PBM Mailbox

This month, BRENDON KAVANAGH takes a look at another game run by KJC, appeals for details of your experiences as a criminal of the future, and reveals that a souped up version of VORCON WARS is now available. All this, while playing IT’S A CRIME!

The offer of a free It’s A Crime! startup made in the July issue by KJC Games has attracted an impressive response from all of you budding PBMers. So many CRASH readers wrote in that a new game of It’s A Crime! was launched last month to accommodate you all!

I’ve joined in the mayhem on the streets of New York, and so far have managed to win control of a couple more blocks and gain half a dozen new recruits to my gang in the process...

Please write in and let me know how you are getting on battling it out amongst the mobsters.

SUPER VORCON WARS

In July’s PBM MAILBOX I described a popular PBM game called Vorcon Wars. John Nicholson, creator of the aforementioned game, has recently launched a more complicated version which involves infectious diseases destroying food supplies, multi-commander player positions, more aggressive native Vorcons and other such wonders. John, demonstrating an impressive spurt of originality and imagination, has named this game Super Vorcon Wars. SVW is not a game released to replace Vorcon Wars, it is intended to let players who want to do more than they can in the original game do so — just because the game is called Super Vorcon Wars it doesn’t mean that it’s any better...

SVW costs £1.50 per turn to play. I shall discuss the game more thoroughly in a later issue.

CAPITOL

Capitol is an American PBM game, moderated on computer in the UK by KJC Games, the people who moderate It’s A Crime.

This is a game of interstellar empire building which is very strategic and diplomatic in play. There are 32 players per game who represent, as teams of four individual game positions, eight unique races. At the start of the game, each player is given a world and a few starships with which to begin exploring the two dimensions in which play takes place. The player must conquer new worlds to expand the empire’s industrial and political base, and new starships for fighting, exploration, and carrying cargo can be crudely designed and built once extra resources have been annexed.

Bases may be established on other worlds which confer commercial, economic, and political benefits (and, perhaps, disadvantages). These bases must be maintained and supplied to keep them operational.

GOALS

There are two goals for the players of Capitol to achieve. The first is to construct and develop the most powerful base of your race; the player who owns the most powerful base being the race Emperor (until deposed!).

The second is to work with the other players of the same race to annihilate the ‘aliens’ — in other words, get rid of the other players. As you can see, the political aspect of Capitol is an interesting one where groups of competing players must also ally to destroy the other races before they themselves are destroyed! There’s a lot of scope for stabbing people in the back in this game.

TURNAROUND

Capitol is an open-ended game and players may submit turns as often as they like up to a maximum of once per week (a ten day limit game exists for European players). KJC Games is a well run organisation which runs its games in quite a professional manner. According to the rulebook, games generally last for between nine and eighteen months — who knows, within a year you could be the conqueror of a whole galaxy!

HINTS ON PLAY

Capitol involves a lot of diplomacy, especially between players of the same race (even though you are all struggling to be Emperor you must also remember how important it is to work together against the other races!). This means that quite a bit of real world communication is needed to do well in Capitol. For convenience (and to save money on stamps and large telephone bills; two sad facts of life for the overactive diplomat) it may be an idea for a group of four friends to join all at once and agree to co-operate as a race (this means that on startup you must all choose to play as the same race). You all play as individuals as normal: it just makes interplayer communications easier and more enjoyable!

START UP

The impressive Capitol Rules Package (containing all sorts of goodies) costs £2, excluding startup. £6 pays for the Rules package, game set up, and your first two turns. Turn costs thereafter can vary slightly, but usually each turn costs £1.75.

THE FLAGSHIP FACTORS

DIPLOMACY5
COMPLEXITY2
GM QUALITY8
DEPTH8
INTERACTION7
VALUE8