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Fidonet in Europe
by Dave Meikle (2:258/69.2 , postmaster@rjambo.abel.co.uk)

Firstly if any one sent a message to rebeljambo@unforgettable.com could they resubmit it to my eMAIL address above because it went down.

AstroWars is taking off now with two people subscribing this week one from USA and one from Europe. I would like to whish them luck.

If anyone would like to join here is the info again. This is the last time because it will get annoying. If any one wants it again they will need to send a message to INFOMAIL@2:258/69.69 with the subject Astrowars.

Does anyone want a document on INFOMAIL? I can set it up so you can edit it remotely. Just drop me a line.

Here is the Astrowar info again for the last time:

What is AstroWar?

AstroWar is a play-by-email game of space conquest. What's so special about this particular game? From the player's view, it's simple and fun. From the game moderator or sysop's view, it's fully automatic, adaptable, expandable, portable and free! Bear with me while I justify some of these claims...

It's simple: The rules and construction of this game are as simple as I could make them. There is just one type of planet, and one type of ship. Each planet just has a single statistic: production, which decides how many ships it produces each turn. Ships are just single faceless, nameless units which are used in greater or lesser numbers in order to overwhelm, hold back or discourage an enemy.

It's fun: How can I justify this? Well, I can't really since it's just my opinion, but most of the players in the beta test games find it quite entertaining. Its simplicity means that you won't spend much time learning the rules, and you'll be playing properly and developing your strategies almost immediately. It's hardly worth setting up a practice game.

Playing the Game

Getting Started

AstroWar is a simple game of space conquest, usually played by email. The simplicity of the rules mean that the time taken to learn the game is extremely short. However, it may take just as long to develop a winning strategy as it does for more complex games.

Let's take a look at the game rules before we go into details of how to play. The map consists of a number of planets spread across a galactic map. The number of planets and the size of the map are defined by the person running the game.

There is only one type of planet, although each planet has a production rating. This production rating reflects the number of ships that planet produces each turn, when it is owned by a player. Neutral planets do not produce any ships.

Ships are not treated individually in AstroWar. There is only one type of ship, the variation being in the number of ships you send to the planets you are attacking. Ships are sent in fleets of one or more ships, and each fleet's mission is decided by the number of ships sent, and the ownership of the planet the ships are being sent to.

Part of the game's attraction lies in the high level of secrecy. In some games, you can see the entire map when you start the game, and sometimes you can see where other empires are. Some games are very open, and allow you to see as much detail about other players' empires as those players can see.

This is not the case with AstroWar. When you start playing AstroWar, you only see full details of your homeworld, and the positions of nearby planets. To get more information, you must scout the planets you can see, and you must start to expand before you see planets further away.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here, for before any of this becomes apparent you must first join a game. In order to join a game, you must submit a 'join' request. With this join request you give a name which will be used to identify your empire. Your empire name can be up to 15 characters long.

Upon successfully joining a game, you will receive confirmation that your request to join has been accepted. With this you will be given the name of your homeworld, that homeworld's details, and a map of nearby planets to get you started. Note that homeworld planets always have a production of 15 ships per turn.

There are a few cases in which a join request might fail. Firstly, you might choose an empire name which is already in use. This is unlikely, but possible. Another case in which a request to join might be rejected is when the game is full, i.e. there are no planets which have not already been scouted or taken. In the former case, just try to join again, with a different name. In the latter case there's nothing you can do, except wait for the game to finish and re-start, or find another game.

Scouting, Conquering and Redeployment

The first thing you will want to do when you start a new game is scout one or more of the planets which were shown on your first map. To scout a planet, simply send a single ship to it. When the ship arrives, you will receive details about the production and ownership of that planet, along with the number of ships currently in orbit. The scout ship will then turn around and begin the return journey.

Once you have received details about some of the nearby planets, you should start making your attacks. A fleet of 2 or more ships sent to a neutral or enemy planet constitutes and attack force. Generally, you should send more ships than are already in orbit around a planet if you wish to take it. However, you can send your attacks in two or more 'waves' if you don't have enough ships to take the planet straight away. The first arrivals will reduce the enemy's numbers, so that the later fleets have an easier job of taking the planet. If a fleet takes a planet, it is disbanded, and the ships take up orbit around the planet.

You can start making attacks before you scout, but this is not always a good idea, particularly if you are joining a game which has already been running for a number of turns. For all you know, an attack fleet sent out 'blind' might be travelling towards a planet belonging to a relatively powerful empire, and this is not a good way to gain allies.

Once you have more than one planet, you may want to start redistributing your forces, for more effective attacks or defense. Sending any number of ships from one of your planets to another is a normal fleet movement. When the fleet arrives, it will be disbanded and the ships will join those in orbit around the planet.

