Den News, Issue 7 From: support@den.com (Customer Support) Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997 00:00:00 +0000 =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+^+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ DEN NEWS ISSUE 7 APRIL 31, 1997 =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ > > > > ONLY THE STRONG < < < Gamer's Den is pleased to announce the release of Only the Strong, the newest and largest Odyssey module. Written by Mark Montero, a long time gamer and Odyssey player, OTS is a factional game for 24-72 players. It features a six competing teams, from the benign Realm seeking spiritual enlightenment to the Children of Scourge who want to turn everyone into Vermen. OTS promises to be the most engaging Odyssey module ever -- it is certainly the largest. TABLE OF CONTENTS Rumblings Module Update :: Only the Strong Never Give Up, by Bob Thomson A Marsupial's Tail, by Michael Corey Other Odyssey Web Sites Phoenix Update Postal Partners RUMBLINGS At long last another issue of Den News graces your desktop. We just finished putting Only the Strong together. Other than writing Odyssey, this proved to be our most ambitious project yet and it took two years. Speaking from personal experience, let me tell you that the data entry portion of the project alone was horrific! Thanks to all the players who patiently waited for the release; we hope you enjoy the result. Mark Montero did a terrific job of creating an interesting, balanced, and varied world for you to enjoy. This issue of Den News includes a feature article on OTS. That is followed by two game briefs where Bob Thomson and Michael Corey wrote summaries of their competing adventures in HQ-1. Now that OTS is done, we plan to shift gears. We've got a group of folks working on a 1998 module. I'm going to spend time upgrading our web site -- it needs it! Then we are going to concentrate on putting together an interface for the PC. Don't expect anything before next year, though we will do our best to bring it to you in good fashion. Online gaming is sure taking off. For those involved in multi-player realtime games, there is a wealth of offerings to join. The internet and internet gaming is definitely the next wave. Enjoy the ride! Remember that we are very keen to receive articles for publication in this and other magazines. Drop us a line if you are interested. --- Den News is published by Gamer's Den, and contains up-to-date info provided by players and staff (Tim Hahn and Russell Rice) about the goings on at our gaming club, affectionately called the 'Den'. Den News is a sporadic publication. If you've got Internet access you should check out our web page at http://www.den.com or mail info@den.com. On CompuServe download INFO.DEN in the Vendor library of the PBMGAMES forum. You can contact Den staff directly at support@den.com and on CompuServe at 73613,3472. If you are reading this and you are not playing at the Den yet, you should signup! It costs you nothing to join, and you receive two free turns for Odyssey and Phoenix. MODULE UPDATE :: ONLY THE STRONG Gamer's Den is pleased to announce the release of Only the Strong, the latest and largest module yet. OTS features six competing factions of 4-12 players each in a close-ended competition to carve out victory in the land of Thuringia. The map is 130x90 provinces and filled with lots of fun things to do. Join with a group of friends or make your own as you play. You can sink your teeth into OTS as games are expected to run over 50 turns. There are more items, more guilds, more major locations, and more everything than any Odyssey module ever before! Here's a brief description of the six factions in Only the Strong: 1. The Realm Located in the central heartland, the Realm is made up of three united kingdoms: the Kingdom of Morgan, the nomadic Abishag, and the dwarven Rune Lords. Noble and pure, these followers of the god Iesu eschew the practice of magic, save for those spells granted by divine favor. The Realm is home to the most noble and powerful knights the world has ever known. Enter the ranks of holy fighters of the Realm and free Thuringia from the hands of evil while finding a groom for the unhappy Princess Jessica. The Knightly orders pursue martial excellence and maintain mastery in an affinity while dwarven Runesmiths know the secrets of creating items of great power. 2. The Kingdom of Melborne Staunch ally of the Realm, the Kingdom of Melborne makes its home in the Great Northern Forst. Here the elves and wolfen fight the evils of Chaos with the help of their god An Cliuin and try to extend their magical forest's boundaries. The Melbornean druids are unsurpassed, and all enemies fear the covert Hunters of the Tower of Wa. These fanatical druids hunger for revenge on their hated brethren, the Raven Clan, who were pivotal in savaging their once-great empire and the desolation of much of the prized forest. 