HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: pca8c@Virginia.EDU ("Phil Abel")
Subject: Re: Viceroys - review wanted
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 22:50:13 GMT

I have played Viceroys a couple times and I have found it to be
extremely entertaining. It takes a little while to learn, but
once the players have the rules down, it's all downhill.

One of the prior responses to your message stated that the game
was extremely dependent on die rolls... that it is. There is
some scrutiny that can be used, but the dice rolls generally
are more important than in other games.

Moreover, the final score in the game is dependent on "points".
Most points are attained through awards and colonies. Awards
are dependent on being the first to do something (discover a
continent, colonize a continent, circumnavigate the globe,
discover straits of Magellan) and you get points for doing such
things. Moreover, you also get points for each colony you own,
each continent you have a presence on, and lots of points for
having the most or only colonies on a continent. Thus, your
dice rolls, and who goes first in the turn is very important.

My nit picking of the rules aside, it is very fun, and there is
a good deal of strategy involved to keep your opposing
countries at bay while expanding your own empire. Games can
take a long time, though. The gaming club I play with here at
UVa starts at 6:30 pm and plays through 11pm, and although we
get pretty far when we play Viceroys, we could easily keep
going for many more hours. So it's best to set a "quitting
point" as you start the game.
From: jcg@tools9.teradata.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: More WRG 7.4 questions
Date: 7 Nov 92 02:27:19 GMT
Reply-To: jcg@tools9.teradata.com ()
Distribution: world
Organization: ATT/NCR Teradata Business Unit
Originator: jcg@tools9

Well, my questions about rallying are refining themselves all the time.
How about these ...

1. How does a unit rally from rout?

Instance A:
	A routing unit 240p away from the enemy is joined by a general during
	the bound 3 staff move.

Instance B:
	A routing unit 240p away from the enemy is joined by a general during
	the bound 4 approach phase.

Now in bound 4 phase 10 I can see arguing that:

1.1 Both A and B ceased routing when the rout move in bound 3 ended because they
will not rout since, and both have stayed still for a bound, so they are
both rallied from broken to shaken.

1.2 A ceased routing in bound 3, but B only ceased in bound 4 (at the instance
of the approach).  Therefore A rallies, but B is still broken and must rally
turn 5.

1.3 Both A and B cease routing when they did not rout in phase 9 of the current
turn 4, so both are still broken until they complete rallying in turn 5.

2. It seems to me that "cease routing" must happen instantaneously.  If 
conditions change, for instance an enemy approaches, rallying may be interupted
but they do not resume routing.  Correct?

3. It seems to me that Barker intended that (ordinarily):
	broken ---rally---> shaken (disordered if Irr. A unshaken before broken)
	shaken ---with general (or victory in combat)---> disordered
	disordered ---rally---> steady
takes at least 3 bounds.  I.e. that you cannot do any of these in parallel
(you can of course defer the last).  Correct?

4. Is "must rally" a condition or an event?  I.e. say A is disordered and
in a must rally situation.  During its rally it takes 3CPF and waver tests
sucessfully, but does not enter combat.  At the end of the bound it is clearly
still disordered, but must it rally the next turn?

5. If a unit is in a "must rally" rally, and receives 2CPF or RETREAT orders,
etc. does the no move during rally take precedence?
starts its rally

Thanks,
Jon.
From: ahabig@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: Games that belong on every gamer's bookshelf
Date: 13 Nov 92 14:09:19 GMT
Organization: Indiana University Astrophysics, Bloomington, IN

In article <1992Nov13.052949.1@vax.sonoma.edu> oberland@vax.sonoma.edu writes:
>My list of top 10
>7:Planet Busters - heh. Remember this old gem?  Kill that Zerstor.  Bust that
>Planet.   As good as Wiz-War, but harder to learn and play.  Appeared in Dragon
>Magazine WAYYYY back.

Yes, I remember this one!  In fact, I went back-issue hunting a few months back
just to find it.  Great game.  If Wiz-War compares to Planet Busters, I'll have
to try to find Wiz-War.

