HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: wallace@dtc.hp.com (David Wallace)
Subject: Re: Several questions generated by a game.
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 17:53:42 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Design Technology Center, Santa Clara, CA

In article <1992Dec14.200328.12398@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> khalsa@echo.gsfc.nasa.gov (Tej) writes:
>
>Unless the appropriate moon or perhaps flare is in the game how is it
>possible for the Schizoid to ever have 6 foreign bases and only one
>home base?  As long as the Schizoid is in the game he obviously has
>more than one home base.  If he has five or more bases and then loses
>a base the game is over then and there.  If he loses his power without having
>five bases (foreign) he certainly won't get six before the game is over.
>I can't think of any way that one can lose two bases instantaneously.

What about if he has 3 home bases, 2 of which have only 1 token each, and
he then plagues himself?


-- 
Dave W. 	(dwallace@dtc.hp.com)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
From: deloura@noaapmel.gov (Robert DeLoura)
Subject: Fungus and Terrorist
Organization: NOAA/PMEL, Sand Point Way, Seattle, WA
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 07:59:25 GMT

An interesting situation came up in one of our games this evening.
I was Fungus, and the Terrorist had planted a bomb on one of my planets.
He attacked that planet with one token.  When I defeated him, I took his
single token and "adhered" it to one of my tokens on the planet he'd attacked.
Then, he pointed out that the planet was bombed.

If that counts as "new tokens landing on the planet", then Fungus is "damned
if you do, damned if you don't" anytime he's challenged on a planet that
has a bomb on it (very annoying).

However, on careful reading of the Fungus power, we decided that this did not
set off the Terrorist bomb, and I was curious what other people think about
this.

We're playing with the Mayfair set, and the relevant clause from Fungus
reads:
> You control these Fungoid stacks, each of which is considered to be
> one token for purposes of play, e.g. taking consolation, going into the
> cone, etc.  When your total force is counted in a challenge, however,
> each token in each stack counts separately as one of your tokens.

We decided that since there were two tokens on the planet before the results
were known, and there were still two tokens ("for purposes of play" -- since
we weren't counting totals in a challenge, the three tokens only count as
two), we chose to say that no "new" tokens had really landed on the planet,
and thus the Terrorist bomb did not go off.

This upset poor Terrorist (phaedrus@halcyon.com) a bit, since this was his
last bomb, but I had little pity for him, since I managed to blow up his other
two bombs on my first two challenges.  We did the cheesy thing, of course, and
never set off his bomb, so he never got to plant new ones  :-)
(It was a 3-power game, and he was Dictator, so he got plenty of chances to
get back at us for our attitude.)

What do the rest of you think?  Is Fungus just screwed anytime he's challenged
on a bombed planet?  Or was this interpretation reasonable?

----
Robert DeLoura
deloura@noaapmel.gov
Organization: Junior, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 19:12:32 -0500 
From: "Joseph E. Beck" <jb8n+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Vulch, Mesmer and Sting
	<0f=pvTq00gpIAVL14C@andrew.cmu.edu>


>There are so many "unpleasant but legal" options in various Cosmic
>powers that it's not worth trying to plug all of them. In the long term,
>they balance out. (And in the short term, they make life entertaining.)

You haven't been on the receiving end of enough insect - vulch
dealings obviously.  I don't define 'entertaining' as playing a game
for awhile, and then have 2 people split the edicts between them,
plague everyone, then split the deck between them.  And finally try to
get 5 bases.  There are just too many powers that X + Y equals dull
game for everyone else.   I mean, is having the void wild played over
and over on everyone really entertaining?  

	joe
From: ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
Subject: Re: How do YOU carry CE/MCE around?
Date: 18 Dec 92 17:16:12 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.board.ce: 16-Dec-92 How do YOU carry
CE/MCE aro.. William John McNelis@jhu (555)

> Anyone out there have good ideas on how to carry aroudn the set?

I keep everything in a large bicycle-helmet box. *Plenty* of room. 

The cards are just rubber-banded in decks; it doesn't hurt them any,
even in the long term. The tokens are in zip-lock bags.

