Llucky Llama Gazette #3 From: llucky@crl.com (Bob Thomson) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 20:57:01 +0000 The Llucky Llama Gazette Issue 3, December 1994 See You at PBMCon We've been busy since the last Gazette. We've seen our daughter's first smile and watched her grow out of all her new clothes. We've run countless game turns and made many improvement's to You Rule! like the attractive new turn heading. We've helped our UK licensee to start their first commercial games and set up our Germany and Netherlands licensees with their playtests (see article elsewhere on this page). And we've made plans to attend PBMCon. Rich Van Ollefen from Flying Dutchman Games of Quest of the Great Jewels fame has done an amazing job in setting up the first PBM dedicated convention. For those of you who haven't heard about it, PBMCon will be held at the Ramada Woodfield Hotel in Arlington Heights Illinois the weekend of June 2-4 1995. Players pay a $25 registration fee to select and play two play-by-mail games. Additional games are $5 or $10, and there will be no turn fees. Games will be starting throughout the weekend, so latecomers can get it on the fun. Currently, the following companies have committed to attend: Flying Dutchman Games, Graaf Simulations, Flying Buffalo Inc., Fractal Dimensions, Llucky Llama Games (of course!), Midnight Games, and Sudden Asylum Games. The convention will take place in the Willow Ballroom of the Ramada Woodfield hotel. Room rates are $51 per night for a double (up to four people, flat rate) or king. The hotel will have a shuttle from O'Hare Airport, which is 15 minutes from the hotel, for $5 per person each way. Rich reserved a block of rooms for convention attendees, but these will fill up fast, so make reservations early. Be sure to mention PBMCon to get the special room rate. Rich is talking with the Role Playing Games Association (RPGA) about running a small schedule of role playing events to widen our exposure. In addition, there will be the first ever RPGA sanctioned PBM game. We will be there running games from dawn until dusk and then partying with all of you afterwards. Alison will be staying with her grandparents. For more information, contact Rich Van Ollefen at PO Box 957434, Hoffman Estates IL, 60195. We hope to see you there! Moving on to other things, two regular games, two solo games, and a head-to-head game have finished in the past couple of months. Interestingly enough, three out of four winners of the regular games started out in desert provinces which is considered by some as a disadvantage. It just goes to show that skill and diplomacy prevail. See the articles about the game finishes elsewhere in this issue. Be sure to get your player aid programs! See page three for details. We hope you enjoy this issue of the Gazette. As always, we appreciate your comments and article ideas. Play You Rule! in Germany and the Netherlands, Too! Llucky Llama Games has finalized deals with Sorceror Mail Games in the Netherlands and with Dag Weber in Germany. The programs and documentation have gone to both countries for playtesting and translating. Sorceror is busy translating the rulebook and game materials into Dutch. When translation and playtesting is over, the Sorceror folks will advertise in local games magazines for players from Belgium and the Netherlands. If you know anyone in that neck of the woods, they can reach Sorceror at the following address: Hoeferpark 34, 6191 BL BEEK (Lb), The Netherlands. At the same time, Dag Weber is translating You Rule! into German to serve people in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. Since Dag is a professional translator, we expect the job to go rather quickly. Anyone in that part of Europe can contact Dag Weber at the following address: POB 61 31, D-61424 Oberusel, Germany. Both Sorceror and Dag Weber will benefit from our excellent working relationship with our UK Licensee, the Madhouse. The playtest went quite well. All playtesters enjoyed the game, and the Madhouse folks learned how to use the game system to run You Rule! without incident. Steve Tierney and his gang have filled their second commercial game, and things are reportedly running quite smoothly. We wish the Madhouse, Sorceror Mail Games, and Dag Weber much success in their ventures. Game Four Ends in Record Time Game Four is over, and Chip Grier and E.P. Flemyng have won in record time. We always thought that the right players could win You Rule! without making the game drag on forever, and Chip and E.P. have proved it by winning on turn 14. The winners proved that you do not have to start in a corner to do well on the Highland map. Chip, as Peacorner, started in Phony which is not even on the edge. E.P. started in Original, halfway up on the east side of the map. Both players began the game with dwarven populations in desert