(This is being posted both in New Product Ideas and in F&E Origins 2004)
I've been giving some thought to a cheap-to-produce new product to serve as an entry level F&E product that would also be useful to established players (maybe not "useful" as it would make the game slightly longer, but at least fun). The working title is "Capitol Assault". The product would include an SFB-size map (divided into 4 sections with interconnecting paths - the interconnecting paths would control movement from one rectangular area to another), some number of preexisting counter sheets (enough to set up a non-historical OB) and a slightly modified set of F&E rules.

The idea would be to use this map to fight out a capitol assault in a less abstract way than F&E does. This could be a fun standalone game (using the included OB) or could be used in place of the standard rules for a full F&E game (with the fleets you actually bring to the hex). The entire board is (obviously) contained in a single F&E battle hex and the entire game would take place in a single F&E battle. There would be jump off points for connection to/from the surrounding F&E hexes for retreats, etc.

The rules would be mostly unchanged. The following things wouldn’t be used: Strategic Movement, the economics rules (something will need to be done for drone bombardment), the repair rules (not enough time). Rules would be needed to define movement between map sections. Other than that, the rules are used as is, with a new time/distance scale.

I’m thinking of putting a set together to bring to Origins, if people think it sounds like fun and if The Powers That Be don’t object.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, January 19, 2004 - 11:47 pm: Edit

Ahem. William, your plan #3 is not legal under the copyright laws. You cannot give away copies of somebody else's property, even if you make nothing from it. The definition of copyright is the right to make copies, and income, from intellectual property. By distributing copies of our company's property, even if you make no money, you would be violating the law, violating our copyrights, violating common decency, and exposing yourself to serious financial losses and legal problems.

Let me illustrate the flaw in your theory. I make electronic copies of a novel. I give them to my friends, and I make no money. I include the copyright notice and tell my friends not to make copies. Now, let's see what just happened. First, I denied the novelist the right to make money selling those books to my friends. It doesn't matter to the court if the book is no longer in the stores; the novelist might decide to reprint it. It doesn't matter if my friends are too cheap to pony up the money for copies; they have no right to own the book if they didn't pay the fair market price. Second, I told my friends "do not do what I did" which means either "I shouldn't have done it and I know I shouldn't have done it" or it means "wink wink follow my example and rip off this novelist all you want to". Third, one of my friends (or their friends) is even less honest than I am, and (based on my example) has no respect for the property rights of the novelist. He puts the novel into an internet newsgroup, something he probably would never have done if I had not enabled his crime by giving him and easy to copy and Email version of the novel.

Get the point? You can make a copy for yourself. You cannot sell it, you cannot give it away, you cannot loan it to a friend, and you cannot leave a dozen copies on the coffee table and "wink wink" let your friends "mistake them for party favors".

Copyright violations carry civil and criminal penalties. Being on record as to your plans to steal a company's property is pretty much a "confession in advance". I have a really really good attorney who delights in cashing in such law suits, since I let him keep the fines and penalties because he has so DARN much fun twisting thieves on a rotisserie.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, January 20, 2004 - 12:00 am: Edit

Magnetic counters: I have no objection, but no time to go looking. I am sure somewhere there is some company that can do this. Somebody do the legwork and figure out how to make it happen and let me know. I remember seeing in Office Depot some "business card size magnets with peel-and-stick glue" which might work, but it would take a lot of them. Maybe there is some company that makes them in bigger sheets? We could probably sell unmounted sheets.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, January 20, 2004 - 12:02 am: Edit

F&E: Capital assault

I like it, both as an intro game and as an F&E expansion.