Alamaze From: johnb@wotangate.sc.ti.com (John Bach, 2355) Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 20:43:49 +0000 Recently I've been looking for a new pbm game to try, and have narrowed it down to two games. One of them is Alamaze. However, it seems that new players would be at a disadvantage in some ways. There are 15 positions in the game, each unique in powers and abilities. Some races would have more magical abilities and higher magic power levels (with different spells possible). Other races would have stronger armies, or better economies, or better spies/emissaries, etc... Some races have different movement rates, and each race actually has different victory conditions (everyone shares the generic victory conditions but also there are race specific victory conditions). The heart of the matter is that you only know the specifics of your race, not the others. This is a close-ended game, so each new game you enter would give you the information for one more race. While all these differences are balanced (no one race has an overall advantage), as a new player, it would seem you'd be in the dark quite a bit when making strategic decisions. Which race or army should you fight when you don't know their capabilities, or even their victory conditions. Although this adds an element of suprise and mystery to the game, and makes it quicker to learn the rules (you only have to comprehend spells and abilities of your race), it seems that having the starting information of the other races as well would be a big advantage. Having never played the game myself, maybe this isn't an important consideration. Any comments would be appreciated. John- --------- __o __o __o me ! who else? __o -------- _`\<,_ _`\<, _`\<, ~~~~~~~ _`\<, ------- (*)/ (*) (*)/ (*) (*)/ (*) ~~~~~~~~ (*)/ (*) johnb@wotangate.micro.ti.com Houston, TX (713) 274-2355 Up