Post
by Hannibal » Wed Jan 18, 2006 3:52 am
T'es Francais, toi? Tu n'en as pas l'air ..... Ton anglais .....
Anyway, to answer your question (since I happen to be here):
At one point I kinda thought that maybe new players should be able to join in unaligned, no clan. But I changed my mind. You see, you might be an exception (brilliant at rules and consequences), but most new arrivals have little idea of what to actually do in the first few turns to survive and prosper, so can easily get ripped and lose heart and never play again. Caster had to ask whether the rules meant you could attack a second province with the armies that took the first province ..... You can, but my point is that he hadn't found that very clear in the rules (and he is bright), and so he had to ask someone ....basics like that, never mind the subtler points!
So, there's a general consensus (which you'll only agree with afterwards!), that a new arrival needs someone to ask advice from; not to tell you what orders to put in, but explanation of rules and your options to choose between.
That's for US as much as for you! We want you to do OK in your first game, not get creamed by wildly getting the tactics wrong .... cos we want new players to enjoy it and re-play, right?
So, ideally, you should have a "mentor" to advise you a bit. Maybe you could be clanless, but have a mentor? Unfortunately that might not work ..... your mentor would be in a clan perhaps other than yours, so might find it hard to be objective and say you prob should smash X, a clanmate of your mentor .....
So, you're best chance of having a decent mentor to explain, help and enthuse you, is to have a mentor who is in the same clan as you. So join a clan and get a mentor. Accept whichever clan offers that help, preferably from an individual who'll even look at your TR's (Turn Reports) and advise you a bit, with options.
Don't worry that you'd be more engaged and less free to quit if you were in a clan. At least half of newbies go AWOL, never to be seen again .... arguably because they are lost about the rules; so, if you join a clan, you are more likely to do OK in your first game, more likely to enjoy it, more likely to stay; and we gain by you being a better player and more likely to stay. We'll take the risk that you don't like it and leave .... but that's not really any worse to us if you're IN a clan rather than if you're not ....
Look out for clan offers, or apply to one. Join any Standard game. And enjoy.
May The Dice Be With You.
Han
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han
"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to