provinces. This is sometimes looked on as a slight disadvantage since dwarves (and humans) only have two terrain types that they can move through quickly while the other races each have three. Desert has the additional potential problem of food shortages. This turned out not to be an issue for Chip and E.P. The winners allied with each other early in the game which set up a solid front across the lower middle section of the map. They proceeded to take all the provinces to their south while maintaining friendly relations with the McIlvaine-Raiford alliance in the north. When the south end of the map was completely under control, they gave notice to the northerners. The final conflict resulted in a quick victory for Peacorner and Irimi. Chip Grier's performance in this game deserves special note. He expanded farther and faster than any player ever before. By turn four he was in the lead with ten provinces. On turn eight he had seventeen provinces while his closest rival, Raiford, had only thirteen. On turn ten he had twenty-four provinces and a score of 119. At this time, the next three players' scores were still in the eighties. One turn in particular impressed the moderators. Chip attacked five different neutral provinces simultaneously with forces that ruled over the natives. What incredible planning! Final Totals for all finishers: Position Player Score Rating Points Peacorner Chip Grier 231 10.50 Irimi E.P. Flemyng 136 10.50 Raiford Dan Wilson 161 6.00 McIlvaine Frank McIlvaine 119 4.00 RexLord Chris Marconi 31 3.00 Congratulations to Chip and E.P.! And Game Three Ends Just in Time Game Three is over just in time for this Gazette. Winning on turn sixteen are the alliance of Crab (Rick Moscatello) and Pompey (David Saville). Game Three was marred by a remarkable number of dropouts. It seems that our initial promotion of rules, setup and three free turns for $10 brought in a number of players who played their three free turns and then dropped. One of these players was Jack Everitt of Adventures By Mail who really liked You Rule! but just got too busy selling Magic: The Gathering (tm) to play any more. By turn fourteen the game was down to three players, one of whom (Crab) was allied with each of the other two (Pompey and Mongoloids). Unfortunately, only two players could win; three-player victories are not allowed with fewer than ten players in the game. Crab had by far the largest position, and he chose to stick with Pompey, his longest-term ally. Crab actually had almost enough provinces to go for a solo victory. This would have been very exciting since the alliance rules allow the former allies one turn to counterattack to try to prevent the solo win. Final Totals for all finishers: Position Player Score Rating Points Crab Rick Moscatello 295 10.50 Pompey David Saville 165 10.50 Mongoloids David Ondzes 208 6.00 Congratulations to Rick and David! Ask Llucky Dear Llucky, If I quicken a force on the same turn as a non-quickened general is being attached to that force, will the force (including the general) be quickened that turn? Also, what happens if the general quits that force? Signed, Heime Dear Heime, A general who joins a quickened force is also quickened for purposes of moving with that force. When he quits the force he reverts to his previous speed. If a quickened general joins a non-quick force each turn will still count against the turns remaining for him to be quick. Signed, Llucky ****** Dear Llucky, If I send two forces to fight against a native militia does the militia reset to full strength after it beats my first force? Signed, Concerned Dear Concerned, You have no reason to worry. Your second force will only have to fight the tattered remnants of the native militia. Next turn, however, the militia will be back at full strength. Signed, Llucky Get Player Aid Programs for DOS Machines Now you can get David Ondzes's player aid programs, a You Rule! battle simulator and syntax checker, through us. For five dollars, we will send you a disk with the battle simulator for DOS and Windows and the syntax checker for DOS. The battle simulator can show you the results of any You Rule! battle you want including battles with weapons, armor, magic items, and border battles. Simply enter all the appropriate information such as force names, number of units for each force, race of each force, terrain type of the battle, and so on. The program will compute the battle factor for each force and tell you the results of each round of battle. The syntax checker will catch many common syntax errors making your turns more effectively. All you have to do is create a text file of your orders and run the syntax checker on the file. The program will create a list of errors for you to correct. Note that this program will not point out game related problems such as when you are trying to search a province that