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Author Topic:   CMNs: Alternative quick-start

Bingmann posted 06-01-99 04:39 PM ET
Has anyone thought of doing the following: Players play 1 turn, CMN plays 4 turns, repeat until first contact. The players can set up build queues and start multi-turn moves before passing the game off to the CMN for 4 turns, and they can give instructions and contingency orders to the CMN for those 4 turns as well. This would let the players have almost direct control over the very early game while still accelerating the game considerably.
(As a side note, it's too bad that units are not uniquely identified. That makes it hard to give written instructions - having to say "the rover over there" instead of "rover xyz" or "Satan's Spawn Squadron".)
Goobmeister posted 06-01-99 05:31 PM ET
Bingmann you sly dog.
I am trying to quickly come up with a reason this will not work, but so far my mind is strangely empty.
I would expand the number of turns the CMN plays. Otherwise you could still take a week or more to do 30 - 40 turns.
Another idea that cousLee had once was to have the prospective players play their faction on a differant map, up to a certain number of turns and then send that to the CMN, who could get a good judge as to their styles.
One possible problem though. I as a CMN am also a player with many of the same players in my game. If I am observing their early turn start ups then am I getting play style/strategy information that will help me in another game? Just a thought.
Personally I do not have a problem with someone playing a game through a number of turns for me and then handing off the game.
The multiplayer aspect that is the most fun is once contact is made, not the time before that. I trust any of the people I have played with/CMNed with to not totally screw up a position.
But that is me.
Goob
Aredhran posted 06-01-99 07:05 PM ET
I'm with you on that one, Goob.
Bingmann, your concept is interesting. I'd like to try it (but only when at least one of my current PBEM challenges is done )
Aredhran
jimmytrick posted 06-01-99 07:45 PM ET
Well, it looks like Aredhran's Challenge is almost done........
Aredhran posted 06-02-99 03:28 AM ET
Why, have you already converted the 6 other leaders to the One And True Belief, my dear Archbishop ?
Aredhran
cousLee posted 06-02-99 05:33 AM ET
I had also been thinking along the same lines. What i came up with, was more along the lines of 10 turn intervals. The thing that drags in early game, is exploration. The direction can change though with each tile uncovered. movement orders to a specific tile could change rapidly, as could building queue priorities. Suffice to say, if you trust your CMN to make apropriate decisions, then it should not be necessary.
A good CMN start should give you 2 to 4 bases (depending of settings), a couple of exploration units, garrisons, former(s), and 1 or 2 facilities. No SP started, and no pods popped. A player could give the CMN a preferred building queue list, and either select tech as "all level 1", or "area direction" (C,B,D,E), or a level 3 target tech. the main conflict I have found, is if the CMN should start prototypes. I prefer to design my own proto's. but starting after 40-50 turns with only scouts, can be annoying. however, I think it adds some challange to the games.
MoSe posted 06-02-99 05:49 AM ET
"Rover there,
Rover there,
spread the news
there they are
Rover there...
because the Yangs are coming,
the Yangs are coming..."
Or something like that.
I like your idea Bingmann, but maybe it wouldn't yeld a significant gain, practically.
I prepared a couple of non-scenarioed self-hotsitted PBEM starts, saved at 10-odd years intervals till 2160/70.
It's annoying how things easily get out of balance.
I'm beginning to convince myself that to obtain the goals exposed by cousLee, you have to BUILD the starting position, not to get there playing. You make full use of the scenario, you grant the number of bases, facilities, units, some TF, and, say, Biogenetics, Social Psych and Centauri Ecology for all, and a couple of different techs for each faction, ready for barter.
Aredhran posted 06-02-99 07:41 AM ET
Let me share my experience with the Aredhran Challenge (without too much details to avoid spoiling the fun of my players who will be reading this).
I started the game by creating a custom map with the agreed upon options, tweaked it a little here and there (for example, I added the Borehole Cluster).
Once that was done, with the concept of Game Balance in mind, I modified the starting locations to give access to one special resource to each faction, and to spread them out evenly on the surface of the planet (for better growth).
At this point, the game was ready to play, so I turned off the editor and played the first 30 turns as a regular hot-seat played game (there is an option in the SE to play all 7 factions). I occasionally looked at the whole map to see how I where I was going with the colony pods to avoid contact (again, agreed upon rules). I did pop a few pods, that's almost inevitable IMO and can be a huge benefit, especially in the early game (Alien Artifacts, Monoliths, Unity rovers & foils). Due to the game setup and the rules, it was basically a build/explore start.