3. The League of Chaos Far in the northwest corner of the world lies the dark realm of the League of Chaos. There the followers of the Chaos gods Carn and Morn seek to destroy their enemies, especially the hated Realm and Kingdom of Melborne. Excelling at destruction, the followers of Chaos would surely have overcome years ago were it not for the conflict between Carn, god of war, and Morn, goddess of seduction. Followers of the Avatars of Chaos, Lord Slaughter and Narkari, hunger to find the souls of their lost leaders and make good use of the Altar of Blood. Nothing should be left untouched from the League of Chaos. 4. The Children of Scourge They are strange mutated creatures that live only to bring glory to their master, the chaos god Scourge. The ratlike vermen, the savage hyaenidaes, and the fierce gulos are feared and hated by the followers of the other gods. From the vast eastern swampland called the Sinking Lands, they are building their strength for another assault upon their enemies. The Children seek to find the Chalice of Change and bring their god into Thuringia directly. They have mastered the knowledge of secret tunnels and warrens around the world. 5. The Greenskins The Greenskins are a loose confederation of tribes and clans of goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs. They live in the southeastern part of Thuringia, south of the Sinking Lands and east of the Acheron River. Though these followers of Magog are better known for their fighting than their spellcasting, they have been known to surprise their enemies with powerful warlocks. The Greenskins would like nothing better than to plunder the halls of the dwarves in the Iron Crags, but they must be on the alert to defend their lands from the vile Children of Scourge The vast orc, goblin, and hobgoblin tribes, unified under the banner of the lost warlord Marak Headtaker, need a new champion to awaken their spirit and carve out a green empire. Da Boyz are itchen for a good fight. 6. The Dark Council Beyond the Desert of Despair lies the realm of the undead, the Dark Council. It consists of the Vampire Kings who seek to reclaim the Crimson Isle from the Realm, and the Dark Elves who were banished from the Great Northern Forest for practicing the forbidden arts of necromancy. These unlikely allies have bonded together to uncover the secrets of eternal life. Followers spend long hours mastering the dark arts to attain positions of import, and then raise their fangs at the rest of the world. The OTS database is over twice as large as any previous offering, and it makes heavy use of factional quests, spells, and titles to build flavor and offer many routes to pursue. A great deal of effort has gone into balancing the factions and units to provide an even playing field for all. OTS uses the latest rule modifications as described in the Errata and Den News 6. You may download the module book and purchase a printed version that includes provincially accurate maps from any Odyssey vendor. We have opened up two games of OTS. One is a biweekly house game in which people involved in the module design may join (there are only 2 people, Mark and Russell, to watch out for). Competition in this game will be fierce, and all serious Odyssey players are encouraged to join. There will be a weekly offering of OTS as well and is closed to those familiar with the module. Additional games of OTS will be started as needed. NEVER GIVE UP Never Give Up - The Story of Heroes' Quest 1 By Bob Thomson of The Llama Lleague The victory of my alliance in HQ-1 was the most amazing come-from-behind victory I've ever seen in play-by-mail. On two separate occasions we were crushed in melee and had important characters killed and taken prisoner. The second defeat cost us the army we'd been building up for forty turns as well. Despite this, we were able to snatch victory away from our enemies at the last minute. Heroes' Quest 1 was a special game. It was a 'house' game and the players included a talented collection of playtesters, game designers and many players with years of gaming experience. We all knew that this was going to be a very tough game to win. My alliance was based in and around the Fold. Andrew Barton ran The Flying Sorcerors, a character-development position. I, Bob Thomson, ran The Llama Lleague, a mostly military position. Mike Morris ran the Yodeling Barons as a mixed position at first, but later focussed on character development - with spectacular results! Joey Browning ran the Huntsmen for most of the game, but lack of time forced him to bring in John Ellwood as a standby on about turn 40. Dan Moen joined up about turn ten with Hogan's Heroes, while Doug Bierbower was a major part of the alliance early in the game with his Fairest of Them All position. The early game proceeded normally with den-bashing, conquest of nearby locations and character development. Mike Morris was able to boost the prestige of his lead character, Loric Vilesilencer, quite rapidly. This proved to be critical to our eventual victory. Our most important acquisitions of the early game were guilds. We quickly gathered up three of the four guilds in Jadmain plus Shadows and Knives and the Military Academy. Three of these guilds were in Loric's hands, helping him build up his prestige and glory. These guilds