Hosting Galaxy G in Windows 95 (freeware)
 Pegasus Mail REQUIRED (unless you have a reliable COMMANDLINE mailer)

http://www.lochnet.com/49845/rec/games/pbm/galaxyg.htm
rko@industry.net
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*WARNING*  Hosting Galaxy is NOT for the weak of heart or stomach, or
           GUI oriented brain cell.  The program can handle mistakes
           from player's orders pretty well, but when players are the
           ones who pay for the mistakes, people can get discouraged
           from playing and even angry.

           You MUST manually scan through players' orders to make sure
           the player knows what he's doing.

           Check: Does the player have the proper gameName, playerName,
                  and password??? (this happens often).  Does every
                  player end their orders with #END?

#GALAXY gamename playername [password]
#END

                  A lot of players mistype the gamename, or enter the
                  WRONG password (or none at all after they set one)
                  Something like this will cause the program to skip the
                  entire orders for a particular player.   The player
                  then will gripe the next turn.

          Email:  Your email account must be fast and reliable.  A lot
                  of people try to send orders at the last minute.

          Double check:   View the reports to your satisfaction BEFORE
                  you mail them out.  Look for a player that has a whole
                  list of mistakes in their orders.  Maybe their email
                  server was slow.   Double check and use your best
                  judgement whether to use their orders or not.  You can
                  ALWAYS rerun the turn before you mail reports out.

BACKUP your game turn data!   Nothing would ruin a game faster than having
accidently deleted the last actual completed turn, and telling players that
you lost yesterdays, last week, or a whole months worth of game playing.

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Operation:
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Install a version of Pegasus Mail.  Make sure your internet connection
can handle 32bit if you download the 32bit version.  You can download
the 16bit Pegasus Mail version at: http://www.pegasus.usa.com/

Galaxy needs to be run inside a DOS window box, in the same directory
galaxy is located. (set the directorty properly before running galaxy)

Create Game:
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First you need to edit the players text file.  It is simply a list of
email addresses or stub addresses for as many positions/players you
want in the game.  One email address per line.  (See PLAYERS.TXT)

After that, READ CREATE.TXT and run GALAXY.  Enter: '?' to see the
options.  'c' and 'g' are the only ones you need.

Enter: 'c', and answer the questions.  A 'typical' map allows 15-
20x20 square light years per player, and about 7-15 planets each player.
This is arbitrary now.

Players are NOT supposed to receive TURN 0 REPORTS.  Examine the total
startup for all nations, the map, and make sure you're happy with it.
Reports are stored in REPORTS/gameName or NREPORTS/gameName.  Simply
run a turn with no orders to get to TURN 1.  (see below and "game.bat")

*NOTE: 'Judge' is YOUR information.  The judge is a special report that
contains almost all the information about anything in the galaxy.

Game handling:
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In Pegasus mail, CREATE a filter with two commands:
(Tools; Mail filtering rules; Create/edit general rule set --
 new; [enter long name for item] <org.galaxy.sample.do.new-orders>;
                                                  (See: step1.gif)
 OPEN the filtering rule set you just named
 ADD RULE - (see: step2.gif)
    In these headers - SUBJECT
    Trigger text - <gameName>
    Action to take - APPEND to <orderFile>
 ADD RULE - (see: step3.gif)
    In these headers - SUBJECT
    Trigger text - <gameName>
    Action to take - MOVE to <select a folder>

When you click OK, compare your results with step4.gif

* In DOS or some file manager, delete the last turn's <orderFile>

* Reverse sort the date in your newmail folder
  (Folder; Sort by reverse date)

* APPLY the filter you just made.
  (Tools; Mail filtering rules; Apply general rule set to filter)

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Outside of Pegasus Mail:
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GALAXY.EXE -f <orderFile> -g <gameName1> <gameName2> <etc>

Edit the file "motd.txt" if you want to.  (opening message)

Observe GAMESAMP.BAT & GAME.BAT

Edit the batch file (game.bat) to suit your gameName and orderFile in the
parameters.

To handle RERUNNING turns, you can delete the data file of the turn you
need to redo in directory "/DATA/gameName/".   Next turn's data files are
created and saved AFTER ALL the reports are completely generated for each
game.  Data files are nothing but a mass of text.  You can edit it with a
text editor, but be careful and backup your data.

EXIT PEGASUS MAIL COMPLETELY.  CLOSE THE PROGRAM.

Look at and run the batch file "SENDREP.BAT"
(Pegasus will queue all the messages in offline mode)

LOAD PEGASUS when done and SEND all your queued mail.
(Total mail for a 30 player game with 400 planets estimated at around
1 MB upload per turn.  A small game I'm running with 8 players and 100
planets only has 120k to upload per turn at turn 27)

That's all there is to it.  If you have questions about hosting a game,
especially in Windows 95, send email to:
rko@industry.net   Subject: (Galaxy G)