At this point the factions were almost equal, with the exception of the UoP shooting ahead because of tech, and the believers lagging a little because of inhospitable terrain. All factions had at least 3, some had 4 bases, formers and a few units. I did start some prototypes, because it doesn't feel right for example to have Impact technology sitting around for 5-10 years without building a single attack unit. Not starting special projects was bad enough.
So this is where I turned the SE back on, to do some balancing. Still keeping to the original rules, all diplomatic contact flags between factions were cleared, I added some units, bases, terrain enhancements to the weaker factions to bring them to a more equal footing. In the end, I granted each leader the exact same (rather large, some said) sum of cash to compensate the lack of SPs and to accelerate the beginning of the game (allows to rush-build some units and buildings).
I dont remember exactly how the powergraph looked like, but the differences were minor to non-existent.
Aredhran
PS: CMN note: It's interesting, looking at the save I get each turn, to see how the various players decided to use the money... keep it, build formers, improve bases, assemble an army, rush projects...
PPS: My wishes to FIRAXIS for PBEM multiplayer (hint, hint): a master password that would allow the CMN to turn the scenario editor on, for that "god almighty" view, and with the ability to reset player passwords (right, JAM ? ) and reassign players (ie. give AI to human).
Aredhran posted 06-02-99 07:41 AM ET
Did *I* write all that ?
Bingmann posted 06-02-99 09:52 AM ET
Everyone - I think the normal CMN-accelerated games are great (thanks MoSe!) I was not throwing this idea out as a replacement, but as something different. I am a big fan of the very early game (turn 1). A typical decision made in the first few turns is much more important than a typical decision made on turn 100. (From the world of finance, the magic of diversification: turn 100 = 100 decisions, turn 1 = 4 decisions. 1 action in 100 has much less of an impact than 1 action in 4.) You know what I mean if you've ever lost your first freebie colony pod instead of getting a second base on turn 3-5. Losing a colony pod on turn 100 is usually just a minor annoyance. I was trying to think of a method that would allow the game to be played as if the players were starting a game at turn 1 and playing normally. The CMN's only duties would be to help the game go faster by entering in the players' turns. I suggested a 5 turn cycle since players should be able to plan ahead for at least 4 turns most of the time, thus reducing the need for "CMN judgement calls" to a minimum.
Goob - (or actually cousLee, since you said it was his idea) - The idea of having each player play on a separate map for a set number of turns led me to the next idea: Have the players play the actual game as 1P hotseat. The CMN would tell the players how many turns to play after which they would send their save games to the CMN. The cycle: players play 10 turns in their own games, CMN checks for contact, players play 10 turns, CMN checks for contact, players play 5 turns (or less as the CMN notes contact is close at hand), CMN checks for contact, etc. Once contact is made, the CMN would merge the separate games into one game. The merging would be the hard part - lots of work for the CMN and might require 2 computers (view save game on one, build merge game on other). The players should probably save after each turn so that the game can be backed up to the turn just before contact.
Aredhran posted 06-02-99 10:05 AM ET
Bingmann, in theory (utopia ?) I agree with your idea, it is good. However, it really sounds like a full-time job ! Do you have *that* much time to spare ?
Not to mention this scenario editor that, IMNSHO, is really a pain in the **** to use, so doing the kind of work you mention would be highly difficult. plus, the non-human played factions would certainly not develop identically in different games...
Goobmeister posted 06-02-99 11:31 AM ET
Here is my whacked opinion, (Please bear with me I just ate 3 Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and am considering a fourth, I feel a little like trippin')
Balance is over-rated.
If I were playing a winner take all game against Aredhran, cousLee, MoSe, and Bingmann then of course I would want things to seem balanced (note: This is as close as we can really get). Since most of these people are in multiple games with me, and with each other, pure balance doesn't matter.
What matters is what we do with our positions. How we take our lead and grow it, or how we struggle from adversity.
If Aredhran has a huge lead in a game from an advantageous start, you better believe that I would be willing to talk with cousLee about bringing him down to size. If I have a huge lead then I would expect people to eventually gang up on me.
Give me a starting position where there is little evidence of stupid decisions and I will be happy.
