Galaxy #223

The ongoing Saga of Galaxy #223 in Galac-Tac

The turn due date for Turn #2 is Friday, September 26!

Turn #1 Results Portend What, Exactly?

Now, the rubber begins to hit the road. With the processing of Turn #1's results for Galaxy #223 of Galac-Tac, the six players in this game begin to move from the Realm of Theory into the Realm of Actual Reality. Who did what, as opposed to who merely thought about doing what. Starships are now being built and deployed, rather than simply playing out in players' minds.



Some ships of some players have by now already encountered other ships from other empires. Now, is when players really begin to get nervous. Assets of their respective empires are now at stake, even if not all of their assets are in actual danger of being destroyed anytime soon.



The greatest fear, right now, is fear of the unknown. What all did the other players choose to build and to send forth across the galaxy this turn most recent? Who will get caught with their galactic pants down and unprepared over the next several turns? Or is everybody planning on playing interstellar Patty-cake, and twiddling their thumbs (if their species has thumbs)?



Anything that I say, anything that I write, anything that I report, the other 5 players are out there waiting and watching, hoping to use such information against me and my Yonds of Droon empire. Galac-Tac is a wargame, after all, call it whatever else you want to. Not everyone out there in deep space and spread out across the galaxy is my friend. In a game of war, surely to galactic goodness, we can't all be allies!



If you're out there and reading this, if you remember nothing else about Galac-Tac, then remember this tidbit, ever and always - Silence is the great lament!



The game has started, and now, players are gonna want to try and hold their cards that they have dealt to themselves closer to their vests. Some of us have already made mistakes. We've already miscalculated. Some mistakes will in due time prove to be minor and of no lasting consequence. Other mistakes which we've already made on Turn #1 will undoubtedly end up biting us in the ass.



None of our six empires are in any actual danger of being conquered and subjugated anytime soon. Even when and if you set out to do it, invading and conquering an enemy homeworld will take a bare minimum of at least two turns - if not more. After all, are any of these six players likely to just roll over and play dead while another of us seek to actually kill them - and their entire species - off? Not. Very. Likely. For some reason, players tend to become especially attached, emotionally, to their empires' homeworlds.



On the one hand, you want your own empire to grow and expand, becoming prosperous and wealthy enough to amass huge fleets of very powerful starships. On paper, that looks pretty simple to do.



But on the other hand, you also do not want other players in the same game getting too resource-rich or militarily-powerful anytime - and definitely not before your empire is firing on all cylinders.



And that is where dreams are gonna get dashed, hopes are gonna get squashed, and ambitions are gonna get shattered.



Silence is the great lament, because players are human beings, no matter what species that they pretend to be when playing in a game of Galac-Tac. When you are silent, you leave it to other players' imaginations to run wild. You may not even be a threat to them, and you may not intend them any harm, but they have no way of actually knowing that, when silence is allowed to reign.



Your silence may well be interpreted against you. After all, you may well be plotting and scheming under a curtain of silence. Do I, or do any of us, simply place our respective empires at risk, all because you want to manipulate silence, itself, to our disadvantage?



Do you suppose that I'm going to be fooled by your silence? What love does your species inherently have for my species? In a wargame, we are all potential warmongers. In real life, Ajwan might be as sweet of a person as you'd ever encounter. In a wargame, though, she may well turn out to be the most cutthroat player to have ever ruled a space-faring empire. She's not in this game to bake us cookies, you know.



Your empire is either a known commodity, or it is an unknown commodity. It's one or the other, though sometimes, it may well be both at the same time. All of our empires are as likely to be potential enemies to one another as we are to be friends or allies to one another. For you to win the game, the rest of us have to lose. The Masters in games of Galac-Tac won't be interested in any of your excuses, should they return to the galaxy later in the game. Do you suppose that I'm interested in any of my fellow players' excuses, now or later? Get real, people!



In Galaxy #223, I'm no door-to-door salesman. I'm not selling Avon. Rather, I deal in death and destruction. But the enemy of my enemy may turn out to be a friend, after all - even if only temporarily.



Circumstances and situations will change, from turn to turn to turn. We'll each likely experience a range of different successes and victories. But can we prevent other empires from overwhelming us and kicking our empire's ass all over the galaxy?



On Turn #1, many stars were charted by starships, in a bid to discover what their resource values look like. On Turn #2, colonization efforts will begin at a number of these now-charted stars. Think of stars as star systems or solar systems. Will we be gathering resources from actual stars, or from all of the planets and asteroid fields that we can imagine might orbit those very same charted stars? It really doesn't matter, because the end result is still the same.



Each star location has a PV (Production Value) number. That number determines how many resources that you can mine or otherwise gather from that star system/solar system. If you build Colonies or Develop colonies into Production Systems, those decisions if fully carried out can then yield a greater collection of resources from those very same star systems/solar systems. And to wage war upon other empires will require a considerable amount of resources. After all, when your empire begins to lose ships in battles, you're gonna need to replace them. Plus, these relatively small starships that we all start out with, those might serve you well, now, but in the turns to come, bigger and more powerful starships are going to become necessary, if your empire intends to compete-at-scale across the stars against multiple other empires, simultaneously.



Now, Djinny might be a nice wife, a pleasant mother, and/or a wonderful grandma, but in the deep and distant space of Galaxy #223, she may well prove to be a vicious killer, when our empires encounter hers. Do you think for even a single, solitary second that Djinny dismantled her starting warships on Turn #1? Don't be a fool! She fully grasps the concept of "maximization of resources and assets."



