baudot

I've been exploring games for most of my life now, that being a little over 20 years of exploration. I've tried all kinds and I have many favorites, but one that I've found continually rewarding is Star Fleet Battles.

It's a tabletop/board game, usually for 2 players. It's a tactical simulation of original series Star Trek ship to ship combat. One game of it takes on average 2 hours to complete, and you spend most of that time thinking - mostly trying to figure out what it is that your opponent has in mind. I'm a recent arrival to the game, having just started playing it a few years back. One of the neat things about it is that makes me quite the young'un. There are people who have been playing this game since the mid-sixties and who still haven't plumbed the depths of it.

On the downside, most people don't like the game. The rules are complex and written legalistically. Almost everyone learns the game by oral tradition, because the manuals are more than a little intimidating.

So, any other StarFleet players in the TFP community? If you've played the PC game StarFleet Command, you're played a realtime conversion of the boardgame. The overall effect is nothing alike, however.