New Player Information

PBM stands for "Play By Mail". In this case the mail is electronic mail through the Internet.

Why play PBM games? They offer some things that some people have a hard time finding face to face -- good opponents, convenient playing times, and games with lots of hidden information.

How do PBM games work? Here turns normally run once a week. So once a week you get mailed a report with your turn results, from this you deceide what you want to do and mail your commands in by the following week.

We've been running games on the Net since 1996 and have completed over 900+ games. So when you start a game here, it is going to be finished.

The games are FREE and the site is run through donations only.

The games can all be played from just the reports that get mailed out, but most games also have a Window program to assist in doing turn.

You can play a training game for any of the games we run. A training game has just you in it and will run whenever you send in a turn. This gives you a chance to become familiar with the game before playing against other players.

We run only strategic war games, no RPGs, no RTSs, no Online and no Web based games. If you've played board games such as Diplomacy, Risk, Stellar Conquest, Sword of the Samurai, Third Reich or Axis and Allies, you should be able to find a game here that you like.

Each game has it's own page where you'll find the rules, GUI for doing turns, sample report, signup instructions, waiting lists and tips.

Age of Discovery uses the same rules as Global DIplomacy, but has a hidden map and up to 20 players for each game.

Empire Forge a fantasy wargame.

Empires of the Middle Sea is a game of conquest in 280 BC.

Global Diplomacy are Diplomacy variants on a map of the world with 11 players.

Imperium is a space conquest game with between 9-20 players.

Imperial Expansion is a space exploration and colonization game.

World at War is a WWII style game on a random map.

Game	Complexity	Diplomacy	Time To Do Turn	Commands Per Turn
Age of Discovery	Low	Low	10-20 min	10-30
Empire Forge	Med	Med	20-30 min	30-50
Empires of the Middle Sea	Med	Med	20-30 min	20-40
Global Diplomacy	Low	High	10-20 min	10-30
Imperium	Medium	Medium	1-2 hours	50-150
Imperial Expansion	Medium	Low	30-40 min	60-100
World at War	High	Low-Medium	1-2 hours	100-200

The FAQ should answer your most basic questions about the site. If it doesn't send me a note.

Since everything here is done via email, check out the Mailbot Commands to find out how to send in a set of commands, ask for additional reports to be sent to you, send email to other players in BLIND games, plus a bunch of other commands.

The Rules of Conduct explain what is and isn't allowed here.

Game Mentors list people who are willing to help you with question on a particular game.

While the Time Zones will show you on a map where EMG is located so you can figure out what the time is in your local when EMG runs games.

The Game Schedule page will show you when each game is running, how many days till the next turn, who is playing each position and who has handed in a turn. This page gets updated every time the mailbot runs, so once you send in a turn and the mailbot processes it, this page will indicate that your turn has been handed in.

The Dropped Positions page shows any dropped spots in currently active games. If you want to taken over one of these spots, just send me an email.

And the Game Run Log page shows you what games have been run. This page gets updated once a day.