Mostly, I'll give you opportunity to get a few tools written in C (and directly use those written in javascript), and you can have a look in what games I've played so far, and some other stuff. If you want to know more about the game, follow the link on the bottom on this page.

What is (Blind) Galaxy

Galaxy is a play by email game. Several player start in one galaxy, develop their race, and work toward the goal of being the only occupant left in the end. If you like building up your economy and technology, designing your own spacecrafts, using your tactical skill to win wars and talking to the rules of the other empires (without knowing who the real person behind it is), then you should give it a try.

Mapping the Galaxy

This program is used to create something to be inserted to the file planeten.owner: cm.c
It extracts your settled systems and the "Uninhabited Systems" from your turn report.

This is the map program itself: map.c. It reads a planeten.owner file, which has to have the following format: Outputs of cm, and 1000 \ as the last planet. It also needs a file called all_planets, with the following format:

0	44.44	-33.62
1	103.51	-4.93
2	57.46	33.47

etc. - it is planet number, followed by the coordinates, sorted. A program exists which does a postscript output, where you can chose a color for different races and put comments to each system, but I cannot put it here, since the author only will give it away personally. ;-)
However, if you want it, I can pass on a request.

Designing Ships

This is supposed to help designing ships: ship.c (Set the variables float drivetech; weapontech; shieldtech and cargotech before compiling or use the setenv as shown at the beginning of the file). It produces an output like this:

Firepower: 1.00 * 5.00
Mass 4.00 - Speed 25.00 (or 19.61) Cargo 1.10
Shields: 9.79 (Safe 2.45, doomed 39.15)
The same while loaded:
Shields: 9.03 (Safe 2.26, doomed 36.10)
# 24.75 Suggested mass: 4.30 or 4.12 or 3.96

(Example ship is 1 1 1 1 1, with drive 5, shields 5, weapons 5 and cargo 1 as tech levels)

or

Mass 20.00 - Speed 10.00 (or 5.00) Cargo 20.00
# 4.95 Suggested mass: 33.00 or 24.75 or 19.80

(Example ship is 10 0 0 0 10, with 1 as tech levels for everything)

If you'd like to experiment, you can try your luck with the old java script version or the new java script version of this ship designer. Be warned, this is just a test (but it seems to work ok).

If you want to know how much ship mass you can build on a system (especially while upgrading other ships there in the same turn) or want to calculate upgrade costs, take a look at my (java script) ship mass calculatior.

Misc

If you need help with those programs, just mail me.

I also wrote a few more tools in awk and perl, for example one that prints out battles with winners in a very short form, or tells you how much our opponents know about your tech levels, but they all rely on a certain set of options, so I will not put them here.

Games I Played

So far, I have played

• 'IceDwarves' in blind game Mars (where I had to abandon my empire near the end),
• 'Sharic' in Scythe (where I was a smaller member of the winning three-races-alliance, see Blind Galaxy Hall of Fame),
• 'Sylvan' in Hermes (also three races alliance win, here I was in the middle),
• 'Wolf' in Nike (last race to die),
• 'Cartel' in Crimson (where I took over the race Cartel during the early game and survived until the end),
• 'Sushi/Sush' in Hercules (as a replacement, the original player dropped out),
• 'Cinnoids' in Athena (at least I was still alive when the winner was declard),
• 'Confused' in Andromeda (I won that one),
• in Pegasus
• in Cepheus
• in Cassiopeia
• in Cetus
• in Ash (Blind Galaxy Quest Game)
• Part of The Force in Prometheus (The Force was three players for one race, it won't happen again (I think), but was lots of fun)
• 'Frozen' in Auriga
• 'BzrcXcrzB' in Eris
• 'Thrapdrians' in Triangulum
• Nation_3 in Cash (Blind Galaxy Quest Game)
• Cheetah in Dash (Blind Galaxy Quest Game)
• aquatic in Libra
• Mouse, later Orphans, in Ceres (Blind Galaxy test game where ships could be loaded into transports)
• Mingin in Capricorn (Cluster Game)
• Iron_Empire in Sagittarius
• Abc in Virgo
• Zerg in Scorpio (weird game where all systems filled up with colonists completely the first time they were colonized)
• Lions in Leo
• Mutant_Donkeys in Pallas (Cluster Game)
• Centipedes in Juno (won because riteo lost network connection, so no sense of victory here)

I have to admit that I also started playing Galaxy NG and played a few games of that (Slowgame, Globe, Slowgame2, Star3, Conqueror, Slowgame3, HighDensity1, Crankitup, BigCarnage, TinyPlanets, Conqueror2). I stopped playing in the NG variant.

I also played in the Explorer Team Game 'Earth'.

My Style to Play Blind Galaxy

When I play, I try to develop my population and my technology. To get the population as high as possible, I try to avoid ever stockpiling COL. I invest a lot into techs research. While I neglect to build as many ships as others do, after a time the high techs pay off and my few small ships are as good as large ships of less technologically advanced empires. I enjoy talking to the rulers of the other empires. Everything else (What to build first? Start out with war, guard, or peace setting to unknown races? Try to go to war early or be nice and peaceful?) is subject to change.

So far, the only variant I have played is the Blind Galaxy Variant, so I am used to not knowing how well other empires are developed from the status line - and to finding it out.

Some Calculations

A few calculations concerning Blind Galaxy production and development.

Where to Go (Recommended Links, Newsgroup and Mailing Lists)

If you want to start playing, watch the newsgroup rec.games.pbm for announcements of new games. (I didn't do that in a long time, no idea if they are still posted there).

You can also write an email to who is one of two active Blind Galaxy GMs at the moment.
Bernhard's BlindGalaxy Webpage

Also, I can recommend to you a good Galaxy page, Howard Bampton's. This is the place to look for everything about Blind Galaxy!