PBEM Fanzine # 92-03 From: gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1992 16:08:18 +0000 ====================================================================== @@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@ @@ @@``````````@@ @@``````````@@ @@`````````````` @@@@ @@@@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@``@@ @@ @@`` @@@@@@@@@@@@ `` @@@@@@@@@@@@ `` @@@@@@@@@@@@ @@`` @@ ``@@`` @@```````````` @@``````````@@ @@```````````` @@`` `` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@@@@@@@@@@@ `` @@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@`` @@`` `` ```````````` `````````````` `` `` ====================================================================== A Fanzine for Free Computer-Moderated Play-By-Electronic-Mail Wargames ====================================================================== volume 92, number 3 (yes, volume 92 is the first) september 15, 1992 ====================================================================== Greg Lindahl, Editor gl8f@virginia.edu ====================================================================== Table of Contents: Opening Stuff o The Editor's Corner Articles o Space 1992 -- PBEM For The Complete Beginner, by Luis Sequeira o Game or Simulation?, by Luis Sequeira o A Beginner's Guide to Galaxy, by Greg Lindahl Columns o The Game Administrators' Corner, by Mel Nicholson Regular Features o Game Descriptions & Information o Hints about sending electronic mail to other networks o What's this "ftp" thing anyway? o Archives and subscriptions by email ====================================================================== The Editor's Corner ====================================================================== As predicted, this issue got held up because my article wasn't done, and then I went on vacation to visit my girlfriend. Such a silly editor. As usual, I'm looking for submissions. I'd like to see strategy articles for other games, as well as information about new games. In game-related news, the Olympia playtest is now over. I hope that Rich Skrenta will have the New and Improved Olympia running soon, as it's certainly an addictive game. The first Star Empires game finished, and the moderator is threatening to start another game, although he's not sure if his schedule will leave him enough time. And, last but not least, the new version of Galaxy is due out soon, which will make my article obselete... -- greg (gl8f@virginia.edu) ====================================================================== SPACE 1992 - PBEM For the Complete Beginner Luis Sequeira ====================================================================== [ This is an article about an upcoming game -- the author (Manuel Arcangelo) hopes to go "public" with the game in November. -- editor ] Having to live with a site which has an improperly installed network, and thus unable to play most of the existing and exciting PBEMs around the world, I found myself limited, until very recently, to the one PBEM which is run from a site in my home country and is still in the beta-testing stage. SPACE 1992 is a Cosmos-like clone, but simpler, and with textual orders instead of the Cosmos-gibberish like MIZST11ST14 (which translates roughly as "Move 1 Scout from T11 to T14"). For those among you who don't know the Cosmos game, it's yet another galaxy-conquest type of PBEM, designed and programmed by Glenn Herrin [and currently not publically-available -- editor]. In this game (as in SPACE 1992), you play one of the different races in the universe in a free-for-all exploration & conquest game, building starships, increasing your industry or production (and thus building *more* starships) and establishing colonies on new systems. SPACE 1992 was designed for those who prefer a simpler game than Cosmos. There are lots of commands in Cosmos with very precise meanings, but you always need to have some kind of table in front of you to translate them to command lines like the one mentioned before --- or have an astounding memory). This complexity slows down order writing; SPACE 1992, using a neat, simple parser, accepts commands like "move scout 1 to system t11" or "attack MyEnemy at system t14", which is much more user-friendly for beginners, as you can easily spot errors in your orders. The gamemaster also usually warns you if something went wrong with your orders; it is most often a minor typing error. There are no races, and besides moving around with your spaceships, attacking other players in other systems, transporting "production points" to systems with industry, and building lots of starships (and, of course, sending annoying messages to the other players), the game doesn't have much more to offer. But the rules are so simple that most of the time the gamemaster simply mails you some examples and off you go to your private space conquest until you meet the borders of your neighbors' empires. Being so simple, turnaround time was significantly reduced over the last months - from two weeks' time to about 3 days! This proved to be the minimum time for email to reach its destination (with a large margin for the gamemaster to send extra notes to the players). As it is still in its beta-testing phase, players are advised that rules may change during the course of the game, and suggestions are welcome, and most of them are accepted (if they involve