If I start a CMN game then the start will follow those tenants. Though for the current game I am working on I am trying to "balance" more. (at least so the humans are balanced, ;-) ).
Goob
p.s. The hardest thing about filling in for a player as CMN is not being able to follow the rest of the game, since I want to keep things even.
Aredhran posted 06-02-99 12:05 PM ET
Goob (Regarding your PS):
I would expect no less from you, my friend.
I agree with your points above, balance is not all (to a point), which is why I did not strive for a "perfect" balance, but for "more-or-less equal opportunities for all players"
Moreover, the powergraph doesn't say it all. One faction can be very higly rated because of a couple SP and good tech level, but the cities can be crap and the military non-existent, and the neighbor be the lowest on the charts, but having a bunch of 2-1-2 rovers ready to rumble, and next thing you know, Mr HighPowerGraph is eaten alive by his next door wannabe, who snatches a bunch of bases and two special projects (and thus becomes #1)
(Sound familiar Goob ? Can you spell "W E I Z E N" and "G e n e r a l L e e" ?)
Just CHF 0.05 more...
Aredhran
Aredhran posted 06-02-99 12:08 PM ET
PS: I don't know about the 2-1-2 rovers part, cous, that was just extrapolation on my part.
Bingmann posted 06-02-99 01:26 PM ET
Aredhran - The work for the CMN on proposal #2 is mainly the merge which would happen only once when the game was about to shift over to true multiplayer due to contact. As far as computer players go, my opinion is that there should be no computer players in a multiplayer game and unplayed factions should be eliminated (zap all faction units, eliminate all bases except HQ base, reduce HQ base to size 1 and zap all credits and production, surround HQ base with wild mindworms, no faction restart). Of course you need computer players in the individual 1P hotseat games. For the computer players, make their HQ base a 1 square island surrounded by 9 shallow water with kelp and 11 deeper water (all no fungus, no resources, just plain), increase the HQ pop to 20, put enough HQ-supported 1-1-1's on a 1 square island next to (but outside) the HQ base radius to drive HQ production to 0, eliminate all other bases and units. The HQ should be in a constant state of drone riots with no production/energy/research, and the computer players will be doing nothing.
I wonder if enough is known about the save file format that I would be able to figure out how to write a program that would merge multiple save files into a single save file.
Goob - I agree that balance isn't very important, especially in a game with many players.
Bingmann posted 06-02-99 08:51 PM ET
Well, I guess I'll bite the bullet and try my idea out. I'm posting this here first so that people interested in this thread get first crack at a front row seat to see how it works out. I'll post this as a separate call for players thread tomorrow.
Announcing the Bing Challenges (why fight tradition):
Bing Challenge: 4 Square -
4 humans (other 3 factions eliminated)
standard planet, average everything, no blind tech, all victories, no restart, flexible start, no spoils, allow cooperative victory, all factions spread out and separated by water
(Any options can be changed if all players indicate a preference for the same options when responding to me.)
---AND/OR---
Bing Challenge: Free For All
7 humans
huge planet, average everything, no blind tech, all victories, no restart, flexible start, no spoils, allow cooperative victory, all factions spread out and separated by water
(Again, any options can be changed if all players indicate a preference for the same options when responding to me.)
Both games will be played initially by the players in their own 1-player hot-seat game until the CMN merges the individual games into a multiplayer PBEM game when first contact is imminent. Players will play a fixed number of turns specified by the CMN and then forward the resulting save games to the CMN. The CMN will then either merge the games into a multiplayer PBEM game or call for more player turns, repeating as needed. The first turn cycle will be 10 turns.
For each game you are interested in (both will be different - you can play in both), reply with a preference ranking of all 7 factions (factions will be assigned based on preference and play order vs. PBEM times), PBEM times (try to narrow this down as much as possible to specific times you can check for and play a turn - if you specify a time window, include how many times you would check for a turn over that period of time, say infinite if you are continuously logged on during that period and are immediately notified when mail arrives - lucky!), and a list of options you prefer over the options listed above. Also, make a preference list of all landmarks you would like near your starting location, additionally rating each landmark by worth in Unity pods.
I hope to have the first game (whichever fills first) ready for a Monday (June 7) start with the second game to follow shortly after.
cousLee posted 06-03-99 02:19 AM ET
go for it Bingmann, CMNing is a blast.
