John's 18XX Site -- MainLine Section
Fourtrack Mainline
A traditional postal style 18xx game service where all communication is by e-mail.
It all began when I took over running a game of 1856 using e-mail to receive the players' orders and send out the results. I've also been posting the results on a web page. It was, from my point of view, a test as to the ease and feasibility of the concept. Adjudication was by means of Rob Thomasson's program which did all the hard work including production of an HTML page for the web. Deadlines were Mondays and I usually managed to get the results out that evening. You can see the most recent results by going to the individual games via the generic game name in the left panel
and then the game name from the top menu.
The whole thing was a success and I've now widened the net, if you'll excuse the phrase, and I'm intending to run more games.
I used to manage to donate part of an evening a week to do the adjudication so could run three games with a deadline every three weeks or four games with a deadline every four weeks. As I'm using Rob's program I'm limited to the games that it supports 1829S, 1829N, 1830, 1835, 1856, 1870 & 18EU. Since I retired I have rethought the schedule and am now running all games to a common deadline, which will normally be four weeks apart. I am aiming to get the results out within a week, but if this doesn't happen subsequent deadlines will go back so that the players will have a minimum of three weeks to consider the situation before the next deadline arrives.
To take part you need to have e-mail facilities either at home or at work. There is no charge for taking part in a game. The results will be sent out as a bulk e-mailing to all the players in the games with an attachment, a zip file containg pdfs of the results and maps. The results will also be posted on the web site. Your e-mail address will be known to all the other players in your game, but will not be placed on the web page. Correspondence between players is permitted and, even if the specific game rules state otherwise, all player and company monies will be public knowledge.
If you are interested or want further info send me an e-mail using the icon on the bottom left.
If you use a spam trapping organisation to vet your incoming e-mail then ensure that I am on the list of approved senders or else you won't get the messages from me. Also ensure that the other players in the game are approved senders.
If I get overwhelmed with responses, it hasn't happened yet, then I will need to ration how many games a single player is in so if you wish to play in more than one please put in a preference list else I'll do it for you.
John Shelley
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