minimal programming). ====================================================================== Game or Simulation? Luis Sequeira ====================================================================== Five years ago I joined a PBM (not a PBEM, mind you, but a computer-moderated postal game) which is still running now, and which was constantly upgraded from month to month, never achieving its final, mature state (and it certainly never will). The game was one of those with a fantasy setting (based somewhat on TSR's World of Greyhawk, but without magic, only warfare and economics), and its rules, while never having been considered to be simple, have grown and grown to the point that its current gamemaster does not know them all (he is the fourth one trying to referee about 250 players on the same game). There wasn't even ever a rulebook! Much of this complexity was due to the fact that most players demanded more rules and more freedom of choice, thus providing them (as they proclaimed) more "reality". In fact, the reports one got were quite extensive and needed some time to read and interpret. And if you add to that the time required for all your political/diplomatic messages, one could easily spend 4 or 5 hours planning your orders for one turn. But your lost time was quite rewarding in terms of game play. In its primeval times, the game was run on an Amstrad PC, using about 1 megabyte of dBase III code, and one turn's processing look about 8 hours of computer processing time (obviously not counting the time needed to manually process each order form for all 250+ players) and about the same time for all printouts. Now it runs on a 486 clone and its 3 megabytes of Clipper code are processed much faster - but in games of this size, bugs invariably creep in. This was quite annoying for most players - but many of them actually used them to their advantage. For instance, knowing exactly what kind of orders to give to trigger some hidden bug could give that player unlimited money, or unlimited movement points for his armies or navies, or vast amounts of combat points for incredible small armies (1 man!). Some of those bugs were so deeply ingrained in the system that they soon become features (there was no other choice for the gamemaster, except to rewrite large amounts of code, which in turn would get some more bugs for the players to discover and exploit...). On the other side, new rules were created to limit certain facts, but, without careful planning done by the game creators, these rules soon became new sources for bugs. For example, to limit the number of armies, their maintenance costs were quadrupled; but the game allowed the players to slaughter cattle in order to send rations to those armies, which reduced the maintenance costs to their original prices. Cattle reproduced each month by about 3%, and consumed some grain. But players soon complained that having to raise cattle just to get it into their armies was awkward; they wanted to include the cattle in the army itself (which was somewhat logical, as in the Middle Ages this worked that way). This was accepted by the gamemaster and allowed. But he forgot the cattle-grain dependency; now cattle reproduces 3% *inside* the army, and consumes *no* grain at all! Thus, no one ever grows cattle (except for sale), nobody buys grain, and no one converts cattle into rations (except to put it into fortresses to increase the siege time - but this is more expensive than creating *new* armies to intercept incoming enemies). So, just because one bad decision was made, the game has now obsolete rules that no one ever uses, and the "reality" of the game has decreased... This happened with lots of other rules. For example, spies were necessary to obtain information on the movements of enemies and to spy upon their fortresses - but one spy could only look at one hex at the time, so great spying networks were needed. But players complained that they should be able to give *all* the spies one single order and get a map of *all* the enemies' territory, instead of getting information hex by hex. This also was allowed. However, spies were subject to counter-spies and police levels in the countries spied upon, and information wasn't always reliable, and spies *could* get captured and ransomed. Nowadays, for the price of about 10 excellent spies, you get a detailed map of the enemy country (like some kind of satellite photo), which is not subject to any countermeasures by the enemy... Thus, the game degenerated to a kind of World War I battle-and- conquest game, with medieval troops. Communication with your troops is almost instantaneous, the economy has stock markets not unlike those in the 20th century, enormous armies (80,000 men!) may be supported by rich countries, sieges are avoided because it is so much easier to "overrun" enemy fortresses by assaulting them (just 2 weeks' time instead of many months...), pirates and Vikings have fleets to rival today's superpowers, and so on. Not quite what you would expect on a medieval-fantasy setting. Soon the gamemaster abolished the idea that this was a "realistic" game. It's just a game, with its set of rules, but nothing more than that. Don't expect it to work as in the real world, they advised. What is, then, a "realistic" game? I have for some time now divided most complex games into two kinds: the simulation, and