Do PBM Chaos readers want all six of our empires to play footsie with one another, and be all nice and non-threatening to one another in Galaxy #223? Hell, no! Of course not. They want us to mix it up. They want to see our empires suffer and be annihilated. Otherwise, we'll bore them out of their wits.



If you play silent with me and my empire, you'll soon enough learn that I will interpret that deliberate silence as a willful, conscious choice on your part. I will interpret it to be a brazen act of hostility towards my empire. Why? Because you're trying to be sneaky, that's why. Because you're trying to be clever, and slick, and opportunistic.



Me? I'm quite comfortable in my species' skin waging war against 5 other empires, simultaneously. It will just boil down to who I fight, first. Silence can certainly imbue an empire that embraces it with certain advantages, but it also will inflict certain disadvantages upon your empire, as well. You choosing to be silent provides me no basis, whatsoever, to trust you or to view you as less of a threat to my empire.



War, you see, is about hard choices. It's not my job nor my role nor my function to make it easier for you to make decisions. To the contrary, I exist in Galaxy #225 to complicate things for you. You could well be lying through your teeth in-game and in-character, even if you're a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout in real life.



In real life, if human beings from planet Earth were able to fly to different star systems, and if there were other alien species out there that we ran into, do you honestly think that we would just automatically assume that they will be friendly to us? What if their species has no comprehension of friendship and cooperation? Rather, what if they are inherently hostile to all other species, by nature? What's in their nature, is what I wanna know?



The first time that I blow up another player's starship, is it an outright declaration of war, or is it merely a warning from my empire to your empire? How you choose to respond may well determine the fate of your own  empire and, ultimately, seal your species' doom.



My empire, the Yonds of Droon, come straight out of the pages of both comic books and my imagination. You do not seize the moment, by dilly-dallying and keeping my empire in suspense. Your idea of suspense may well be a prelude to a sneak attack and a highly-calculated war plan. My empire doesn't exist in Galaxy #223 of Galac-Tac to be a convenient Pearl Harbor moment for you.



So, while you play your games with communication (or not), be sure to come fully to terms with what playing my empire for a bunch of fools is actually likely to translate into, when all is said and done.



Droon may be a lot of things, but the forgiving type, he's definitely not.



Silence in PBM games can many times be akin to sandbagging when playing cards. Not all fork-tongued and deceptive ones necessarily possess actual forked-tongues, you know.



Whenever you communicate with me in this game of Galac-Tac, player-to-player, don't fool yourself into thinking, even for a mere minute, that Droon isn't listening. Me? I'm just a player. Droon rules my empire. Ultimately, all of the really big decisions come from him and get handed down to me for implementation. Basically, I exist in Galaxy #223, so that Droon has somebody to blame, when things go wrong.



And remember, if you're not with Droon, then you're doomed!



How a game of Galac-Tac can be played is not the same thing as how a game of Galac-Tac

will be played. Dealing with actual players is an entirely different thing than dealing with the rules and mechanics of Galac-Tac. In a nutshell, the information that the game's program provides to you is inherently factual and truthful.



Players, however, will deceive you any of a number of different ways. After all, the more and complete the information that you have in your possession, the easier it is to make informed decisions about what your empire should do on any given turn. Players like to mask or hide or withhold specific, detailed information from you that is crucial to you making better decisions for your empire.



Even in this designated Sharing of Information Game of Galac-Tac, which is what the Galaxy #223 game is, players aren't required to volunteer information to other players. Rather, they are simply required to provide information that is specifically requested. Players in PBM games are almost always seeking advantage in-game (and sometimes out of game, as well). This is natural, and inheres in war games, particularly.



Players in Galac-Tac are not just pitting their experience against one another. They are pitting their wits and their resourcefulness and their communication skills and their inter-player diplomacy skills against one another, also, to name a few of the things that tend to have strong bearing on the outcome of PBM wargames. Thus, even if a given Galac-Tac player possesses a rather sizeable experience advantage over you, experience is but one tool in an entire toolbox out of many potential tools or tricks that you can bring to bear, in your bids (multiple) to adapt, improvise, and overcome their disproportional advantage in experience over you. In a nutshell, don't be a one-trick pony (i.e.: rely only upon your own experience or lack thereof), should you ever decide to give Galac-Tac a try for yourself.



Just because they possess an advantage in experience over you doesn't not mean that this advantage cannot be mitigated or overcome or bypassed. Plus, just because they have more experience than you does not mean that they won't make mistakes, or that they are automatically more analytical than you, or that they are more imaginative in their strategis or tactics. or any of a number of other things that could potentially be how you find or invent ways to overcome or truncate their experience advantage. Whether it's Hyborian War or Galac-Tac, do you think for even a moment that I actually care or worry about the experience levels of the players that I face off against in such PBM games? Better to focus and stay focused, than to place undue value in a very limited sub-set of overall relevant skills which have bearing on the outcome of whatever game that you're playing in.



In Galac-Tac, Turn #1 is when the game really begins. Turn #2, however, is when the really important stuff starts happening. Just consider me your bullshit radar to help you PBM Chaos readers see through all of the noise that the other players are going to throw up like chaff.



This is gonna be a fun game. Don't you dare miss out on even a single turn of it!

