+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | The Olympia Times issue g1-76 | | December 6, 1995 | | | | turn 76 153 players http://www.pbm.com/oly/times/ | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+Questions, comments, to play: info@pbm.com
Olympia PBEM
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Player-contributed press
It was a summers day in Northern Tollus the snow was melting away.
The sun was beaming over the mountain. I wish I was able to stay.
Unamakanichi, Makein and Anchor living off the land. Then someone was beating drums and striking up the band.
It was an autumn eve in Southern Tollus All the landscape was my own. I wonder who's there now living in my home.
-- The day of Rest [ju3]
We're looking for a few good nobles...
The Liberty Confederacy is accepting applications for new members! Confederates gain the invaluable benefits of collective action in return for same. The Liberty Confederacy is a loose defencive alliance of nobles who wish to pursue their happiness with their freedoms intact. We are not engaged in any debilitating wars! Newbies especially welcome.
So come to Ossicus & make your fortune with the LC!
(applications to this id#).
-- Circle of Hope [lp3]
I will be sorry to see the AOO factions drop out of the game. I see their point; that they have won by their definition. That other people have other criteria for winning (or even no criteria) is irrelevant to their point of view. Still, big evil alliances (TM) make the game more interesting.
-- The Spanish Inquisition [qe7]
---------------------- S. CAMARIS Update ----------------------
Monthly notice: any new visitors to our fair isle should notify us in advance.
-- The Crazy Quilters [vn7]
Mes cheres People of the Pit, J'espere que vous allez bien pendant les greves. Bonne Noel.
Vos amis, L'Ordre de St. Christophe
-- The Right Reverend Bob [v1c]
Norc of the Liberty Confederacy says:
> To the spreader of disinformation & propaganda about the LC: > PPPPPPPPPT! Maybe if you ran your own alliance in a manner > more democratic than tyrannical you wouldn't need to stoop > to such unsophisticated trickery to gain new members.
I'll assume from this that you think _I_ posted the silly rumour about your ambushing newbies, since you persist in the daft fantasy that large numbers of other players prefer living under my "tyranny" to being free.
I'm disappointed you have such little respect for my abilities in the propaganda field, considering how thoroughly my moles have penetrated your own alliance, and how much better my diplomatic situation is than yours.
As your own members who ignored my warnings can tell you, I've never claimed you did anything as wicked, or indeed profitable, as attacking new players. That's not how you chalked up so many player kills at all. If I were going to post propaganda about the threat you pose to new players it would be more like this:
The three main problems I see in your organisation are incompetence with the rules, inability to deal with players not under your control, and a tendency to distort the truth to the point of misleading people.
The rules disasters are legendary, losing 3 noble-years by sailing to Ossicus without using diagonal coast lines, turning an easy victory into defeat by setting your fight-to-death threshold backwards, and the hilarious lengths you go to in each newsletter telling people how to conceal their LC membership - then you include all their names!
Diplomatically, little seems to have changed since you started pointless wars with the Sheriff of Pelenth and with the earlier residents of Ossicus. Last week's exchange on rec.games.pbm, where you call other players two-year-olds is in the same theme - right or wrong it's not the way start sensible discussions.
Basically, you're a role-player, you don't see success as important and don't bother knowing the rules or dealing with other players in a reasonable way.
The dubious propaganda and broken promises are also still appearing. When you tell a new starter you'll provide a ship from IC and then gradually back off to suggesting he spend 2-3 years walking and sailing there you can't be surprised at becoming a laughing stock.
But where you veer towards wickedness is in advertising for "investors" to come and settle on Ossicus, actually claiming as a selling point that you don't charge onerous taxes. Contrast this with the view from your internal newsletter, revealing that people are needed to replace those you've lost to dropping out and that the investors will raise civ-levels for remaining castle holders. So, your tax rate on new people is the whole of what their land pays in gold - apart from you only the AOO expect to get away with a 100% tax on their serfs.
I don't suppose this will do any good reforming the LC, but if you're going to accuse me of propaganda against you, that's what you'll get. Do you want to accuse me of serialising your newsletters and mapping information too?
-- The Weird One [j2g]
Greetings Fellow Olympiads!
The Liberty Confederacy rules West Ossicus. Peaceful, law-abiding travelers are welcome. Bandits, pirates, & their associates are advised to avoid the area for their own protection. Investors of any kind (merchants, inn-keepers, temple-builders, tower owners, miners, etc.) are especially welcome to civilize this untamed land. Travelers wishing to exploit the resources of these lands should contact us so we don't have harvesting conflicts. Unapproved harvesting is frowned upon.
