Tutorial: Game 1

[Jimmer]

OK, we never got bids from two of the players, so I faked one each for GB and France (I just bid 30 for each). Don't worry about why I picked those quite yet.

Nobody is at war. Check the options, but one important one is that winter land movement is turned off.

Decide on 2-3 minors you would like to test your armies against. If ANY other major power can reach them with factors, email that person first. We don't want any major power wars in this sample game.

Then, do setup. Make sure you set your factors up such that you can reach your target minors.

Neither France nor GB will declare war on anything, so don't worry about those two nations.

I'll write another cover letter when the diplomacy phase comes up. There are two special things I want everybody to do then.

Jim

[Jimmer]

Oh, and I forgot something about setup: It's easy to not get all your troops placed.

So, first thing to do: Set up one factor somewhere, and then hit the "End Phase" button. Get used to this error message, because it means you aren't done setting up yet.

Acknowledge the message, and then click on any area in your home nation that isn't already selected. Then, check the status window for the list of troops you have yet to place. The status window is just above the scrolling log entries. It's on the far left side, towards the bottom. It's above those phase-specific buttons, and above the log that's just above the buttons. In here, you will see a list of numbers and letters.

Since Russia goes first, I'll use her as the example:

I asked you to place one factor. So, the remaining factors will be (page 25, near the bottom) 5 guard, 75 infantry, 10 cavalry, 3 cossacks, 28 heavy ships, 7 light ships, and 10 transports. The way the interface lists them is

5g,75i,10c,28h,7l,10t

Note that

1) I did not place a factor, so mine still says 75i, and
2) The cossacks are missing. I believe this is because you are not required to place them during setup (although, why someone would skip them is beyond me).

So, our Russian player will see

5g,74i,10c,28h,7l,10t

where the red circle is on the attached picture.

Whenever you see the message I had you purposely invoke above, check this box for what you have forgotten to set up.

If you have a free state, there will be a similar set of numbers following your major power numbers, but preceded by the string

(FS)

. You'll get the same message if you fail to set those up as well. If you click instead on an area inside the free-state's borders, you'll just see the numbers for that free state.

[Murat]

I have a sample setup for each nation here: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1641897 if anyone wants to see some. After you save them start a new game of your own with all human players and you can load each country's setup using the load setup button (last button, top row) just to see some placements.  It may help you to think about what to put where.

[Jimmer]

Excellent addition, Murat! Thanks a bunch!

[ess1]

I fear the tardiness in just the setting up (for goodness sake) is going to put many off of pbem'ing.
For myself, nearer four-score than three-score and ten [:D], the prospect of ever finishing a game would require a select band of players I feel.[;)]

[Jimmer]

I agree, ess1. However, I've found that real games seem to have a lot less of this. This is mainly because the host has the threat of letting the AI run the turn hanging over the head of any procrastinators. Unfortunately, I really can't do that, because the AI will likely declare war on somebody.
 
However, I think I'm going to run his turn for him anyhow, manually, just to get things going. I never intended to take this long for this.
 
I sent him a letter last night asking for his setup. If I don't get a reply before I get home from work, I'll manually run his setup for him (which may mean I'll be running three countries -- I don't have a problem with that).

[timewalker03]

Just for FYI I was having a problem and getting Player out of turn message when I tried to upload the Russian setup. I tried everything for 2 days to fix it then got the brilliant idea of deleting both Turkey's and Russias setup files and downloading them again. I did this last night after Jimmer's email and got the thing to work. I did my turn last night and uploaded it . Sorry for taking so long, but I wanted to figure out myself what to do before asking for help so if in the future I have this problem if I am hosting then I can help solve the issue. Sorry once again for taking so long.

[Jimmer]

It's probably a good thing to ask. I'm a pretty good teacher; I don't let people just read the answer. Instead, I walk them through the steps to learn how to do it. More like a guide than anything else.
 
For the rest of you, I don't really know what happened to him. All he should have needed to take his (Austrian) turn would be the saved game file and both Russia and Turkey's setup files. It would have been instructive, I suspect, to look at the files side-by-side and see if something got changed.
 
Anyhow, Prussia is next!

[Jimmer]

We can still play out the three months, since there not going to be any major power wars. If someone else joins, I'll just have them pick up wherever we happen to be.

[SoulBlazer]

I realize this is full, but please keep me in mind in case you need a backup.  I posted my e-mail in the other Tutorial game area.  This sounds like a great idea for us new players to help learn the game and bless you for doing it.

[Jimmer]

Oh, we do. I'll send you an invitation to the group tonight. Austria is open.

[Jimmer]

I guess I got the two threads mixed up. THIS one is the one for the game currently running.

Anyhow, in the email saying it was GB's turn, I said I would point out two things about this particular change of turns.

The first is that GB did not change his naval movement order. This is mainly because France and GB are pretty much idle. Typically, though, it would be Russia's turn right now for naval.

The second thing is that you should note that Russia just took his reinforcement turn, and it will be his turn again right after Great Britain. This is something to watch for, for everybody except Austria and Prussia, and even them to a degree.

What happens is that the phase order is different for each phase. Also, with some minor exceptions, diplomacy and reinforcement have the opposite order. Those who went first in diplo go last in reinforcement, and vice-versa. France and GB mess things up a lot, but the batting order is close to being reversed.

Again, from reinforcement to naval, they reverse again (and, also, with GB and France mucking up the works).

So, the bottom line is that there are some powers that will only have to wait a very short time, at certain points in the game. Russia is one of those for these two phases. GB was for diplomacy -> reinforcement (only Spain went in-between).

When playing a PBEM game, it is good etiquette to stick around when you have a quick turnaround in front of you. This is especially true if it took you a long time to take your turn (which is quite possible, since your previous turn had the opposite situation, in a lot of cases).

[Jimmer]

Well, it's been a while, but we finally have all of the kinks worked out, and we're moving again. Hopefully, we didn't lose (or never attain) any MORE players.