the normal game. A simulation is a special kind of game, where you may give realistic orders and get realistic feedback. How this is accomplished doesn't matter much (I'll get to details further on), but the important issue in a simulation is that you can react to it as if you would react in the real world. The other kinds of games have no resemblance to the real world; they have their rules, and you play by them, but they are abstract, not connected to reality. For instance, Chess is without doubt a kind of a wargame. But it is by no means a simulation. The knight movement rule has nothing to do with cavalry charges. This doesn't mean that all simulations must have thousands of complex rules and be terribly difficult to play! You can find simulations with few rules (but still simulations nonetheless) which are easy to play, and non-simulations like Chess, also with few rules, but quite hard to master (I just can't play Chess at all, the computer always beats me). Simulations need not depict *all* of the details of the real world. If you know Avalon Hill's Advanced Squad Leader (ASL), you understand what I mean: one *can* fight large-scale battles worrying about weapons which don't fire or about the amount of ammo *each* of one's men has. You need only to stick with a particular scale you want to simulate and create rules for it. Diplomacy, for example, has simple rules (but is quite difficult to play correctly), and only two types of units on the map - but it simulates only the diplomatic aspect of warfare, and at that, it is quite excellent. There is no need to go much more into details. That computers are excellent for simulations isn't a new discovery -- just think about the supercomputers used for weather forecasting. You can cram all levels of detail you like into them, and, in a game, just show the players what they need to know. For example, in a WWII simulation, you *can* use all the ASL rules to resolve your combats, but HQ (at which level the players sit) only receives a report like "Lost battle at Dunkirk, 52% casualties, 3 airplanes shot down". The player gives orders like "Capture Berlin" and needs not write down all details like "1st Platoon advances through the Brandenburg Arch and seizes the Parliament; all units with heavy weapons deployed here, and here, and there". Such orders would be appropriate on a tactical simulation - on another scale - but never on a strategic/diplomatic one! Of course, if you like, you *could* write zillions of lines just to get your computer-controlled platoon leaders on the field to "act like humans". Please remember to buy your Crays first. If you stay at the diplomatic/strategic level, the most complex game you need to create is something like Avalon Hill's Empires in Arms (which is not suitable for PBEMs at all, but you could make something similar). Here you get to decide which leaders get which armies, and how to join corps into armies. But you don't need to raise horses for your cavalry, or buy guns for infantry! On the other side of the simulation world, you may recreate just the Battle of Waterloo in tactical terms - but then you wouldn't have to include economic rules. You may ask why there are so few "real" simulations around. Well, for one thing they aren't that easy to create. A "normal" game is just a set of rules, and that's that. On a simulation, you must "hide" the rules - i. e. the mechanics of play - under a layer of "real" feedback. There is no point in talking about "Unit 52 stacked over level 3 city has 5 combat factors and fires twice per round, losing initiative when on the far side of river hex without type B-9 bridge and gets only 53% offensive bonus". Wargamese is out; you want to know about "Your 1st army didn't succeed in crossing the bridge and suffered many casualties" and then react to it with "Ok, get to next river crossing and try there". The rules are still there. But you offer the players some kind of "interface" where they cannot possibly know what REALLY is happening (in terms of random numbers, bonuses added and factors calculated), and which they can control and manipulate with everyday language - or "real" war jargon. While the "kernel" of the game must be able to process turns just like other games, the "realism" is experienced mostly on the "user interface" from the side of the user. However, it isn't that easy to combine those two facets. Imagine a classical wargame where one ally says to another "I'll take Berlin, while you advance on Hamburg and bomb it". For us, humans, this is very easily followed on a mapboard. But how do you get a computer to do this? Fortunately, there is no need to get your doctoral thesis in AI to write something like this. "Diplomacy" works fine, and there are surely many other simulations. I think you could also put the "simulation" label on Olympia, too, especially because of its weight on some role-playing aspects. As you see, you can get simulations in many areas, and not only with wargames. Simulations of stock markets and elections are other examples. One final note about simulations: it should be more difficult for the players to find bugs - "features" - to their advantage than in other games. If the orders you can give and the reports you receive are "real", you have an advantage if you think in human terms, not in computer terms. Thus, the emphasis is