You may have noticed that there is a Darkages forum here now for those people in the DA74, which includes AYers Martyn Dave Paul and myself.

I just had a funny idea, how fun would it be to fill up a darkages game (or similar) full of AY coaches only. That would add some extra spice to our little community!
We could even ask pete to put up a waiting list excusively for AYers, until such time as we ran out of players and had to recruit form outside.

certainly would add some extra spice to divisional games or intra conference games!

Where do I sign up for this one?

Much as I love it, the problem with DA is that there are too many alliances made before the game even starts.

Sounds like you just did, when we get 16 AY coaches with posts in here we can ask pete to start a special DA for us... ???

As Alex is aware, I'm not too much of a fan of DA myself, but with less players (12 I think) we could start up an "AY" Star Chase game (+ Alan Milnes and Danny Slavin would join I think) or with even less we could start up an AY European Empires game (need 6 paying customers, and some could play minor powers FOR FREE as a freemailer if you aren't sure you'd like it). Or there is Medieval or AUSTRALIAN Empires which I've wanted to have a crack at for ages.

Just a thought, as I'd love to do something like this but won't be giving DA a third chance...

Cheers,

Martyn

That's a good idea.
I will always love Dark Ages as one of my favourite games of any type, probably because of the wonderful diplomatic relations one can create but TBH I do find it too easy, have finished in the top 3 (ie one of only about u3 mations left) in each of my 3 or 4 previous games IIRC.
One of these others might be a wonderful fit if it is more suited to less persons, anyone interested in this later in the year?

European as a minor nation freemailer wasn't that interesting. You couldn't do a hell of a lot. I remember just building Holland up to be painfull to someone attacking it. Though I couldn't be bothered communicating with anyone because as a minor nation I had no power and no turns to get any.

I seem to be finding more quirks in DA somehow...would have thought the code pretty static.

But Holland is tiny Paul! I played Syria as a freemailer in EE7 and finished 3rd! I think if you play a country like Syria or Persia, away from the big powers, or Denmark or Spain say, and ally with one of the major powers next to you, being a freemailer minor power is workable and if you enjoy it you can always start paying and go to major power status...

I like how DA is so cutthroat, how all the nations are so close and can reach each other effectively, in barbarians for example the map is so huge you have no hope of interacting with most nations IMLX, willing to give some of the other options a shot, australian might be a lark considering some of our heritage!

Tiny it was. Boring I found it. I didn't give it a chance but it just isn't my area of interest.