	Alec
From: re@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Roderick Easton)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: BTECH: Us vs. Them vs. who?
Date: 6 Nov 92 11:52:43 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh

In article <1992Nov5.140202.12563@lehi3b15.CSEE.Lehigh.EDU>, kammr@lafcol.lafayette.edu (Rob Kamm) writes:
> 
> Not much of a fight.  Lets see, they have the survivors of a Clan trial of
> annihilation getting together with a bunch of IS survivors of the Kurita
> prison on Richmond.  Hmm, a large number of nomadic survivors of very tough
> circumstances who are then given 225 years of peace with which to develop,
> their only requirement is that they keep an eye on both the Clans and the  
> IS.  With any luck FASA thought about this and will give the Minnesota tribe
> great intelligence capabilities (time for a new game-dealing with that type
> of warfare?), self-destruct devices of all sizes and more powerful ECM.
> With even more luck, as they left Richmond they misjumped into a star some-
> where...
> :)
>                   Rob Kamm

If you've read the Battletech novels you will know that there was a humungous
intelligence war going on around about 3026-3030.  There was:
 Heimdall v Loki v ISF
 ISF v O5P v Yakuza (v ninjas)
 Maskirovka v MI5 v ROM
 SAFE v LIC
 ISF v Fledgling FRR
and of course Wolfnet had to get in somewhere...
Then there was the criminal content on Solaris VII, they're always up to something.
For those of you who don't know
  Loki are the Lyran Commonwealth anti-terrorists who use terrorist tactics against
       the Draconis Combine and other political dissidents. 
  Heimdall is an organisation dedicated to making sure Loki behave themselves
  The ISF is the Kuritan intelligence
  The O5P is a powerful religious order in the Draconis Combine that is just a little
          more than it seems
  The Maskirovka is the capellan intelligence
  MI5 is the Davion military intelligence
  ROM is the Comstar intelligence arm
  SAFE is the Marik intelligence     and
  LIC stands for the Lyran Intelligence Corps.

Rod
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Subject: The Gamer Magazine
Reply-To: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, N.H.
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 17:06:59 GMT

I just received a letter from Scott Haring saying that Issue #5 of The
Gamer came back from the printer last week.  This means, hopefully,
that it's shipping this week.  He also said Issue #6 looks to be "on
time" for it's new scheduled release date of January, 1993.

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
From: cmcarthu@esk.compserv.utas.edu.au (Christopher Gary McArthur)
Subject: BTech; What price ratio's? 
Organization: University of Tasmania at Launceston
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 02:26:23 GMT


	I got the Battletech compendium lately and have been designing heaps
of Clan mechs.  We normally have a battle which is Inner Sphere against Clan.
The question is, to make it fair how much money should the Inner Sphere player
get compared to the Clan player.  We used to play that the Inner Sphere player
got double the money, but the pilots are not as good.

	Then I realised that Clan mechs are all Omnimechs, and thus their price
increases dramatically.  Also by going by the books in the Jade Falcon series 
all Clan mechs should have XL engines.  

	So what should the ratio be?  

					Thanks in advance...

					Chris McArthur

Newsgroups: rec.games.board
From: books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu (Roger Books)
Subject: BloodBowl: two questions
Organization: FSU nuclear physics
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 18:35:57 GMT

I have two bloodboowl questions,

1.  Can a kicker kick the ball to a member of his own team?  Kickers seem
to have much better range than throwers.

2.  Is it legal to have someone leave the field and substitute in a new 
player?  I run into this every once in a while as I have players that
are better offensively or defensivly.

Does anyone else have problems with movement on a square grid?  We just
switched to a hex grid and some of our avoid problems went away.  It
was rather annoying to see the guy zig-zag in and out of two players tackle
zones with no chance of a tackle, and have this take no extra movement.