also kept our alliance well-provided with gold. This was long before the rules change that reduced the original lucrative formula for the Funds order. Our first major strategic decision as an alliance occurred around turn fifteen. We had discovered that The Blood-Red Banner, run by Mark Montero, occupied a very large territory in the northwest corner. He seemed peaceful enough, but he was known to be a very dangerous player and if we fought anyone else his forces would be behind us. We decided to attack him. The attack itself was very successful, at least in the short run. We beat a large army in the field and pushed him back into the far northwest corner behind the lake. Unfortunately, our enemy had powerful friends ... On the same turn that we defeated the Blood-Red Banner's largest army, The Dawn Patrol, run by Jay Heyman, snatched several of our locations in the New Haven area. Worse, we received notice of impending attack from The Lowdown Louts (Rob Watkins) and The Marsupial Dominion (Michael Corey). It was time to rethink our plans! Leaving minor forces behind to continue the battle with the Blood-Red Banner, we rushed our main army back towards New Haven and gathered our best characters into a melee party. The enemy army, when it showed up, was very impressive - it was over thirteen thousand troops, and accompanied by a large melee party of its own. Our own army was only five thousand strong, but our troops quality was better. Still, we decided to avoid combat for a while since we were fighting in our home territory and we could reinforce more easily. After several turns of maneuvering, we suddenly saw that the enemy had left us an opening. The bulk of their army ended a turn out in the open with no character support. We had taken pains to make our army as mobile as possible, so we were able to swoop down at the very beginning of the turn and catch the army in the open. Their army, with no character support, was completely destroyed while our losses were minimal. At the same time, Loric Vilesilencer claimed The Academy, the victory condition guild in New Haven, away from Creight Lersing, The Lowdown Louts' lead character. It was turn twenty-four and we ruled! We proceeded to blow our advantage almost immediately. Now that the enemy army was out of the way, we felt free to retake Mightypier, a city that the enemy had taken away from us. We sent several of our best characters off to pursue other goals. Our weakened melee party found the entire group of enemy characters inside the Mightypier garrison. In the ensuing melee, many of our best characters were captured. It was to be a very, very long time before we saw them again. We now entered an extremely long period of cat-and-mouse warfare. They quickly sent our prisoners off on a lengthy tour of far-off lands. Our army was still much stronger than theirs, but we didn't dare challenge their melee party again. We set off on a long campaign to capture neutral towns and cities, while following the party holding our prisoners with our deceivers. Both alliances built up in military strength while we each tried to keep an eye on what the other guys were up to. As we approached turn forty, both alliances gave serious thought to the victory conditions. It was going to be very difficult for either of us to gather in eight out of the twelve at any one time. Loric, who by this time had claimed Regent, the highest title in the land, claimed the Angel Tribunal. Both of our victory conditions were owned by the same character! Obviously, to win the game we were going to need military success. Over the fifteen turns since our disastrous melee we had acquired a number of new and powerful characters. We felt ready to meet the enemy again. Suddenly, the victory conditions started to fall. The Marsupial Dominion assembled an army of over 20,000 troops and took Glenwillow. Shortly thereafter, we took Bloodmore Keep with our 8000 troop army. Not to be outdone, the Marsupial Army took Jadmain. Only one of the capitals in the Empire remained: New Haven. The stage was set for the climactic battle. Alas, once again we got our butts kicked. Our enemies had a number of characters who specialized in Mental spells. Someone had been casting spell after spell to drive the Mental affinity of New Haven negative. Not realizing the import of this, we moved our army and melee party into New Haven to train troops on the very turn that the enemy attacked. This disaster was worse than the first. Not only did we lose many of our best characters, but we also lost our entire army. It appeared that we no longer had any chance to win the game. However, there was still a slim ray of hope. The Yodeling Barons had discovered the way to the land of the Old Gods. While the rest of us were suffering disaster in New Haven, Loric and his companions were learning the deepest mysteries of the game. Mike assured us that it was not yet time to give up. We decided to keep on playing a while longer, just to see what might happen. Things started to go our way again over the next few turns. Hogan's Heroes (now without Hogan, who fell in New Haven), took Jadmain