Example Course of Play
1. George applies to join the Alliance, including in his post that he did not want any optional rules. The GM accepted George, and sent him a PM asking how many of the starting Kzin ships did he (George) want.
2. George made a bid request of 21 ships, and in his request, split his deployments up among the Kzin Fleets as follows:
DEPLOY( KZN, From Pool, 4 ships, Destination Fleet A)
DEPLOY( KZN, From Pool, 4 ships, Destination Fleet B)
DEPLOY( KZN, From Pool, 4 ships, Destination Fleet C)
DEPLOY( KZN, From Pool, 9 ships, Destination Fleet D)
Note that because this is the initial setup for a nation, no Influence bids.
3. When the Deployment deadline passed, the GM processed the player orders, updated the forum screens, and sent a PM to each player containing a model format of their first turn orders.
4. For George, the message contained:
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Turn One Orders Template
Alliance Player: George
Rank: 1
Glory: 1
Influence: 10
1. Ship Bids:
Kzin = None Available
2. Fleet Orders
Kzin Fleet D:
3. Deployments:
Departure Fleet (number of departing ships) :: Arrival Fleet
Administrative Notes
Controlled Ship Deployments
Kzin Fleets
Fleet A: 4
Fleet B: 4
Fleet C: 4
Fleet D: 9
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5. George noted that there were no ships available for bid (GM allocated all), that he had control of one Kzin Fleet, and that the template indicated the locations of all of his ships.
6. Next George looked at the game map on the forum page.
(Portion shown below, with an addendum of the horizontal coordinates.)
7. He saw the total ship strengths for each fleet, both Alliance and Coalition.
George noted that the fleet he currently commanded had a total of sixteen ships, and that the nearest Coalition Fleet had 23.
If George was curious, he could look on the Fleet Composition Table and see which player had their ships allocated where.
Useful information, but probably not immediately game changing.
George did care that his nine ships in D Fleet outnumbered the remaining ships there by only two, so he made a mental promise to move some of his other ships from their current locations to fill up D Fleet.
Now for the Fleet orders.
George could communicate with the other players on his side, working out a strategy and a coordinated course of action for their fleets.
That takes time though, and George is not interested in devoting that much time to the game.
He is interested in grabbing more land for the Hegemony (bigger general economy, and more Influence for him), meeting the enemy and smashing their fleets.
So he sets his sights on that mission.
Looking at the map, D Fleet has four provinces available for acquisition; C5, and the four column of A thru C rows.
C5 is a safe bet, no enemy can currently attack it.
As for the others, that is more iffy.
They can all be reached by Lyran Fleet A (and even Lyran B Fleet could send ships, though the range attrition would be large), and if Sally (Lyran Fleet A Commander) also tries for all those provinces, almost eight enemy ships would be in each province.
But would the Lyran’s split up like that?
If they did, and George concentrated on just one of those provinces, there could be a lot of drifting Lyran ship debris from that battle.
Possibilities, combinations of chance, opportunities to win and lose.
George does not want to spend an eternity running the permutations.
He thinks for a moment, then decides to go for broke.
8. He writes in the Orders section of his response:
2. Fleet Orders
ATTACK( KZIN, Fleet D, Targets A4, B4, C4, D5)
George feels that he will lose some ships from the upcoming battles, so he instructs a redeployment of some of his forces from the other fleets. In the Deployments section he writes:
3. Deployments:
DEPLOY( KZIN, From Fleet A, 1 ship, Destination Fleet D)
DEPLOY( KZIN, From Fleet B, 1 ship, Destination Fleet D)
DEPLOY( KZIN, From Fleet C, 1 ship, Destination Fleet D)
9. Satisfied, George sends these instructions to the GM via PM, then moves on to other pursuits.
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10. Within six hours of the deadline for orders for turn one, George receives a PM from the GM:
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Turn Two Orders Template
Alliance Player: George
Rank: 3
Glory: 1
Influence: 28
1. Ship Bids:
Kzin = 5 ships in Muster Pool
Hydran = 47 ships in Muster Pool
*** NOTE *** The Hydrans enter the game on turn THREE. This entry is just for fleet deployments. Do NOT bid Influence for the Hydran ships, just list the number of them you wish to control.
2. Fleet Orders
Kzin Fleet D:
3. Deployments:
Departure Fleet (number of departing ships) :: Arrival Fleet
Administrative Notes
Controlled Ship Deployments
Kzin Fleets
Fleet A: 3
Fleet B: 1
Fleet C: 3
Fleet D: 9
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11. Wow. Things have changed.
George’s rank dropped, his Glory remained unchanged, and his Influence rocketed.
There are now Kzin ships in the Muster Pool available for bidding, along with a mess of Hydrans for the next turn.
George still has control of D Fleet, even though his total number of ships has dropped.
12. At this point, George takes a look at the forum, and the first thing he views is the new map:
13. It looks like both nations expanded their borders, grabing new systems, and lost some ships in the process.
14. Since George retains control of D Fleet, he takes a look at the Fleet Composition display to see how firm his dominance of the reduced force is:
15. George also took a look at the Glory and Influence table to make sure that while he was way behind in Glory, he was packing in the Influence needed to win the ship bidding competitions.
16. When moving to the forum, he checked the update posts, and one from the GM displayed the moves of the players leading up to the battles on turn one.
George paid attention to what happened in the neighborhood of his only fleet:
17. Out of curiousity, George took a look at the details of the battles involving his fleet. Shown below is the one for province B4:
), so I should be able to 
