HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rob@hoster.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere)
Subject: Re: Rule Lawyering (WAS: Star Trek III Combat Simulator)
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Electrical Engineering
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 06:39:33 GMT

In article <$stephan.201.0@sasb> $stephan@sasb (Stephan Fassmann, Software)
writes: 
>In the groups that I play with there is a law of five minutes to prove your 
>point with a five minute rebutle by someone else with some kind of consensus 
>at the end. If it is not resolved the person who brings it up buys a round 
>of McD's for everyone, so excessive lawyering has been done away with.

Sounds like a good houserule to me.

Now let me state what I see as the positive side of `rules lawyered games'
like SFB:  while it can be a pain to have to discourage an obsessive lawyer,
it is even worse to fall through a loophole in the rules.  Let me use a
concrete example, something that came up on the SFB email list a while back:

Party A is flying a Romulan, party B is flying something else.  B intends to
close with A and tractor (presumably in preparation for a Deadly Delivery :).
A intends to avoid this by cloaking (you can't tractor a cloaked ship).  A and
B both observe that B will be in tractor range before A is fully cloaked.  No
problem, reasons A, I'll be partially cloaked, so a tractor won't work.)  No
problem, reasons B, he'll only be partially cloaked, so a tractor should work.

   So things go on their merry way, and the two players discover their
   contrary reading of the rules at the critical moment.  At this point one of
   them is screwed.  Either the A shouldn't have invested all that power in
   cloaking, or B shouldn't have invested all that power for a tractor
   auction.  Had they known beforehand, presumably the player in error would
   have made a different choice.

   Alternately, they could have been careful, and decided not to go into the
   darker corners of the rules.  Now one or both of them is flying their ship
   below capacity.  This will lose the game for you.

   Even more alternately, they could have checked with each other before the
   manouver, giving their intended strategy away.

No matter what, there's a problem here.  If the rules had clearly stated what
would happen (like they do in the new Captain's edition), then the whole
rigmarole would never have happened.  This is why I prefer games with
comprehensive rules.

SR
---
From: alsandor@Micor.OCUnix.on.ca (Michel Boucher)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Fortress America?
Date: 13 Oct 92 14:39:46 GMT
Organization: M.B. Cormier INC.

What Russians?  In the MB game, there are three different "farces" 
involved, one being European, one being Central American, and the last 
being Asian.

The game is actually an oversimplication (with a few additions to help 
balance the game in favour of the YouEss, like laser towers) of Jim 
Dunnigan's INVASION AMERICA, an old SPI game.  I wonder if they went 
through channels to get copyright, etc...

I have found that it has to be played with at least three players, but 
it's really only feasible with four.  If one player plays all three 
invading "farces", the game will definitely be imbalanced in favour of 
the invaders.

Part of the game lies in having the invaders fighting among each other as 
well, making the invasion more difficult.  Otherwise, it's a turkey 
shoot.

Michel
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
From: frank@west.nl (Frank J de Bruin)
Subject: Looking for Othello Quarterly/othello games listings
Keywords: Othello
Organization: West Consulting bv, Delft, The Netherlands
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 21:02:37 GMT


Hello netland,

I am looking for the address of the publisher of a magazine
called 'Othello Quarterly'. Probably it is somewhere in Virginia, 
USA.

More specifically I trying to find a back issue of this magazine
containing an article written by A. Kierulf. In this article
(issued in 1988) over 150 Othello games are listed. I want to
use these games in the development of an automated Othello
program as part of an computer science assignment (yeah I know,
there exist such programs already, but those don't count for my
teacher ;-).

Is there somebody who can direct me to this magazine? Or is
there another source of Othello games listings available (by email 
or ftp)?

Please reply by email.


Thanx

Frank

Newsgroups: rec.games.board
From: dagibbs@quantum.on.ca (David Gibbs)
Subject: Re: Attn:  David Gibbs
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 92 19:07:34 GMT
Organization: Quantum Software Systems
Distribution: na

In article <39172@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> rnlee@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Profess'nal Agitator) writes:
>Sorry about this, but mail has been bouncing for over two weeks.
>
>
>
>David,
>
>Attempts to reach you have failed for some time now, but I saw a post
>of yours just this past Monday, so I know your machine is not down.
>Mail is also bouncing to your site postmaster.
>
>Anyhow, Josh is preparing to replace you in Tiananmen since we can't
>contact you.  If you want to remain in the game, I suggest contacting
>someone in the game, or, at the very worst, following-up to this post.

