Online Gaming Podcast

# backgammon # battleships # castle danger # checkers # chess # connect four # crack the code # dicegame # dots and boxes # draughts # go # go-moku # halma # lost cities # mill # oware # penguin # pente # reversi # streetsoccer # subulata # tablut # tally ho # wordgame

Atta Ants Awale Capt'n W. Kidd Carcassonne - Hunters and Gatherers Chinagold Go-Games Hazienda Hexxagon Just 4 Fun Kahuna Kanaloa Masons Morris Ponte del Diavolo Reversi Rosenkonig Connect Four Yucata

Chosen Space - Graphical Trade Wars Shields Up - A nicer more involved space RPG Pirate Quest - Pirate RPG Cyberwars - New interface from last review, lots of new features Urban Rivals - New cards, new battle rooms Rumble Race - Buy cars, hire drivers

News...

News...

SuperDuperGames.org The "A" games 3-6-9 55 Stones Afrika Amazones Attangle Abande Alak Alien City - Icehouse game Aries Attract Archimedes

Amarriner.com - Citadels - Advance Wars - Fire Ebelem - Wrasslin - Roads and Boats

Marquand.net Solitaire versions of Clans, Coloretto and Ingenious All programmed in DHTML and Javascript pr-game.com PBW Puerto Rico One of the oldest and still great implementations of PBW Puerto Rico

A review of all the sites in the previous 15 shows

YouPlay.it PBW Site FREE - Blue Max Tons of Scenarios (over 30) - Cartegena - Viva Il Re! - VampiRing Original Game - Wooden Ships and Iron Men! In testing, but it looks great, many scenarios available. Highly recommended!

Show #14 was delayed further due to Audacity and illness. It is up on Wednesday the 13th. Next show is still scheduled for the 18th of December and then a hiatus until January 15th. e-Boardgames.com PBEM website FREE! Many games, fast turnarounds in some games I played an Age of Steam game in 8 weeks. The 18xx games are also varied and interesting (I am playing the 1826 Trinidad game now which I had not seen before) Highly recommended!

Full Show Notes at http://onlinegamingpodcast6.blogspot.com Online Boardgaming News (as of 11/22/2006) Gamebox Online http://hilinski.net/games/online/ Java Web Start Interface Interactive Style Tycoon Taj Mahal

Full Show Notes at http://onlinegamingpodcast.blogspot.com (I hope!) Online Boardgaming News (as of 11/06/2006) ACTS - Automated Card Tracking System (PbEM server) http://acts.warhorsesim.com A Fistful of Planets Age of Renaissance Blue vs Gray Empire of the Sun Epic of the Peloponnesian War For the People Generic Game Module Hammer of the Scots Hannibal LOTR: The Confrontation March Madness Paths of Glory Republic of Rome Successors Sword of Rome The Napoleonic Wars Thirty Years War Titan Twilight Struggle We the People Wilderness War WWII: Barbarossa to Berlin

Full Show Notes at http://onlinegamingpodcast.blogspot.com Online Boardgaming News (as of 10/19/2006) MabiWeb Richelieu Hansa Samurai In the Shadow of the Emperor HexWar Decision Games - about 20 games with multiple scenarios Pay site - $12.95 / month or $9.95 / month for an annual subscription

Full Show Notes at http://onlinegamingpodcast.blogspot.com Online Boardgaming News (as of 10/6/2006) BoiteAJeux.net Lots of games not found elsewhere Completely in French OfficeDebo Interesting theme for an otherwise template-type online browser-based game.

