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How many mails in PBeM

Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2004 9:36 am
by eg0master
I was wondering about how the PBeM is being solved. How many mails will be needed to complete a complete turn PBeM?

- One mail/player/turn?
- One mail/player/phase (diplomacy, reinforcements/naval/land)?
- Even more (extra mails for field combat, insurection activation etc ect)

RE: How many mails in PBeM

Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 12:50 pm
by mattbirra
Great Question [:D]

RE: How many mails in PBeM

Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:20 pm
by meyerg
Awesome question. I propose eg0master be step promoted to Matrix Elite for that question. I would like to commit him and take him as a guard loss as soon as possible.[:'(]

RE: How many mails in PBeM

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 2:12 am
by MarshallEllis
Hey guys:

Typically, it should be one email per phase BUT some players may be required to email a few AI player's turns depending on their sequence. For example, the following combination:

Diplomacy:

France Human PBEM client
Russia AI
Turkey AI
Austria Human PBEM client
Prussia Human PBEM client
Great Britain AI
Spain Human PBEM client

Will mean that France must email the phase for Russia and Turkey to the other players, Austria simply emails his phase, Prussia will email his and Great Britain's phases while Spain simply emails his phase to the other players.

The game will only allow the appropriate phase to be loaded so there can be no out of sequence phase loading. Each player will be allowed to view their units and map AND other players' phase moves that moved before him.

There can be extra emails if there is some alliance request, surrender, etc.

Hope this helps...

Thank you


if France is a human PBEM and they move first in diplomacy and

Look on the bright side

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 3:44 am
by meyerg
i don't know how many emails per game, but I bet it's a lot less than a World in Flames game.[:'(]

RE: How many mails in PBeM

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 7:53 am
by eg0master
ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis
[...]
if France is a human PBEM and they move first in diplomacy and

and what? [:D]

So to make it "crystal clear", in a 7 player game we have 4-5 (depending on if there is any economicphase or not) emails per player per turn and adding any special events as peace etc?
End each player emails ALL other players their turn? If so I think that is good. Means you see progress in the game even before it is your turn to move and not having to wait for the player just before you.

RE: How many mails in PBeM

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:37 am
by MarshallEllis
Hey guys:

That is correct, your phases are emailed to EVERYBODY specifically for the reasons you mentioned egOmaster, which were allowing EVERYBODY to see the progress of the game as it plays.

Thank you

RE: How many mails in PBeM

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:40 am
by eg0master
ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Hey guys:

That is correct, your phases are emailed to EVERYBODY specifically for the reasons you mentioned egOmaster, which were allowing EVERYBODY to see the progress of the game as it plays.

Thank you

Damn... that was a great design descision. Don't think I would have thought of that. Very good! Now you only made me even more hungry for this game...

RE: How many mails in PBeM

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 6:53 pm
by shanebosky
I think there may be many more emails zipping back and forth each turn, if only for the diplomacy phase. One 'problem' I think may arise: during the board game, a player trying to scheme in some way always has the option of plausible deniability, but with diplomacy taking place predominantly in writing, there is always the ability to cut and paste things, esp out of context and tell another player 'ah ha, look what so and so said about you!' Careful what you say, I guess, because a lot of messengers may get captured by enemy scouts.

RE: How many mails in PBeM

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 8:36 pm
by donkuchi19
It is true you can cut and paste e-mails. There is also nothing to stop one person from creating false e-mails though.

Look what so and so wrote about you and then make it up.

What to believe????

Same thing in the board game. So it is really not that different.

RE: How many mails in PBeM

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:01 pm
by MarshallEllis
Hey guys:

Our attachment files are specific to a player so Russia could not fake a diplomacy message that was frm France to Spain and also our files are tamper evident. This does not mean that you cannot tamper with them BUT that we have a facility of detecting unauthorized bit changes in the file. I know, I know if you want to break it bad enough, you probably could BUT that's typically not our customer.

Thank you