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Like many others, I am responding to several other posts in this one simply because I am lazy and unrepentant about it.

I like the idea of losing to a 10-year old. Better him than some of the other players I've come across over the years.

It is sad watching others get drawn in with fancy graphics and animations. It is all a matter of taste, I'm sure. In my case, it is more a matter of age and slowed reflexes, however. It's hard to beat a real-time opponent when you're busy scratching your shingles and taking your Geritol.

Personnaly, I've been trying to find something interesting about AR's for years and just can't. Same for HE's. But I do have a small amount of reading material concerning the ubiquitous AR if you are really interested. I'll see about getting them to you, ForceUser. Also, go to the Academy and look for the Post titled Colonizing Planets. They get to talking about AR, and their are a couple of links to AR articles there. Just found those by accident.

Beginners aren't the only ones needing help on race design. Whoops! Did I say that out loud? I absolutely agonize over designing new races. It drives me nuts. I try so hard to come up with something unique, and always wind up with the same, old basic designs. Small variations on the ones that Jason Cawley advocated are about the best that I can do. Back when I first started playing I snapped up every post written by Jason, Barry Kearns, David Moen, Art Lathrop, Bill Butler, Scott Phelps, Leonard Dickens Brian Price and Spike, of course, and all those others from those days and studied them meticulously in the hopes of getting good enough to play against those guys, only to watch them drop away from the game while I was trying to get enough experience to take them on.

Of course, there were those others, too. And that's all I'll say about them.

Now I will be willing to help mentor others as well as I can. I'm certainly no Jason or Spike. Heck, I'm not even much of a crusader for that matter, but if I can help get the player base back and perhaps inspire some interest back into this game I will most certainly do what I can. I have about 67 MB of information gleaned from old web sites and the newsgroup that can certainly help get the learning process started for some new players.

It is my considered opinion that the failed Genesis project had more to do with the discouragement of Stars! players than anything else I can think of. If the promise had never been made, we would have been fat and happy and still playing this game to all hours of the night. Even I have suffered from this malaise, which was compounded by my heart attack a year ago this past Wednesday. I think I'll just shake it off now, though, and see about helping promote Stars! once again. Surely all that's needed is to get a handful of folks tooting the trumpet once again. We haven't all become Xbox perverts have we? I do believe that it is a wonderful, outstanding testiment to this game that I started playing it on a 386 processor with a teeny, little color monitor on Windows 3.1 and am still playing it today on a laptop running XP. It actually gets BETTER as everything progresses, doesn't it? And I've been seeing messages (that I haven't read yet) that some of you are running this game on Linux boxes. I believe ol' Ron runs AutoHost on, shall we say, a non-Micro$oft box.

OK. Sorry guys. Got to ranting, didn't I. Now you know why I had a heart attack.

Give me a heads up guys, especially ForceUser. You can reach me at crusader AT tds DOT net if you are so inclined. If you can't figure out the code ... oh well.

Oh, and speaking of figuring something out. Somebody explain to me please. Thanks.

Your humble servant,
The Crusader

[Updated on: Fri, 19 March 2004 12:24]

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ForceUser wrote on Fri, 19 March 2004 01:47

Well, If you ever come acros something interesting about AR I'd be very interested in what you'd have to say.

So far I am mostly an HE guy (several variations), with a few other interesting experiments on the side.

I don't want to go into public details on what hasn't been done in a game yet, I would like to prove the concepts first (and have a little suprise).

I have a bit of strategy that might be useful to an AR, I would like to prove it in a game before going public. I will send you a private message.

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Not 100% sure, but I believe is "want one of those".

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Staz wrote on Fri, 19 March 2004 11:08

Not 100% sure, but I believe is "want one of those".

Well, if that ain't the definition, it oughta be!

But, back to the main topic, which I was the one to stray of off so now I'll bring us back, are we going to form some sort of mentoring game for a bunch of beginners? Do you guys know about the Pirate Lord forming such games out on the newsgroup (although he runs his own games I do believe so he can be an observer within the game)?

I would volunteer to set things up and host it on AH, but I already have too many things on my plate at the moment. I've got all that nasty real world stuff, plus I've signed up for Edog's new game which I'm sure I'll lose badly. I want to help, I just don't want to run it.



This will be me when the games begin.

The Crusader

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I don't believe that there is anyone here on the forum who has ever played me. Probably be hard for me to get a recommendation as a mentor. Perhaps I'll get on as needing help.

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lets see... you've got more than 100 posts so you have been around for a while. Also, a recomendation isn't required, just prevered . If you can vouch for your skill lvl Somebody might be interested and then after you played a game and helped them... Thay can recomend you.

I think That Raindancer has hit the bullseye with his sugestions, With a bit of Aditional thaughts by me

1) The Mentor volunteers to be on the list, and provides an approximate skill level.
2) 1-2 other people from the Forum verify the skill level of the Mentor. It would not be REQUIRED, just PREFERD
3) The Mentor list is made available, including mentors taken or not available. The updated list is published when needed according to changes made. With a database, It will automatically update
4) Player contacts a mentor when needed. Mentor can decline of course.
5) If the mentor accepts the player, then the Mentor helps that player through one game. The Mentor can make suggestions, but never make actual changes in the Player's turns. A Variation on this : The two play a one on one game where the Mentor helps with Race design, Ship design, Put sertain "Quests" for him to fulfill, say you've got x resourses, desing a counter to this or take this planet.
6) The Player makes it known in his game that he has a Mentor, especially if the Mentor has the player's password and can view the game.

Basic ideas for Skill levels:
- Game Designer / Messiah OR Uber Expert
- Expert: wins most games played, few knowledge gaps
- Advanced: known to be good, often finishes in high rank, has won many games
- Advanced Intermediate: has won multiple games
- Intermediate: has won one to two games
- Advanced Beginner: has finished in the top 3 in a game
- Beginner: had played 1 or more public games
- Newbie: has never played a public game

I also think That Id like to Host most of these games and give a bit of help myself.

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Crusader wrote on Fri, 19 March 2004 16:37

I don't believe that there is anyone here on the forum who has ever played me. Probably be hard for me to get a recommendation as a mentor.

Well, you can mentor me!
I won't ask for any credentials. Since most of the mentors will probably go for newbs and beginners (whereas I'm an intermediate) I'm not picky. Plus you sound like you know what you're talking about.

[Updated on: Sat, 20 March 2004 00:49]

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Crusader wrote on Fri, 19 March 2004 14:37

I don't believe that there is anyone here on the forum who has ever played me. Probably be hard for me to get a recommendation as a mentor. Perhaps I'll get on as needing help.

Fight a duel or three. There's several who will accept if you throw down your gauntlet.

EDog

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