Keep extra bags and bands in the bottom of the box.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
From: "michael sloan" <michael.sloan@canrem.com>
Subject: gaming cons
Reply-To: "michael sloan" <michael.sloan@canrem.com>
Organization: Canada Remote Systems
Distribution: rec
Date: 15 Dec 92 03:04:26 EST

GAMING CONVENTION

REDCON 5
PLACE:  ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE   KINGSTON, ONTARIO
DATE:   jANUARY 29, 30 31 1993

A well orgainized convention, with a good mix of fantasy and historical
gaming.

If you want more info, feel free to drop me a line.

MIchael.Sloan@canrem.uucp

          MICHAEL SLOAN
---
  DeLuxec #7519  Peace through superior firepower!!
--
Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044
From: dmccart@gomez.intel.com (D. J. McCarthy)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
Subject: Re: Several questions generated by a game.
Date: 16 Dec 92 01:03:55 GMT
Organization: Intel ASTG, Santa Clara, CA
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

George Weinberg (weinberg@imager) wrote:

> If I were playing Aristocrat-Schizo and said,  "I win" before the
> game starts,  would anyone bother to ask what my conditions were?

	I sure would!  In Mayfair rules, Sch can't make the winning
condition involve less than three external bases.

	What winning condition were you thinking of under Eon rules?


--
D. J. McCarthy (dmccart@gomez.intel.com)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
From: phaedrus@halcyon.com (Mark Phaedrus)
Subject: Re: Vulch, Mesmer and Sting
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 05:57:22 GMT

In article <92349.230211TRM900@psuvm.psu.edu> Tony R. Marasco <TRM900@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>Recently my group had several disagreements on Vulch, Mesmer, and Sting.

>1)    We play that Vulch may grab all edicts, no matter how many times Vulch
>      uses it's power during one challenge.  Is this correct?

     Yes, Vulch gets all Edicts played by other players.  But as I recall,
somewhere in the Mayfair rules it says that Edicts, Flares and so on aren't
technically discarded until after the challenge is over.  Ordinarily, this
doesn't have much if any impact, but it means that if someone plays a Plague,
Vulch can't pick that Plague up and immediately re-use it; he has to wait for
the challenge to be over.  (This is the equivalent to the old frequently-used
house rule, "No particular Edict or Flare card can be used more than once
per challenge.")

>2)    Mesmer may change only one edict per challenge.  We played as many per
>      challenge, until a Plague, Plague, Plague situation came up.  Once per
>      challenge seems to contradict the explanation above, but creates a
>      "balanced" game.

     If you want to play it this way it's fine, but to me it seems to cripple
the Mesmer power.  If Mesmer is lucky enough to get a hand full of Edicts in
the first place, and foolhardy enough to want to use them all up in a single
challenge, that seems fine to me.  Mesmer will probably win that challenge
overwhelmingly, but there are all sorts of other powers that can be used to
overwhelmingly win challenges too...

>3)    I figure this was discussed before, but...  Does "involuntarily" mean
>      non-committed into the cone?  This is how we interpret that ruling.
>      Works fairly well.

     I believe someone else posted the original (sensible) wording for the
Sting power, as it was playtested.  Works much better than the "corrected"
final Mayfair version.
-- 
\o\ Internet: phaedrus@halcyon.com  (Seattle, WA Public Access Unix)     \o\
 \o\ "How'd you like to move a few steps down the food chain, pal?"       \o\
  \o\ If you enjoy fantasy/SF stories with transformation themes, email me \o\
   \o\ for a copy of the Transformation Stories List.                       \o\
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
From: stranger@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (William John McNelis)
Subject: How do YOU carry CE/MCE around?
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 23:19:39 GMT

The problem i have wiht the included tray is, well, if you carry the 
box around a lot, you end up with a total mess when you finally
get wherever you were going and open the box...

Anyone out there have good ideas on how to carry aroudn the set?
Where to keep the cards?  (I;d kill for those old card trays from
UNO...)  Am i missing something obvios, like Ritz cracker boxes
or somthing?  Just something thats been bugging me, especially since
my original cosmic box is not long for this world... sigh...

Frantic "sig file? what sig file?" Bilbo  ;)

Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
From: Alexx@world.std.com (Alexx S Kay)
Subject: Re: Fungus and Terrorist
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 23:58:38 GMT

I agree that Fungus gaining tokens due to a successful defense does *not*
count as "new tokens landing" and thus does not set off bombs.