Full Show Notes at http://onlinegamingpodcast.blogspot.com Online Boardgaming News (as of 9/21/2006) Online-Vinci.de.vu - Not as good as Ludagora, but it has a lot of players - All in German BSW - Diamant - Power Grid

Full Show Notes at http://onlinegamingpodcast.blogspot.com Online Boardgaming News (as of 9/6/2006) Ludagora.net -Through the Desert -Hare and Tortoise -Set -Vinci -Medina -Crazy Circus -Capharnaum High Descent

SpielByWeb.com Amun-Re - I am in 3 games of varying players. Nice scans of the board Bus - I haven't played an entire turn, yet. Hacienda - I am not sure I know how to win this game, with land or animals. Hoity Toity - I just cannot buy the art I need! Reef Encounter - I don't get the shrimp? Tikal - The first game, I failed, the second game I kept confusing my color... Wallenstein - I hope to conquer the world soon... Brettspielwelt.de Transamerica - Loved playing this online. I had a lot of fun. San Juan - Could only get a two player game. I mention the bad text rendering and go off on a tangent. Carcasonne - Sans expansions. It played fast with some minor inconviences that may be to represent the real playing experience... Sorry, no online multiplayer browser-based game this week, I ran over, this episode is nearly 50 minutes long!

Boardspace.net Hive - Surround the queen bee Gobblet - Line up four globblets in a row column or diagonally Trax - Make a complete circuit, includes a tile sizer Lines of Action - Get all pieces touching Plateau - Stack of 6 or Capture 6, Hidden pieces Zertz - Collect balls, 4 white or 5 Gray or 6 Black Yinsh - Collect 3 rings by making rows of 5 chips Punct - Connect opposite sides of the board using pieces that can stack in patterns Hex - Connect one side to the other Brettspielwelt.de Caylus - Plays faster online and players are easy to come by Ra - Plays in about 1/2 hour. Watch the Red dots at the top, those are the Ra tiles. Sorry, no online multiplayer browser-based game this week, I ran over, this episode is nearly 45 minutes long!

I am planning on focusing more on the online boardgaming sites and PBEM sites and spacing out the browser-based game reviews. Next week: Boardspace.net, Tribal Wars, and part 1 of BSW

Review of Astro Wars: http://www.astrowars.com Review of Urban Rivals: http://www.urban-rivals.com Review of Yahoo! Games: http://games.yahoo.com Review of MSN Games: http://zone.msn.com Next week: Boardspace.net, Poker RPG, Tribal Wars, and part 1 of BSW My Odeo Channel (odeo/79fe3a0eeba55592)

Review of Imperia Online: http://www.imperiaonline.org 4 Servers in different Eras (not sure what the difference between Eras is) Buildings for each Province Resource Gatherers (Farms, Granary; Quarry, Iron Mine, Lumber mill) Military Resources (Infantry, Ranged, Stables, Seige) Fortress Research Melee Attack, Ranged Attack, Mounted Attack, Seige Attack, Tactics, Centralization, University, Medicine, Armor, Cartography Espionage Attacking Recruiting Workers Trade Alliances Review of Atari Play: http://games.atari.com/playgames/home.jsp Games Available Boggle 2 game modes: Master Boggle (5x5), Boggle (4x4) Battleship 3 game modes: Classic, Volley, Salvo Scrabble Monopoly Options: Auctions, Build Evenly, Collect 2x Salary, Short Game, Collect Fines on Free Parking Yahtzee 3 game modes: Classic, Colored, Triple Sorry Next week: Yahoo! Games and Astro Wars