Roger
books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu
Organization: Doctoral student, Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Date: Thu,  5 Nov 1992 16:07:59 -0500 
From: Mustafa Unlu <mustafa+@CMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: EIA: Britain trade (was RE:EIA: House Rules)
	<1992Nov4.233309.23139@pei.com>

fred_s@earwax.pei.com (Fred Scott) writes:

> I disagree.  In the next sentence, immediately following the rule you cite,
> it goes on to say that "Great Britain may trade with *any* eligable ports,
> but only if the major power controlling the port also wishes to trade."  It
> sure seems hard to construe that as meaning anything else besides Great
> Britain being able to turn trade on or off on a "port-by-port" basis.

You do have a point. 

> 
> >If this still doesn't sound convincing, there is an errata that I
> >remember reading which answered questions about trade.
> ...
> (he goes on to say the errata he can't find supports his position rather
> explicitly)
> 
> Well, of course, obviously I haven't seen such errata myself so I can't
> comment on it.  As I said before, my memory of General articles (which I
> can't currently cite, either) was that they explicitly stated that Britain
> was allowed to pick which ports they wished to trade with, not just which
> powers.  If you or anyone else can find AH's postion on this as published
> anywhere in a General, could such a person please post the location and
> substance of the answer?  I think this is likely to be the only way to
> resolve this question.
> 

Since then I received an errata that confirmed the first point I wrote
but not the second. I guess that it was a house rule we made up. But I
still don't remember any article which explicitly stated that GB could
pick ports. This interpretation of the rules is different from ours
seriously enough that I can say that it would have effected the game a
lot. So I would have remembered it if I read it.

> Fred

M.
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
From: jmb@oclc.org (James Blight)
Subject:  Help for Squad Leader needed
Summary: I'm missing a scenario board and....
Keywords: Help, Squad Leader
Organization: OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 16:27:07 GMT

Help !   A friend and I recently purchased a hoard of Squad Leader/ Advanced
Squad Leader stuff.  We began reading the rules and organizing the scenarios
for play, when we discovered that we were missing a scenario board containing
scenarios 3A/3B on one side and scenario 9 on the other.  Would some kind soul
(and ASL enthusiast) please send a description of these scenarios, please? Oh,
I'd better mention that this the scenarios are from Squad Leader, not Advanced
Squad Leader.  Anyone?

    -Jim

/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- /
/      Jim Blight   Online Computer Library Services jmb@oclc.org           /
/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- /
From: gletty@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Bruce Gletty)
Subject: Re: Jutland - a classic game
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 17:41:00 GMT

Bruce_Harper@mindlink.bc.ca (Bruce Harper) writes:

>Maybe it's because it harkens back to simpler times, but I always liked the
>Avalon Hill game Jutland, even though the rules didn't really give an meaning
>to everything that was happening.  I never have gotten around to redesigning
>it.

>Are there any Jutland fans out there?  And are there better games featuring
>naval war between the age of sail and the age of air?

>And I always though Jutland would play better with a board...

I played tons of Jutland a long while back. We used up all the
ship sheets and had to get more. I even researched all the ships
built from the pre-dreadnought era through the 1922 naval treaty 
and made up 'ship sheets' for them and modified the system a
little to take into account varying quality of guns and secondary
armament. Haven't played in ages, but it is truly a classic game. 

I liked the non board. Even played a couple of times with they real
(tripled) scale, but you need a big room for this.
-- 
This post is mine, and does not necessarily reflect the views of C.C.S.O.
From: elm4252@summa.tamu.edu (MOORE, ERIC LEE)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: BTECH-Gamer/Player which are you?
Date: 11 Nov 92 05:07:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: summa.10NOV199223071890
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

*SIGH*

i have not posted in a while because most of the arguements...
errr....discussions are ones that i have seen at least twice
in the past two years.

maybe i am just becoming cynical in my 'old' age, but it
seems that most of the Btech game players out there have
gone the way of the dinosaurs.  i remember when 'Mech 
force was made almost exclusively of just that, BattleMechs.

forces posted recently have got ba-jillions of vtols, artillery
platforms, hover gun platforms, and giga-ba-jillions of 5
ton hover vehicles.

most of the artillery pieces that show up in my campaigns are
scenerio items.  Even Kurita fanatics would start running
dry on the number of suicidal vehicles and spotters that
seem to be running around the battlefield now.  