Player Blurb - Ajwan

Quick note: I'd just like to reiterate my love for Assistant (GTac). Asking the map to update according to the orders I just entered is WOW.

Player Blurb - Brendan

An eerie silence emanates from the Wyvern Supremacy.

Player Blurb - Djinny

Well, after several long days at work, a great day with family out of town, and the joy of ringing handbells and singing in church (plus 3 rehearsals), I FINALLY have had time to dig into my first report in more detail. Until tonight, I was literally falling asleep at the keyboard. I have 29 stars within 20 of my Home World. Of 20 stars I visited, I got Chart reports back on 14, with one 2 PV and one 8 PV and the rest mid-range, as statistically expected. The average is 5, which is about right. Somebody else can pick up the 2, if you can find it - I'm going for a better initial return, and will circle back to it, later. So, my "luck of the draw" is neither feast nor famine, which is what I want for this particular game. I didn't want to start with a significant advantage, just due to luck!



Ah, decisions. With unlimited PI, I'd be designing and building all kinds of longer-range, better-defended, deadlier-armed ships, and plumper freighters with vast holds for all the PV I'm gonna be collecting. However, choices must be made. We're also limited in orders (by original game design, we only got 30!), so I can't do everything I want to do even if I had the funds. I've decided on my opening strategy, though, and have my orders pretty much done. So far, I've used 47 orders and spent every PI I've got. Of course, I have a week and a half to rethink. In the process of typing up all these orders, I've run into several Oopses. Typical problems include accidentally sending two ships to the same star, or sending a ship somewhere it doesn't have the engines to reach in one turn. Of course, you may CHOOSE to do this, but doing it by accident causes timing problems you really regret, when your ship doesn't arrive when you expected it to!



I've made use of GTac's handy distance analysis, and I've got all kinds of pretty colors on my map now. I've got everyone's 20-away borders defined, so I can see where any gaps may be, and who I'm likely to run into in any given direction. This is NOT normal gameplay, as has been mentioned several times. In a normal game, I'd just be plunging off into the Great Beyond (thank you, Charles, for that visual concept!) with no idea who might be in the vicinity. I was somewhat surprised by the number of encounters reported on the first turn. Bumping into other empires right out of the gate makes things a lot more interesting and fun - it's not just "Me vs. Statistics", it's "Hello, Neighbor!"



Playing the solo game is good exercise, but about as much fun as using a treadmill at the gym. You burn calories but you don't GET anywhere, and it's a lonely endeavor. Going walking with a friend or playing pickleball To The Death is a lot more entertaining. (Am I the only one who has never played and doesn't even know what pickleball actually is?) So, I am grateful to all of you for playing, and sharing this experience with me. BTW, regarding "sharing", I'd rather not tell you what my 47 orders ARE. There has to be SOME element of suspense, or it's just a tutorial and not a game. In most every game I've played, I've had a more experienced player making suggestions that I followed without really trying to devise my own strategy. This time around, I'm trying to decide for myself, and only asking questions to clarify something that might be a problem for others as well. It's still a "learning game", and I'm learning, too.



@Ajwan - By the way, I have developed a spreadsheet based on the exported star data. The headings include some of the original export, plus new columns I like:

Location, Dist to HW, Which PC, Owner, Status, PV, PVx3, Shuttle on Odd turn, Shuttle on Even turn, Ships on Sentry, Notes



I can sort by owner, by PV, by status, etc. Once I've identified ownership, I can color all the stars I know about for that empire the same. When I have built some PCs and reroute shuttles from the Home World to a new base of operations, I'll identify that new home base in the spreadsheet. "Status" means Chart, Charted, Colonize, Colonizing, Colony, etc. With a powerful tool like Gtac keeping track of everything, it seems you almost don't need anything offline to scribble on or analyze with, but I'm old-fashioned and think it's worth the time. I also love the printed page, and colored pencils, and little scribbledy notes on scraps of paper. I also keep a paper check register in RL, in addition to using Quicken for decades. Belt and suspenders never hurt. Us grannies seem to be somewhat like-minded in our record-keeping. I'm looking forward to our first encounters in the game. Probably next turn!



@Hammer: OK, Hammer, we have Issues between us! Some of the stars where we bumped heads are non-negotiable. Some of them we can just sit here staring at each other until somebody gives up and leaves, or negotiate a border between us and who gets to keep what. Here's what I see:



At 55-76, we both have freighters ready to claim it. I want it. Shoo. Or there will be fireworks.

At 57-77, same situation. Shoo.



I wish to claim 47-80 and 61-79. We can have a staring contest if you wish. I will withdraw from 45-83.



If you don't know for sure how I know what's where: Look at the Cease Fire reports. If I see a ship from Misraw that is 1 SSD, I know you have a scout there. If it's 2 SSD, it's a freighter. We KNOW this, right now, because we all know exactly what ships we all have. That will shortly change as we design and build ships not on the original starter set. You can make general assumptions in the future, but once we get going, the only way you'll know exactly what enemy ship design you've encountered is successfully surviving a combat with that ship. The combat report will give you specific details, before and after.



@Brendan: BTW, Wyvern, I see you down at 70-75. I think for now I'll move on, but I reserve the right (as with anything I concede at this time) to come a-knockin' in the future.



Genny/Djinni

Player Blurb - Hammer

The Scroids, having been naturally born and bred for Battle amongst themselves, until they were nearly on the verge of totally exterminating themselves; were only spared from their own blood-lust of Warring against one another, when they realized that by joining together the Forces of their various Tribes and Factions, that there were Battles to be fought in the Stars above against Unknown Enemies!



