletter has been running for six years, and includes
role-playing scenarios and strategy games.  We have AD&D, and
Spacemaster.  Strategy games include "Pirates of the Caribbean",
"Samurai", and "Rise and Fall."
        Subscribe today!
        (January submissions are due the 7th!)

        December issues are still available!!
From: picasso@acs.nntp-read.bu.edu (David Ondzes)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: DM: overview question
Date: 23 Dec 92 13:42:38 GMT
Distribution: rec.games.pbm
Organization: Boston University Information Technology Boston, MA USA


I had a newbie call me the other day, what it meant when his overview said
the following

John Doe is left/right handed
...
...
...
Is highly coordinated with the ability to use a weapon in each hand

he seem VERY confused by this. I told him, I have not given it much
thought. What do you guys think ? 

What benefits does being ambidextrous have ?

------------------------------------------------------------------------
|       ***      ***       | My Pride and Joy:                         |
|      ***      ***        | 	Max 5-148 of Skull Smasher in Kaltos   |
|     ***      ***         |    record: 114-52-2  (1 of my original 5) |
|    ***  **  ***          |                                           |
|   ***  **  ***           | Motto:          Perfect Warrior:          |
|  ***  **  ***            |   Slash 'Em Up    9-3-4-17-17-17-17 SL    |
| ************             |                                           | 
|************ izard of Oz  | picasso@acs.bu.edu                        |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Active Arenas: 33,43,100,102                                         |
| coming soon to arena near you !                                      | 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
From: hankins@cs.swarthmore.edu (Luke Hankins)
Subject: Re: Olympia
Organization: Swarthmore College
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 18:34:49 GMT

bc@fccn01.fccn.pt (Luis Miguel Sequeira) writes:

>I _think_ I even was on the waiting list before Olympia crashed... :-(

	Um, I don't think it crashed, per se, just outlived it's life for
that version.  It needed a full rewrite to get much better.  

	-luke (Eagerly awaiting its return..)
-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
Luke Hankins hankins@cs.swarthmore.edu |"Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison
for(MyAge=0;!Dead;EnjoyLife);          |   ne connait point" -Blaise Pascal
While not (EndOfLife) do Havefun(me);  |"...stay sane inside insanity..." -RHPS
From: Karel Driesen <kjdriese@vnet3.vub.ac.be>
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Diplomacy rules ?
Date: 29 Dec 92 09:25:38 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Free Brussels University
X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1

I have been having a news server installed for 2 months now, and I am a
PBM addict. It surprises me to find this group barely alive. The only
thread I have seen yet is about Diplomacy. 

Given the number and complexity of the games you find in for instance the
Flagship magazine, I would think there is a lot more to discuss about. 

Personally, I am looking for a fantasy wargame (cfr. Aventurer Kings),
playable through internet email. I do not own a modem. 

By the way, does anybody out there have the slightest idea what kind of
formula is used to determine group strength in the game "Gang Wars"
(Games By Mail) ? I have been experimenting with weighted sums and
products of Leadership, Fighting ability, Morale and Energy, but this
doesn't seem to yield the results I have got from actual turns.

Hope to hear form anyone,

Karel
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
From: hankins@cs.swarthmore.edu (Luke Hankins)
Subject: Re: Galaxy Results Format
Keywords: galaxy
Organization: Swarthmore College
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 18:39:55 GMT

cinnibar@netcom.com (Jeff Wood) writes:

>Oh, to those with flames, I have no objection to parsers and such to break down
>the output to something you like better, I myself have one for hypercard to
>produce star maps.  It's when you start designing AI's that you're losing the
>spirit of the game.

	Hum.. IMHO, things like this aren't AI in any sense of the word.
The programmer is simply taking all the boring, repetitous algorithms in his
head and putting them in code.  Try attacking this person and see how long
they last if they leave things to their scripts.  Automation is fine in
peacetime, but war still needs a human.

		-luke

(This is mostly from my experiences in Empire...)
-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
Luke Hankins hankins@cs.swarthmore.edu |"Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison
for(MyAge=0;!Dead;EnjoyLife);          |   ne connait point" -Blaise Pascal
While not (EndOfLife) do Havefun(me);  |"...stay sane inside insanity..." -RHPS
From: bc@fccn01.fccn.pt (Luis Miguel Sequeira)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Re: Diplomacy rules ?
Date: 31 Dec 1992 01:29:42 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Quincey Koziol <koziol@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu> writes (in reply to Karel Driesen):

>	Also, possibly the reason that people play PBM games is because they
>_don't_ have access to the Internet with all of it's free PBEM games.

	Well, I sincerely hope that this isn't the _only_ reason! :-)

	For example, I  play  PBMs (besides PBEMs)  because  generally
(this doesn't mean _always_)  they  are more  complex; ie.  they offer
players a larger variety of rules, orders, and playing strategies.

	Ok, there may be many PBMs with less rules than Diplomacy, for
example (which hasn't _that_ many,  compared with some PBMs  I  play);
however, I think  there is still a  greater variety of  PBMs to choose
from, and you may pick the one that you think it's worth its cost!