A Note About Fleet Movements

A fleet does not start to move towards its destination until the turn after it is launched. So, for instance, if you launch a fleet from one planet to a planet four squares away, it will still be four squares away on its first turn; only in the next turn will it start to move.

Requesting Details About Your Empire

Although the reports you receive from scouting, attacking and fleet movements tell you everything you need to know about your planets, there are times when you will want reminding about various aspects of your empire. There are a couple of reports which you can request from AstroWar, whenever you need them.

The planet list contains a list of all your planets, together with a reminder of the planets' positions, their production ratings and the number of ships in orbit around them. Only your own planets are included in this list; if you want up-to- date information about enemy or neutral planets you must scout them.

Turn Phases

There are four phases to each AstroWar turn: Fleet movement, Order processing, Ship production and Victory checking, executed in that order. Bear this order in mind when submitting orders; for example, a planet report (a response to a 'planet list' order) will not take into account the ship production which comes later in that turn.

The fleet list contains a list of all your fleets, with a reminder of their planets of origin and their destinations. The list also contains the number of ships in the fleets, and their distances from their objectives. You can use the distance figure to work out how long it will be before a fleet arrives.

As your empire expands, you will want to be able to see more of the map. This information isn't given to you automatically, you must request it using the map order. When you submit a map order, you must give the name of a planet around which the map will be centred. You can only centre a map around a planet you own, so in order to begin mapping the entire galaxy you must start expanding your empire.

The Message System

In order that you can communicate with other empires, to form alliances, make threats or gloat over victories, there is a message system which passes free-form messages between players.

To write to another empire, simply submit a 'write' order, along with the name of the empire you wish to send to, and the text of the message. Next turn, that empire will receive that message with the your empire name identified as the writer (in order that he or she can reply).

It is also possible to write a general announcement to all empires. This is not always a good idea. Usually your empire will be unknown to others until they see your planets, or receive a message from you. Secrecy itself may often be a useful weapon, but writing a message to all will immediately reveal your existence to everyone else in the game. Later on in the game, if your empire becomes powerful, you could perhaps use this facility as a propaganda tool.

Finally, it is also possible to write messages to the system, and receive messages from the system. Although this has no use in the standard game, it is there as a way of communicating with add-ons. Add-ons can scan for messages to the system and interpret their contents as extended orders to access features in that add-on. Similarly, replies or information generated by add-ons will be addressed as coming from 'the system'.

Winning the Game

The standard victory conditions dictate that the empire who owns everybody else's homeworlds wins the game. This is a change from the usual condition of conquering all of everyone else's planets, since that condition usually results in a tedious end game where the eventual victor has to mop up the remains of defeated empires.

One problem is that enemy homeworlds are not identified. You can assume that, in a normal game, all the homeworlds will have a production of 15 ships per turn. However, not all planets with this production are homeworlds. You just have to hunt out all the non-neutral planets with 15 production until you are awarded victory.

When victory is awarded to a player, a report is sent out to everyone saying who the winner is. However, the game must be manually stopped and restarted by the person running the game, so it is possible that a few turns may go by with the 'victory' message being sent out.

It is quite possible that victory conditions in a game have been disabled, making it 'open-ended'. This means that the game will continue indefinitely. Our Games is Open-Ended.

Resigning Your Position

Once your position has become unworkable, or you want to quit the game for some other reason like lack of time, there is a 'resign' command you can use. Resigning from a game will cause all your planets to revert to neutral status, and will make all in-transit fleets wink out of existence.

If you are going to have to stop playing a game, it's polite to resign properly. If you just let your fleets build up uselessly, it will get in the way of legitimate players and ruin their enjoyment of the game.

Orders

This section gives a list of orders understood by the order processing phase of turn processing. To send an order send a netmail TO: Astrowar@2:258/69.69 with the SUBJECT:GAME1 and in the main body type one off the commands:

join <empire>

A join order, or join request, asking that a player be added to the game with the empire name <empire>.

send <n> <o> <d>

A send order. Orders a launch of <n> ships from planet <o> to planet <d>, where <o> is owned by this empire and there are at least <n> ships in orbit.

planets

Requests a list of the planets owned by this empire.

fleets

Requests a list of fleets belonging to this empire.

map <planet>

Requests a map of the area around <planet>, showing the names and positions of all planets within 7 squares of this centre planet.

write <emp> <txt>

Write a message to empire <emp>, containing the text <txt>. <Emp> may be an empire name, All ("*") or The System (""), and <txt> may be up to 64k of text spread across multiple lines.

resign

Requests that this empire is removed from the game. All planets revert to neutral ownership (with ships in orbit remaining), and all fleets will magically disappear.