Welcome

[kzucker]

I welcome you to OSG's discussion board. This project has been a long-range goal for our website. The project received some impetus from the announced changes at John Kranz's Consimworld. I still recommend Consimworld and will continue to post answers there as I have in the past. All the Company Support forums on Consimworld will be in the 'public' area and accessible to non-subscribers. I hope folks will subscribe or continue to use the non-subscription boards.

This board will also serve a purpose, with boards devoted to each title, include pre-pub titles.

If you have any comments or suggestions for this board, please post them here. Mark James, our website admin will participate. Thanks to him we now have a useful site. It is in our hands to create. I hope the conversation will be on a courteous and scholarly level. I know I will continue to learn a lot from you and that together we will throw light upon our subject.

[Davidovitch]

Hi Kevin,

The forum is looking good. I see where other companies are doing the same--moving away from consim to their own sites.

Cheers,

Dave

[Nicola]

Kevin,

the forum works fine and seems a rather good idea idea to me. Even if we'll have to check many sites now, instead of the one Consim...

A good work!

Nicola

[Dick Vohlers]

Yet another CSW diaspora site. Good luck, KZ, with the site, and if I can help, please let me know.

[mjames]

Some have expressed concern about having to visit many sites now because of recent events at CSW. I would like to hear opinions about how to make that easier with regard to OSG and CSW.

I'd like to get your opinions on how to make this forum easier to use and to have act as an accompaniment to CSW rather than a replacement.

Thanks for your input!

[kzucker]

We still need Consimworld! That site has been the #1 tool for reaching new players for our games. Maybe we will spend a little less time on Consimworld, but I agree with Mark, our board here can complement OSG's presence on Consimworld, and doesn't have to compete. It is substantially different, since it focuses on OSG exclusively, and we have here a board for each title, which is something we do not have at Consimworld.

[Lance Cresswell]

If this forum continues as I hope it does, and I like the look of it a lot, then I can foresee me no longer needed, and therefore no longer visiting, CSW. I would rather make this the one place I go to for OSG info, new and current game info, and rules questions rather than having to visit CSW for some info and then this site for other info. Things'll be easier for me with only one site to visit.

[Jim Anderson]

Hey all,

For me this is strictly a complimentary site to CSW. I will continue to haunt there throughout my workday.

Perhaps an announcement in the OSG folder with a link to a specific topic of interest can be provided by the administrators. Otherwise, I see me only checking in here very occasionally, or when I hear on CSW of a new game being published. I will still look in the Specific Game folders on CSW for the discussion first.

Jim

[kzucker]

Jim,

Roger that. What we will try and do here is to get into more detail about more projects and more of our crazy ideas than we can (or dare) to try at Consimworld.

[Darin Leviloff]

Well, at minimum, its generally acknowledged that the change to CSW will mean that it will not be the same. Many of those that frequented it will leave and some will only monitor the site. Its nice to know that the individuals lost will have a place to put forth their input and ask their questions, which will benefit even those that do pay the subscription.

Another bookmark added.

[kzucker]

Whether you are very shy, or too busy with real life, or just too jaded to post, I want to encourage you again to take advantage of your discussion board. Chime in! Pipe up! There's a new game from OSG, all the pre-ordered copies have arrived all over the world, now the ball is in your court. Kick it one time.

Did the game go directly to the shelf? Did you dig in? Did something strike you? Were you surprised at any point? So many times these discussions revolve around rules questions, but what about looking at some of the design decisions we made?

[Edgar]

Kevin, I saw a photo of the Metrowargamers: Zuckerpalooza 2003 where you used counter sleds to enhance playability (i think that's the word). Have you considered selling them with your games as a standard?

I don't know if other players have the same problem but picking up counters all the time to see which units do you have slows the game a lot. I'm desiring to start a 1809 game with my brother but Sun of Austerlitz is still in table and it will still be there because our play time is limited. With counter sleds it would have been a little quickier.

At least you could recommend the use of that accessories and where people can find them. I would buy them from you even at a little higher price (and you could even sell them with the backs of the national flags) ;)

[kzucker]

Hi Edgar,

I appreciate your thoughts on that. I hope that many people will read about the countersleds and perhaps consider ordering them. Right now you can obtain them from ...
HomerGames
sandi@homergames.com
http://homergames.com

[Edgar]

That was the web I used first, but they have none in stock. Thanks anyway..

[kzucker]

Edgar,

I will ask Sandi about the vendor of the counter sleds and will try to start to offer this item at the website. What price should we set?

This is basically a block of wood with a "V" removed at an angle, is that right?