Unfortunately mail has been broken around here for the past
two weeks, but since our news goes by a different route, it
still gets out.

What happened: we buy our mail access through uunet Canada,
the company they bought leased lines (telephone) from has gone
into receivership (a type of bankruptcy), so we haven't been
getting mail in and out.

I am annoyed at this.

As far as Tiananmen, I would like to continue, but unfortunately
I don't know how long this mail slowdown will continue, so I
guess it would probably be a good idea to replace me.

(Actually I posted a notice about this on rec.games.pbm about
a week or week and a half ago.  Did you miss it there?)

-David

P.S. sorry to the rest of the net for this waste of bandwidth,
I would do it in email if I could!
Organization: Doctoral student, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Date: Wed,  7 Oct 1992 07:00:44 -0400 
From: Erik Lauer <el0g+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: A&A: Allied guide to crushing Germany
	<1992Oct7.032040.21512@julian.uwo.ca>

A strategy for axis (other than waiting for the allies to screw up).
Well, the game is balanced quite a bit against you and the longer it
goes the worse.  Assuming Russia has taken E. Europe (a rather standard
plan), you have horrible chances of taking Karelia now.  Since time is
against you (i.e. luck shots work less often when you double the number
of pieces against you) you will have to work on Karelia soon.  How about:
Build 6 tanks (yes this is stupid, but the plan is a turn two attack)
Sink lots of British fleet (normal stuff).
Transport up a tank, use a battleship shot and 1 inf to take Caucuses
(assuming it is defended by 1 inf) [more stupidity, giving up Africa,
but if you can role real well and crush in Karelia you might win... the
more pieces you have the less lucky you need to be)
Move all available land units into E. Europe to retake, move AA gun
there from S. Europe during non-combat.
Land all planes in W. Europe, where you have 2 inf.
If Japan buys into this absurd plan, maybe it will be even stupider by
bombing Russia (landing in the caucuses to be destroyed - see how dumb
this all is), but that is probably getting too stupid.
If Russia attacks you in E Europe next turn, you actually have good chances!
If Russia leaves Karelia (probably leaving 1 inf), you are probably
doomed, since you can't hold it either, have no real African production,
and no inf for a proper attack on Russia, or defense of Germany, but you
have captured Karelia, and will try to roll well defending it (it does
boarder lots of production if you manage to hold it).
If Russia stays in Karelia and places all its builds there, attack! 
Maybe you will outroll him, and have enough left to take Russia next
turn.

A more standard plan is to build almost all inf every turn, still blob
in E. Europe, contest Africa for a while, and maybe you can move up with
lots of in, just go to Ukraine, where you can temporarily take Caucuses
(or move up there, either get attacked and hope to get lucky, get
Karelia for free, or get Russia).  Of course this plan does not actually
work (the Allies eat Germany much to quickly), and the previous plan,
while counting on real luck, at least has a chance to beat the Russians
before huge number of transports dump men all over you.

The first plan is rather stupid, but without any changes your chances
are slim if the Russians attacked you and won.  If the rules are changed
to balance the game, probably something more along the lines of the
second is a much better plan.

Erik
---=
From: bengalt@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Thomas Lee Russell)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: BTECH & CAR WARS
Date: 16 Oct 1992 14:53:58 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Distribution: ne
NNTP-Posting-Host: bigwpi.wpi.edu
Keywords: Battletech Car Wars Games

[info on a Btech contest and a Car Wars contest deleted]

When I first saw this subject line, I had the most amusing impression of what 
an 80 ton BattleMaster would do to a gang of autoduelists.

