('Oh my God' go the list watchers, 'here he goes on one of his
diatribes again')
I agree with my psychopathic friend to a large degree. You can whine
about bugs and customer service all day but in the end your choices
are put up with it or take your $2.50 somewhere else (I should point
out down here (Australia) it is more like $3.50 with out pathetic
exchange rate).
Yes we are paying for service but we aren't paying that much and we
aren't getting that much service. I can live with it. If Rich was
charging what a lot of other PBEM's do I would be more put out but it
seems a fair price for what we get. Hey they run on time and only one
turn has ever been re-run.
A few bugs are serious and for game balances sake I wish they were
fixed. Resurrection being free and not costing a noble point seems a
biggy to me. Same with the partial learning of SFW.
Now onto what prompted me to write. Maddog is having a great time.
I'm having a great time. Both of us are operating outside the
standard alliance/castle building model that most players of Olympia
and PBeMs in general use. (For those that don't know I'm the founder
of the BoRG and he is a rampaging bandit/warlord group)
Recently I have spoken to several newbies who have since dropped.
They found the game boring because it seemed dominated by alliances
who just wanted to tell them what to do and who were at war. They
felt all the land had been claimed and they would have to be
compliant slaves of the existing alliances.
Maddog and the BoRG have both proven that you don't have to join a
big alliance to prosper and have fun.
Maddog in particular has shown what I suspected for sometime. All the
land may be claimed but that doesn;t mean it can be held. Having a
castle and a bunch of garrisons mean nothing if you have little
aptitude for war (Insert obvious advert for the BoRG here :-) or your
resources are spread too thin.
I feel there are many alliances that are currently in this situation.
The Harn Confederacy was destroyed because it claimed a HUGE area and
only had five factions at the time of the war with the Lords. We knew
we were undermanned but we thought the Lords didn;t quite have THAT
many nobles. We had about as many nobles as they had factions :-) We
hadn't even visited about 40% of the land we claimed. But given
information is hard to get our bluff lasted a long while.
Unfortunately as the war started several players dropped and our
plans to secure the rest of our realm disintergrated in the face of a
huge stack of elite troops.
Maddog has exploited the parlous state of the successor states and
the fact most of their rulers are relatively new players. He was also
coached in the arts of war by myself so he got over the initial
mistakes quickly. He was in fact the fastest learner I have ever
seen. Pity he is a psychopath :-) He is however good for business.
War is my business and business is good!!!
We had the land rush phase of the game, followed by the expansion and
consolidation of alliances period. Then the wars started. Now we are
at the point where there is lots of gold floating around the big
alliances and the larger alliances are mature and well-developed.
I would like to see individual nobles and factions be able to have a
place in the game without commiting to an alliance. Hire mages (pay
them in spells or gold) hire mercenaries to patrol a border or
esacort a trade mission. Buy maps off explorers, commision
expeditions into Hades or finance privateers. Spread the gold around.
It does no good in your vaults.
Remember back to when you were a newbie and din;t know what to do and
the world seemed so big and mysterious. Help new factions find
direction by approaching THEM with tasks you need done. Other them a
reward that will give them a purpose. Even something as simple as
'bring me your 25 peasants and I'll give you the location of a city
that teaches scrying' will get them going without them having to
commit to your big and mysterious allaince that they know is at war
with another big mysterious alliance.
Oh one more thing. The BoRG have one noble actively involved in what
we call the Dogcatcher Contract. We had more but being a dog
catcher doesn;t pay all that well and we got a few more lucrative
offers that require our attention. Anyway the local rulers seem to
finally have the job in hand even if they are taking their time about
it. Maddog does like to drag his men through the wilderness for
months before bravely leaping out of ambush to kill a garrison or
two :-)
Anyway my plea is 'Think laterally and help yourself by helping
others to enjoy the game.'
And to all the newbies looking for something to do, don't believe all
the propoganda and see if your local nation has an underutilised area
they can't hold. And remember the most gold is in trade routes and
most people don;t guard them very well :-)
Andrew/Mordekai
> Ok we take a history test
> I've spent 2 weeks studying and I get more answers correct.
> You take the same test after 4 beers and reading a playboy.
> Well actually you've just looked at the pictures.
> You've missed the small article that says "see the guy with the map on sunset
> street."
> It's a busy street with two doors. A line of about 100 men are entering the
> door marked free sex, enter here. Other men are
> exiting the door next to it. They are laughing, smilling and tossing a wadded
> up piece of paper into the trash can.
> A man sits in a chair accross the street with a smile on his face.
> A sign says, "maps $1.00." You get into the free sex line and
> axiously await your turn to enter the door. When your turn arrives you open
> the door, step inside slip on the mud in front
> of the two way mirror, slide accross the floor into a pile of
> naked muddy men. Another smilling man exits the other door
> wads up his map, tosses it into the garbage, looks back at the men in line at
> the free sex door, laughs and walks away.
> Bugs? Features you've yet to learn.
> It's a GAME the more you learn the easier it is to play. The more
> time and effort you invest, the better you will play.
> I'm having more fun in this game than any other I've played.
> But I may have to unsubscribe to the g2 list cause I hate to
> read whiney mail.
> maddog
>
>