put on the way you play, not on the rules you need to learn. This is easily seen in most wargames. In a war simulation, to achieve success, you must be a good strategist. In a game, you must know the rules very well, and when to apply them - especially that Rule #2463764, which gives your B Unit those extra 5% firepower you need to smash a Z-15 tank, if you have refueled your unit last turn... About the author: The author was never good at any type of wargame, has always lost (except when playing Amoeba Wars, a 1980 boardgame, where he boasts having been third place more times than everyone else), especially in Empires in Arms where he plays Prussia until the last of his men dies (which is always almost at the beginning of play), does play Chess very badly, does not play Go, doesn't understand anything about Military History, has been writing his first PBEM since 1987 and never finished it, is proud of being able to write four-word English sentences without (many) mistakes, and still thinks XConq is the best game you can get on a Unix machine, or role-playing games on a Sunday afternoon. He can be contacted at bc@fccn.pt at almost all the time (but is quite inaccessible from most sites in the world, including from the computer on the same network next door), does not read news (proudly never installed on *our* site!), and is playing something 90% of the time and sleeping during the last 10%. ====================================================================== A Beginner's Guide to Galaxy Greg Lindahl ====================================================================== So you signed up for a game of Galaxy, and then you read the rules, and then you wondered, "How on earth do I play this game, anyway?" Or, like I did, perhaps you thought it was all obvious. Then you lost your first game or two, and finally realized that you don't know it all. For those of you who've reached this stage, here's a little sage advice from another beginner. First off, let's talk about economics. In order to win, you're going to eventually build up your population and industry to many times its starting value. Since your home world starts off fully developed, you must start colonies on other worlds. The best worlds to colonize are ones which you can reach quickly, that are relatively large (more than 500 possible population), and that have Natural Resources ratings of at least 1. Once you've picked several worlds to colonize, you must bring in colonists and capital. Since 1 unit of frozen colonists unfreezes into 8 colonists, it is relatively cheap to ship in colonists and relatively expensive to ship in capital. The best cargo ship is one that is as small as possible, i.e. with a cargo capacity of 1. I design my cargo ships with no shields, and with engines just big enough to reach several close-by planets in one turn. I pick this engine size by drawing up a map of local planets and figuring out the size of circle needed to enclose a reasonable number of worlds. Remember that a full cargo hold weighs twice what it does empty, and take this into account when you are picking the engine size. Once you start colonizing a planet, it will start growing its own colonists, at 10% per turn, and more capital, at 14-16% per turn, depending on the Natural Resources rating. Note that a Natural Resources rating above 1 really doesn't help you much more, but a rating blow 0.5 really begins to hurt. I generally only bring in 1/4 the maximum number of colonists and capital; then the world can fill itself up in about 14 more turns, while I colonize more worlds. (Clue for the non-financially-minded: divide 72 by the growth rate in percent to find the doubling time. It's called the "rule of 72".) In order to be able to colonize new worlds, you have to be able to defend them and capture territory, if necessary. So, we now arrive at the general subject of ship design. The first time that I tried to design a ship, I totally goofed it up, so I'd advise playing with the numbers a bit. The first thing to note is that shields become less effective as ships become larger and larger: the number of shields is divided by the cube root of the ship mass. Since a ship with an attack of 10 has a 50% chance of hitting a ship of size 30 with 10 shields, this means that ships smaller than 30 will have shields stronger than an attacking weapon of the same size, and ships larger than size 30 will have shields weaker than an attacking weapon of the same size. A corollary of this point is that a very small ship with a shield of 1 can barely be hit by a very small ship with a weapon of 1. So, if you want to design some small armed ships, it is much better to put a small shield on the ship than to put no shield on the ship. So, let's say that you want to design a big ship with no engines to defend your home world. If you have 1000 industry and a Natural Resources rating of 10, the biggest ship that you can build is of size 90. Let's say that we want to design this ship so that if a similar ship attacked it, each ship would have a 50% chance of destroying each other -- hence, you want an equal effective attack and defense rating. This isn't what happens if we have 1 weapon of strength 45 and a shield of strength 45. The mass of our ship is 90, so the effective strength of the shield will be: strength = 45 / 90^(1/3) * 30^(1/3) = 30.8 So, a