hehehehehehehe
later
Bengalt
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
From: niekd@cs.kun.nl (Niek van Diepen)
Subject: Re: EIA: The Importance of Being British
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 10:11:38 GMT

charbonn@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (gary charbonneau) writes:
>> (...) to run the forts of Brest, Toulon, Cadiz and St Petersburg 
>> and still 'win' the battle.
>I think this points out one of the flaws in the game.  The geography
>of all four of the above ports is such that fleets would have to
>enter them single file or at most a few ships abreast.  This would
>allow the shore batteries to pick off the attackers more or less
>at leisure.  Historically, "port attacks" just weren't done --
>at least not very often.  I can think of only three actual cases
>that qualify: Aboukir (1798), Copenhagen (1801), and Cochrane's
>1809 fireship raid.  For various reasons, I think all three are
>very dubious examples of an EiA port attack.
Port attacks were a horribly risky affair during all of the age of 
sail (1650-1850 at least). Wind changes, the fact that shore forts
were stable enough to fire heated shot (on a wooden, tarred, target)
and the channel entrances (a local pilot is often a must if you even
want to find it). Fireships (themselves almost abandoned anyway) were
the way to go. Aboukir was not really a defended harbour, more of an
anchorage with an out of range fortress. Copenhagen would qualify,
but one needs a determined genius of the level of Nelson to carry it
off. A land attack is the only way to enter Brest.

>This is probably as it should be.  The one factor that EiA
>understates is that all major powers were constrained by shortages
>of trained seamen.  Many countries could easily build more ships
>than they could effectively man.  There is no way in heck that
>Britain could man 210 ships (of the line), France 120, or Spain 90.
>It might be interesting to allow a country to build ships up to
>its counter maximum, but with declining effectiveness as they
>exceed certain limits.
Manning 210 ships of the line would be possible (about 600 on average
on british SOLs, would make for 126,000 seamen and marines), though
it would strain the resources of Britain, if only because they have
to be scoured from the merchant fleet. The real reason why the British
didn't build beyond about 120 ships is a dearth of timber. A SOL needs
lots of seasoned wood, and large chunks of it, so it has to be from
old trees.
Here the French had no problems, and at a certain stage (1809 I think)
Napoleon made a plan to have 150 ships of the line in 1815. No problem
with wood with all of Europe to scour. Seamen, well, he relied on
numbers and on those of conquered countries. All he needed was a few
days of naval supremacy on one spot: the Channel. Of course, circum-
stances intervened.
The Spanish built most of their best ships in Havana, so a safe line
of communications to the Carribean would be very important to them.

Niek van Diepen
From: rnlee@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Profess'nal Agitator)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: Railway games.
Date: 8 Oct 92 18:09:22 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: MAWL - Mudd Alums Without Lives

In article <rleroux1.718510949@sol.UVic.CA> rleroux1@sol.UVic.CA (Roger Leroux) writes:
>Hi all,

>I love railway games (and this has been a reasonably FAQ), and was
>wondering if people could tell me more about the following:

>Eurorails: Supposedly won the 1991 Origins Best Game award
>Empire Builder

Eurorails and Empire Builder are both from the "Empire Builder" series
of games, which also includes British Rails.  The game system is the
same.  The setting for Eurorails is unified Europe; for Empire
Builder, it is the contiguous US and the south of Canada.  British
Rails takes place in the Isles, of course.

The Empire Builder series could be described as "fun with crayons".
At the start of the game, no track exists, and each player lays out
his own track (with crayons).  The primary victory condition is a
money limit combined with a secondary network condition which says you
must be connected with a certain number of "major" cities.  In
Eurorails, it is 7 of 8; in Empire Builder, I forget, I think all 6.

You can upgrade your train to either a faster one, or one with larger
capacity.  Later, you can upgrade to the other attribute.  Income is
earned by transporting cargo from one of its source points to a
specific destination.  Destinations are determined by cards with three
different delivery options.  Some of these cards are special, usually
some disaster or weather condition, which affects movement.

Player interaction is low coming only when a commodity has been
temporarily exhausted or one player decides to ride another's line.

