~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | Fine Games for Players & Collectors | | now located at: 2078 Madrona St., North Bend, OR 97459-2143 USA | ~~~~~~~~ 541-756-4711 866-690-7879 M.Dean@FineGames.com ~~~~ Update #5 21 Nov. '95 WELCOME once again to another Fine Games electronic newsletter.These updates contain news and other info of interest to active board gamers and collectors. They also explain how you can download copies of any of the many Fine Games' catalogs at your convenience. C O N T E N T S Thanksgiving ............. Best wishes to all! Fine Games NEWS .......... What's going on at Fine Games - FTP Site Updated 11/16 - Clearance '95 & New Game List - WYSIWYG Viewing via Envoy 1.0 - Mega PARTS Available - More Games, Less Delay - Does it pay to DISCOVER? Christmas SHIPPING ....... SHIP BY ~11 DEC to Arrive for XMas NEW Games ................ Newly released games - Europa Universalis ! PENDING RELEASED ......... Games to be released shortly Games GOING Out-of-Print.. Games GOING or GONE Out of Print CARD Games ............... How to Order Your SUGGESTIONS ......... Suggested Improvements Welcomed F I N E G A M E S N E W S The Fine Games FTP site was completely updated by Friday, 17 Nov. Take a peek. The 1995 Clearance List of 503 titles is in the /special/ directory. Additional directories were added, and a new form of catalog viewing is now in beta testing (see WYSIWYG Viewing, below). An updated listing of NEW games is also available (by Era & by publisher); see files New_Gms.txt & New_Gms1.txt. WYSIWYG CATALOG VIEWING! I am beta testing the use of a software tool called Envoy (by WordPerfect) that allows you to view, annotate and print fully formatted, graphical pages. This allows communication of more info in a much more readable format in a smaller space without requiring unacceptably large file sizes. Those using either a Windows or MAC PC can take advantage of this. Full instructions will follow in December after I'm satisfied that the product works as it should. Testing thus far has been mixed with more problems than expected. I'm also surprised how satisfied many of you are with simple formatted ASCII. Delaying widespread use will give me time to provide some documentation for you to use. In the meantime, if you feel adventurous, you're free to, first, download & install the appropriate reader, then read any of several *.EVY data files available on the FTP site: * Military Book Catalog * Clearance Sale '95 Catalog * Magazine-Only Availability & Price List * New Games Catalog * Master Used/Out-of-Print Catalog * Parts Catalog In particular, experiment with the annotation feature to read my notes to you, or add your own notes; the highlighting feature to hightlight those items you're most interested in; and the GO TO BOOKMARK feature to quickly jump to the places I've indexed for you. I've picked up a full box worth of game PARTS in the form of mint cover sheets to 3 SPI games, and unpunched but usually incomplete counter sets for many SPI games. Check out the Parts catalog for more info. In November, Fine Games established relationships with two additional distributors. By doing so, I'm looking to assure that I can find most any inprint game you can name in just a few weeks time. Lastly, for you greater convenience, I hope to add the Novus credit card line (Discover & Bravo) to those accepted. This may still be a week or two away but is certain. These cards will be accepted under the same terms at Visa/MC (and its use disallows the implicit cash discount.) C H R I S T M A S S H I P P I N G Plan to have games shipped to you by about 11 Dec. for delivery by Christmas. Lighter shipments (5# or less) sent by priority mail may be Ok until about the 15th. Some of you are blessed with relatives and significant-others willing to give you games as gifts. I'd be happy to help them get you just the right game for the holidays. Just pass along my 800# above, and I'll do everything I can to them give the gift of games! N E W G A M E S Here's the list of new items to date (see also Card Games, below): CofA Valmey to Waterlo [miniatures rules] $30.80 ? AH Machiavelli, 2nd $24.50 Rerelease of the off-beat classic that soups up Diplomacy w/armies & economics. Greatly improved map, plus simplified rules. Should add new life to the Dip circles around the country. Machiavelli CD-ROM (DOS) $20.00 Can't beat the price if the software is any good all... Advanced Civilization PC (DOS & MAC) $49.00 Finally, the long-awaited computer version of AH's Civ. 5th Fleet Scenario Disk n/a Its out, but I probably can't get it. You'd be better off in any case getting it direct from AH for $20. Gamers Leros: Island Prize $30.10 '43 Axis para & amphibious capture of eastern Med island from Brits using Tac system. Great fun. Stramge Material World $26.60 Magic Another game of the age of exploration, and by a brand new company. Don't know anything else about this one. AWE Europa Universalis $55.00 This is the MOST BEAUTIFUL GAME I've ever seen. But, since its made in France, I couldn't get if for resale. Until now. The subject is 300 years of exploration, explotation & warfare in both the New World & Olde. For up to 6 players. (An expansion kit is currently out of print & due