weapon of strength 31 would have a 50% chance of destroying our ship with a shield of 45 -- so let's build a bigger shield and a smaller weapon. If you play around with the math a bit, you will discover that a shield size of 53 and weapon size of 37 is optimal. The effective shield strength is 53 / 90^(1/3) * 30^(1/3) = 36.7 Now, you may be wondering, why am I multiplying by 30^(1/3) above? This is a fudge factor that takes into account the statement in the rules that a ship of size 30 with 10 shields and a weapon of size 10 has a 50% chance of hitting itself. Designing a ship with engines is a similar process. Generally I pick the speed that I want first, and then buy the weapons and shields to be equal. Once the game has been running for a while, you will want to purchase higher technology. I would advise waiting to do this until the price, 5000 for one level, is no longer many times one turn's production. The first level is the most important, as it doubles your movement, firepower, etc. Once you are spending a lot of income buying ships, it is often more economical to buy tech and ships than just ships alone. Eventually, the smaller players without advanced tech will find themselves easily wiped out. Now, I'll pass along a few pieces of sage advice, mostly courtesy of Howard Bampton. Armed scouts can get you into trouble in the early game because many players won't declare peace until they have a reason -- which means you'll be in a war with them if you encounter any of their armed ships. I generally declare peace on everyone, but I seem to be unusual. Ships that move will not fight any battles at the planet that they start the turn at. Finally, you cannot load a group, move it to a new planet, and unload it all in one turn. Ships do not arrive at their destinations until after all your orders are processed, so the 'U' order must be given on the next turn. It is possible to unload cargo, load new cargo, and move all in the same turn. Hopefully these Galaxy tips will help you survive those first dozen turns or so. Good luck. ====================================================================== The Game Administrators' Corner Mel Nicholson ====================================================================== The Playtester The one indispensable resource to a game designer is the playtester, as no matter what genre or format the game takes, there must be someone to play it. Playtesters provide lots of very useful feedback towards the design of a game, but they can also be a real burden on the game designer. To start, I'll try to categorize the playtesters into a few large classes. 1: The hard-core enthusiast This is the sort of players who wants to put a seemingly infinite amount of time into the game. Enthusiasts spontaneously generate user-client aids, huge statistical analyses, start and run magazines about the game, and provide all sorts of wonderful labour intensive work. For the most part, these playtesters are great, so long as you can keep their efforts from drifting over into the sorts of things which require too much work on the administrator's part (as they can fill all of your free time if you let them, leaving none to put the finishing touches on the game). 2: The bad loser The bad loser is the all too familiar sort with a particular breed of egomania who can't seem to accept that others might just get the better of him from time to time. I imagine these players flushing red when they read turn reports, with foam drooling from their mouths and pooling on their shirts. They often become paranoid and will even accuse the game administrator of tampering with score/results/whatever. If you are one of those, I have some advice for you: calm down. If my experience as an administrator is typical, I usually run all the games and send out the results BEFORE I look the results over to see who did well and who didn't. We should all be nice to our administrators and avoid being this person, and keep in mind the difference between "Wow! I thought I had that battle/game/whatever sewn up. How'd s/he manage to beat me?" and "What? I had that game sewn up, who are you trying to kid?" If you REALLY think your administrator is out to get you and is willing to cheat, just quit the game. If that administrator was a jerk, then you are safe. If you were being paranoid, then the poor administrator doesn't have to deal with you. 3: The bungler In every batch of players, no matter how simple your turn format is or how carefully you explain what to do or when the deadline is, there will be one person who can't cope. That is the Bungler. This person can't type correctly, can't get things in on time, and often makes you wonder how they managed to log in to a computer and send you mail in the first place. I am of two minds in dealing with this sort. There is a mean streak I try to suppress which says "Drop 'em --- no one will notice" but I have a feeling that isn't the best way (or even a good way) to deal with them, as often someone who has a little trouble catching on will finally get their act together and become a really good player. Fines for errors and tardiness may help a little, but for the most part only patience and reminders seem to work. 4: The dropout This guy isn't evil, but s/he sure is damaging to most games. The dropout's modus operandi is to sign up for (usually many) games, sound