To get back in the Posters top 10: Which game to post a dynasty about?

[MIJB#19]

As some of you might have noticed, I haven't been 'on board' that much from December 2002 until a week ago.

To get back in the top 10 posters, where I obviously belong , I'm thinking about starting a dynasty thread.
Plus, it's a nice change to actually start a poll for the first (and only?) time...

The question is, what game should I play and post about?

I'll give you 4 options to choose from, the 5th option is to be filled in by yourself in a reply to this post.

The 4 options are:

* EA Sports' Front Office Football (aka. FOF2; I'm still not into the FOF4 buyers group yet).

* Sensible World Of Soccer 9697, a soccer game which has the option of a 20 year career with players who do not age and do not change teams unless I transfer them)

* Championship Manager 2001/2002

* Jagged Alliance, a tactical game in which the player hires mercenaries to liberate a small island somewhere near South America.

[Craptacular]

Without knowing what other games you have, and since I don't want to see any more soccer-related anything on this board, I'll vote for Jagged Alliance.

[MrBug708]

Jagged Alliance kicks ass! My favorite none sports related game. Is it JA? or JA2?

[Franklinnoble]

The Sims Online.

[Critch]

Got the Cycling Manager games? That'd be interestingly different.

[Katon]

Jagged Alliance, definitely. We've had dynasties for all the others. Well, not Sensible World of Soccer, but you know what I mean.

[MIJB#19]

The first Cycling Manager is on my games list, though that game has never gotten much into me, despite the fact that I stay home to watch cycling races like the Tour de France, World Cup races, the World Championship and other one day races broadcasted.
The thing is, I'd rather play a game I can play on my laptop and Cycling Manager won't run on it.
Plus, I all forgot about having that game as I haven't played it for (I think) 15 months.

[MIJB#19]

About Jagged Alliance, I'm talking about the first one as, just like with Cycling Manager, JA2 doesn't run on my laptop (plus I'd have to borrow the game from my brother.)

I also thought about a dynasty about a game I was trying to create myself, though that would be something different then playing a game...

[MIJB#19]

double dola.
I'm a bit dissapointed about the low number of SWOS 'fans', though I expected it to happen. I was hoping this game would get some votes because of the big number of dynasties on FOF and Championship Manager.

All in all, I'm making my own decision, though, to know what would be read and what not, I decided a poll would make things clearer for me...

[Alf]

SWOS is an excellent game to play, but the fact that the players do not age doesn't make it for a dynasty. That's why I voted JA.

Go SWOS !

[andy m]

i voted for SWOS because it's one of the best games of all time.

[MIJB#19]

Good to see there actually are SWOS fams around here.
I'm still playing at least once a week, currently doing only challenges like winning the World Cup with countries like Taiwan, San Marino, Cyprus, etc.
Even my listed website is dedicated to SWOS.

[Alf]

Does SWOS have a PC version ? I was playing SWOS on Atari.

[MIJB#19]

Yes, SWOS has a pc version.
I have the 1995/1996ECE version and the 1996/1997 patch.

[Alf]

Is it abandonware now ?

[MIJB#19]

I'm not sure.
Other SWOS fans are linking to The Underdogs for SWOS9596 without sounds, but I won't do that.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Do one on Baseball and Football Mogul .

[MIJB#19]

Bump for Alf.

[vex]

Hattrick, definitely

[MIJB#19]

Alright, I guess I'm still waiting for the final results, though I guess I can say good bye to my SWOS 'dynasty'.

With the high number of voters on JA, I decided to try writing about my progress on the first day in a test campaign a bit, which I will post tomorrow (about 16 hours from now.) However, I'm still not 100% sure wheter I'd enjoy writing a JA story...
Anyway, JA gives the opportunity to play a day per day, meaning a daily update would be easy to do.

The poll is still open though, waiting to see what ends up second behind JA...

[MIJB#19]

Dola

Or maybe I'll end up writing about a completely different game, perhaps a new one?

[Katon]

The most important thing about a dynasty is that YOU enjoy writing it. If you have to force yourself, that'll come out in the product. Write what you feel like writing. JA is just getting so many votes because nobody's done a dynasty of it yet.