Just in case, did you know the SE has an option "eliminate faction"?
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Author	Topic: CMNs: Alternative quick-start
Bingmann	posted 06-01-99 04:39 PM ET Has anyone thought of doing the following: Players play 1 turn, CMN plays 4 turns, repeat until first contact. The players can set up build queues and start multi-turn moves before passing the game off to the CMN for 4 turns, and they can give instructions and contingency orders to the CMN for those 4 turns as well. This would let the players have almost direct control over the very early game while still accelerating the game considerably. (As a side note, it's too bad that units are not uniquely identified. That makes it hard to give written instructions - having to say "the rover over there" instead of "rover xyz" or "Satan's Spawn Squadron".)
Goobmeister	posted 06-01-99 05:31 PM ET Bingmann you sly dog. I am trying to quickly come up with a reason this will not work, but so far my mind is strangely empty. I would expand the number of turns the CMN plays. Otherwise you could still take a week or more to do 30 - 40 turns. Another idea that cousLee had once was to have the prospective players play their faction on a differant map, up to a certain number of turns and then send that to the CMN, who could get a good judge as to their styles. One possible problem though. I as a CMN am also a player with many of the same players in my game. If I am observing their early turn start ups then am I getting play style/strategy information that will help me in another game? Just a thought. Personally I do not have a problem with someone playing a game through a number of turns for me and then handing off the game. The multiplayer aspect that is the most fun is once contact is made, not the time before that. I trust any of the people I have played with/CMNed with to not totally screw up a position. But that is me. Goob
Aredhran	posted 06-01-99 07:05 PM ET I'm with you on that one, Goob. Bingmann, your concept is interesting. I'd like to try it (but only when at least one of my current PBEM challenges is done ) Aredhran
jimmytrick	posted 06-01-99 07:45 PM ET Well, it looks like Aredhran's Challenge is almost done........
Aredhran	posted 06-02-99 03:28 AM ET Why, have you already converted the 6 other leaders to the One And True Belief, my dear Archbishop ? Aredhran
cousLee	posted 06-02-99 05:33 AM ET I had also been thinking along the same lines. What i came up with, was more along the lines of 10 turn intervals. The thing that drags in early game, is exploration. The direction can change though with each tile uncovered. movement orders to a specific tile could change rapidly, as could building queue priorities. Suffice to say, if you trust your CMN to make apropriate decisions, then it should not be necessary. A good CMN start should give you 2 to 4 bases (depending of settings), a couple of exploration units, garrisons, former(s), and 1 or 2 facilities. No SP started, and no pods popped. A player could give the CMN a preferred building queue list, and either select tech as "all level 1", or "area direction" (C,B,D,E), or a level 3 target tech. the main conflict I have found, is if the CMN should start prototypes. I prefer to design my own proto's. but starting after 40-50 turns with only scouts, can be annoying. however, I think it adds some challange to the games.
MoSe	posted 06-02-99 05:49 AM ET "Rover there, Rover there, spread the news there they are Rover there... because the Yangs are coming, the Yangs are coming..." Or something like that. I like your idea Bingmann, but maybe it wouldn't yeld a significant gain, practically. I prepared a couple of non-scenarioed self-hotsitted PBEM starts, saved at 10-odd years intervals till 2160/70. It's annoying how things easily get out of balance. I'm beginning to convince myself that to obtain the goals exposed by cousLee, you have to BUILD the starting position, not to get there playing. You make full use of the scenario, you grant the number of bases, facilities, units, some TF, and, say, Biogenetics, Social Psych and Centauri Ecology for all, and a couple of different techs for each faction, ready for barter.