All Scroids embraced the prospects of Death as a result of their long-history of Tribal Wars, because each Scroid believed that a Glorious Reward awaited every Scroid that Died in Battle!



Their first foray into Charting the Star Systems surrounding their Planet Milchamah had immediately revealed the presence of such an Unknown Enemy!



An Enemy that seemed to be much more Experienced in the ways of Star System Battles; whereas, the Scroids had None, but the Lure of the Glorious Rewards awaiting beyond Death was Reason Enough for the Scroids to Go to War against a Possible Superior Enemy!



It was plain enough to the Scroids from reading the transmission from the Kroji Konfederacy, that the Kroji threats to withdraw from Star Systems at 55-76 and 57-77; plus conceding 47-80 and 61-79 to the Konfederacy were merely thinly-veiled declarations of War!



Although the Scroids were Inexperienced in Star-System Warfare, the lure of the Glorious Rewards for Dying in Battle were reason enough to refuse to grant the demands of the Kroji Konfederacy!



Hammer, Minister of War

Player Blurb - Richard

Castle Anthrax:

Ruled over by Wise King Otto. He surveys his empire of ever morphing vague humanoids, and has not the faintest idea what’s going on.



No, really, he has no idea. Otto is senile, and his orders to his troops will reflect this.

He occasionally calls himself “The Trump”.



R x

Player Blurb - GrimFinger

The big moment finally arrived, and all players in Galaxy #223 of Galac-Tac have received the turn results for their respective empires. For the Yonds of Droon, the turn went well. It went very well, indeed!

But it was not a turn entirely without mistakes, since one of my empire's starships was apparently assigned to try and fly further than its maximum range, and is now a sitting duck in deep space between the stars.

I knew better than this, but I managed to screw it up, anyway.

Then again, maybe it's bait. Perhaps its real objective was to catch the eyes of those other alien races looking on from afar. But if so, then why? What could I hope to accomplish with such a ruse, and particularly this early in the game?

Surely, it cannot be expected that I have either the time or the inclination to go into great and exhausting detail about all of Emperor Droon's plans and schemes that are now starting to unfold in Galaxy #223. Thus, it shall fall to you - to each of you PBM Chaos readers out there - to fill in some of the missing details with your imaginations.

For Turn #1, I made the conscious decision to not do any scouting with my empire's starships. Instead, I decided to focus more attention to charting stars than would have been possible, had I split my initial game-opening efforts between both charting and scouting. Sure, it's a command decision, no doubt about it, but somebody has to make the big calls in the galaxy, you know.

The down side, of course, is that I now can't "see" anybody else's starships flitting about out there. Thus, my options for the coming turn, Turn #2, are less in some ways than they might could have been, had I chosen a different opening gambit for my empire, the absolutely fabulous Yonds of Droon.

The upside, though, is that I learned more resources values (called Production Values, or PV for short) of more stars. Hopefully, this will gain me a small economic edge early on, but that can only actually translate from theory to reality, if I can now successfully follow up on my initial discoveries achieved via charting stars (an action akin to conducting a scan of the star systems in question). Now comes the hard part - deciding whether to colonize these newly-charted stars, or just send ships to load (you could also view it to be beaming up) resources, and then teleporting the resources harvested at these different scattered star locations back to my homeworld for processing (and that takes time and requires starships to do the physical transporting of these very same resources).

Those alien species, the Kroji Cronies and the war-like Scroid warriors, appear to have bumped into one another, as both those empires sought to begin working their way towards space exploration and expansion. Can either be trusted, though? Already, they begin spouting their propaganda, but should any of it be believed? If you're new to space warfare games, then you really might want to brush up on the trustworthiness (or lack thereof) of starfaring alien species that you've never encountered before.

The fact of the matter is that the Scroids have spent ages fighting amongst themselves, killing one another and getting nowhere fast, while the Kroji are galactic con artists with a well-deserved reputation for deceit and deception on an unsurpassed scale. The Yonds of Droon can ill-afford to drop our guard, particularly since both of these alien species are way too close for comfort.

How does one even begin to prepare to fend off potential incursions from multiple alien interlopers? I really need to wrap my brain around this conundrum, lest the Yonds of Droon suffer from my inability - or lack of willingness- to do so. Excuses simply will not cut it, here in Galaxy #223.

The Yonds of Droon managed to achieve 17 successful star charting missions, while enduring failure in 4 other star charting missions. So, we're not exactly batting a thousand percent, here in our opening round, but our number of successful charting missions appears to be better than average. All total, these successful star charting operations yielded a collective resource discovery of 111 PV, total.



Some of these star locations are fairly resource-rich, while others leave a lot to be desired, resource-wise. They're scattered all over the place, though, which presents a rather formidable challenge, when it comes to trying to figure out how to actually harvest and transport so many resources from so many different star locations. With such an underwhelming starting fleet of freighters, I'm going to be forced to choose where to focus my empire's rather limited transport capabilities.



With four of my empire's starships having encountered starships of the Wyvern Supremacy at different star locations, the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise. Will the Wyverns back off? Do I need to call my starships back? Will war soon ensue? Or will an uneasy peace simply come about where our two empires sit in closest proximity to one another?