away from the enemy. The Flying Sorcerors had Honored Maria Marthus, the owner of the Fire Church in New Haven, some time before. For many turns, Andrew used every available method to get glory to Maria. If the game lasted long enough, Maria would be able to claim the Circle of Rage. Meanwhile, I struggled to maintain a Llama Lleague presence near Glenwillow while the Marsupial Dominion tried to stamp out all traces of llama. Using secret portals and powerful troops, the Yodeling Barons were able to take Trillador. Geoffrey the Silent of the Flying Sorcerors was finally able to catch up with our prisoners from our first defeat and rescue them. Geoffrey and his rescued friends raced frantically for Glenwillow to help in the battle there. The enemy was not idle, either. They recaptured Jadmain from Hogan's Heroes and conquered Bloodmore Keep away from the Flying Sorceror garrison. Could we really hope to defeat them? Suddenly, Loric Vilesilencer and a party of titans and elementals appeared outside of Jadmain with an army of Lords of Battle recruited in the land of the Old Gods. Jadmain was ours again! Maria claimed the Circle of Rage, giving us five victory conditions. Only three to go ... and two of my original spellcasters, Llucrezia and Llorelei had finally returned! With their help, I was barely able to defeat the Glenwillow garrison. At the end of turn 53, the Yodeling Barons were just about ready to take Catacumbae and Loric and his army weren't too far from Bloodmore Keep. Meanwhile, the Dawn Patrol had an army not too far from Jadmain and the Marsupial Dominion had an enormous army in Illuminus that could easily wipe out my force in Glenwillow. Who would win the race to eight victory conditions? The Yodeling Barons laid plans to take Catacumbae and Bloodmore Keep as quickly as possible, while the Marsupial Dominion struggled to capture Glenwillow first. When turn 54 arrived we saw that we had won the race and were victorious! The Marsupials had indeed reconquered Glenwillow, but not quite in time. We had come back from two crushing defeats and won the game. It just goes to show, you should never, ever, ever give up. A MARSUPIAL'S TAIL A Marsupial's Tail by Michael Corey HQ-1 and HQ-2 began only one week apart. Having read the rulebook eight times, and having formed a binding alliance with four other players very early, I carried a great deal of enthusiasm through the early game, and I managed to expand very rapidly into the Wilds, particularly to the East and Southeast. Bob Thomson declared his alliance's intention of fighting ours to the death quite early--so be it. We won an important melee and captured over 40 of their characters, and I thought from that point that we should be able to win, even though the enemy had the highest-prestige character ("Loric Vilesilencer") throughout the game. By the end I was about 3000 prestige points behind, but through my balanced promotion strategy, I was gaining on him at about 300/turn. We spent around 20 turns building positions. I took the Wilders' and the Grey Seekers very early, but our position added no more guilds until much later. The Grey Seekers turned out to be a key element in our position. With The Academy in enemy hands, we still had a toehold in New Haven, a source of local funds, and a way of getting the very important druid skill for many characters--also, the 5 glory/turn for Royal Seeker, which almost all my characters were earning, made a big difference in my promotion strategy. By turn 40, I was pretty sure that we were ready to attack Glenwillow, and I put together a large army to do it--this was increased by about 40% and 15 characters from two other allies. We took Glenwillow easily and picked up so many valuable periapts and major-familiar summoning items that the other players began to be more enthusiastic about taking more of the capitals. After some errors and poor luck with impasses we took Jadmain about three turns later; then we took the Keep from another player. Finally, we took New Haven in an enormous battle. Llama's main army and character force were inside. Someone (we assumed it was Llama, but he denies it!) had built a huge "Mental" hole in New Haven, and to add to that, Llama's group had a glitch with its Mental Inv. spell. The result was that our Mind Blast and Mental Nova annihilated their force for almost no loss. In an even contest, it's not at all clear that we would have prevailed--we had more fighters and mages, but their fighters were of considerably higher quality. Anyway, for the moment it looked as though we had a sure win. Then one of the allies discovered that things were far from well on the Land of the Old Gods, the island in the southeast corner of the map. Loric Vilesilencer, our old nemesis and the owner of The Academy, had been taking towns and passing them on to allies' characters, who were recruiting Lords of Battle, the best troops in the game. We couldn't allow this to continue, so I used my deceiver with 81 cunning and 10000 stealth to tail and kidnap the towns' owners, allowing them to revert to NPC control. Unfortunately, the attack on L100 