coolness

[Planetbuster]

hi i jus foundthis place this ispretty cool im not quite clear on how this hole multiplaying by ziping/ emailing works can you do that with the orgonal smac??? cus that all i have although i plan on upgrading oon to alien crossfire but ne ways im not sure how this works if i was playing and i wanted to talk one of ie the com link button how would that work if you were emailing the turns??? would the conversation choises be turn based aswell?? well it would help if some one could send me a faw or somthing on howthis all works i would love to play with you all once i figure it all thnx

[Darsnan]

Heah Planetbuster,
welcome to the wonderful world of PBEM SMAC! If you've never played before and are just online for the first time, you will want to download the SMAC version 4.0 patch from the official Firaxis SMAC website:

http://www.firaxis.com/smac/

Once you have done this, you will be able to play SMAC PBEM. Also, the following is a Civgaming thread with a lot of links to other SMAC(X) sites, including Dreifels' site where he has done a screen capture for each step of playing a PBEM turn:

http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=888

Civgaming is also another good site for playing PBEM's as well. Here is the game signup thread (and just like Apolyton you will have to register before you can post to a thread at Civgaming):

http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=923

Finally, to answer your question regarding commlinks/ diplomatic screens: this is also turn based. So when you open your PBEM turn one of the other items you will do besides base maintenance and moving the units around is that if you receive any diplomatic correspondence from a human player, you then respond to it at that time, or if you want to initiate correspondence with another human player you do it at this time as well: you then have to wait until your next turn for a reply/ confirmation of any diplomatic messages from human players(i.e. after the other human(s) has played their next turn). AI Diplomatic communication is still instantaneous. FYI.
Hope this helps, and again, welcome to SMAC(X) PBEM!

D

[Flubber]

darsnan covered things better than I could but I would like to add that people often do negotiations by email as the amount of text that can be sent through the commlinks is limited and also so a deal can get done within a game turn. During an involved time , the diplomacy can get quite complicated and you might be emailing pretty much everyone on more than one occasion before completing your turn

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Flubber
people often do negotiations by email as the amount of text that can be sent through the commlinks is limited

Also, any word program can open the .sav file and let you read all the commlink messages that have ever been in the game - so most PBEMers now use e-mail for sensitive stuff and commlinks just to announce that an e-mail will be forthcoming and that trades are imminent

G.