Military war machines are funded by strong economies, not weak ones. With as many stars out there in this galaxy, are these four particular star locations that I don't even know the resource values for even worth fighting over? Perhaps a neutral zone can be established. Or maybe I've watched one too many episodes of Star Trek.



Wyvern Supremacy. I don't think that Supremacy part of that empire's name was an accident. Supremacy over who? Supremacy over what? Supremacy when? Does one simply assume that such a provocative name for a space faring race imply peaceful coexistence?



With my empire's homeworld location already known to five other alien species, how big of a margin of error do the Yonds of Droon realistically have? Definitely, some hard decisions lie ahead of me.



Here is a star map depicting the four cease fires that my empire experienced on Turn #1 (those star locations are depicted as yellow squares).

My homeworld lies below them, and the homeworld of the Wyvern Supremacy, Achtara, is the yellow and red star above them. The other yellow and red stars scattered about the star map are the homeworlds of the other four empires in Galaxy #223.



All those stars out there, yet multiple different times we somehow managed to bump into one another, and on Turn # 1 of all turns. You have no way of knowing, though, which stars that your fellow players intend to chart. And this inherent lack of coordination can - and will - lead to cease fires, where your respective charting missions at the same locations on the same turn will basically result in cancelling one another's missions. It's just the cost of trying to business among the stars, you might could say.



Turn orders for Turn #2 for Galaxy #223 are due on Friday, September 26th, 2025.



If the wrong decisions are made by any of us on Turn #2, those decisions could end up reverberating across Galaxy #223 for the entire game, coming back to haunt us time and time and time, again. So, I need to think things through, clearly.



Ultimately, though, the other players get a say in the outcome of whatever I ultimately decide, each turn, every turn. If I want peace, the other player might want war, and vice versa. No matter how much that you know, which you learn from your turn results each and every turn, there will always be stuff that you don't know.



The thing about information in a game of Galac-Tac is that it is always in a state of flux. The information environment in Galac-Tac is dynamic, fluid, and ever-changing. So, it behooves players of Galac-Tac to try and stay up-to-date on changing developments across the star map, to the degree and to the extent possible. Information deficiencies constitute vulnerabilities for your empire. An empire in the dark, information-wise, is weaker than the numbers on your turn results might otherwise seem to indicate. To know what the enemy is up to, and to know what the enemy's military strength is and where the resource-rich stars are requires information. The absence of critical information when needed is the equivalent of "flying blind."



In war, you never want to fly blind! Why, again, did I not do any scouting on Turn #1?



Live and learn, I reckon. No one is going to invade your homeworld on Turn #1 in Galac-Tac. Scouting or charting stars on Turn #1 was a calculated gamble on my part. Whether this gamble ultimately pays off or whether it ends up biting me squarely in the ass remains to be seen. It's certainly not an optimal situation to fly blind on Turn #1, but if you're ever going to fly blind in Galac-Tac, then doing it on Turn #1 likely confers some degree of relative safety that later turn in the game may not be as likely to confer. On Turn #1, all empires are just starting out. They're all equal, both militarily and economically. They also still have to "close the distance" between their empires and mine. Again, it was a gamble, but a calculated gamble.



On the star map below, star locations 55-76 and 57-77 are depicted as purple squares. This is where the Kroji and the Scroids have encountered one another on Turn #1. That homeworld to the left of them is the Kroji Konfederacy homeworld of Taberna Suprema, and the one to the right of them is the Scroid homeworld of Milchamah.



Star 47-80 is depicted as a blue square, and star 61-79 is depicted as a fuschia square. Star 45-83 is depicted as a yellow square, which the Kroji offered to "withdraw" from, if the Scroids are foolish enough to kowtow to the Kroji's con operation currently in progress, and yield to Kroji demands on the other star locations that have become immediate points of contention for both of these alien empires.

Are the Scroids weak? Have they grown soft? Can they stomach the thought of acquiescing to these Kroji demands?



If not, then why would the Krojis attempt such a bold gambit against a warrior species right out of the starting gate? Wars are typically easier to start then they are to end, and from the player blurbs of these two empires' players, it sounds to me like a big cauldron of conflict has already been put on the galactic fire to boil.



The real question, though, is who of the two of them is gonna be the one to most get burned? Can they strike a deal? Or are they destined for war? Anybody have any idea if diplomacy is in either of these species' vocabularies? Diplomacy necessarily brings politics with it, wherever it travels to.



Most importantly, what will an interstellar war between alien species mean for the Yonds of Droon? Because if that war happens, between Kroji and Scroids, then that conflict will be waged right on my empire's doorstep.



When the Kroji speak of "fireworks," what they actually mean is war. Diplomatic niceties in play, even on Turn #1, should never be mistaken for something other than that which they actually are. So, why not just come right out and be blunt about it? Nothing is more blunt than war, after all.



And what do the Kroji mean by their resort to the term "staring contest?" The Kroji must take the Scroids for being downright gullible. The more likely outcome of a so-called "staring contest" of this nature is war, but at a time more convenient to the Kroji, after they have marshalled sufficient resources and military assets to attack at a time of their choosing.



It is especially worth focusing upon the disparity that exists in what star location (singular) that the Kroji offered to withdraw from, compared to the star locations (multiple) that they insist upon gaining control of. The Scroids, a warrior race, are led by a player called Hammer. Yet, the Kroji's opening bid on the diplomacy front (ahem!) is a plain-as-day old fashioned one-sided deal.