which seemed to guarantee our win was instead virtually the end of the alliance. Two of the players essentially quit playing, cutting off communication and ceasing joint activities, without any warning. Since one of these was the player to whom I had gifted New Haven, simply to keep him interested, this was very hard to understand. A third member of the alliance had a fairly good position, but never acted with the rest of the alliance, nor took nor threatened to take a VC, so his position didn't contribute much. The fourth member was still playing, but was writing about 100 orders (I was writing an average of 450), and clearly had his mind on other things. He had originally insisted on guarding the prisoners we took in the original melee, but he lost them through carelessness, and they ended up hurting us badly in the endgame. In short, I found myself playing almost alone. On turn 52, I claimed Arcane Lords. However, the other active player in our alliance had lost Jadmain the turn before. To my surprise, he hadn't bothered to scout it to see whether the army had remained, so there was a whole turn delay while he did that and moved his army into position to retake it. This delay proved fatal. On turn 53 I took Illuminus and destroyed a large enemy army, but a smaller army belonging to Llama penetrated the Impass maze and took Glenwillow. This army was largely composed of the characters that had been our prisoners a few turns before, and if those characters had not been present, the attack would have failed. My main army was a long way away in Illuminus at that point, but I made plans to travel off-road to retake Glenwillow immediately. However, I had to get my promotions in first, so I thought it was essential to retake Jadmain very early in the turn, to prevent the enemy from declaring victory before I got to Glenwillow. My ally tried hard to do so, but made a movement error and hit an impass. I retook Glenwillow, but not before the enemy had declared the win. Other allies took the Earth and Water guilds, but too late in the turn to make any difference. If we had retaken Jadmain that turn, the enemy would have claimed New Haven at the end of the turn, but would still have been one VC short of winning. Furthermore, we would have retaken New Haven very early in the next turn, so the two sides would have been even at 6 VC's apiece. The enemy would have had the big advantage of the highest-prestige character, but we would have had better armies and much better melee potential, if only we could have joined our characters together. Basically, we lost because of poor cooperation, and the enemy won because of clever cooperation and terrific determination, especially after the big melee losses. If we had had the kind of cooperative alliance I had in HQ-2, we surely would have won, even without super-strategist Juergen Peter. All credit to Bob Thomson and his allies for a well-deserved victory--revenge on me at last for WW-A29! OTHER ODYSSEY WEB SITES One of our players, Patrick Davisson (ratmania@CALWEB.COM), has created an unofficial Odyssey WWW site that contains information he and other Odyssey players have gleaned during game play. The URL for this site is http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/2847. If anyone has other information to contribute, Patrick would like to hear from you. Also, Gamer's Den is interested in any other Odyssey sites that other players may have set up too. Note that Gamer's Den encourages players to check out this site but be aware that the information available there and from other sources than Gamer's Den may not accurate or up to date. PHOENIX UPDATE Those players interested in a well-balanced diplomatic space conquest game should check out Phoenix. We offer a variety of startup sizes including a single player introductory version and have special games for a flat fee. The Phoenix Ambassador is a slick graphic MS-DOS front-end to aid tracking your position. Rules and the Ambassador are available for free download. Drop us a line if you are interested in playing. POSTAL PARTNERS Gamer's Den has several postal partners who offer our products to the paper mail community. Anyone interested in postal play may contact the following companies: USA: Llucky Llama Games 80-Q N. Cabrillo Hwy #226-GD Half Moon Bay, CA 94019-1667 phone/fax: 415 712 0283/4 UK: The Madhouse 13 Marchmont Green Hemel Hempstead, Hertz HP2 5BB phone: (0813) 616127 We are on the hunt for postal gaming companies to provide Odyssey and Phoenix moderation outside the USA and UK. SEE YA SOON! -- Phoenix, Copyright (c) Garrett, Goodman, and Woods 1988-1997 All Rights Reserved Odyssey, Copyright (c) Gamer's Den 1995-1997 All Rights Reserved =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ ===+ GAMER'S DEN +=== =====+ PO Box 1252 +===== ==+====+ Menlo Park, CA 94026-1252 +====+== =====+ phone/fax (415) 324-9290 +===== ===+ Internet: support@den.com CompuServe: 73613,3472 +=== =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ -- Gamer's Den PO Box 1252 support@den.com Menlo Park, CA USA 94026-1252 http://www.den.com Phone/FAX (415) 324-9290 Up