RSW

In the Classic and Advanced games, are there some roles that just don't work well in non-communication games? I remember thinking that some of the roles such as the Collector and Trader would be nearly impossible to play without communication, but I don't have the experience to back that up. What do you think?

I've seen people successfully play Trader in a non-comm game; Traders are valued enough that people are willing to put in the effort to work with a Trader. I don't know if anyone's played Collector successfully yet, but I expect it's possible too, though as you say, it would be a bit of a challenge.

Starweb has a fairly long tradition of so-called "anonymous" games (which is what they call this kind of non-communication game), and there you will find a community that has already worked out some of these issues in considerable detail, including suggestions for communicating your character type and intentions via in-game actions. You might be interested to browse through some of the archives at the Starweb Email Discussion Group for more.

David

I remember a time, when communication went via snail, writing postcards and drawing maps on small sheets of paper.....
Back then, you more often than not played "non-comm" - and it worked with every character.
Agreed, with some it was harder to win - that was the challenge then.

But speaking of collectors - everybody finds sooner or later an useless or point reducing artifact. So send a valuable fleet in a black hole or gift it to a collector and perhaps get something in return ? A collector reveals his char by transferring arts fleet to fleet.

Personally, I actually prefer non-comm games cause due to job+family I often don´t have the time needed/wished to invest in discussions, cooperations and negotiations.
Right now, I am trying some estimated weaker characters in non-comm/"bitter-end" games (last player in game wins) like Arms Dealer or Skip Tracer.
Works not too bad

I would love seeing some more multi-position games, but the last I created nobody showed interest in....

MiTCh

So it sounds like for best possible results, you'd want to play a non-communication game where the roles are public knowledge. That way, you could experiment with gifting an artifact to a collector, for example, and see if he gives you something in return. I'm still pretty hazy on how you could communicate your expectations to a trader, but I'll take your word for it that it's possible. Would love to hear more details. I looked through that Starweb forum, and found a few anecdotes about anonymous games, but couldn't find anything that gave me a clear notion of how to handle these characters that almost seem to demand communication.

Puzzler wrote:So it sounds like for best possible results, you'd want to play a non-communication game where the roles are public knowledge. That way, you could experiment with gifting an artifact to a collector, for example, and see if he gives you something in return. I'm still pretty hazy on how you could communicate your expectations to a trader, but I'll take your word for it that it's possible. Would love to hear more details. I looked through that Starweb forum, and found a few anecdotes about anonymous games, but couldn't find anything that gave me a clear notion of how to handle these characters that almost seem to demand communication.

nothing´s better than real life. i just started a non-comm, sign up and find out

MiTCh