Someone remind me how this goes PBEM

[jjdenver]

Hi,

Is the turn passed back and forth or is it played realtime and both have to be online and active?

Thanks

[brian brian]

Kind of both, really.

There are a lot of points in a "phasing" player's turn where the "non-phasing" player has to make a decision - mostly intercepting naval or air activity by the phasing player, but also during land combat and even sometimes with some of the political rules.

So the best way to go is to pass the game data to the other player at certain points, such as after land movement. Then during land combat, it is best if both players can be in communication in real-time for the needed decisions such as aircraft activity or choice of land combat table, partial losses in a stack, etc.

Though NetPlay is still a work in progress, the game is actually highly playable by real human opponents in "solitaire" mode where the non-phasing player sends their decision to the phasing player via email, text message, chat room, Skype, or even a good old-fashioned phone call, and the phasing player enters the decision on the non-phasing player's behalf.

You could play purely by email, but that would be a whole lot slower than just arranging some real-time communication at certain points.

[AllenK]

I suggest you look at the various 2 player and 4 player AAR's Mayhemizer, Waspite1, Orm and myself have benn involved with.

They are played in solitaire mode. The game is 'driven' (all decisions input) by the active (phasing) side. We use the game AAR to manage the interactions needed with the non-phasing side. We do this through the posting of the relevant screen-shots. All players also have a copy of the game save from the start of the impulse.

For the Axis, generally the Italy/Japan player stats the impulse as they tend to have naval moves to do and the file is passed to the German player at the land move stage once Jap/It have done theirs (Germany sends instructions for the naval and air phases if needed). For the Allies, the CW/US player starts the phase, then hands the file over to USSR once their land moves are done.

At the end of the impulse everyone gets a copy.

For the end of turn phases, CW/US drives it and everyone else sends instructions.

It's worked pretty well so far and if both sides are on-line and actively checking for updates the delay is pretty minimal.

[jjdenver]

Thanks. I see there is a beta download available - are PBEM games being played with this beta or with the main version?

[Mayhemizer_slith]

We play using latest beta version.