[MIJB#19]

The thing is, at my laptop I can't run JA (and CM and SWOS) in window style, unlike FOF2.
I'd be willing to write on one of those games, though the consequences are that I either have to Ctrl-Esc a lot or have to play on a different machine (like the good old 486 having SWOS and JA installed on it.)

Doing a JA 'dynasty' would require some experimenting from my side and, since school has become much bussier then expected, I'm still tossing with my mind, because I did like writing a dynasty reports in the past.

In the end, it will not be a play and post dynasty, like I have done in the past, but rather a write in word/notepad, post at fofc a day/hour/whatever time period later.

Too bad the FIFA World Cup isn't played THIS summer...
(And Euro 2004 is, well, in 2004)

[Godzilla Blitz]

Before Vince started his X-COM dynasty, I was thinking of doing something similar with JA2, but then X-COM seemed to work well, and well, that was the end of the JA idea. I think the game would work great for a dynasty, but the only thing I would caution you about is how long it can take to do battle write-ups, especially in the beginning, when you are getting a feel for what you are doing.

Having said that, I think a JA dynasty would be fantastic, especially if there were a way to let FOFC members take the roles of the fighters in the game. And there might be a way to make the dynasty really interesting without doing individual battle write-ups, if they take more time than you have available.

In any case, good luck with this! I look forward to reading whatever you decide to do.

[MIJB#19]

So far, concerning JA, I want to at least tell what hiring decisions I make and report what sectors are 'won' on the day.

What makes it hard is the in-combat writing, Ctrl-Esc-ing during the turn-based periods can be pretty annoying, because I could lose the feeling over the battle. Especially as sectors start having 8 opponents from day 4.

On the other hand, I'm not quite sure what is essential for a JA playing report, I think the hiring is important and a review of the progress made on he day is as well.

I'm confident I have the time to play a day a day, but how the sorry writing will end up, I'm not quite sure.

Plus, like I posted before, I'll post my current 'test' stories later on today (local time).

[MIJB#19]

Below is what I've written about the test campaign I was running.

Jagged Alliance

Day 0

Around Noon

There I was.
It was a few hours after my third flight in a helicopter ever.
Again, it was an exciting experience, howerver this time it was not the flight itself that caught me.
It was rather my destination: Metavira Island.

To be honest, I never heard of such place. In fact, opening up an atlas didn't help either.
That's behind me now, this is the place I will be the next week, or months, things aren't quite clear to me yet.
My best guess is that Metavira Island is located in the South Atlantic Ocean, probably off the coast of Brazil.

Soon after the landing, Jack Richards walked up to me.
Richards' is a balding and aging man, who's beard is one to be jealous about.
Inside his office, Jack introduced me to his daughter, who's green eyes caught me wondering: Jack's eyes are blue.

Jack told me about the island and especially it's primary source of income.
Fallow trees produce medice and some Santino guy, who used to be his associate has taken over control.
The island is devided into 60 sections and as of now, Santino controls 59.

That's were I come in, the Richards' need a person to liberate the island.
As wimpy as I am, I told him I would be able to hire mercenaries, not knowing what I got into.
Some internet site pointed me to A.I.M. or The Association of International Mercenaries.

Jack and especially Brenda convinced me to stay and call up my 'friends' at A.I.M.
They handed in $25.000 to spent while being in charge.
At that time, how could I tell them A.I.M. was new to me too?


Around the Early Evening

It was time.
I put my laptop on the table and started up my wireless internet connection.
Through A.I.M. I was able to get contact info on all 60 associated mercenaries.
Thanks to A.I.M.'s comprehensive analysis of mercenaries I was able to weigh names and all.

I decided that I had no idea what to do, but to get this thing going, hiring a man or three should suffice.
First name popping up was Mark Kranhuim's, nicknamed 'The Needle'. His profile looked good.
However, his price tag scared me, $1900/day isn't cheap...

Next up was Gary Roachburn, who's profiled as a 'molish' persen.
The price is right, $315/day seems reasonable...
Gary replied my call and said he is thrilled to arrive here next day.

The third person to call was Samuel Garver, an experienced fighter.
However, good ol' Sam sounded arrogant and told me he was not interested in working for a rookie.
I didn't tell him he should be happy for the $2.750/day.

Next I called an explosives expert, who knows it might come in handy, plus he only costs $560/day.
Leslie 'Smoke' Peterson replied and told me he'd be interested after seeing some work of me.
Shoot...