In the BattleTech universe, it is not a question of how many
were killed.  it is a question of how much materials were
destroyed.

Btech quote of the day-'you want to put all of the regiments
                        Arrow systems on WHAT????'
					Mok

a.k.a.  Mjr Kessel
        CMDR 537th Heavy Company
        (2nd Company on the horizon...<WHOA Salvage>..)
        Mercs employed by Federats

	How can you expect to outwit a maniacal genius on an
	empty tummy?   
					-Eve
					 Mann and Machine
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Subject: Re: G.O.O.T.M.U. Question
Reply-To: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, N.H.
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 14:05:55 GMT

peter@techbook.com (Peter Sarrett) writes:
>
>GOOTMU is not as good as Wiz-War.
>
>There.  I've said it.  Now, beyond that, it's an ok game.  There's lots of
>weird things that can happen, but unlike Wiz-War, they're all out in the open.

I'd agree.  But I think it's better than you give it credit for.

>One play begins, there is relatively little
>player interaction.  With very few exceptions, the only way you can affect
>another player is by picking up his GOOTMU and running away from him.  If you
>land on the same space as another player, you may bump that player to any
>adjacent space (but not through a wall), and that player must immediately
>follow any directions on that new space.  But this occurs infrequently, and is
>rarely more than a minor inconvenience to the bumped player.

Hmmm - we play a wilder version here!  I found a great strategy in
deliberately hanging around a space such as "Swap any two GOOTMUs on
board."  Granted, you still have to roll the right number to land on it,
but when you do, you can swap player A's and B's GOOTMUs - especially
nice if they just spent a long time tracing out the one treacherous path
through the maze and are very close to their goals!  This happens quite a
bit . . .

Likewise, fully half of our tile rotations are to slow down the opponent
rather than speed up our own progress.  It's especially satisfying if you
can rotate a tile that puts a foe into a little walled-in box!  This can
also happen more frequently than you think it might . . . which tends to
slow down our moves, compared to what you described, as we take the game
more "seriously," apparently, than your players.

But I still admit that Wiz War is a better game, all in all . . .

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu
From: kurtg@yang.earlham.edu (Son of Scribbler)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: Btech : LRM/SRM ammo
Date: 6 Nov 92 19:15:08 GMT
Organization: Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana

In article <1992Nov5.024302.28527@uws.EDU.AU>, roleary@st.nepean.uws.edu.au (Rocqueforte OLeary) writes:
> G'day,
> After reading through "Unbound" a while back, I liked the idea of
> different sort of LRM/SRM rounds. I've thought of a few types, such
> as smoke rounds, inferno rounds (real nasty in LRM-20!!!), anti-
> infantry rounds, chemical warheads (gas, phosphours etc). When I
> find the stats I made for these I'll post them, but in the meantime,
> does anyone have any any interesting varient LRM/SRM rounds ?
> 
> One other thought...If LRM's are 31st century equivalent of 20th C.
> Folding Fin Areil (spelling ?) Rockets (FFAR), which I kinda seen them
> as being, then their range should be 1,800 Meter's i.e. 3 times normal.
> I then times all weapons ranges by 3, and the ranges seem quite good.
> Haven't play tested it yet, but what do you think of the idea. Makes 
> Clanners even nastier IMHO.
> 
> Cheers,

Hmmm... There was a magazine, I've got it, that had things like new munitions
and warheads for LRM and SRM... Far and Away, I don't remember the issue date
or number, but it has a long article about new tech for BT. If you can get it I
highly reccomend it. 
-- 
Kurt Grossman
KurtG@earlham.bitnet
KurtG@yang.earlham.edu

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.
		-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Someone got stranded in no man's land, dancing in the spotlight
 To the sound of clapping hands, nobody knows who's side he was on,
 It's a risk that you take in no man's land, nobody knows what made him decide,
 To run for freedom and to certain suicide, when they turn off the guns
 And his fingers uncurl, he's clutching a photograph of a berlin party girl..."
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
From: rbr@well.sf.ca.us (Bob Rossney)
Subject: Six-Day Race
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 22:29:03 GMT


(Nick Sauer sent me email asking me about Six-Day Race, and since my
email to him bounced and I happened to have this review lying around,
here it is.)

