PE if you have time to yap you have time to play be sure to send me a PM

Actually, I either got a lot more time on my hands or a lot less. I have to figure out how things are going to shake out now that I drowned my car in a lake...

Hey all,
Since all players have their idiosyncrasies when communicating and playing, there are a few rules.

RULE 1
This is WTA: all players commit to trying to WIN the game or get in the narrowest possible DRAW!!!

RULE 2
@MrcsAurelius handles the admissions.

RULE 3
The first three diployears you can't /sign/ your messages, you can however send a greeting. (I can tell who's who by their signatures.)

RULE 4
All country names are always capitalized, as are all terrain names and the beginning of a sentence. You commit to using the acronyms are listed below.

RULE 5
"To hold" or "hold" are both substituted by "h". Support is S, Convoy is C.

In case a unit is supported or convoyed, these moves come on the same line in [sharp brackets], comments are added in (normal brackets). X, Y, Z is for unknowns. Bounces can be put on the same line with a , seperation.

The following set convoys an army from Wales to Brest, protecting the convoying ship and supporting the move itself:

Wal-Bre [Eng C, MAO S]
Nth S Eng h (blablabla)

France can propose a bounce in Bur from either Paris or Marseilles as follows:

X-Bur, Mun-Bur
X=Par or Mar

OFFICIAL ACRONYMS
DMZ: Demilitarized Zone
ALA: Anti-Leader Alliance

First three letters of the terrain are used except:
Bot: Gulf of Bothnia
Lyo: Gulf of Lyon
Lvp: Liverpool
Liv: Livonia
MAO: Mid-Atlantic Ocean
NAf: North Africa
NAO: North Atlantic Ocean
Nth: North Sea
Nwy: Norway
NwS: Norwegian Sea
Tyo: Tyrolia
TyS: Tyrrhenian Sea

First letter of country is used except:
Italy: IT

RULE 6
A list of players in this game will be published here.

RULE 7
If you can't memorize the rulebook list of abbreviations, have never played in a strict FtF game where additional abbreviations have developed as official rules over time, all of RH's rules and the colors of the flags of all 7 countries involved in this game, write everything down, refer to this list, phone a friend or send a self-addressed stamped envelope (hereforto referred to as SASE) to 120 Riverwood Ave, Bowling Green, Kentucky 42103 by the start of the game for an "official" copy of this thread on 20 lb. white stock. All requests for thread copies must be submitted on or before the start of the spring 1901 phase of said game.

:)

I don't get it, you're allowed to communicate after the first 3 years in any way, then why do you enforce how people communicate? Are people only allowed to share their orders? I.e. what's the purpose of rule 4 and 5?

carpenter,
I propose these rules because they make much of the communication uniform, in other words, anonymous. I want to be very strict on the first phase of the game (first three years) so people don't ally based on their guesses of who's who, but strictly based on the made proposals.
But because I don't want to make people feel like Big Brother's watching them, I relax these rules after three years, when most of the choices to be made require good strategical insight and information obtained during the game anyway.

Rules 4 and 5 seem rather draconian to me, but I guess I can put up with them if they're necessary for a 150 point Anon game.

Regarding Rule 1, while I can agree with the letter of the law, I would like to make a point regarding its spirit. While every player should of course be aiming to win or draw, they should never be restricted from at least threatening to do otherwise. Such threats can be a powerful diplomatic tactic, which is why a common drawing strategy is to make oneself essential to stopping a solo, even if in order to make oneself essential the solo must first be allowed to make progress.

So if Marcus is handling the admissions... who are we PMing? You or him?

@Tasnica, I'm waiting for MrcsAurelius' opinion on this game. I hope to receive it very quickly though. He should be PMed after he decides to play.
As for Rule 1, I couldn't disagree more. The threat to help the solo is a threat to violate the rules and risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. I won't have it in this game.

Nonsense. The rules as written state only that one's ultimate goal should be to win or draw, and as I just pointed out helping the solo _can_ assist one in doing so given the right circumstances. Just the threat of doing so is itself powerful, but _only_ if that threat carries weight.

Players should be able to determine their own path toward achieving their goals. While certain guidelines may apply in the vast majority of situations, I don't believe that players should be restricted from making choices which they see as benefiting themselves.

If a player can tell another player: "You must make moves X, Y, and Z, or you are booted from the game," something is wrong.

What you can say is that you have a good relationship with player A and will help him either obtain a stalemate line, a holdout position, 17 centers, an enormous overweight over player B etc. etc. but the line is crossed when you actually start threatening to help player A get 18 and not 17 centers.

I'm still waiting for your EoG by the way. ;)

Yes, that would be consistent with the rule, as that would _guarantee_ that one does not win or draw, as opposed to merely taking a roundabout (but possibly effective!) way of doing so.

Personally, I'm also fine with players making sacrifices to prevent _other_ players from drawing (or winning, but that is commonly accepted), something which I believe encourages more respect for stabbed and/or minor powers lest they take you down with them, but that is something I could live without.

Still writing my EoG. Just passed page 5 on Microsoft Word. ;)

LOL that's the spirit! A Dutch politician once said "waar slecht wordt geschreven, daar wordt slecht gedacht" which comes out pretty Yoda in Google translate, but I'm sure it's understandable and I'm sure the contrary is true as well :-)

@MrcsAurelius
"A rematch anytime, anywhere, would love to."
Time to put your money where your mouth is son, one does not gratuitously insult a redhouse ;-)

What about a greenhouse... That gets disrespected all the time

bUMP
Two more players ladies and gentlemen!

bump?

Haha.. red, you are swamping us in rules here. You could also just play an open game, that way everybody has an equal amount of info, as you can just click through the past games :)

I did post in the other thread, that I'd rather start in 2 weeks or so, as I expect to have less games then. So my 'anytime' was a bit out of order. :) I'd love to host that game at that time. If I start one more, I'm not gonna be able to manage and play properly, that's not the way to go imo.

So, could we postpone the rematch a little? :)

The rematch is now @MrcsAurelius.
En garde!

BumP

Hey everyone, are you interested in this experiment? I think if we try it out you will have a game that is really, really anonymous in all respects. It's like playing with ghosts and I believe it could be pretty awesome to be clueless on who's who.

Please?

Pretty please?

We only need one more...

:-)

i will try to understand the concept a bit more, but be forgiving if I don't get it.

Sure, I just hope everybody makes an effort to be anonymous and I don't get a half-hearted cheating accusation again :)