back next summer.) (S T I L L ) P E N D I N G R E L E A S E S The following games should be released by the end of soon -- but don't hold your breath for any one date! Esp. for AH titles. AH Wooden Ships & Iron Men PC $49.00 due 12/95 THIS sounds like great fun! Global Survival $24.50 due 1/96 Maybe in January, maybe never... World economic competition. Blackbeard PC $42.00 due 4/96 Avalance Blood on the Snow $14.70 due 11/95 ? Red Parachutes: Kanev '43 $26.60 due 11/95 ? SMS Goeben $26.60 due 11/95 ? CofA King's War $25.20 due 11/95 Napoleon @ Leipzip, 2nd $28.00 due 12/95 Supermarina $35.00 due 11/95 Command at Sea goes to the Mediterranian during WW2. Zorndorf $30.80 due 12/95 COLUMBIA West Front, 2nd $42.00 due 12/95 Rules available separately. Eagles: Waterloo $6.30/dk due 11/95 Card game similar to Dixie on the battle of Waterloo. DEC Star Trek Limited Decks & Boosters Call due 1/96 ?? DECISION GAMES Germania #195 $11.90 due 11/95 '45: Scottish Revolt $21.00 due 11/95 Emperor's First Battles $21.00 due 12/95 Lords of the Sierra Madre, 2nd $35 due 11/95 GMT Glory $25.20 due 12/95 Invasion: Norway $25.20 due 12/95 GRD War in the Desert (Torch,Desert War) $57.40 due 1/96? First to Fight, 2nd $35 due 12/95 PAC RIM Road to Berlin $42.00 due this century SPEARHEAD Kiev '43 $24.50 due 12/95 XENO Hail! Caesar! $28.00 due 12/95 XTR Mason-Dixon #35 $22.40 ? due 12/95 G A M E S G O I N G O U T - O F - P R I N T The first 2 ASL Annuals, the '89 & '90, and more or less been out of print for some time. I obtained a small supply recently and only a handful of '90s remain at this writing Decision Games Franco-Prussian War #149 is now out of print. Several other S&T mag issues are low, too. Tho long out of print, I've located a cache of Engelmann Military Simulations' Crisis: Columbia and Shattered States. Price is $10.50 & $24.50, respectively. One of the Gamers' workhorses is out of print--again. Thunder at the Crossroads, 2nd is gone. No indication whether or when they'll reprint. GMT's 1863, Crisis: Korea, SPQR, and the SPQR kit Consule of Rome are now out of print. Phyrric Victory is headed below the water, too. The book, Wargame Collector's Guide, 2nd, is itself nearly out of print. I have no remaining copies. Commands #22 (Antietam), #20 (Cortes), #19 (Port Arthur), and #23 (Shogun) are headed towards being out of print. XTR is about to release a game-only reprint of its Proud Monster; about 250 copies will be available direct from XTR only. C A R D G A M E S My latest NEW game catalogs (New_Gms.txt & New_Gms1.txt) on my FTP site now include a listing of the available Magic, Star Wars and Star Trek card games. Few are available as stock items. Most can be obtained within 2-4 weeks with a prepaid order. For example, Star Trek Unlimited, decks & boosters, available NOW Star Wars Limited, decks & boosters, avail Dec-Jan ?? Echelons of Fury / Fire, decks/boosters of both avail NOW Magic 4th ed, decks & boosters, due late Nov. Ice Age, decks & boosters, due late Nov. Homelands, boosters, ORDER NOW or forget it Please contact me if you're interested in purchasing BOX quantities of any of these collectable card games. F T P S I T E An ever wider variety of catalogs is available to you online at my FTP site. Look for the "_readme.txt" file at the following address: ftp.FineGames.com/pub/vendors/finegms/ In particular, you may wish to download the "all_cats.zip" file (450k) which contains a copy of ALL my catalogs. Also, if you haven't noticed it, there are specialized catalogs that list (1) only newly-listed used/out-of-print games, (2) family & sports games, (3) solitaire games, (4) mulitiplayer games, and (5) games sorted by publisher (rather than historical era). F T P Q U E S T I O N S & A N S W E R S I'm happy to attempt to solve FTP-related problems. But keep these points in mind especially when using any text-based FTP tools: * If your FTP program looses its connection prematurely, try setting your program's time-out threshold to at least 60 seconds. Or try contacting the site at times OTHER THAN evening hours PST. * My FTP site, like most, is CASE SENSITIVE. Use lower case letters unless a directory listing shows the use of upper case letters. * Most FTP sites use a FORWARD slash ("/") rather than the backslash ("\") that DOS users are familiar with in path statements. * Signon via Anonymous FTP. That is, signon with an account name of "anonymous" and a password which is your actual, complete email address. * Use a BINARY TRANSFER mode when copying ZIPped files of any sort. You can use BINARY or ASCII transfers with TXT (text) files. * You must use the current version of PKZIP to UNZIP compressed files. The current version is 2.04g. Earlier versions probably won't work. U S I N G A W W W B R O W S E R WWW BROWSERS such as NetScape can access these files using the path given above. Just enter the URL "ftp://ftp.FineGames.com/pub/vendors/finegms/". This will provide a menu of of available files. Point to any TEXT (.txt) file to read it. Or use your browswer's LOAD TO DISK option to download any file to your hard disk directly. Y O U R S U G G E S T I O N S YOUR SUGGESTIONS that help me improve the service I provide to you via this Update or in any other way are greatly appreciated.