From: "Walt O'Hara" Subject: RE: favorite Beer and Pretzel Boardgames Andrew: ---Andrew Walters wrote: > Also rocking-in-my-opinion are Ogre/GEV, Borderlands, Cosmic >Encounters, Melee/Wizard, and probably my favorite game of all time, >Illuminati (either version, can you believe someone is playing it via >email?). That's one of mine, too. I've played this since I bought the first edition in the three black boxes, and it's always delivered on the entertainment level-- as good or better than Cosmic Encounter, IMHO. I could see how you might play this by REGULAR mail, by drawing the diagram of the opposing power structures on a piece of paper. The problem of how you maintain a drawing and discard deck exists, however. How do you overcome this limitation using email? What is Borderlands? Walt PS: check out http://members.tripod.com/~mrnizz/hkrules.htm === Walt O'Hara ------------------------------------------------------------ Home Page- http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/1861 Email: Doktor_Rat@humanoid.net ------------------------------------------------------------ _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From: "Andrew Walters" Subject: RE: favorite Beer and Pretzel Boardgames To answer the easy questions first, Borderlands came from Eon, the makers of Cosmic Encounter, Hoax, Quirk, and some other games. All these games, IMO, are a step up grom family boardgames, but a step down from wargames, which is *great* for those who love games and have intelligent friends who don't want to hear the phrase "zone of control" or look up things on tables. The title was pretty un-indicative, and though the box talked about "a game of the barbaric future" it actually concerns several approxi mately iron age civilizations expanding, taking over resources (coal, trees, iron, horses, gold) and then using these to build armies and cities. It had a fairly unique system - each army had a basic strength of one, plus one if it has a weapon (iron + coal), plus two if it has a horse, plus three if its on a riverboat, etc. To move into a territory your attacking force, aided by strength from other territories adjacent to the territory friendly to you, must be greater than the defending strength, aided by strenght from other territories adjacent who are opposed to the move, a la Diplomacy. Like Diplomacy theres lots of negotiation, but the resources are in different places each time, and there are enough options, trade, etc, that you're not *totally* dependant on negotiation, as you are in Diplomacy, so I like Borderlands better. Also plays *way* faster. Several expansion sets added islands off the main continent, ships, bridges, universities, temples, zepplins (there you go, Walt!), and generally stretched the system. It was the kind of game you could explain in ten minutes and then have a really good time smacking each other around for an hour or two. Decent graphics, lots of tactical possibilities without too many rules, no tables, no dice, a good game. I use the past tense because I haven't seen it for sale anywhere in years, but its still on my shelf, waiting for the right moment, like ten years from now when my kids approach their teens... As far as Illuminatie over email, I didn't say *I* did it, someone else did. I was poking around on the SJG site and through a long chain of hopping found a site where the referee of the game had done a complete write up, turn by turn, of the game he had moderated, including turn-by-turn "What I was thinking" comments from several of the players. I got the impression it was a one time thing, and apparently took a large number of months. The referee handled all the decks and rolls, if you can imagine the work involved. I don't have the URL handy but you could find it easy enough. Andrew