	On PBEMs, you can  "afford" to play simple games  (they can be
lots  of fun, too!), as  they  are free...  and  there  are a few more
complex (I'm  thinking about Olympia, for instance),  and  you can try
them, too, for free.

	So, even with access to the Internet, many may me playing PBMs
just because they _can_ offer more...


>	Personally, I believe that the overlap between people on the Internet
>and people of play PBM games is vanishingly small...although you and I appear
>to be one of them.

	Is that true? You may  be right...  Speaking  strictly from my
local point of  view,  I know just   two  or  three  persons  who play
regularly PBMs  and PBEMs. I know a  lot of them with Internet access,
but who don't play any PBEMs (just PBMs), and  a  lot of them who also
have access to the Internet, but who play just PBEMs...

	So, you may be right after all... but the reason _why_ this is
so still eludes me.

	- Luis Sequeira

  _________________________________________________________________________
 /
/
    _/     _/     _/  _/_/_/     Computer scientists do it byte by byte.
   _/     _/_/ _/_/ _/
  _/     _/ _/  _/  _/_/_/       "We don't ask for miracles to get the job
 _/     _/     _/       _/        done, we RELY upon them!"
_/_/_/ _/     _/  _/_/_/         

  bc@fccn01.fccn.pt                        Luis Miguel Sequeira
                                  Laboratorio Nacional de Engenharia Civil
  Phone 351-1-8482131 Ext. 2752   Centro Informatica/Grupo Sistemas Centrais
  "Don't call me, I'll call you"  Av. Brasil, 101 - 1700 Lisboa, Portugal
                                                                          /
_________________________________________________________________________/
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
From: an1739@anon.penet.fi ("Professor Who?")
Subject: Galaxy and Diplomacy
Organization: Anonymous contact service
X-Anonymously-To: rec.games.pbm
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 15:13:28 GMT

Questions, Questions

[A]	Any Galaxy game starting up?  Also, Rob McNeur, if you are reading
	this, what happened to the e-mail transmission between us?
[B]	What happened to rec.games.diplomacy?  It was said to be "bogus
	newsgroup" and not existing when I tried to read it....

replys to yangboy@math.ntu.edu.tw

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Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
From: rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Subject: Re: How to start galaxy.
Organization: Trinity College, Dublin
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 20:26:04 GMT

In <BzzIAn.Ix3@news.cso.uiuc.edu> zlg1409@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Zhenhai Li ) writes:

>Hello out there,
>I've been reading the news on galaxy, and following the newsletter, 
>got a copy of the source. However, there are no compile instructions,
>a old and a new source, and foggy directions. Am I supposed to compile
>this on a PC? I've already tried two seperate unix systems. I just wanted
>to try it, maybe play against a friend before attempting to join a real
>game.

The program was originally written on a PC using Zortech C, and should
compile with minimum effort on that configuration. Compiling on Unix
needs a bit of modification (somewhat more for v3.x than 2.x), perhaps
one of the people who've successfully ported it to a version of Unix
could help you out here?

--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie
From: leb@violet.ccit.arizona.edu (BASEL, LESLIE)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Help!!!
Date: 26 Dec 92 04:07:00 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

I would like to get involved in the PBeM games but do not know
how to do this.  Is there a FAQ that I can ftp? Is there a list of
games available?  How do I get my hands on the rules?  You know, the
usual newbie stuff -- TELL ME!

Rodger Coghlan

Ps thanks for any help!
From: sutin@phaeton.UCSC.EDU (Brian Sutin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Re: Galaxy Results Format
Date: 23 Dec 1992 01:36:56 GMT
Organization: Lick Observatory UCSC
NNTP-Posting-Host: phaeton.ucsc.edu
Keywords: galaxy

In article <1992Dec23.004143.7348@netcom.com> cinnibar@netcom.com (Jeff Wood) writes:
>In article <1h81mcINNmcu@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> sutin@ra.UCSC.EDU (Brian Sutin) writes:
>>I have a parser which chews down the complete output, and then decides
>>where all my cargo ships go, makes maps, designs ships, assigns production,
>>etc.  It is 700 lines of c code.  I used the advanced lexical analyzer
>>named "scanf," which is perfectly suited for the task.  Give it a try.

>I'm sorry....but are you sure you're playing a Galaxy game?  Sounds like you 
>just sent in a request to put your name in the hat for a game, then set up a
>mailer daemon to run this program, which apparently does all your moves for you
> [...]
>Jeff Wood

A simple computer program could undoubtedly play better than many galaxy
players.  If a player cannot play better than an AI program written by
a rank amateur like myself, then he/she will not survive long in a galaxy
game anyway.

My program, however, is not very smart -- I have to correct all sorts of
amazing things it comes up with, and it does not know what to do in case of
an attack, nor does it understand any sort of strategy.  What it does is
take care of the tactics and leave the strategy to me.

As soon as I understand the game well enough to write a program to play it
for me, then you are right -- there is no longer any reason to continue
playing.  I don't think this will happen anytime soon.

Brian Sutin				sutin@lick.ucsc.edu
Lick Observatory, UCSC			Santa Cruz, CA 95064
    Fred:   "May I rescue you?"
    Ginger: "No, thank you.  I prefer being in distress."