Hi

Known as Toppers, some times TopDog really known as Terry

I used to help run Briny en Garde! (now defunct) Fan of and play The Glory of Kings (Formerly LGDR) by Agema Publications.

Been around a while first tried PBM with saturnalia back in '85 been playing PBM in one form or another since.

Like war games, computers and reading ..oh and going on holiday....

Since the forums here are pretty dead, these days, this seems like as good of a time, as any, to introduce myself to those few souls who are regular visitors to the site here, currently, as well as to those who happen along and encounter this site at a future date.

My name is Charles, and I am the administrator of this site. In layman's terms, that simply means that I run the site, and I try to ensure that it doesn't go offline, and that it doesn't get overrun by automated spambot postings, and that the features that it offers actually function.

Sometimes, of course, we have issues and encounter problems. Technical issues can be particularly vexing, at times, because sometimes no quick fix exists for a given problem. Especially unfortunate and disappointing, too, is the fact that, on occasion, we basically have had to start over from scratch. Invariably, this is frustrating and annoying to the site's users. Perhaps unsurprisingly, such occurrences are also frustrating and annoying to me, especially since those instances result in time and effort and energy that was invested in the site being lost.

Once those particularly bad episodes happen, though, I can either try to resume moving the site forward, or just giving up. I've chosen to keep moving forward, albeit at an admittedly slower pace than when I first brought this site online. There are various different reasons for that, some that impact the amount of personal time that I have free to devote to this site, and others that are PBM related, and which will likely have a further negative impact upon the hobby, such as Flagship magazine's editor's misfortune with health issues, last year.

If memory serves me correctly, I began playing PBM games (play-by-mail games of the postal variety kind) back in 1986, or roughly thereabouts. The very first play-by-mail game that I ever played was a game called Hyborian War, run by a company called Reality Simulations, Inc.. Over the years, there have been numerous gaps in my PBM activities, but all these many years later, I find myself currently in a game of Hyborian War - game number HW-854, where I rule the kingdom of Nemedia.

If I could bring back any one play by mail game that became defunct in years past, it would be Galaxy: Alpha, a space conquest sort of game run by an equally defunct PBM company named Intergalactic Games. I think that the thing that I liked most about that game, looking back on it all these many years later, was its Galactic Data Base entries - which contained many colorful and interesting back stories and tidbits about various races and entities that existed within the setting of the game.

I am an opinionated sort of fellow, even if these forums are sparsely populated with my opinions, at the present moment. I encourage each and every site visitor here to be no less equally opinionated, yourselves. Only if you take time to share your opinions, however, will others obtain the benefit and opportunity to learn what your opinions are. It will also help to flesh these forums out with some substance, to put some meat on the bones of these forum discussion threads, so to speak. So, feel free to join in at your leisure and convenience. I'm sure that someone - and perhaps many, in time to come - will be glad that you did.

Enjoy the site, and I invite you to help us grow it through your participation and enthusiasm.

I have downloaded and installed a a Regular Expression field plug-in, for the user registration process for this site's forums.

I am hopeful that this will help to prevent automated spambot registrations in the forums here.

With the New Year we have done an overview of the turn fees for Fate of a Nation. One thing that we have noticed is that the turn fee curve as a nation expands rises too steeply towards the maximum turn fee possible. Our original intention was for it to rise slower, allowing a nation to develop for a longer period before the maximum was reached.

This inconvenience made us decide on decreasing the cost for all settlement types excl. the Capital. A change that will make the fee for different settlements better correspond to their actual research and tax income for a nation.

The new turn fee plan for Fate of a Nation is:

• Setup/playing City State – Free
  
• Setup of new nation – €10
  
• Capital – €2.25
  
• City – €0.5
  
• Town – €0.25
  
• Village – Free
  
• Trade company – €1
  

Sean Cleworth, that devious mastermind behind the return of Gad Games to the play by mail world, is touting the benefits of the Microlite20 system over on the Gad Games' blog.

Be sure to drop by and check out all that Sean had to say about the subject. If you missed the link above, just click here to get to their blog page.

Over on the Rolling Thunder Games' forums, Russ Norris is trying to put together a team game. Click here to be taken to that particular discussion thread on their forums.

A friend of Carol Mulholland, who is the editor of Flagship magazine, wrote to me, today, to inform me about how Carol is doing.

Unfortunately, Carol has had a severe stroke, and is currently still hospitalized. It is my understanding that she has made some progress, but again, the stroke was a severe stroke.

I have asked Carol's friend, Gill, to try and obtain a physical postal mailing address for Carol, to send her a get well card. I have also asked him to find out if it is OK to post that address, once he gets it. If so, I will post it for the sake of others, who may want to write to Carol, as well.

I heard from Jason Oates, today, and he said that Company Commander, his newest release, has some positions available. Also, Jason has opened up more areas of the map, in order to take on more players. Company Commander is now available by e-mail and via the postal service.

Jason also says that Ancient Empires is nearing the end of its current incarnation. Look for a rewrite for a new game later in the year.

Game materials for both Company Commander and Ancient Empires are available to download free.

http://www.jason-oates-games.com/page8.html

http://www.jason-oates-games.com/page9.html

Just wanted to let everyone know that we've started developing our new game (Ilkor: Dark Rising). The design has been finalised and it is now full steam ahead!!!

We've also trying to improve our communication and hope to be updating our progress on a regular basis. If you are interested, you can follow us on twitter or facebook. Alternatively you can go straight to our blog.

I inadvertently deleted the template for the site's portal page (Home page), this morning. I am in the process of repairing the damage, now, which includes a broken link or two. The problem may be corrected, by the time that you read this.