6-TAGE RENNEN (6-Day Race), by Holtmann VIP, is a game of bicycle
racing for four to eight players.

The board is an oval track, divided into 81 spaces.  Each player
begins with an identical set of cards of denominations 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, and 7; the total number of cards varies with the number of players.

On your turn, you play a card from your hand and move your bicycle
that number of spaces.   If you land on a space containing one or
more other bicycles, you "slipstream."  If the space contains one
opponent, you double your move, if it contains two, you triple your
move, etc.

Because you don't have enough points in your starting hand to get
around the track, slipstreaming is essential.  If you get too far
ahead of the pack or too far behind, you may not even finish the
race.

About a third of the way around the track is a "change riders" space.
If you land on this space, you trade in your hand for a new, random
hand.  It's a viable strategy (though in my experience not a winning
one) to burn up all of your high-value cards in a sprint to this space
and then to draw a new hand.

Scoring is what drives this game.  There are two "sprint" lines on the
board, as well as a finish line.  The first four racers to cross one
of these line score points based on the order they cross.

In a single race, these points are generally immaterial, but in a full
game, which consists of six consecutive races, the points become critical
for breaking ties.  In the full game, riders that fail to pass the finish
line are penalized with "lost laps," and the player who has lost the least
laps at the end of six races is the overall winner.  The points that you
get for winning indiviual sprints and races are used only to break ties.

This is a tremendously exciting game.  Just as in real bicycle racing,
the best cyclists tend to group in a pack until the final straightaway,
at which point the person who's the farthest behind without being too
far behind and who has reserved his strength the most wisely surges
ahead and crosses the finish line.  There's almost no luck in the game
(unless someone decides to change riders), so among players of similar
ability a given race can be a very close thing.  As you play, you must
continuously strike a balance between staying with the pack, getting the
most out of your cards, and keeping a good mix of denominations (races
are often lost by not having the one card that would let you slipstream
past the finish line).

Bob Rossney
rbr@well.sf.ca.us
From: brendan@cs.uq.oz.au (Brendan Mahony)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: EIA: Re: Supply limits
Date: 13 Nov 92 04:49:33 GMT
Reply-To: brendan@cs.uq.oz.au

In <1992Nov9.235655.3301@pei.com> fred_s@earwax.pei.com (Fred Scott) writes:

>Essentially, you're saying that the AH rule gods are trying to suggest to the
>players what they should bid higher for, although they can still bid whatever
>they want.  They're doing so with an irrelavant rules change which tends to
>randomize the results of the bidding, give players countries they don't want
>to play while stifling competion (more or less at random) for other, more
>popular, countries.  And, on top of everything else, they're even *wrong* about
>the order - at least, in my humble opinion.

Oops the order is Br Fr Ru Au Pr Sp Tu, agreeing with you on the first
two at least. This order is clearly the order in which they believe
these powers will accumulate VPs, Britain at the fastest rate, Turkey
slowest.

I can't see how these rules stifle competition, except for Pr Sp and Tu,
and let's face it, if people spend more to get those countries than others
do to get Br and Fr you might as well not bother playing the game. 
On the other hand competition for Br and Fr is increased since all bids
are active when these powers are decided. Moreover you have much more
freedom to bid higher for Br and Fr than for the country you really want.

In summary a free-for-all encourages a uniform distribution of of bids,
whilst the ordered resolution complements the relative strengths of the
powers.
--
When soldiers form lines or hollow squares, you call it reason.
When wild geese in flight take the form of a letter V, you say instinct.
When the homogeneous atoms of a mineral arrange themselves into shapes
mathematically perfect you have nothing to say. You have not even invented a name to conceal your heroic unreason."
Newsgroups: rec.games.board