Re: Standing Orders

[Alan Kenwright <a dot m dot kenwright at durham dot ac dot uk>]

Lincoln Peters wrote:

> 1. In bolodd, there is a "tower" unit that does not move, and it can
see
> and fire at any hostile units up to 8 cells away.  It can also
> manufacture guided missiles of various kinds.

This interested me.  It reminded me in some ways of the missiles that
get built in a game of "Apocalypse" (which was originally called
"Warlord").  These board games have both  been out of production for
years (and the names re-used for other things), but were actually very
good map-based games not hugely dissimilar to Xconq.  The reason I bring
this up is firstly that the game (the two are actually the same game
just made by different companies and played on different sized maps) had
some quite unusual and interesting aspects, both in game play and
strategy, and secondly because the game had quite concise and precise
rules (which are available on the net at
http://boardgamegeek.com/viewfile.php3?fileid=3097 ).  I played quite a
number of games of Apocalypse and never found a situation where the
rules were ambiguous or unclear, which is generally a pretty good sign.
It's primarily a strategy game based on war and is therefore not overly
"realistic" (neither is chess, but that's a pretty good game too).  The
thing which made the game a bit long winded was having to count the
numbers of various kinds of territory occupied (mountains, rural areas,
urban areas, etc) to calculate the number of armies allotted, which it
strikes me would be far better done by computer.

Unfortunately my programming skills are pretty well none-existent, so
it's not something I could undertake and I'm not asking anyone to do it
for me.  I just offer it up because if you've never seen the game you
might find it entertaining (it's pretty easy to make a version, all you
need is a map, lots of  small counters, something to represent nuclear
missiles and a dice - which is used in the most bizarre way, but I won't
spoil it for you), and because the people designing new games might find
some inspiration in some of the strategy elements.

I've enjoyed playing Xconq over a number of years and am truly grateful
for all the hard work the developers have put in.  The improvements over
the last 12 months have been great.  My only reservation is that a fair
number, though by no means all(!), of the games modules are just
re-workings of the standard game (substituting chariots or spaceships
for tanks, or whatever) and it would be good to see some new elements of
play/strategy coming in.  Even if no-one wants to take me up on that, I
hope some of you have a look at Apocalypse and let me know what you
think.  (I should maybe add that I'm not a wargamer - Xconq and
Apocalypse are about as far as I go in that direction with maybe an odd
game of Risk if the situation demands it).  If anybody is interested in
Apocalypse and can't manage to find/make a map, please get in touch and
I'll see if I can find one.

Cheers
--
Alan.

Alan M Kenwright                        Phone +44-191-334-2095
Senior Research Officer (NMR)
Department of Chemistry
University of Durham
Durham  DH1 3LE       UK