Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 21:27:10 -0800 From: "Ted Kim (Random Dude)" Subject: FOX CON (another report) Message-Id: <199701220527.GAA17548@listserv.uni-c.dk> The first FOX CON was held at the Wyndham LAX hotel on 17-19 Jan 97. Overall attendance was about 35, though 15-20 were probably there at any one moment. Chris Cummins said it would be a while before the exact numbers were in, but on the whole he was encouraged enough to think about runing FOX CON 2 in Nov 97. At the con, his Desert Fox Games company was selling new games and mags. Everything was list price, but by using the $10 coupon given to attendees or going for the buy 2 get 1 free deal you could do okay. For November, they were considering adding an auction. Various Decision Games personalities showed up along with some of the usual LA area suspects: Chris Cummins, Alan Emrich, Hank Meyer, Joe Miranda. As others have mentioned, future Decision products were shown off including games on Korea, '48 Arab-Israeli War, DESERT FOX DELUXE, COMPUTER WAR IN EUROPE. Joe Miranda showed me some maps for STORM OF STEEL (strategic WWI) and his Crimean War game. There was a hardcore group of ETO players who played through the whole convention. Alan was showing off TOTALER KRIEG!. Joe Miranda demoed various projects of his. The Justin Thyme folks ran some events including MIGHTY FORTRESS, GETTYSBURG and PANZERBLITZ. Tracy also made some CONSIM labels for our badges! On Friday night and into Saturday, I played STALINGRAD POCKET II. Alan Bell and I played the Soviets. Danny Holte and Wray (forgot his last name) took the Axis. We used Dean's historical setup to speed the start of the game. Danny and I squared off in the northern half of the board. After a Romanian corps or two evaporated, my attack went deeper to the west than history, and I nearly gave Danny a heart attack when I got over the Chir river. However, he did manage to keep reforming a line, even though it looked like collapse was imminent every turn. It's not clear if having Chris Cummins 6.5 year old son roll the dice helped or not. In the south, Wray was seduced by the powerful German mobile units into attacking. Unfortunately, the Romanians were being ripped to shreds by Alan and German forces were not being shifted to cover. Thus, Alan formed the pocket by himself, but with very large forces within. Only scratch forces stood between the Chir/Aksai river line and the Soviet spearheads. On the other hand, perhaps the pocket could have broken out, instead of waiting to be rescued. Eventually, we called the game about half way through to try other things. Overall, I like the system even with the "OCS lite" features which some SCS purists have complained about. The asymetrical turn sequence, exploit/reserve system and determined action markers add some interesting twists. Apparently, our game attracted enough attention for another pair to buy a copy and start playing. On Saturday and Sunday, Chris and Mike White joined us for KRIEG!. We didn't get that far, but I think the "first timers" got a reasonable look at how it works. I would have liked to have seen if my advice to play the Manchurian Settlement was wise for the Soviets. Later Sunday, the White brothers, Chris Cumins, Danny Holte, myself and Tony Zalewski played LORDS OF THE SIERRA MADRE. This is a game about the frontier area along the Mexican border in the 1888-1917 period. Each player takes the role of a wealthy businessman using legitimate and not-so-legitimate means to develop business "opportunities". The game is loaded to the gills with historical flavor. Danny, Tony and I started close to the border with the other players far to the south in Mexico. Early on, Danny and I got into a little conflict about him buying the railroad in front of my ranch. (Tony had done the same to Danny.) I had the Wild Bunch burn Danny's ranch and eventually got the railroad when the bank loans got to be too much. However, he used various ploys to add to my financial pains in order to exact a fitting price for my misdeeds. My banditry triggered an arms race and every available military/police unit was bought off as protection. (These had to be repurchased after Halley's Comet caused some panic.) Danny's casino gave him a steady income, but the real money makers (mines and smelters) were slow to show up in the game. When they finally showed up, there were well developed ranches and an extensive railway network already in place. (The rail construction was helped by extensive subsidies from the Mexican government.) For a while, bandits tried to buy guns with various military units chasing them around (sometimes in fights staged by Chris White). Tony bought up a newspaper fueling speculation that he might have political aspirations. A few revolutionaries were bought up to forment future trouble. Some of us put puppets into the election for the governor of Sonora, but gold behind the status quo incumbent carried the election. South of the border, the White brothers and Chris Cummins set up little empires, protected by various combinations of Mexican troops. Chris Cummins and Mike White in a joint venture were finally poised to get the first operational mine with Tony (later Jim Jones) as developer of the first smelter. I attempted to extort some money from Jim Jones by threatening his smelter with some lawyers. Jim didn't take kindly to this and a proxy fight ensued. I ended up with the smelter, but I also had to take over development costs. (Next time I will extort closer to project completion!) Mine profits eventually started to roll in. Mine production was aided by my professor's Copper refining invention in exchange for promises not to use Mexican forces to "tax" my smelter. The ore took a circuitous route to get to the smelter cutting in the proper railroad owners. The mine owners and I also bought the Mexican Secret Service to protect our operation from further lawyering. When the game was called due to time, Chris Cummins was busy building his own smelter to cut me out of the money. Danny's mine was about to come on line with my second smelter as a potential partner for that operation. Wray and his wife came to watch our wheeling and dealing late in the game after their game of SETTLERS OF CATAN. Overall, I really enjoyed the historical flavor of the game as well as the wheeling and dealing. The game can be quite long, but with experience (most players were newbies), the early rounds can go much faster. I am looking forward to playing again. Overall, it was a fun time. -ted Ted H. Kim Email: tek@ficus.cs.ucla.edu UCLA Computer Science Dept. WWW: http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/tek 3564F Boelter Hall Phone: (310) 825-7307 Los Angeles, CA 90095 FAX: (310) 825-2273