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From: silber@uiucdcsp.CS.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: net.games.board
Subject: Re: Game Recommendations Sought
Message-ID: <57500001@uiucdcsp>
Date: Thu, 20-Mar-86 22:20:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcsp.57500001
Posted: Thu Mar 20 22:20:00 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 14:21:08 EST
References: <185@altos86.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:altos86.UUCP:185:uiucdcsp:57500001:000:1493
Nf-From: uiucdcsp.CS.UIUC.EDU!silber    Mar 20 21:20:00 1986



Another good, simple and enjoyable multi-player game is STELLAR CONQUEST
by Avalon Hill (but originally by someone else).  It is a four player
game of interstellar colonization and warfare.  What makes it interesting
is that a) ships in flight must have a destination, which can only
be changed at star systems, leading to a need to plan ahead. and b)
hidden movement and properties.  You can tell where an opponent has ships,
but not what they are.  You can tell where he has a command post, but
not where other colonies are.  To find out his strengths, and the 
ability of star systems to support life, you must send ships to
reconoiter.  The production system is quite clean and good.
One advantage the game seems to have is that there is no "one way" to
win.  One can do well by producing lots of low tech stuff, or spending
money on development, including forcefields to make planets immune etc.
My two bits of advice on strategy are 
1) for your initial buy, purchase as many colonists as possible and put
them on the first Terran type planet you find, otherwise you will never
have enough people.
2) buy CET (controlled environment technology) as soon as possible so
that you can use the excess people generated by the colonies to settle
on otherwise inhospitable but mineral rich worlds.

The game can be learned within an half hour or so, and play takes about an
evening between reasonably experienced players.

				Ami Silberman
"An erect man may expose himself in an aperture..."