Re: ME-PBM Review From: dcd@nasa.kodak.com (Dennis DeYoung) Date: Wed, 31 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000 I just finished reading B.E.Wright's review of ME-PBM. Thanks for posting it Rich (ricmal@delphi.com). As a player who is between a novice and veteran (finshed 3 games, in 3 games currently) I must say that B.E.'s review was a load of crap written by someone with a limited experience with the game and no recent experience at all. I'd be interested in reading other reviews of his to see if he provides so much detail with such little experience behind it with respect to other games as well. Maybe it's only ME-PBM though. I suspect that he got killed in his first game, decided he didn't like it, and years later got a bug in his ass and wrote the review. Specifically I disagree most with his strong picture of ME-PBM as a cold game where screwing your ally is common, accepted, and encouraged. I have never been screwed by an ally yet and those incidents I have heard of usually involved extenuating circumstances. B.E. also did not mention that there are grudge, team, and individual games with varying degrees of focus on individual vs. team victory. Obviously he was in an individual game with some real nasty players. Recently team and grudge games have become very popular. I have also never gotten a card from someone writing under another players name, never a phone call like this either. Also, E-mail is very prevalent now and large phone bills are nearly nonexistant. I also disagree with him about the resemblence to Tolkien. I think GSI did an okay job while maintaining game balance. It could be a little better though. B.E.'s nits about the rules are also stupid and just don't matter that much. I could blow holes in each of his rules critiques easily. 99% of the rule design in ME-PBM is excelent. His arguements about troop types are some of his only good gripes- I'll give him that one. Fixed setups- this was a problem for me in the first couple of turns of my first game also. E.B. played a long time ago (years) and since then the hoarding of info. has been blown apart. There are hundreds of ME-PBM vets out there who are looking for a good challenging game, not a chance to blow away a newbie, and will gladly give you all the info. on everything before the game even starts. (Me for example, and I know literally 100 more who will also.) There is even an informal group of players who contribute to a free E-zine called The Mouth of Sauron which are dedicated to sharing info., free to all, and keeping everyone abreast of the latest findings. I have even asked and had the enemy help me w/ an encounter or something I didn't have info. on and have never run into someone who would not share knowledge of anything (at Turn 0 of course) w/ me. In a "real" world it is likely that you will have detailed knowledge of the starting position of your enemy and this allows multi-turn plans to be devised from the start leading to a game which is action packed from the get-go. Most I know who play ME-PBM find this to be a positive attribute of the game. I don't understand how B.E. can complain that the setups are fixed and then say in the next sentence that the pop ctr locations should be printed on the map? GSI has now released a second version set 1000 years in the future and the map has not changed (to my advantage) while the pop ctr locations have. I guess this provides them w/ some flexibility and keeps my costs down. I find the outcome of actions to be the exciting part of strategy games. I don't want to pay for a company to "fluff" up combat reports more than the minimum so I don't agree w/ B.E. on the turn reports being "boring." I do like the character pictures though, it allows you to develop more of an attachment to your characters and helps to keep them straight. GSI's customer sevice is not perfect, but it is much better than B.E. indicates. Perhaps they have improved things in the last couple years since B.E. played. B.E. also complained that the game isn't balanced and he stated the 41/15 ratio of Dark Servant wins to Free People wins. I think this ratio has even out a lot since B.E. played. Most vets now agree that the FP have a distinct advantage over the DS. I agree- I have yet to play a DS but have only lost once as a FP. It just took time for everyone to figure out how to use the strengths of the FP, while the strengths of the DS are readily apparent thus leading to many early DS wins. Conclusion- B.E. Wright wrote a review of ME-PBM based on his (old) experience in 1650 Game 108 while 1650 Game 200 has already started and at least another 35 in the new 2950 scenario. I believe his information is out of date and based on to small a sample groop to make the generalizations about the game he has made (e.g. he says it's SUPER Cut-Throat.) There are many legimite beefs to be had about ME-PBM, many of which have been discussed in The Mouth in detail (write me for free copies), but B.E. missed the boat on all these and with most of the points he did make. - Dennis DeYoung dcd@nasa.kodak.com Referenced By Up