Review of Travian: 6 servers with different approaches 3 races to play Romans (all around, cavalry-heavy) Can raise or extend a building and resource field simultaneously, High Defense-bonus by wall, Merchants can carry 500 units of resources (speed: 16 fields/hour), Very powerful infantry, average cavalry, development is expensive and takes a long time. Teutons (attackers, aggressive) Plunder bonus: the cranny of enemies only hides 2/3 of its content, The earthwall is almost indestructable, but only gives a minimal defense bonus, Merchants can carry 1000 units of resources (speed: 12 fields/hour), Very cheap and fast trained troops which are excellent plunderers, Weak defense Gauls (defensive, passive, but can be powerful) Speed bonus: Fastest troops in the game, average defense-bonus because of palisade, Merchants can carry 750 units of resources (speed: 24 fields/hour), Cranny is twice as big, Expensive siegeweapons, Cheap settlers Main screens Village Overview (this is where you raise resources) Village Center (this is where the buildings are built) Surrounding Map (who your neighbors are) Messages (alliance, others) Statistics Reports (who attacks you) Resources: Lumber, Clay, Iron, Crop Crop is a persistent need, each building and unit requires a constant supply of crop Buildings Main building to decrease building time Barracks for troops, Marketplace for trading, Embassy for alliances Cranny is important, it protects resources from attack Warehouse for storing resources, Granary for storing crop Academy for better units, Blacksmith for better units, Stables for cavalry Rally point for attacking, Armory for increasing the defense of your units Residence for settling new areas (make new cities) City Walls, Resource enhancing buildings, and more Alliances Forums are good and let you know what you are doing wrong and are good for alliances. Plus gives some nice extra options such as queuing, resource look forward (when the resources will be available), better statistics, longer map view, better combat simulator, notebook, sorting function on marketplace. $2.99/month; $6.99/3 months; $19.99/10 months; $19.99/1 year Online experience with Travian: Initially, I thought this game was a slow boring game, but as I played it and got into an alliance, I found it to be more engaging. I definitely plan on playing more often and will report back in a few months Alliances are key Cranny is very important Different races play differently Play often even for a few minutes here and there Review of BoardGameGeek: Three games Roads and Boats Kingdoms (Auf Heller und Pfennig) Tigris and Euphrates PHP / mySQL based Turn-based, non-interactive Online experience with BoardGameGeek: Could use an email reminder feature and a slightly better interface The rules are pretty nice Non-interactive (can be days between rounds) Next week: Boardgame site: Atari Play: http://games.atari.com/playgames/home.jsp MOBBG: Imperia Online

Show #3 delayed one week.

Review of Cyber-Wars, http://www.cyber-wars.com Steep Learning Curve Lots of similar sounding options Options that are important are hidden amongst options that are superfluous Rechargable Statistics: Energy, Capacity, Intent Combat Stats: RAM, CPU Speed, BUS Speed, Harddrive A number of options and a lot of room to advance Premium Package is $5 to buy more energy or increase the regeneration of energy Regeneration gets full every 7 hours or so, which is a time commitment for some casual players Final Grade: C, I found too much of the game to be complicated and not enough advancement Review of Days of Wonder, www.daysofwonder.com Games Available: Ticket to Ride (USA and Europe), Queens Necklace, Gang of Four and Fist of the Dragonstones Java-based, but I found it to be very stable and easy to use Ticket to Ride has a lot of players all the time, the others may be more difficult to play at any given time. Exactly duplicates the boardgame/cardgame (Except with automated scoring and a highlight of destinations in TTR) Karma system No tournaments or serious ladder system. There is ranking but it is simply a number (there is no top players list I could find) AI bots have different flavors: LongBot, DirectBot, DumbBot

Review of ZeldereX: Tick-based game Every 20 minutes you get more oil, money Economic and military Money buys stuff including military Military is used to attack and gain money Vast research options Improve troops Add offensive weapons, defensive weapons Improve income Lower cost of goods Nice clan structure Easy to recruit and spot teammates Needs improvement in the helping others aspect (being part of a clan doesn't seem to afford any protection or benefit) Basic military and attack setup Put your heroes in charge, put them in a vehicle and hit players close to you in rank. Building and upgrading Certain buildings are very important and others are not. Premium options Buying cash (which I hate!) Additional buildings and research options Review of AsoBrain: Games available: Settlers of Catan (Xplorers) SET! (Match!) Barricade (Roadblock) Carcassonne (Toulouse) Java-based Simple ranking system Active forums with Tournament details Uses ports 1981 - 1998, so firewalls may be an issue Normal long Java load time Online experience with AsoBrain: Carcassonne, I mean, Toulouse Played against two others Easy to play and score I didn't have any problem with setting it up or having fun Settlers of Catan A plethora of map setups Allows for a lot of replayability Easy to setup AI is ok at trading As good or better than the official Settlers of Catan by Microsoft Online experience with ZeldereX: Easy to play A lot of attacks Only way to really get ahead seems to be to purchase money

Online Gaming Podcast Promo - Podcast - Kevin Devine