Hope this helps,

Agitator
  #->

"A political deadend."                  Bruce Herschensohn for U.S. Senate!!!
    --Gore on the Vice Presidency when    Not the ten-year       //  The REAL
      asked about a Dukakis-Gore ticket   Congress insider      //   outsider
--------------- R E M E M B E R   B E I J I N G ------------\\ //------------
IBM PC - Who wants a politically correct computer?           \X/  Only AMIGA!
========================================== Bring Back the Caltech Cannon!! ==
Roderick Lee, HMC '91      "The Professional Agitator"      agitator@ucsd.edu
From: kendrick+@CMU.EDU (Kendrick Kerwin Chua)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: New Game from GW/MB
Date: 16 Oct 92 14:55:57 GMT
Organization: Freshman, MCS general, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Has anyone out there heard of/bought/played a new game from Milton
Bradley/Games Workshop (The Makers Of HeroQuest (as announced
shamelessly on the box)?
I think the thing is called BattleMasters.  Supposedly there is a five
foot square hexmap, with about 200 plastic GW figurines in it (probably
duplicates of Warhammer stuff, I'm not sure).  Is it worth getting? 
Thanks in advance



Kendrick Kerwin Chua

kc3u+@andrew.cmu.edu    or
kendrick+@CMU.EDU

Cthulhu for President, 1992!
From: gsl2598@Msu.oscs.montana.edu (LEPRICAN~~~)
Subject: Re: Some Car Wars Questions
Reply-To: gsl2598@Msu.oscs.montana.edu (LEPRICAN~~~)
Organization: Montana State University
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 04:02:05 GMT

In article <92278.125744TJS107@psuvm.psu.edu>, Sime <TJS107@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>Just a few things I noticed from Uncle Al's Catalog From Hell that I want to
>comment on:
>
>First:  I hate when they contradict themselves.  Or else I just don't understan
>d what they're trying to say. With grenades, it sez 'They no longer hit on the
>turn after they are fired, but on the same phase'.  Then the next sentance it
>sez 'Grenades now impact after one phase for every 4" of range.'
>So what's the deal? Which one is right?  I assume the second one is correct,
>but what's the use of the first sentance, aside from confusing me?
>Another thing I shoulda put up with the smoke and paint article, but it has
>different penalties for firing thru smoke and paint listed in various places.
>Which is correct, -1 per 1/2", right?

Well, I just have the compendium, but I think grenades work like this:
If you fire it from a launcher, it hits on the same phase.
If you throw it, it travels 4" per phase.

I always thought smoke or paint was -1 per half inch or fraction thereof,
so most of the time it would be at least -2...  as someone stated earlier,
you would have to be at exactly 90 deg. to get a -1, and then you have to
take into account that the vehicles are moving, and the time the vehicle is
exactly 90 deg. from the smoke is probably pretty small.  There have to be
some special circumstances to get only -1 in our games...

Well, that's my $.02

Leprican~~~
Leprican~~~
From: Bruce_Harper@mindlink.bc.ca (Bruce Harper)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Advance Civilization Gamer's Guide
Date: 12 Oct 92 14:15:25 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

I think there have been a few complaints about the Adv Civ Gamer's Guide, but
most people liked it.  It covered so much territory that it's hard (for me,
at least) to think of any new topics for GENERAL articles.

Some games lend themselves to analysis and articles, and some don't.  I don't
think (Advanced) Civilization does, because despite the whole Gamer's Guide,
I think who sits next to you might well be the most important factor in
winner.

Advanced Third Reich is quite a different story.  There hasn't been any
problem filling up the first four issues of ULTRA, and there are concrete
ideas for the next several years' worth already.

It's hard to have an opinion on the quality of articles in the GENERAL which
deal with other games which you don't play.  But I can assure you, some of
the old 3R articles were (almost) pure hot air, with perfect plans for both
sides floating around all over the place.  While I thought 3R had its
problems (otherwise I wouldn't have changed it), if it had been as easy as
some of those articles made out, no one would have been playing it?  (And
this criticism doesn't consider blatant rule mistakes in some of the
articles).
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
From: books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu (Roger Books)
Subject: Re: A Quest...
Keywords: Battle Armour
Organization: FSU nuclear physics
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 17:55:35 GMT

In article <BvrGDp.31o@acsu.buffalo.edu> v055nmvy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (David A Gaidasz) writes:
>
>	Okay folks, here is a question...
>
>	Does anyone out there in netland know of a hard-hitting, fast moving
>game of battle armour combat? I'm talking of battle armour ala Starship 
>Troopers, Bubble Gum Crisis, Body Armor: 2000, Forever War, etc...
>	BattleTech just doesn't cut it, though the Elementals are coming 
>fairly close. Living Steel, by Leading Edge, is a little on the slow side, with
>armour that waddles into battle at a snail's pace, though the armour levels and
>damage are about right. I haven't really seen any others.
>
>	Any responses on games, prices, comments, etc. would be apreciated.
>Thank you for your time...
>					David Gaidasz 

Have you tried BattleSuit by SJG?  It may not be in print but a friend of
mine says it was pretty good.