[Edgar]

Yes, a block of wood in "chair" form (or "L").. at least that's what I've seen in the Zuckerpalooza 2003 photos

See http://store1.yimg.com/I/yhst-3353489008767_1818_11990724
And http://www.metrowargamers.com/images/event_zucker_05_closeup.jpg

If you can offer that product it would be nice to have blocks in blue, gray, red, green... colors to have nationalities in the back of the counter sleds. Better if it was the flag, as in the back (front in your series) of the counters, but I'm asking for an impossible :p

Or do as GMT's Europe Engulfed and have sticks? stickers? (the flags can be glued to the sleds) for the nationalities, so you don't have to buy for each country but buy for all and then glue the countries you want to use. The Europe Engulfed blocks were already coloured for nationalities, so the flags could be optional.

About the price... I don't know about prices, that's something you should negotiate with the vendor and have a margin of profit for your company. I don't know how much demand will be for counter sleds, but one of the good things is that some packs will serve for all your games, so we don't have to buy packs for every game and we can afford to pay at least once or twice for them.

Thanks for considering to "supply" us with this new accessory, if that is finally real I will find my gaming time even more enjoyable :)

[kzucker]

This seems like something that any woodshop could produce. But we would have to know something about the market ... how many people would be interested in having these? How many "sleds" should be included in one set?

[Edgar]

1- How are you going to know the people who are wanting or willing to buy it? You can't rely on this Forum because we are not ALL your buyers, and most of them didn't know the existence of this web. Even if some of we give you a positive answer, and you hear no one negative, that doesn't want to mean that 80-90 or 100% of your buyers want the product. I don't know how to know...

I don't see movement in this Forum, even this thread, and that doesn't mean that we have no interest in OSG, people are playing your games and buy them. As above: no way to know if "we" want the sleds. I know that "I" want the sleds.

2- Number of Sleds: 1 for every general and vedette. I think that Napoleon at Bay and Six Days of Glory are main representatives of your Series, so at least in one set there should have enough to cover every general + vedette in a map of NaB or Days. All are not going to be used, it's very difficult, but better to have more than less.

That's a lot of sleds, so you could sell the sleds in packs of countries. NaB would have 1 pack of french (blue wood) and 1 pack of Silesia+Bohemia (grey and black?). Or 1 pack of french, 1 of austrians and 1 of prussian.

Or sell "game packs". One pack of sleds for NaB, one for Days, one for Austerlitz, etc, etc..

[kzucker]

Edgar,

We have to ask the questions; don't feel that you have to answer. As a producer those are the questions I need to know. But I am willing to wait until the answer comes, so don't worry.

I assume that if one person writes something, then ten people agree with that. So if 10 people write to say they want the sleds, then we can sell 100 sets.

I was thinking of including about 30 sleds in one package. Then, with two packages you could play Highway to the Kremlin, Bonaparte in Italy, or Seven Days of 1809. For NAB, you would need three sets. I am not sure about the number- 30 or 35.

[martimer]

There may be an easier way to do this than using sleds. I made a set of stand up counters using some graphics software. Each counter consists of three squares (I used 1/2 inch to avoid map problems) with a flag in the first square, then the information then a blank, and printed them on a sheet of label paper (one label per sheet). The idea is to fold theflag to the information and then fold the blank out (to form the same 'L' shape as the sled and then attach the flag to a 1/2 inch square piece of cardboard.

It is cheap, relatively easy and stackable. You can download and try for yourself the set I made for The Emperoro Returns at (sorry for the long URL):

http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/FileSharing.woa/wa/default?user=martingallo&templatefn=FileSharing1.html&xmlfn=TKDocument.1.xml&sitefn=RootSite.xml&aff=consumer&cty=US&lang=en

I have one gaming buddy who likes to play these types of games, but he has little time for gaming (four young kids) so we never got to play any more of the series. We were lucky to get 2 hours a week to game - and then the fool moved an hour away!!

Anyway, just something to think about - it is MUCH cheaper than blocks or sleds. I did not print then at the highest quality, and the label paper is not always the best paper, but with a little more work, you could easily use photo paper and some sort of glue.

[kzucker]

Martin,

The counters are beautful. I'm downloading them now.

[martimer]

Thanks Kevin, but I am not sure that beautiful quite describes them. I tend to use words like "functional" or "identifiable" but then I guess beauty truly is in the eyes of the beholder. ;)

[Brian Laursen]

I wolud definately buy countersleds as it would be much easier to keep track of your own units.

Brian

[kzucker]

Because of a wave of spam recently we have instituted an extra step in registering for this discussion board. We will require new registrants to provide their name. We do hope this will not discourage any real grognards from joining the discussion board.