very enthusiastic and ready to go, and then disappear without a trace. A few will at least warn you as they disappear, but most of the time silence is the only notice that you get. While you ignore a bad loser's whining, plead with the enthusiast for lack of time, and write better error-checking/recovery to deal with the bungler, it isn't easy to deal with the dropout. The easier-said-than-done method is to "just screen them out in advance". Forcing the player to jump though a few hoops when signing up (like a waiting period or having to submit some orders which don't affect the other players before things start in earnest) will eliminate many of them, but others will slip through. Try to be verbose about what sort of commitment you want from your new players, and make it clear what effect dropping out will have on the others BEFORE you admit them to the game. As a player, try to meet the administrator halfway and ASK if you aren't told, then if you don't think you have the time, don't sign up. 5: the invisible man This guy just plays the game, and surprises you when he asks a question because you'd forgotten that s/he exists. While s/he certainly isn't much work to maintain, s/he won't provide all the support an enthusiast will either. One important thing to keep in mind is that this is the most common sort of player there is. As such, this person may be the best playtester of all, as they provide a typical sample, and that which affects them is likely to reflect your game's overall popularity. However... Real playtesters often won't be easy to categorize into the these categories, since real people usually have more to deal with in their lives than just your game. Even Joe Enthusiast may find that work/school/whatever intrudes upon his playtime occasionally, and perhaps all the time he spent on the game instead of other commitments will turn him into a dropout. The invisible man may burst out with some brilliant play or amusing press release, and the bungler may be the first to pick up your new system. I suppose bad losers won't change much, but we can always hope. Dropouts, for all the problems they cause, are gone: replace them and go on. Most importantly, remember that games are supposed to be fun. Next month I'll try to talk about methods for game automation unless something really brilliant forces it's way into my head and demands to be written first. ====================================================================== Game Descriptions and Information ====================================================================== Galaxy -- Galaxy is a closed-ended strategic economic/military space simulation. The game typically takes place on a 100x100 2D map, with a few hundred planets and 20 to 50 players. Players compete to capture planets, which can be used for economic expansion. You may purchase technology in many areas, allowing your ships to fight harder and move faster. Galaxy turns range in size from 10k early in the game to 100-200k late in the game. Games are being run by the author, Russell Wallace, and also by Rob McNeur, Howard Bampton, and the Generic Gamer's Association at Western Washington University. The rules and source code are available for ftp on ftp.erg.sri.com, directory /pub/pbm/galaxy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Star Empires -- Star Empires is a simple closed-ended strategic space-opera-style game. Game 1 just ended, and the author, Roger Lincoln, is hoping to start a new game soon, although he is not sure if he will have time. If the new game does get going, he will announce it on the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.pbm. If you don't have access to that group, but still want to play (the game turns are small enough to be mailed to CompuServe), send me email (gl8f@virginia.edu), and I'll keep you posted. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestial Empire -- Celestial Empire is a closed-ended strategic economic/military space simulation. Empires compete to capture worlds which produce many different types of resources, of which different amounts are needed to manufacture various items. Two games are currently in progress, and the author, Dougal Scott, plans to start 3 more games soon. The rules may be ftp-ed from yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au in the directory /pub/celemp. After you've read them, if you still want to join a game, send your name to Dougal.Scott@fcit.monash.edu.au. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Olympia -- Olympia is an open-ended economic/military simulation in a fantasy setting, with a little role-playing thrown in for good measure. The beta-test just finished and hopefully the next iteration will be out soon. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Diplomacy -- The Diplomacy Adjudicator is a fully-computer moderated gamemaster for Avalon Hill's Diplomacy boardgame. To get more information from the moderator, send email with the word "HELP" in it to judge@u.washington.edu. Some information is available via FTP from milton.u.washington in the public/misc subdirectory. All of the information up for ftp is also available via the email server. As of August 1992, there are roughly 120 games in progress, and 750 players are registered. In addition to standard Diplomacy games, several variants are available for either normal or anonymous play. Diplomacy is covered by its own on-line magazine, which you can subscribe to either by reading the newsgroup bit.listserv.dipl-l, or by sending email with the phrase: subscribe dipl-l Your Name to the address listserv@mitvma.mit.