Aredhran	posted 06-02-99 07:41 AM ET Let me share my experience with the Aredhran Challenge (without too much details to avoid spoiling the fun of my players who will be reading this). I started the game by creating a custom map with the agreed upon options, tweaked it a little here and there (for example, I added the Borehole Cluster). Once that was done, with the concept of Game Balance in mind, I modified the starting locations to give access to one special resource to each faction, and to spread them out evenly on the surface of the planet (for better growth). At this point, the game was ready to play, so I turned off the editor and played the first 30 turns as a regular hot-seat played game (there is an option in the SE to play all 7 factions). I occasionally looked at the whole map to see how I where I was going with the colony pods to avoid contact (again, agreed upon rules). I did pop a few pods, that's almost inevitable IMO and can be a huge benefit, especially in the early game (Alien Artifacts, Monoliths, Unity rovers & foils). Due to the game setup and the rules, it was basically a build/explore start. At this point the factions were almost equal, with the exception of the UoP shooting ahead because of tech, and the believers lagging a little because of inhospitable terrain. All factions had at least 3, some had 4 bases, formers and a few units. I did start some prototypes, because it doesn't feel right for example to have Impact technology sitting around for 5-10 years without building a single attack unit. Not starting special projects was bad enough. So this is where I turned the SE back on, to do some balancing. Still keeping to the original rules, all diplomatic contact flags between factions were cleared, I added some units, bases, terrain enhancements to the weaker factions to bring them to a more equal footing. In the end, I granted each leader the exact same (rather large, some said) sum of cash to compensate the lack of SPs and to accelerate the beginning of the game (allows to rush-build some units and buildings). I dont remember exactly how the powergraph looked like, but the differences were minor to non-existent. Aredhran PS: CMN note: It's interesting, looking at the save I get each turn, to see how the various players decided to use the money... keep it, build formers, improve bases, assemble an army, rush projects... PPS: My wishes to FIRAXIS for PBEM multiplayer (hint, hint): a master password that would allow the CMN to turn the scenario editor on, for that "god almighty" view, and with the ability to reset player passwords (right, JAM ? ) and reassign players (ie. give AI to human).
Aredhran	posted 06-02-99 07:41 AM ET Did I write all that ?
Bingmann	posted 06-02-99 09:52 AM ET Everyone - I think the normal CMN-accelerated games are great (thanks MoSe!) I was not throwing this idea out as a replacement, but as something different. I am a big fan of the very early game (turn 1). A typical decision made in the first few turns is much more important than a typical decision made on turn 100. (From the world of finance, the magic of diversification: turn 100 = 100 decisions, turn 1 = 4 decisions. 1 action in 100 has much less of an impact than 1 action in 4.) You know what I mean if you've ever lost your first freebie colony pod instead of getting a second base on turn 3-5. Losing a colony pod on turn 100 is usually just a minor annoyance. I was trying to think of a method that would allow the game to be played as if the players were starting a game at turn 1 and playing normally. The CMN's only duties would be to help the game go faster by entering in the players' turns. I suggested a 5 turn cycle since players should be able to plan ahead for at least 4 turns most of the time, thus reducing the need for "CMN judgement calls" to a minimum. Goob - (or actually cousLee, since you said it was his idea) - The idea of having each player play on a separate map for a set number of turns led me to the next idea: Have the players play the actual game as 1P hotseat. The CMN would tell the players how many turns to play after which they would send their save games to the CMN. The cycle: players play 10 turns in their own games, CMN checks for contact, players play 10 turns, CMN checks for contact, players play 5 turns (or less as the CMN notes contact is close at hand), CMN checks for contact, etc. Once contact is made, the CMN would merge the separate games into one game. The merging would be the hard part - lots of work for the CMN and might require 2 computers (view save game on one, build merge game on other). The players should probably save after each turn so that the game can be backed up to the turn just before contact.
Aredhran	posted 06-02-99 10:05 AM ET Bingmann, in theory (utopia ?) I agree with your idea, it is good. However, it really sounds like a full-time job ! Do you have that much time to spare ? Not to mention this scenario editor that, IMNSHO, is really a pain in the **** to use, so doing the kind of work you mention would be highly difficult. plus, the non-human played factions would certainly not develop identically in different games...
Goobmeister	posted 06-02-99 11:31 AM ET Here is my whacked opinion, (Please bear with me I just ate 3 Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and am considering a fourth, I feel a little like trippin') Balance is over-rated. If I were playing a winner take all game against Aredhran, cousLee, MoSe, and Bingmann then of course I would want things to seem balanced (note: This is as close as we can really get). Since most of these people are in multiple games with me, and with each other, pure balance doesn't matter. What matters is what we do with our positions. How we take our lead and grow it, or how we struggle from adversity. If Aredhran has a huge lead in a game from an advantageous start, you better believe that I would be willing to talk with cousLee about bringing him down to size. If I have a huge lead then I would expect people to eventually gang up on me. Give me a starting position where there is little evidence of stupid decisions and I will be happy. If I start a CMN game then the start will follow those tenants. Though for the current game I am working on I am trying to "balance" more. (at least so the humans are balanced, ;-) ). Goob p.s. The hardest thing about filling in for a player as CMN is not being able to follow the rest of the game, since I want to keep things even.