Alexx

Alexx@world.std.com
"That is not dead which wears the rhino's hide,
 And with strange numbness even Dukes get fried."
		-- Franz Joder von Joderhuebel
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
From: michele@ccs.yorku.ca (Michele Marques)
Subject: Re: MCE reviewed by an addict
Organization: York University, Help Services, CCS
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 23:04:45 GMT

In article <Bz23JI.Cn6@willamette.edu> pdudey@willamette.edu (Peter Dudey) writes:

   -Component tray.  This isn't mentioned on the box.  It's a little strange:
   there are only 3 places for card decks (not enough, with all the new
   cards), and it's not clear exactly what the other places are for.  What
   the hell, it's useful.  We've even got room for our asteroids and the
   pinto beans we use when Symbiote comes up in a 6-player game.  No place
   for the powers, though!  I'm trying to figure out how to store these;  if
   you "nest" them, they don't stand up in play, but if you don't, they take
   up too much space in the box.  Ideas?

We have fit everything into the Cosmic Encounter box with the More tray (note
that the More CE box is too small).  How do we fit this?  The hexes go on the
bottom (below the tray).  In the tray we put the lucre (ones and two in the
smallest compartments, fives and tens in the little lowered compartments-within-
compartments.  We fit in all the playing cards by putting flares and other
non-destiny playing cards on their sides.  The destiny cards obviously don't
need to be put on their sides.  At one point we had the moons in the three compartments
which match eachother, but we have since decided to toss them all in a bag which
we put on the tray.  The power cards all fit across a mostly-unoccupied portion
of tray.  Tokens could be put in compartments, but already having them in
baggies from before, we just toss in the baggies, along with the cone,
rules, and other miscelanea.

The tray is only moderately useful, but it does keep the box from becoming too
chaotic with all the different elements.

		-- Michele

--
Michele Marques                      | UUCP: ....!utzoo!yunexus!michele
Computing Help Services              | Internet: michele@apex.ccs.yorku.ca
Computing & Communications Services  | Bitnet:   michele@yuorion
York University                      | Voice:    +1-416-736-5800
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 23:02:11 EST
From: Tony R. Marasco <TRM900@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
Subject: Vulch, Mesmer and Sting

Recently my group had several disagreements on Vulch, Mesmer, and Sting.

1)    We play that Vulch may grab all edicts, no matter how many times Vulch
      uses it's power during one challenge.  Is this correct?

2)    Mesmer may change only one edict per challenge.  We played as many per
      challenge, until a Plague, Plague, Plague situation came up.  Once per
      challenge seems to contradict the explanation above, but creates a
      "balanced" game.

3)    I figure this was discussed before, but...  Does "involuntarily" mean
      non-committed into the cone?  This is how we interpret that ruling.
      Works fairly well.

Just looking for some comments to smooth the game a bit...
-------
| Tony Marasco                 |  "Questions are a burden for others.     |
| Penn State University        |   Answers are a prison for oneself."     |
| Schuylkill Haven, PA 17976   |     - The Prisoner                       |
| trm900@psuvm.psu.edu                                                    |
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
From: jthorpe1@cc.swarthmore.edu
Subject: too-powerful DEMON flare...
Organization: Swarthmore college
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 19:06:23 GMT

	Howdy.  This has probably been mentioned many a time, but I mention it
again:

	What is the Wild Demon flare _supposed_ to do?  Because, as the wording is
now, it can grant two players four bases each immediately.  A bit powerful,
n'est-ce pas?  Try this scenario:

	Schizoid/Aristocrat says "winning conditions are three external bases."
	S/A then goes through the deck, taking out all flare zaps and the wild
demon flare (plus any other pesky flares like wild healer).
	S/A plays the wild Demon flare, and wins with someone else before the
first challenge.
	S/A player's ears are ripped off and fed to a schnauzer.

	Bad scene, no?

							So, anyway, what is the net's opinion on this too-powerful flare?

							P.S.  Rubber bands and baggies are the solution to fitting
everything in the More CE box without a mess when you open the box...