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Other games -- although it isn't exactly a wargame, an Australian Rules Football simulation run by our popular columnist Mel Nicholson has an email server and is occasionally looking for new players. For details, send email to munch@soda.berkeley.edu with the subject "Munch: help" to receive information about the game. ====================================================================== Hints about sending Electronic Mail to other networks ====================================================================== OK, so now you're wondering, "I'm using FidoNet or CompuServe or FoobieBlech and those email addresses he keeps on talking about sure look funny to me!". Welcome to the modern world of networking. See, there's this big amorphous network called the Internet that lots of other networks, like FidoNet and CompuServe (but not GEnie, yet) are hooked up to. And you can send email between all of them, if you know the right incantations. Often size or cost limitations will keep you from being able to play games on another network, but at least you can send me letters to the editor or articles. Compuserve: If your ID is [76515,1122] then your canonical Internet address will be 76515.1122@compuserve.com. The comma is replaced by a period, and that's your username. Compuserve.com is the name of your site. The .com on the end means that Compuserve is a business, and also generally means it's in the USA. This address is the one that non-compuserve people will use to talk to you. To send mail from CompuServe to the Internet, you use this sort of address: >INTERNET:gl8f@virginia.edu In this example, the ">INTERNET:" part indicates that the email is going to the Internet, and gl8f@virginia.edu is a normal Internet address (mine). Compuserve users have to pay extra for mail to or from the Internet. If you're a flat-fee user, the cost is 5 cents per 2500 characters, minimum 15 cents, and the first $9 per month is free. This can add up to a bit of money if you're playing Olympia, where a typical player might get 500k of email per month in 100 messages. In addition, the maximum size for a given message is 50kbytes, and most Internet games do not split their game turns into pieces if they are too large. But you can try. Diplomacy, for example, should be ok and not that expensive. To go from FidoNet to the Internet and back is a similar process. Actually, it's not so simple. I have a document that describes this, but since FidoNet seems to be a bit of an anarchy, you can't even send netmail from some nodes and others may not be configured properly to send mail to and from the Internet. And, when you send email, someone is paying to send it, or maybe there is a local gateway and it's free. So, you should probably talk to your sysop first to figure out what's going on. Anyway, the long and the short of it is this: FidoNet users can send mail to the Internet by sending normal netmail to the user UUCP, and then on the first line of the message, put the line: To: gl8f@virginia.edu To send email from the Internet to FidoNet, you take an address such as "Dale Webber at 1:105/55.0", and turn that into dale.weber@p0.f55.n105.z1.fidonet.org. Again, this is subject to the same caveats above about the gateway and the costs involved. From what I've gathered (but I haven't asked recently), they ask that you keep messages under 10k bytes and to only send two or three a day. This is a fairly small amount that would limit your ability to play Internet games, but you can still submit articles to this fanzine (hint, hint). If you want to avoid the limitations, yet don't know how to get directly on the Internet, I can mail you a list of public-access Unix sites with Internet email capabilities. Just send me a short note, using the above info, to "gl8f@virginia.edu", and I'll mail a copy back. ====================================================================== What's this "ftp" thing anyway? ====================================================================== ftp is an acronym for "file transfer protocol", and it is only directly available to the privileged few who are directly hooked to the Internet using heavy-duty hardware. There is a way to use ftp via email, and if you can get email to me, I will send you a document explaining how to use it. ====================================================================== Archives and subscriptions by email ====================================================================== PBEM is archived at "ftp.erg.sri.com". I will also be setting up a mailing list to distribute this magazine, but keep in mind that it will be posted on a regular basis to at least Usenet and CompuServe, so if you're reading it now, you probably won't need to get on the mailing list to receive it in the future. ====================================================================== PBEM is published monthly. Please redistribute it far and wide, but do not modify or delete any articles. PLEASE CONTRIBUTE! Our focus is primarily on free wargames, but we're interested in articles about anything relevant. Up