-- General Norc [z1a]
___ ___ ___ / / ) / ) /___ /___/ /___/ / . _ _ /_ / )_ __ / / _ _ . __ . _ / / / _> / /___/(_>/ //< of / / (_)|// / // (_>
The First Bank of Provinia has offices in some of the major cities on the continent of Provinia. The FBoP offers the following facilities.
o Special offers for New Olympia Players. o Excellent Interest Rates on Bank Accounts. o A Fast and Efficient Courier Service. o Money Transfers. o Short and Long Term Loans. o Insurance Policies. o Pawn Broking Service.
Call in at your local branch for further details.
-- First Bank of Provinia [v0z]
Rumors
Is BtA still around, i.e. did he vanish when his player quit, or was he transferred to another member of the AOO?
Q. So how does one make Swishbuckler Float? A. One scoop of Swishbuckler, one scoop of ice-cream.
---FROM THE (PREMATURE) AOO VICTORY ANNOUNCEMENT--- "Many of us have or will now pass on. Others will remain. These will inherit the estates of those who passed on, so there will be no net reduction in the military or arcane might of the AOO."
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut up and go away already!
Most of you had playtested this game for months before we started, so any inflation of your oversized egos should be seen for the gaseous nonsense it is...or do you crow about beating six-year-olds at checkers,too?
Somehow we don't think you'd do so hot on a "level" field...
(signed) The Rest Of The Game 1 Players
Two runes stop tears. --Eagle
Mieux vaut une petite qui fretille quUune grosse qui roupille.
I am afraid all this talk of g2 is moot. You see, I've already won it.
Breeding Cyclops with Peasants give you Giants!
Is there any way to replenish claim gold?
Rumors of my demise are repetitious
The Answer Guy apologizes for the bad formatting of his charts in the last times. It seems that tabs don't translate well. Oh well, if you couldn't figure the charts out, there's not much hope for you, anyway.
Someone asked: >Is the Gay Blade ready to move on to the Happy Hunting Grounds?
He seems pretty happy, hunting where he is, unfortunately.
Someone Else asked: > "where have the all the monsters gone? "
The AOO hopped through Faerie and got to them first.
And Someone Else asked BtA a few questions, which I'll leave to him to answer (unless he's dropped already, of course, in which case the answers really don't matter, do they?)
Still Someone Else asked: > Is Swishbuckler a member of the AOO?
Beats me, but he sure acts like it. Plus, as added evidence, remember that he seems to be Bad, and as we all know, everything Bad is a result of an AOO plot.
Ans still Someone Else asked: > Am I also just stupid?
In all probability, yes.
Yet another Someone asked: >BtA doesn't even know all of the magic spells?
So it would appear. Assuming, of course, that that vision of BtA was correct, that is. He's probably been too busy aura blasting people and teleporting dragons to keep up on his studies.
And Another Questioner asked: > It looks to me like inner locations (hidden & cities & all that) are > numbered in sequence as you go West to East. Is this true? I'm > amazed.
Yes, it is, indeed, true. Kinda takes most of the mystery out of finding hidden locations, doesn't it?
-- The Answer Guy
I am the wounded of all the wars I am the damned of all the worlds I, who cannot forget women I, who have hot blood in my veins Pain in my hearth, and sadness in my head.
----the Warrior-Poet
Rich is the Answer Guy.
Sure you're not Swishbuckler, Mr. First Bank of Provinia. Like I'd trust a guy who is constantly posting "testimonials" about how great he is -- from his own units! Give me a break. Keep hiding out in the Imperial City, but when you leave, those of us who you've attacked will be ready to give you a little bit back.
-- A disgruntled Swishbuckler victim
This money will be used for the Squish the Swish Fund. Please donate!
Given the level of literacy displayed in his "published" meanderings, I have the following explanation to offer:
2. Is the "ther" in "Bastrestric ther Archymonaged" some kind of archaic preposition or article? Or did you just mistype "the" and then were too proud to change it?
No, just too stupid to realize it was not the correct spelling of "the"! And his "friends" were too afraid of his temper to mention the matter.
Boy, nothing interesting appears here anymore!
THE NON-AOO DECLARATION OF ANNOYANCE ====================================
Whether you credit the AOO success to ingenuity, game flaws or otherwise, it's pretty clear that they're virtually untouchable as a whole. Their accumulation of characters and taxes hit exponential growth a long time ago. Any group of players that wanted to damage them would probably have to give up all life outside of Olympia to organize a viable threat.
So where has that left us? In any regular game, chess, poker, Chinese checkers, whatever, you can just play and if the other guy wins you can tell him "Well done" and play again, or just plain go on with your lives. Not so in Olympia. No-Ho-hoooo...in this game, we get to have one essential victory lorded over us for months of real time. We get to watch unopposable armies squash opponents less than 1/3 their size. We get to listen to the incessant re-living of two measly victories at one stupid castle, (both of which involved turn re-runs of some sort.) The few of us who could approach them in magic get blasted from out of nowhere, (courtesy of an AOO-favorable rules change,) and we're all weekly subjected to the self-aggrandizing rhetoric of the AOO's most pompous parlor mage. In fact, this was the same sorcerer that waited until his alliance had total domination of central Provinia and then started whining for the abolition of safe havens.