Aredhran	posted 06-02-99 12:05 PM ET Goob (Regarding your PS): I would expect no less from you, my friend. I agree with your points above, balance is not all (to a point), which is why I did not strive for a "perfect" balance, but for "more-or-less equal opportunities for all players" Moreover, the powergraph doesn't say it all. One faction can be very higly rated because of a couple SP and good tech level, but the cities can be crap and the military non-existent, and the neighbor be the lowest on the charts, but having a bunch of 2-1-2 rovers ready to rumble, and next thing you know, Mr HighPowerGraph is eaten alive by his next door wannabe, who snatches a bunch of bases and two special projects (and thus becomes #1) (Sound familiar Goob ? Can you spell "W E I Z E N" and "G e n e r a l L e e" ?) Just CHF 0.05 more... Aredhran
Aredhran	posted 06-02-99 12:08 PM ET PS: I don't know about the 2-1-2 rovers part, cous, that was just extrapolation on my part.
Bingmann	posted 06-02-99 01:26 PM ET Aredhran - The work for the CMN on proposal #2 is mainly the merge which would happen only once when the game was about to shift over to true multiplayer due to contact. As far as computer players go, my opinion is that there should be no computer players in a multiplayer game and unplayed factions should be eliminated (zap all faction units, eliminate all bases except HQ base, reduce HQ base to size 1 and zap all credits and production, surround HQ base with wild mindworms, no faction restart). Of course you need computer players in the individual 1P hotseat games. For the computer players, make their HQ base a 1 square island surrounded by 9 shallow water with kelp and 11 deeper water (all no fungus, no resources, just plain), increase the HQ pop to 20, put enough HQ-supported 1-1-1's on a 1 square island next to (but outside) the HQ base radius to drive HQ production to 0, eliminate all other bases and units. The HQ should be in a constant state of drone riots with no production/energy/research, and the computer players will be doing nothing. I wonder if enough is known about the save file format that I would be able to figure out how to write a program that would merge multiple save files into a single save file. Goob - I agree that balance isn't very important, especially in a game with many players.
Bingmann	posted 06-02-99 08:51 PM ET Well, I guess I'll bite the bullet and try my idea out. I'm posting this here first so that people interested in this thread get first crack at a front row seat to see how it works out. I'll post this as a separate call for players thread tomorrow. Announcing the Bing Challenges (why fight tradition): Bing Challenge: 4 Square - 4 humans (other 3 factions eliminated) standard planet, average everything, no blind tech, all victories, no restart, flexible start, no spoils, allow cooperative victory, all factions spread out and separated by water (Any options can be changed if all players indicate a preference for the same options when responding to me.) ---AND/OR--- Bing Challenge: Free For All 7 humans huge planet, average everything, no blind tech, all victories, no restart, flexible start, no spoils, allow cooperative victory, all factions spread out and separated by water (Again, any options can be changed if all players indicate a preference for the same options when responding to me.) Both games will be played initially by the players in their own 1-player hot-seat game until the CMN merges the individual games into a multiplayer PBEM game when first contact is imminent. Players will play a fixed number of turns specified by the CMN and then forward the resulting save games to the CMN. The CMN will then either merge the games into a multiplayer PBEM game or call for more player turns, repeating as needed. The first turn cycle will be 10 turns. For each game you are interested in (both will be different - you can play in both), reply with a preference ranking of all 7 factions (factions will be assigned based on preference and play order vs. PBEM times), PBEM times (try to narrow this down as much as possible to specific times you can check for and play a turn - if you specify a time window, include how many times you would check for a turn over that period of time, say infinite if you are continuously logged on during that period and are immediately notified when mail arrives - lucky!), and a list of options you prefer over the options listed above. Also, make a preference list of all landmarks you would like near your starting location, additionally rating each landmark by worth in Unity pods. I hope to have the first game (whichever fills first) ready for a Monday (June 7) start with the second game to follow shortly after.
cousLee	posted 06-03-99 02:19 AM ET go for it Bingmann, CMNing is a blast. Just in case, did you know the SE has an option "eliminate faction"?