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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!zzz
From: zzz@mit-eddie.UUCP (Mike Konopik)
Newsgroups: net.games.emp
Subject: Starting-up notes (beware -- mild flame)
Message-ID: <849@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Oct-83 19:37:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.849
Posted: Tue Oct 25 19:37:23 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Oct-83 08:34:15 EDT
References: <2512@utcsrgv.UUCP> <243@eosp1.UUCP>
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 26


One word of warning to those setting up games: Avoid having a competitive game
(one in which there is an expressed desire to conquer other countries) in
which one of the players is a superuser. The opportunity to arbitrarily go in
and "fixup" stuff leads to an unpleasantly tense air to the game (especially
when you think about attacking such a country and ponder that they'll get
pissed off and lob a gigaton nuke into your front yard ...)

Also, be careful to get a deity (if the person's playing, too) that is not
overcome by the same temptation to cheat. I did in the first game, and the last
two games were scrod by cheating, too. Sure, it's fun making all your ships and
sectors 100% efficient with 127 mobility -- but it really sucks when you
stop and realize that you didn't really play the game. I saw this after I
made liberal use of empfix in the first and second games, and now I request
to never be allowed to be the deity anymore, since such behaviour just
spoils it for the other players. And it's ultimately more fun to look at a
successfully-planned country and know it was legit. Oh well.

Just thought I'd toss it out for consideration of new empirers.

				-Mike

ps: and now we have a deity that *never* cheats -- not even while being
    nuked to glowing blue.

genrad!mit-eddie!zzz  (UUCP)    ZZZ%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC  (ARPA)