																																                  ----jere7my
From: ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
Subject: Re: Vulch, Mesmer and Sting
Date: 19 Dec 92 19:22:07 GMT
	<0f=pvTq00gpIAVL14C@andrew.cmu.edu>
	<IfAFRkW00VooIdGVh1@andrew.cmu.edu>
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.board.ce: 17-Dec-92 Re: Vulch, Mesmer
and Sting "Joseph E. Beck"@andrew. (675)

> >There are so many "unpleasant but legal" options in various Cosmic
> >powers that it's not worth trying to plug all of them. In the long term,
> >they balance out. (And in the short term, they make life entertaining.)

> You haven't been on the receiving end of enough insect - vulch
dealings obviously. 

No, I haven't -- even though I played one or two games a week for three
years. (Haven't had the time recently, dammit.) I guess it's just the
atmosphere of the game; our attitude was that we wouldn't destroy the
game unless it was amusing for everyone. Or everyone but one victim, at
least :-)


"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
From: khalsa@echo.gsfc.nasa.gov (Tej)
Subject: Re: Several questions generated by a game.
Organization: NASA GSFC Code 910.1, TRMM Ground Truth
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 20:03:28 GMT


|> In article <QFCVB4PX@cc.swarthmore.edu> jhildeb1@cc.swarthmore.edu (Jeff Hildebrand) writes:
|> >3) We got into an argument about what defines "Every player must be able to
|> >meet this condition" for the Schitzoid's additional win condition. The person
|> >playing it wanted to make it that you had to have 6 foreign bases and only 1
|> >home base. It was pointed out that if he approached that condition, he would
|> >lose his power and so the Schitzoid conditions would go away and he could
|> >never win by meeting the conditions. On the other hand it was pointed out
|> >that he was not preventing anyone from winning the game. True he couldn't
|> >win the game by meeting the Schitzoid conditions, but if he did have that
|> >situation he would win the game since the win rules revent to normal and he
|> >had them met. So the question is: is the proposed condition an acceptable
|> >one?


Unless the appropriate moon or perhaps flare is in the game how is it
possible for the Schizoid to ever have 6 foreign bases and only one
home base?  As long as the Schizoid is in the game he obviously has
more than one home base.  If he has five or more bases and then loses
a base the game is over then and there.  If he loses his power without having
five bases (foreign) he certainly won't get six before the game is over.
I can't think of any way that one can lose two bases instantaneously.
So without some mitigating circumstance (e.g. flare, moon, etc.) I would
say the above mentioned condition is illegal on the grounds that Schizoid
really can't *ever* meet the condition.

Tej
From: davoli@natinst.com (Russell Davoli)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
Subject: Re: Several questions generated by a game.
Date: 14 Dec 1992 13:08:15 -0600
Organization: National Instruments, Austin, TX
NNTP-Posting-Host: eagle.natinst.com

In article <QFCVB4PX@cc.swarthmore.edu> jhildeb1@cc.swarthmore.edu (Jeff Hildebrand) writes:
>3) We got into an argument about what defines "Every player must be able to
>meet this condition" for the Schitzoid's additional win condition. The person
>playing it wanted to make it that you had to have 6 foreign bases and only 1
>home base. It was pointed out that if he approached that condition, he would
>lose his power and so the Schitzoid conditions would go away and he could
>never win by meeting the conditions. On the other hand it was pointed out
>that he was not preventing anyone from winning the game. True he couldn't
>win the game by meeting the Schitzoid conditions, but if he did have that
>situation he would win the game since the win rules revent to normal and he
>had them met. So the question is: is the proposed condition an acceptable
>one?

I would argue that this is an acceptable condition under some circumstatces.
Since this is a win condition that everyone must be able to meet, Schizoid
can meet the bases requirement only at the cost of taking his condition out of
the game.  However, if it is known that a certain flare(s) is in the game
based on the powers in the game (I can't remember what flare or flares allow
a player to continue to use his power with fewer than normal bases) then
the condition is a valid one since Schizoid can meet the condition and win
when the condition is in force.  This particular condition is probably not
a good one to use when powers that take flares out of the game are in the
game, such as Aristocrat.