>________________________________________________________________________________
>| David Gaidasz  		      | Disclaimer:  I stand alone;	       |
>|   (aka White Knight, KnightWalker)  |     	     in ideas and actions,     |
>|   v055nmvy@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu     |              thoughts and reactions.   |
>|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>| "You'll never see my shade, or hear the sound of my feet,                    |
>| While there's a moon, over Bourbon Street." -Sting, Moon Over Bourbon Street |
>|______________________________________________________________________________|

Roger
books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
From: silber@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Ami A. Silberman)
Subject: Re: Fortress America?
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 18:53:20 GMT

alsandor@Micor.OCUnix.on.ca (Michel Boucher) writes:
>The game is actually an oversimplication (with a few additions to help 
>balance the game in favour of the YouEss, like laser towers) of Jim 
>Dunnigan's INVASION AMERICA, an old SPI game.  I wonder if they went 
>through channels to get copyright, etc...

Not really. The situation is roughly similar, but none of the game mechanics
match up. INVASION AMERICA was a standard WWII style game with some nice
chrome such as unknown strengths on some units, human wave units etc.
One of the interesting points was that the scale was sufficiently large
so that the American player almost always had an open flank or coast,
what with the long coasts of Mexico and the vast artic north to cover.
(I found, though, that Mexico could be defended fairly adaquately with
a handful of units, just enough to delay the S. American offensive and
prevent it from linking up with the Chinese to early, and that the Russians
couldn't really take advantage of the open north front with their hovercraft
units since the Canadians could put up a stiff enough fight. Most of the three
invader games involved the Russians taking Florida and invading the eastern
seaboard, the Chinese going after Southern California to cut off the 
U.S. forces in Mexico, and the S. Americans slowly pushing up the penensula
and invading Lousiana or someplace like that.  I seem to remember that the
choice of initial invasion areas was very important, the invaders really only
get the one shot. If they try to launch much of an invasion elsewhere, they will
thin out their initial bridgehead to the point that it can be collapsed.
In addition, they must maintain lines of supply and put down partisans.)

If you get a chance to play INVASION AMERICA, try it. I'm tempted to pull
out my old copy and give it another whirl. Also in the series was
OBJECTIVE MOSCOW, in which a revitalized NATO and a disaffected Warsaw Pact
invades mother Russia in the year 2000 (or so). Never got a chance to see
that one though.
-- 
ami silberman - janitor of lunacy
	silber@cs.uiuc.edu
From: ahabig@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: EIA: The Importance of Being British
Date: 15 Oct 92 19:57:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: usenet.Bw6I35.371
Organization: Indiana University Astrophysics, Bloomington, IN

In article <Bw6G8n.o7@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> charbonn@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (gary charbonneau) writes:
>>Oh btw, we *always* play with the rule that says GB and France have to
>>start at war and cannot make an informal peace and have to sue for
>>unconditional peace. It's a must.
>>
>I used to think it was a good rule myself: A Franco-British alliance
>is simply a nightmare for the other powers.  However, it is not really
>enforceable.  In our most recent game, I had the British.  France was
>going under, and it appeared that the Austrians (run by the Metternichean
>Alec Habig) were going to run away with the game.  I cooked up a deal
>with France whereby he let me win enough inconsequential battles to
>drive me to the top of the political point chart.  I then surrendered
>unconditionally to him and gave him assistance by attacking another
>of his enemies, Russia (the situation was such that I could have done
>little by attacking Austria directly).

Ohh... the memory of this super-slimey ploy still make me shiver.  Kudos to
Gary for dreaming it up!  However, not using the "must be at war" scenario
makes it altogether too easy for a anglo-franco mop-up.  What every game really
needs is two players who don't like each other very much to play France and
Britain - the whole game revolves around that conflict.

	Alec
Newsgroups: rec.games.board