So what do you want guys, huh? A medal? A parade? A PhD in Olympia? Hey, you got it. Good job. Well done! Bravo! Now give it up already! It's really getting so no one can accuse you of being graceful winners, know what I mean?
Take for instance this bit about not being challenged. I suppose it's proof that the AOO are truly blinded by their own power that they can't see a simple solution: set up war games. Yes, just take a patch of land or ocean or both, determine who's playing and what characters, troops and magic will and won't be involved and play against each other. Two or more factions, with hundreds of dragons and soldiers going at each other, with master mages to boot, numbers and powers never before seen or used in Olympia, now THAT would be a challenge!
OR, have battles on a lesser scale and invite some non-AOO players to play with you. If you can convince them that you're not going to wipe them out and eat their brains, (difficult but possible, given your track record,) they might just take you up.
So you lose some troops and dragons. You've got them to spare. So characters get killed. I daresay you've got enough priests around. You're really in an excellent position to control all your losses. Certainly, having the influence over the game that you do, you've got quite enough influence to make challenges for yourselves, that is, if you have the "spirit."
Say, if you're feeling particularly daring, you could just _drop_ a bunch of those dragons and things, execute a bunch of characters and start off anew at reduced power in some remote place. That would take a lot of "spirit," of course, but I just bet it would be challenging. Or maybe you don't sleep well at night unless you have overwhelming superiority over every other alliance in the game?
Whatever you decide, go ahead and be done with it. I've been enjoying Olympia for quite some time myself without you and in spite of you. This "G1 is effectively over" comment is an egocentric farce and I'll be very disappointed if the Atnerks decrees that's the case just because you're gone. There are over 150 players in the game beyond the AOO. We may not have had as much input into the design as you have but we're still paying and playing.
So, would anybody like to suggest uses for these drums this savage was carrying?
Hey, I probably have the most turns of failed research. Can I declare myself the winner too?
>> Those outside the AOO who feel that this declaration is premature are >> of course within their rights to challenge it. Note however that >> anonymous sniping in these pages is more likely to confirm than deny >> the content of this declaration. After all, what better proof of the >> power of the AOO than that nobody anywhere would dare speak up against >> it openly for fear of reprisal ?
You realise this is rubbish? Or don't you understand open-ended games at all? You started on turn 1 and cheated by passing nobles and other stuff from players who then dropped out, and now you have big armies. Well done.
This has little relevance for those of us working towards real victory, and of course we're doing it anonymously because we started later, played fairly, and won't be ready to defeat you militarily for dozens of turns. If you don't have the patience to wait, that's your problem, because we do.
" Well the AOO has declared victory, in an open ended game? Well good luck to them, If some of their number are bored then GOODBYE, find another challenge somewhere else. But don't claim the game should end because you are bored and have no further goals, there are alot of us out there who still have things to do and places to go. Long live game 1, (with or without the AOO)"
Overheard on some higher plane.
You think you have it bad, Always being reincarnated as a peasant. Pardon me ... ... ... Were was I ? All I get to do is eat, divide and die, eat divide and die. They don't even let me have fun during procreation! And you think its bad to always be hacked up by some noble, Just try explaining how you were just eaten by plankton. See even you are laughing at me! Oh not again. Pardon ... ... ... ... I'm back. As I was saying. Your lives may be boring. But mine are much worse, I'm not allowed to do anything. And during one of your boring lives I will probably suffer some 100,000 boring lives. Drat. I'm sure Ill be right back ... ... Yep - that was quick. You see. I go through so many boring lives I cant even hold a decent conversation up here. It may be bad always being reincarnated as a peasant but it is nowhere as bad as always being reincarnated as an ameoba. Oh give me a break ! ... ... ... ...
And the prophet said unto his people...
Be not afraid, for The Seekers of Light have come into this world to destroy Swishbuckler and all his frilly minions. The days of the Gay Terror are numbered. The Seekers of Light are going to make a rug out of his hairy butt.
What is a potion of slavery?
The Answer Guy doesn't know what rings that are available in cities in the cloudlands are good for. Anyone else?
Is there anyone interested in selling a roundship?
The AOO is strong, but our union is stronger. They attack whoever appears to be their greatest threat, but they can't thwart the rising tide of resentment against them. With this resentment comes a rising pool of power; rising to drown the AOO
You fight just for the sake of it You know what hurts the most You might have once been faking it but now its cuts too close.
So, the AOO says they've won and want us all to quit. Why should we?