Half-hearted attempts at diplomatic "negotiations" directed to and at a very experienced PBM player in the form of Hammer aren't something that I generally recommend. Blood feuds for all eternity have started over less. Anybody out there want to wager on what the likely outcome of this bungled opening move by the Kroji Konfederacy is likely to be?



Maybe Djinny's diplomatic skills have grown rusty, since the last time that she played Galac-Tac. When I play Hyborian War and toss down the equivalent of diplomatic gauntlets, they tend to be for the express purpose of placing hard choices before other players. From my perspective, though, I don't really tend to care one way or the other for whether the other fellow in Hyborian War chooses war or peace. In fact, if they oblige me by choosing war over peace, then I count that as a win, right off the bat, as far as the forthcoming game experience is likely to turn out to be for me. Waging war in games can be the apex of fun.



Or maybe Djinny is simply not used to entering into "negotiations" with other players so early in a game of Galac-Tac. If that is the case, then she may already be outside of her "comfort zone." Can she think fast on her feet? Will she do a hard and abrupt reverse course, and capitulate to the Scroids, in order to avert a war that she neither really wants nor is sufficiently prepared for? Or will she stick her nose even harder to the diplomatic grindstone, and seek out allies in a bid to possibly off-set her forthcoming war losses with the warrior Scroids?



It's been my experience in PBM gaming that warriors are called warriors for a reason - and more times than not, it's for a damned good reason. Back when I played the old PBM game, Galaxy: Alpha, players played one of four race types in that game, and one of them was the Warrior type (the other race types in that game were Builder, Thinker, and Death Globe).



A recent remark in the Galac-Tac channel of the PlayByMail Discord chat server by GM Davin about player Djinny was, "She most enjoys the economic portion of the game." All the more reason to subject her to the military portion of the game as early as and as often as possible, an astute observer might reasonably conclude. If she most enjoys the economic portion of Galac-Tac, then that is likely both a true strength of hers, as well as a comfort zone all its own for her. Hopefully, she won't declare war on Davin for spilling the beans on her enjoyment of Galac-Tac's economic side.



Loose lips sink ships, as the old saying goes.



All is fair in love and war, and listening closely and paying attention is definitely always fair game in any wargame. Identifying a potential enemy's strengths and weaknesses is imperative over the course of any given wargame, where and when possible. And if you realize what a given enemy's comfort zones are, then it behooves you to "persuade" or "compel" them to fight outside of their comfort zones (those areas and situations where they are the most comfortable being in).



I'm not sure if Hammer can be bribed with a Bundt cake, but something like that might actually have a greater chance of success than so-called "fireworks." Heck, I can't even remember the last time that I had a slice of a Bundt cake. Way back when, Bundt cakes seemed to be all the rage (in my family, anyway). Does anybody out there ever even bake them, anymore? If so, then write in and tell us all about it. If you've got freshly-baked Bundt cake and you're holding out on us, then there's no telling how many enemies you might end up with.



The Yonds of Droon already have a set of turn orders submitted for Turn #2, but that's still several days away, and I'll likely conduct a review of them for possible changes, between now and then.



If you're out there reading this, feel free to root for the Yonds of Droon. Be sure to write in with your own assessments and predictions. If you dare, that is.

The artistic inspiration of Basil Wolverton.

* All Galac-Tac content and images copyright © Talisman Games.

The Monster Island Monitor is back!
Click the image above to access all issues of the Monster Island Monitor,
or click here to access the newest issue, Issue #12.

Charles Mosteller

Up, up, and away!

I decided to do a review of the new Superman movie, after I watched it on HBO Max over the weekend. Superman has a big red letter S on the chest of his costume, so I watched it on a Saturday. Mere coincidence?

Watching television or movies is not a super power of mine. Indeed, trying to watch that old boob tube, at all, might very well have evolved into a kryptonite of my very own. In spite of that, though, bear with me, if you will, as I craft a brief review of this newest telling of a Superman story in cinematic form.

Superman is played by actor David Corenswet. Is he a better Superman than his predecessor, Henry Cavill? Nope! Not by a long shot, in my book. What in the hell were these people thinking?
By "these people," I mean director James Gunn.

Was Corenswet horrible in the role of Superman? No, and he certainly wasn't the worst thing about this new Superman movie. What was the worst thing about this movie isn't exactly clear to me, as I write this movie review on the night before the date of publication for Issue #46 of PBM Chaos. There's a lot of competition in my view for the title of "Worst Thing About The New Superman Movie."



Why anybody in Hollywood thought that what the world has been waiting for is a version of Superman that was mediocrity embodied in the super powers department is beyond me. Superman comes across as weak. How many times did he get his ass kicked, again? I lost count. Corenswet made a better Clark Kent than he did a Superman, but even there, he struck me as an ill-fit.



For all that I've previously read about Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Mister Terrific, and Hawkgirl in this Superman movie, I can largely sum up this trio's representation on the screen as disappointing. Of the three, I would give the nod to Hawkgirl, for my own part, but her role was meager, all things considered, and even in her best scene in the whole movie, it didn't even remotely approach being on par with the most memorable scenes from other movies of the superhero genre.



The plot (or perhaps I should say the many noodles of cinematic spaghetti on the plate) was the equivalent of paint splatter. I watched the entire movie (except for one very small portion where Superman "escaped" after being held by a scrawny-looking Metamorpho with a kryptonite hand). Yeah, you guessed it - I fell asleep. Metropolis became Big Snooze City for a few seconds there.

