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"Starchase" - a children's game? (warships, azi as merchandise)

>Subject: cherryhlist: boardgame...
>Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 9:18:46 CDT
>From: goldman@orac.cray.com (Goldman of Chaos -- postmaster CRI-US)

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Additionally, note that azi can not be made in greater quanities than one. Everything else can be made in quanities of one, two or four.

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Matt

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>From: Onno Meyer <Onno.Meyer@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de>
>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 10:59:10 +0200 (MET DST)

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I dislike the use of azi as a ressource/trade good more and more. If they are part of the game, they should be produced by Cyteen at a constant rate "for free", and should increase the labour pool of a station where they're working, but they would consume food and parts every turn, wether they work or not. You can't order them now and get them delivered next year, they're living beings and not a ordinary cargo lot.

 
Onno Meyer

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>From: Onno Meyer <Onno.Meyer@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de>
>Subject: Cherryhlist - starchase
>Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 10:27:40 +0200 (MET DST)

> 	4) warship, no cargo units

Again this "warship" stuff. I don't think a childrens game should be a wargame.

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Onno

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>From: David Zink <zink@panix.com>
>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1993 04:29:57 -0400 (EDT)

> I dislike the use of azi as a ressource/trade good more and more.
> (...)

I think you're being sentimental. They're just product. Expensive, because it takes so long to produce them (like a spaceship), but just product.

Here's my controversial contribution for the week: Isaac Asimov's robots are fairly intelligent mechanical beings programmed to perform specific tasks. Because they are not allowed to learn in a global, natural way, they do not have very human personalities. Because they don't have very human personalities, it is very easily justified that they may be legitimately enslaved. They're just manufactured machines, after all. They don't really have feelings like a real person--just talk to one and you'll see.

> > 	4) warship, no cargo units
> >
> Again this "warship" stuff. I don't think a childrens game should be a
> wargame.

Which children are we talking about here? There are certainly cultures in which all children's games are war games (Amerika?) but the relevant question is Reseune culture...

	-- David
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>Subject: Re: C. J. Cherryh List
>Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 12:09:27 +0100 (MET)
>From: Onno Meyer <Onno.Meyer@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de>

[about azi]
> I think you're being sentimental.  They're just product.  Expensive,
> because it takes so long to produce them (like a spaceship), but just
> product.

But in the game as we discuss it, starships are no products, either. Ships are used to move products about. If a game turn is three month, it takes about 80 turns to produce an azi. I assumed four turns to produce a ship and one turn for every other production.

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> Which children are we talking about here?  There are certainly cultures
> in which all children's games are war games (Amerika?) but the relevant
> question is Reseune culture...

But in monopoly, there is no option for the players to burn each other's houses. My problem was the fact that fighting starships need much more complicated game statistics than cargo movers. You would have to worry wether a ship manages to intercept the other and so on.

Onno Meyer

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>Subject: cherrylist: starchase, the game
>Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 8:58:26 CDT
>From: goldman@orac.cray.com (Goldman of Chaos -- postmaster CRI-US)

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> > I think you're being sentimental.  They're just product.  Expensive,
> > because it takes so long to produce them (like a spaceship), but just
> > product.
> > 
> But in the game as we discuss it, starships are no products, either.
> Ships are used to move products about. If a game turn is three month,
> it takes about 80 turns to produce an azi. I assumed four turns to
> produce a ship and one turn for every other production.

Aah, but you wouldn't be ordering new azi, you would be purchasing excess azi. Cyteen is always producing and programming new azi afterall.

> But in monopoly, there is no option for the players to burn each other's
> houses. My problem was the fact that fighting starships need much more
> complicated game statistics than cargo movers. You would have to worry
> wether a ship manages to intercept the other and so on.

Perhaps not in the version of monopoly *you* played as a child; however, the children's games I played were more wargame oriented. The Starchase game seems more than just a candyland knockoff. Quick review:

Players can:
1) buy and sell ships.
2) buy and sell stations.
3) buy and sell trade goods
4) do sneaky stuff

Arrg. real world calls. Later folks.

Matt
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