contains no mysterious place. Llucky Llama Games offers no warranty on this product. All support issues and questions should be directed towards David Ondzes at dao@mv.mv.com or at 4 Aspen Lane, Merrimack NH, 03054. If you have already purchased the programs from David, let us know. You will receive two free turns. Game Variants The two-player game between Bob Thomson and David Ondzes turned out to be really fun. You might think that a two player game wouldn't have enough scope for strategy, but the small map really makes every decision count. If you have a friend or arch-enemy that you'd like to confront one-on-one, let us know and we'll set you up in a two-player game. The normal two-player game is on the thirteen-province Tiny map, but that's not the only possibility. The Isotope map has two islands that offer slightly larger playing fields of sixteen and seventeen provinces. We can also support games with other numbers of players. We just started a three-player game on one of our playtest maps. This particular game is a tune-up for two players who want to practise for the upcoming partners' game. They are playing against poor Llucky who starts in the third corner of the map. We could easily find appropriate maps for four, five and six players as well. We are still trying to fill the partners' game. We have two pairs of players signed up, and we need two or three more to begin. In this variant we start two friends close to each other and let them work together for the entire game. This is a very popular form in other play-by-mail games, and we think it will be a great way to play You Rule!. We are currently running two anonymous games and we are starting to take signups for a third one. It's a fun way to play when you're tired of all the diplomacy that goes into a regular game. It's especially fun for the moderators since one of us gets to play. Summary of Rating Points We finally have some finished games and players have rating points. Here's how the system works. You only receive rating points if you play your position to a reasonable conclusion. This means that if you are still playing when the game ends you get rating points. If you defend your position until it's completely hopeless you get rating points. If your alliance is fighting another alliance and you resign because your alliance is clearly beaten you get rating points. If you drop out after turn three because things aren't going very well you get nothing. Standbys get full rating points for their position if they play it to conclusion. The awards for multi-player games are based on the number of players in the game. You get one point for each player you finish ahead of. First place also receives a five point bonus, second place a three point bonus and third place a one point bonus. Ties average the awards for their finishes. Two-player games award three points to the winner. Solo victories are one point each. In addition to games three and four (results elsewhere in this issue) there are two finished games with rating point awards. David Ondzes has one point for winning solo game 12 and Bob Thomson has three points for winning game 17 against David. If you think we have made an error in calculation, please let us know. Rating Point Totals as of 12/6/94 E.P. Flemyng 10.50 Chip Grier 10.50 Rick Moscatello 10.50 David Saville 10.50 David Ondzes 7.00 Dan Wilson 6.00 Frank McIlvaine 4.00 Chris Marconi 3.00 Bob Thomson 3.00 Two Solo Games and a Head-to-Head Also Finish Our intrepid playtester David Ondzes has completed the first two solo games of You Rule! David averaged almost one turn a day by email to help us provide this form of the game to our players. His most important service was in game 9. He proved that even an experienced player can be beaten by the computer if the computer's home province rules over the player's home province. We were pleased to discover that Dr. Glitch was smart enough to beat a good player with this advantage. David got his revenge in game 12 by taking all thirteen provinces by turn ten. This is the standard by which all future solo games must be judged. Game 17 was a two-player contest between Bob Thomson and David Ondzes on the solo game map. Bob and David both started in Swamp provinces. This turned out to be quite challenging when four of the other eleven provinces were desert. Bob was able to take over the majority of the desert provinces early and train dwarven forces to rule over David's trolls. It was no easy battle, however, and David held out until turn fifteen. Send your submissions to: Llucky Llama Games 80-Q N. Cabrillo Hwy. #226 Half Moon Bay, CA 94019 phone/fax: 415-712-0283 email: llucky@crl.com -- Llucky Llama Games Bob and Debbie Thomson 80-Q North Cabrillo Hwy. P.O. Box 226 (415) 712-0283 Half Moon Bay, CA 94019 llucky@crl.com Ask about You Rule!, the cool new strategy Play-By-Mail game. Up