Guy Gardner "looked" pretty good, but was the movie better for his presence in it? Not in my view.



Mister Terrific was a more interesting character in this movie than Superman was, but that's not the same thing as being an interesting character, per se.



The making of this movie felt rushed to me. There wasn't anything about it that I really latched onto. That dog sure didn't look like the Krypto that I grew up reading about as a young kid. Krypto did provide a small portion of comic relief, but not enough for my money's worth - and I paid zero dollars to watch this flopping fish of a movie!



The portrayal of Lex Luthor was major suckage. Nicholas Hoult's portrayal of Superman's arch-adversary, Lex Luthor, may well have been the worst of multiple different sucky onscreen representations of that character down through the decades.



What about Lois Lane in this movie. Meh.



And Superman's earthly parents in this movie? Sigh.



And The Daily Planet's Perry White? Pointless. Uneventful.



What about Jimmy Olsen? An abomination. Where's the Jimmy Olsen that I grew up reading about? This Jimmy Olsen should have stayed with The Righteous Gemstones. Gideon Gemstone ain't no Jimmy Olsen.



Overall casting? Horrible!



Would I ever be likely to watch this Superman movie again? Not if I can help it. Oh, sure, if my son ever decided to watch it, and if he specifically asked me to watch it with him, I might, but there was absolutely nothing, whatsoever, in this Superman movie that I latched onto as an exciting thing to watch.



It was more slop than spectacular. I'm willing to go as far as saying that this Superman movie was worse, in the sense of being even more boring than Ryan Reynolds' Green Lantern movie.



The side plots were dull and boring, also. The special effects? Underwhelming.



Rather than up, up, and away, this Superman movie was more dull, dull, go away for me. That big S on Superman's chest is now synonymous with stupid. Either that, or slop. Take your pick.

It's 6:28 AM on publication day as I begin to ponder what to say for this Until Next Issue article. I hope that this issue of PBM Chaos finds you in good health and positive spirits. I find myself, this morning, pondering whether are are on a journey to an actual PBM destination, or whether our purpose is to merely engage in continuous exploration of the same old PBM space. They are not one and the same thing.



I need your help, but I don't expect to get it. After all, for many people, old habits are hard to change. We are a mere 9 days away from the launch of a PBM magazine in PDF format. Just scroll down, if you don't believe me. Right now, it is in really bare bones condition. I've got to find - or create - some meat to put on the bones of its first issue. Hopefully, it will prove to be the case that simultaneously publishing both PBM Chaos and a PBM magazine can be a viable undertaking.



If not, then I can always dump one or the other. The thought of that may ruffle a few of your PBM feathers, but it's not as if a whole lot of people are out there attempting to duplicate the feat. Me? I want to find out for myself, first-hand, just how much of a challenge it will prove to be.



If it pans out, great. If not, then we can at least say that it was tried.



There are some of you out there who would no doubt say that you have enjoyed the PBM publications that PlayByMail.Net has published over the years. Know that I appreciate the sentiment of those who feel that way. But how successful have any of it, or even all of it, been in the overall grand scheme of things?



And so, I head into that black hole of not knowing what exactly lies ahead, but I do so fully cognizant of our pursuit for more PBM players, both new faces and familiar faces from days of old.



For Issue #44, there were three subscribers whose e-mail addresses experienced soft bounces. Particular problems were:

1. smtp;421 Service not available, closing transmission channel.

2. smtp; 552 Error: message exceeds fixed maximum message size 524288



And for Issue #45,  so far at least, there have been no bounced e-mail addresses. Wow! Is that a first? Hey, I'll take the good luck wherever I can find it.



If you will simply subscribe to the PBM Patreon page, it provides you an alternative way to learn when a new issue of PBM Chaos gets published. But people don't like to change their habits, so if that is the case, then you may end up languishing in the PBM Twilight Zone or in some other form of PBM limbo. For the most part, I am done trying to resolve such techno-problems on my end. In addition to posting on the PBM Patreon site when new issues of PBM Chaos publish, I also post word of it along with accompanying links to each new issue on several different Facebook pages.



Some people don't like Facebook, or they just don't trust it, and I can both relate to that and have a sense of appreciation for it. Others may not want to subscribe to the PBM Patreon site and become a free member there. No problem at all. Perfectly understandable and perfectly acceptable. However, I can't personally tailor everything on my end to approximately 200 different people, individually. You're welcome to do things your way (by "you," I am referring to more than one of you), and likewise, I am equally welcome to do things my way. If it works out for both of us, that's wonderful. If it doesn't, then you're just gonna end up getting left behind. Hey, somebody's gotta pilot PBM Chaos and the PBM magazine, you know, and I really don't think that it's gonna be you, so that leaves me.



As that one Star Trek movie taught us all (all of us who watched it, anyway), there are times when the PBM needs of the many outweigh the PBM wants of the few. Tying my own hands won't make PBM Chaos a better - or more reliable- PBM publication. Retaining flexibility - always - works much better than hamstringing myself and my ability to continually push things forward.



For those who seek 100% comfort, I include an ejection button (an unsubscribe option) with each and every issue of PBM Chaos. If you want to be a part of things PBM-related that emanate from my end, then you've got to keep up. It's a marathon, not a sprint. If you need a rest from the hectic pace of it all - hey, I understand! There are times when I need a rest, also. It's not as if I've never taken a rest from PBM before, you know.