Then, Jimmy Upton was to be found on the list.
Jimmy was happy to here about the non-presence of cops and law out here.
$800/day he's supposed to get.

The next call was to $3.300/day Rudy Roberts, nicknamed 'Lynx'.
Rudy was not so nice and told me the time wasn't quite right yet...

Last, but not last, was luitenant Bud Hellar.
Some might call him a butkisser, I'd just say I'm happy to get a team together for $2.215/day.
Bud was happy to hear from me and is willing to anything I like, should I be scared or happy now?

The three fit into one helicopter flight, costing us $600.
Anyway, with the budjet, we have ten days to accomplish something.
Let's see what we can get done with this group, starting tomorrow...



Day 1

Early Morning

Bad news, our only source of income, the factory at the base sector has been sabotaged.
An important piece of electronics, the micropurifier, has been stolen.
We need to get that thing back as soon as possible, hopefully the thief is nearby...

Our day starts at Section 60, the most South Eastern part of the island.
I fielded Gary, Jimmy and Bud with their own gear and provided them with ammunition.
Perhaps these three have a shot at this thing?

I decided the day might be best served to explore this section of the island, looking for useful items.
All in all, we found a gun, a vest, a tool kit and boxes of ammo around the area.
I decided to let the men drop the unneeded items and get going to section 59.

The first section was a succesful battle, Bud and Gary shot the two guards in the section.
During the battle, thankfully nobody got hurt on our side, plus we recovered the purifier.
I'm not happy about the dead of the two men hired by Santino, but I guess we have no choice but to go on.

I decided to let the men pick up as much stuff as they could find.
I commanded them to drop the not needed items in section 60 and then move forward to section 50.
Jimmy, Bud and Gary are more then ready then I expected...

Sector 50 was a piece of cake, the two guards there were even wimpier then the two in section 59.
Oh well, I guess this operation is easier then expected...
On route, we acquired a good number of items as well, which we dropped in sector 60 as well.

Next up was sector 49, which I decided to let the team enter that section from the north east.
During this battle, Gary got wounded, plus wounded Bud during the fight as well.
We were succesful in the end, but don't ask how we did it...

At that time, it was only 14:00 hours, but I though three sectors of 59 to liberate.
I let my men pick up as much items as possible and let them leave behind the least important items in sector 60.
(Amazingly in this game, sector 60 is the home sector, but items left behind at this sector are not possessed by me.

I decided to call it a day, ith two men wounded (though bandaged by eachother), it would be dangerous to keep fighting.
The game engine calculates the learning curve of my men and apperantly all three learned during the day.

To finish off the day, realising Bud and Gary would not be able to fight the next day, I contacted A.I.M. again.
Helmut 'Grunty' Gunther and Peter 'Wolf' Sanderson were the two men of six men I rang willing to fly over.
Grunty is an above average guy for a relative low price at $490.
Wolf comes with a high price at $1.850, but with the factory working again, we can have it.
Plus, Wolf is all around very skilled and talented.


Day 2

... to be continued ...

Any thoughts on what's missing?

FWIW, I'll try to link to a picture of the in game sectors overview as well, like the one (hopefully) shown below:

[IMG]http//www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/metavira.jpg[/IMG]
Image is from JA Galaxy, a member of StartegyPlanet, a member of the GameSpy network.

EDIT: I guess the sector pick didn't quite work...
I guess I'll have to create my own sector map pic' then.

[MIJB#19]

Dolabump.

Any input on the 'test' report?
What is missing, what is unwanted info?

Or should I post that part in the dynasty section and wait for replies?

[Alf]

actually Jagged Alliance would look quite like X-Com (combat missions, etc...). I might prefer a SWOS dynasty afterall !

[MIJB#19]

One last attempt to get input.
As I'm going to finalize my 5-month period as trainee within a few hours, my time and moreover stressless life is ready for playing a game and reporting what's going on.

Though the poll is still open, I guess the overall opinion is clear...
Personally, I want to cancel out CM0102 at this point.
JA, SWOS and FOF2 are still in, as is the "mystery" entry or the open suggestion.

[QuikSand]

Shouldn't this thread be moved to the dynasty section?

MIJB struggles for months to select his game - an FOFC dynasty

[MIJB#19]

Good idea, Michael...