How I Play Starship Troopers: A description of how I play the old Avalon Hill game.
My Civ 2 page: Sid Meier's Civilization II, includes a technical tip or two and my long article on how I play it. This great game is my all-time favorite computer game. I've wasted (enjoyed) more hours playing this than I care to think about, starting with Civ1 and then Civ2. I got Civ3 for Christmas 2001 and played it a little, but haven't really gotten excited about it and that may never happen given my changed lifestyle. There's not that much room in my life right now for computer games. The graphics are nice, movement of units is much improved, and I really like the differentiated civilizations. Other changes seem more doubtful.
Tactical Risk: An "enhancement" and rewrite of Risk to provide tactical battles; also may be played as a straightforward tactical battle game without using the large Risk map. Requires use of infantry, cavalry, and cannon pieces from Risk set, and a few home-made markers. Six simple hex maps (8.5 x 11 inches) with varying terrain are provided (three in each "map" file). The rules and maps are set up as Microsoft Word documents. If you need a different format, email me and I'll try to help.
Rules (13 pages, 220K).
Maps 1. (3 hex maps, 586K)
Maps 2. (3 hex maps, 583K)
Land Grabbers is an original and very playable board game for two to four players (age 9 to adult). A board of squares, 6 x 6, represents a section of undeveloped land which the players may purchase, build on, and collect income from their developed properties. When the railroad comes to town, players have the opportunity to bribe the railroad commissioner to determine which land the railroad will purchase, at twice market value. This ends the game, and the player with the most money and property is the winner.
Luck plays a big role in this game. Interaction between players is through direct trades or sales of property, sealed-bid auctions, cards representing various "legal" means such as lawsuits, and "illegal" means such as arson. But mostly the play is all about acquiring desirable properties, obtaining building permits (sometimes by bribery), and building to collect rent. Players may also search for oil, an expensive and risky undertaking that occasionally pays off "big." The rules include playing tips to get you started.
Considerable equipment is needed, including a simple home-made playing board, Monopoly money and houses/hotels, a deck of home-made cards (print the labels file and paste labels on old playing cards), two dice, and about a hundred various markers.
The rules and accessory files are in Microsoft Word, but open very nicely in Microsoft Internet Explorer. This game is copyright 2003 by Alan Nicoll. Here are the files:
Rules (12 pages).
Action deck (2 pages, about 40 labels). Some tinkering with the format may be required to get this to print correctly on your printer and labels. Set up for 1" x 2 5/8" labels, 30 per page (Avery 5160).