Writing a tutorial to help newbies to pbem

[Major Destruction]

What is the number one problem you faced when you first tried to set up a play by email game with some new opponenet.

What was number two?

What are some of your re-occuring problems?

[omegaall]

MD : I thought that "Hogg" was trying to do something like this at the Depot.

Though since I have not seen any progression I gather its all fallen through there !!

ORIGINAL: Major Destruction

What is the number one problem you faced when you first tried to set up a play by email game with some new opponenet.

What was number two?

What are some of your re-occuring problems?

[Major Destruction]

It is progressing but slowly due to lack of interest by players.

I am finding it hard to address issues faced by new players when I don't have any input from new players.

[omegaall]

From this:

ORIGINAL: Major Destruction

It is progressing but slowly due to lack of interest by players.

I am finding it hard to address issues faced by new players when I don't have any input from new players.

It sounds as if they KNOW ALL or have a VERY serious case of

Looking at quetions posted here and abouts it seems a new tutorial on all aspects of the game would be a better option. Something that combines all the various silly question we ask here, and elsewhere, with suitable outcomes.

Hell sounds like a real update to the "manual" and associated tutorials.. and MORE.

On a less serious note ....
May be even a nice section on why Alby pushes the Alamo so much, T- SHirts, and why Goblin picks on M4Jess, etc...

Just some extra thoughts...[:D]

[StefanE]

When I played my first email game there was a lot of questions. Some of them I figured out myself, some of them my opponent helped me with (thanks Rbrunsman for all the tips). When trying to remember what problems I had I came up with this list (in no particular order):

1. When composing my force there usually are some agreements, for instance 10% artillary. I didn't know which units to count into them 10%. Should the small mortars which some infantry units carry with be counted. Or should ALL units under the artillery button be counted?

2. I really didn't know where to get all the info needed, such as the visibility or just a simple thing as where to change the allowed numper of points.

3. I didn't know (and still isn't sure) which options that affect the opponent also and which just changes the presentation for me. What about the Fast Artillery ON/OFF, or the sound buttons?

4. I still have no clue to the following buttons in the preference screen: Move radius B, Victory frontage, AI Advantage, Time per turn, Comm. interventions, Timeouts, Characteristics or the various Delay settings. I guess this is kind of a RTFM-question, but if anyone intend to write a PBEM-manual I think it would be a good idea to to describe the not so obvious settings.

5. How about the player preferences. Is there anything there to be changed. The following text is copy-pasted from the "Looking for opponents"-forum: "1943, 6k, 10% arty, No air or infiltrators, Vis 22, large map or bigger". For me as a beginner this kind of info seemed to short. There are lot more of settings, what about them? Now I have learnt to handle that, but back then...

Little bit of topic but anyway: has anyone found out a way to change the player preferences to have some kind of reasonably fair handicap system?

6. In the PBEM-manual there would be great to have som kind of "recommended settings" for a balanced and reasonably fast-playing game. How much points is suitable at each side in a small map? How many point should each side have in an attack-defence game on a medium map?

7. One of my biggest worries was not to break any "unspoken rule" (sorry, I don't find the correct english words for it. What I mean is the kind of rules that form good sportmanship). A list of "Nice Behaviour in PBEM:ing" would be nice to have in a manual.

Hmmm, thats questions I remember at the moment. I add more if i remember any...

/Stefan

[Major Destruction]

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Your points are indeed valid and I will try to place comments in my tutorial to address them. I had originally set out to not rewrite the manual and therefore at the beginning of the tutorial wrote that I expected the Player to know the basics of the game. But I can easily place a chapter in the tutorial to explain the preference setings from the point of view of setting up a PBEM battle.

If you remember any more old problems or come across any new problems, please let me know.

[KNomad]

These are the beginner questions I had when first setting up a game...

How does setup/emailing files actually work.
What size map to choose for a given point force.
How many turns should I set the battle to.
What are good weather settings, and what do they really do.
What is a good visibility setting for dawn/noon/dust etc ...
How can I make custom or edit maps.

I still haven't figured out that last one.

To continue ... tips I gathered from the forum ...
Fast artillery should be left OFF. You cannot see it in a replay.
Check the timestamps of the files before sending.

If I'm not mistaken ...
Meeting Engagements - even points (most often played)
Advance vs Delay - attacker gets 150% points
Assault vs Defend - attacker gets 200% points
You should set those points manually in Preferences, as I've seen strange things when the opopnents points are left to XXX.

Ok - now the fine points ...
Mines/DT/Wire is available in every type of scenario ...
Forts/Emplacements are only available in defends ....

Personally, I feel as if you should be able to place mines if there are Engineers in your force during delays, perhaps 1 hex per Engineer. No mines in meetings. Go nutz in a Defend with all. It'd be nice to have some basic prepared defenses available in delays ... say MG Nest, Log Rifle, etc ... but this is not so ....

As far as limiting the number of Artillery/Air/Infiltrators/MC units, my solution is to limit the points to about 1500. At this level, if my opponent spends too much in one area, he is probably critically short in another.

And lastly, reinforcements ...
As I purchase mainly Infantry, I like to use reinforcements for buying my artillery & AFV support. As they take 1-4 turns to arrive, they should be available Turn 1. I think this is a realistic model for artillery/mobile reserve forces. In an even battle, the timely arrival of those reinforcements can swing a difference.

BTW ... Katz rule! [8D]

[Major Destruction]

Thanks for your post. I have incorporated some of your comments in the document. Each line of thought leads to some new idea that I did not previously consider.

ORIGINAL: KNomad

What are good weather settings, and what do they really do.
What is a good visibility setting for dawn/noon/dust etc ...
How can I make custom or edit maps.

I still haven't figured out that last one.

I have included a fairly detailed chapter on the subject of adapting custom maps for PBEM play but I did not want to address the subject of how to make a map as that is outside the scope of the tutorial. I am also planning to post some of my favourite custom maps (designed by map makers far more talented than me) - maps that I have adapted for PBEM and used successfully a number of times. Personally, I prefer to use a custom map rather than the generated map with those annoyingly simple clusters of victory objectives. Look for the maps at the Depot.

I included some information that I have accumulated over the years, one particular table for setting visibilty preferences which IIRC was used for the Russian Steel campaign battles.

The title of the tutorial implies that it is for beginers only but this is not so. Some advanced instructions will be included.