-- Russell Davoli

Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
From: gkatz@csws20.ic.sunysb.edu (Gerald W Katz)
Subject: Re: too-powerful DEMON flare...
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 15:30:48 GMT

In article <87LVBK27@cc.swarthmore.edu> jthorpe1@cc.swarthmore.edu writes:
>	Howdy.  This has probably been mentioned many a time, but I mention it
>again:
>
>	What is the Wild Demon flare _supposed_ to do?  Because, as the wording is
>now, it can grant two players four bases each immediately.  A bit powerful,
>n'est-ce pas?  Try this scenario:
>
>	Schizoid/Aristocrat says "winning conditions are three external bases."
>	S/A then goes through the deck, taking out all flare zaps and the wild
>demon flare (plus any other pesky flares like wild healer).
>	S/A plays the wild Demon flare, and wins with someone else before the
>first challenge.
>	S/A player's ears are ripped off and fed to a schnauzer.
>
>	Bad scene, no?
>
>							So, anyway, what is the net's opinion on this too-powerful flare?
>
>							P.S.  Rubber bands and baggies are the solution to fitting
>everything in the More CE box without a mess when you open the box...
>
>																																                  ----jere7my

I agree.  This flare is just too disgusting.

:-) Of course, when it occurred, I was Schizoid.
The flare was played, two others got five bases,
and a little bit later I was Cosmic Zapped :-)

I don't believe it to be a scree the Schizoid card
but I do rank it as something like a full moon face Moon.

Similar to Wild Serpent where by giving someone (or maybe you get the base?)
one base, you can make a deal with them that is normally not allowed
in deal.  For example, if youe have three bases and someone has one,
you can say, "Give me two bases, and I'll give you one and we'll both win"

Before the flare even existed someone, usually a novice, tries this
in one out of three games.

gkatz

P.S. I'll be home during January and thus not view
any related responses.  Can someone please e-mail
me any such response on how to deal with these flares?
Also, I would like the original wording as Sting was 
meant to be.  Thanks.


You don't have to tip the Butler today, happy holidays!!!!

						gkatz
From: ahahn@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Jesus Saves!!! )
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
Subject: Re: Several questions generated by a game.
Date: 16 Dec 92 20:12:30 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In reference to question 3, it is apparent that this is a legal
winning condition.  The key lies in the wording (assuming that the
wording posted in the original posting is the actual wording); that
is, it is possible for the player who is using Schizoid to gain six
foreign bases and have only one home base.  While it is obviously
impossible for Schizoid to do this (barring special circumstances as
mentioned in follow-ups), it is not impossible for whoever is using
Schizoid.  I understand that gaining without the three home bases
Schizoid is no longer in effect, but...I think some people missed
the intent behind this winning condition.  If the Schizoid player
uses this as their condition, they can gain five foreign bases and
then go until they have no few enough home planets such that they
automatically win when they lose their power and the winning
conditions revert to normal.  Btw, what happens if this is the
situation and two people already have five foreign bases?  Is is a
shared victory?

Aaronius Hahnius Maximus
Official Youth Of Destiny

Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
From: dwj@iedv7.acd.com ( Dan Johnson         )
Subject: Re: Several questions generated by a game.
Organization: Applied Computing Devices, Inc., Terre Haute IN
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:05:53 GMT

In article <143437@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> weinberg@imager (George Weinberg) writes:
>If I were playing Aristocrat-Schizo and said,  "I win" before the game starts,  would anyone bother to ask what my conditions were?

Even under Eon rules, anything like that would give a simultaneous win
to all players.
-- 
Daniel W. Johnson                  Applied Computing Devices, Inc.
Home: 71520.367@CompuServe.COM     Work: dwj@iedv1.acd.com
      DanielJ13@aol.com                  39 25 02 N / 87 19 55 W
                - this space unintentionally left blank -
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce
From: durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell)
Subject: Questions: FAQ, Errata
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 16:54:22 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa

I couldn't find an FAQ on the FAQ archive site.  Is there one?
If not, can someone post/mail me with the (rumored) ftp site
for CE stuff?

Also, is there a Mayfair CE errata sheet?  I notice certain
typos like "Don't use in games with Terrorist" on the Terrorist
card, and I believe the history on the Cavalry card is chopped
off.

-- 
Bryant Durrell					   durrell@chop.isca.uiowa.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 I feed on the flesh of the living, and I vote.
Newsgroups: rec.games.board.ce