PBM Zombies is what I'm gonna call it. The new PBM magazine, that is. It isn't intended as a replacement for PBM Chaos. That's simply not how I envision it. From your perspective, just toss it on the old bone pile of PBM experiments, with PBM Zombies being merely the latest in a long line of different PBM experiments.



Even if PBM was really and truly dead (which it isn't), then I don't really see that as an insurmountable obstacle to PBM continuing to grow and prosper. If they think that we're dead, or if we think that we're dead, then why not just become undead? Zombies are everywhere, these days - and have been for many years, now.



Many view PBM being dead as an inherent liability. Why not convert that liability into an asset? That's my thinking.



I'm personally looking forward to Madhouse UK's forthcoming ZombieWorld, but ZombieWorld was not the inspiration for PBM Zombies. Rather, if what you're looking for is the "spark" that sort of connected various dots for me, then you need to revisit The Gauntlet of the Damned - an editorial that I originally penned a decade and a half ago.



Pondering some kind of zombie-themed PBM magazine isn't something new for me. However, what was new to me on a fairly recent visit to the PBM forum located at playbymail.dev was the way that certain dots just seemed to begin connecting for me. It isn't about doing a zombied-themed PBM magazine for zombie sakes. Rather, it's about standing the whole idea that PBM gaming is dead on its head, basically mocking the very notion that PBM is dead.



It didn't hurt any when slogans in support of such a concept started falling out of my mind. Why PBM Zombies? Because Play-By-Mail gaming refuses to die. Why PBM Zombies? Because PBM gamers still walk the Earth. Both are true statements. Plus, there is no rule of the cosmos which asserts that PBM can't be both dead and undead at the same time. Not that I'm aware of, anyway.



So, if it's simply a matter of PBM gaming "seeming" or "appearing" to some (or to many) that PBM doesn't have a whole lot of life left in it, depending upon what one is comparing it to, I can certainly see where they're coming from. But it is plainly obvious, even on its face, that PBM gaming isn't totally dead, as in 100% dead. Perhaps PBM would be better off, if we stop thinking along the lines of a purely binary choice.



Instead of us limiting ourselves to whether PBM is either alive or dead, one or the other, perhaps what we should have been doing all along is being a tad more open-minded on the subject. Now, we can look at PBM as being alive or dead or undead. Three choices instead of just two. Personally, I think that's the better deal.



Furthermore, perhaps framing PBM gaming in the modern age that way will click better with gamers of the present era. Maybe the Zombies part of PBM Zombies will snag us a few more eyeballs, grab some attention where previously we may not have been able to. Me? I say it's worth a try. After all, what do we have to lose - and especially if many of us think that PBM is already dead, anyway?



I need content for PBM Zombies. You know as well as I do that zombies are always hungry. PBM magazines devour content like there's no tomorrow. And I can speak from extensive first-hand experience, now, when I say to you that publishing a PBM magazine or newsletter or weekly PBM mailing has ways of making one feel like a zombie. Even though I'm sitting down as I type these words to you, a part of me is staggering around.



Zombies are always wanting brains, and to create content for a PBM magazine requires some portion of brains. If there are enough of you PBM zombies left out there, maybe we can begin to grow the horde more. Whether you like the name of the new PBM magazine or not, perhaps you can at least see where I am coming from with my elaboration upon it.



If the thought of this whole PBM Zombies notion scares you to death, then relax, my fair-weather PBM friend. Nobody is gonna show up at your doorstep, be it physical or digital, and make it required reading for you.



If you're out there and you're living in your own little world, then honestly, you may well end up discovering that you'll either not find out when a new issue of PBM Zombies publishes, at all, or you'll find out about it late. If you want to run with the PBM horde, then you've gotta keep up. You've got to maintain the new pace. You've got to learn to adapt. Otherwise, you'll end up just aimlessly milling about, like you see a lot of zombies do in movies and on television shows.



Either way, you're gonna end up a zombie. You've just got to decide what kind of a zombie that you want to be.



See you next week, as soon as Issue #47 of PBM Chaos is ready to go! And a mere two days after that, a zombie outbreak is gonna occur.



Charles Mosteller

Editor of PBM Chaos

Coming Soon - A New PBM Magazine!

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If the world thinks you're dead, then rise from the dead and walk the gaming world once more.



Many are the supposed apocalypses that play by mail gaming has suffered in the decades since commercial PBM gaming was first founded. If PBM is truly dead, then why not capitalize on it?



Now comes PBM Zombies!



Right now, Issue #1 is little more than skin and bones. Regardless, it's coming on October 1st, 2025, whether anyone is ready for it or not.



PBM Zombies will be published in PDF format. From the founder of the original Suspense & Decision magazine, PBM Unearthed, and PBM Chaos now comes PBM Zombies.



Will the PBM Horde grow and be long-lived? Or will issues of PBM Zombies be stopped dead in their tracks? Who will you side with? The living or the dead?



Look for more news about PBM Zombies in the next issue of PBM Chaos!



If you wish to submit an article or something else for Issue #1 of PBM Zombies, then send it to me as soon as possible. The issue publishes a mere 9 days from now, and I have to receive them in sufficient time in order to ensure that they get included and formatted.



Please consider volunteering for a PBM Personality Column. If you're curious, then write to me at the e-mail address below.

Write to PBM Chaos at
[email protected]

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