SPIRAL ARM
Science Fiction Strategy Game
Home | Play-By-Mail | Troll Quest | News | About Us

INTRODUCTION
Spiral Arm is a play-by-mail strategy game of space exploration, diplomacy and tactics. You start with a single fully developed star, a small fleet of warships and a map showing all 650+ stars in the game. From there, you expand your empire until you contact other players, build star ships, colonize new stars, and make (and break) alliances in order to achieve an alliance victory.

(Click to download full size wallpaper)

GAME MECHANICS

Moving your ships

There are several ways to move your ships between stars. The most important is via hyperspace portals (HSP), which link pairs of stars together. It takes only a single turn to travel to the linked star. The position of HSPs are fixed at the start of the game, but they can be changed later in the game. Another form of movement is via deep space movement, which is slower but does not require an HSP.

Home Space Movement

The most common forms of movement are home space movement and allied space movement. These enable you to place your fleet at any star owned by you (or one of your allies) at the start of the turn. The only restriction on this is that ships can only move within a cluster of stars that are connected by HSPs at the start of the turn.

Colonisation

As you expand, you capture unowned stars and establish colonies at selected stars, using transport ships. These colonies must be built up with industry and more transports, and protected. They will not produce much income when first started, but they will eventually start producing additional income and transports to enable you to build more colonies and expand your fleet.

Diplomacy

Within the first few turns you can expect to meet other empires' ships. This is where diplomacy becomes important. You should contact the other players, negotiate borders and try to form an alliance with one of your neighbours. The benefits of alliances include extra income from trade, the ability to combine fleets in defense or attack, and increased diplomatic influence.

Technology

Once you have everything else running smoothly, it might be time to think about technological development. Technology increases are expensive, but deliver many benefits, including increasing the combat strength of your fleet, faster deep space movement, the ability to have up to 4 allies, remote probes, and special abilities.

Winning

The objective of the game is to have an industrial capacity of at least %40 of the total in the game, among yourself and your allies. This will not be attained without capturing stars from other empires and defeating their fleets. The decision on which empire to attack (and when and how) will be critical to your success.

 RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS

Racial characteristics are set at the beginning of the game and cannot be changed later. They will have an effect throughout the game, and so should be chosen with some care. They are Government, Biology, Environment and Aggression. Each must be rated from 1 to 10, and the total must add to 21. Here are some good examples:
                             GOV     BIO     ENV     AGG     TOTAL
  Safe and secure start       6       2       5       8       21
  Aggressive start            9       1       1       10      21
  Empire builder              6       8       5       2       21
  Long term                   9       1       10      1       21

Government

When you take over a colony, either from an enemy or ally, the colony will not be under your full control. This means that will be required to position fleet over the world to prevent it from returning to the control of the previous owner, and it will not produce it's full income for several turns. A high government rating enables you to gain control of captured stars faster, and reduce these effects. A high government rating is especially important if you play an aggressive style of game, but will be of benefit to any player.

Biology

Your biology rating affects the rate at which your colonies will grow. The effect is not dramatic, but can be significant over the long term. Biology is important only if you have plans to stay out of wars and build up colonies. You will probably need some allies to do this, and have a good idea of colonisation strategy. This is not usually necessary for beginning players.

Environment

When you take over a colony, the environment adaption (EA) rating of the planet may be reduced. This may cause loss of population and can be costly to rebuild. A high environment rating reduces this effect. In fact, a maximum rating of 10 prevents loss of EA. A high environment rating will always be useful.

Aggression

Your aggression rating affects the combat effectiveness of your fleets. It will have a noticable effect on combat early in the game, but will be less useful later in the game, when technology levels and combined allied fleets become more important. A high aggression rating will usually ensure survival early in the game, in case diplomatic relations with your neighbours break down. Experienced players rarely chose high aggression because it also reduces your income on all worlds.

 STARTING POSITION

Spiral Arm star maps may vary from game to game, but typically, the stars more crowded in some parts of the map than in others. The galaxy shown on the cover shows a typical distribution of stars in Spiral Arm. Although we cannot guarantee to place you in a certain position on the map, you can select from types of location:

The Arms

This allows use of deep space movement early in the game to grab unowned stars, while still providing access to the void for wide expansion. This is a good option for starting players.

The Core

This is a good location to start if you are planning an aggressive game. Due to the close proximity of stars, deep space movement is more useful, and borders are more difficult to hold.

The Voids

The low density areas provide the opportunity to expand over a wide area, bordering many other empires. It makes it very difficult for attackers to use deep space moves against you.

 HOW TO PLAY
Although the game may appear complicated at first glance, you do not have to know all of the rules when starting. The turn sheet is in a simple fill-in-the blanks style, and our new manual contains a section on how to get started. Most players work out the basics in the first few turns. You can also get advice from other players you contact, and we always do our best to help new players.

Spiral Arm is not a game for those who want to sit back and build an empire. It requires a certain amount of player involvement just to stay in the game, and is highly competitive. If you get knocked out of one game you can simply start a new empire in the next game. You only pay for the turns you use, so there is no chance of losing out if you get knocked out early.

 WHAT DOES IT COST TO PLAY...AND WHY?
To start in a game costs just $20. This includes the first 5 turns. After that, the cost is $6 per turn. Turns are usually processed every two weeks.

We aim to provide a high level of customer service, including maintaining game balance and fairness to all players. We can be relied upon to finish a game that we start, and if something goes wrong, we are obliged to correct the problem quickly.

It's worth considering these issues when looking at 'free' PBEMs. If you are not paying for the service, then you cannot expect the moderator to go out of his way to help you, or fix problems. There's nothing worse than being told the game has been cancelled right when it was getting interesting, just because the moderator moves interstate, or has no time to run the game.

 GETTING STARTED
Spiral Arm is one of the original and most popular PBM games ever. We have been upgrading this classic game, and have developed a PC mapping program, and order entry program. It cannot currently be played without using snail-mail, but we do accept turns via e-mail.

To request a startup, fill out the Startup Request Form.

Then download these files:
 
SAMAP031.ZIP  (50k)  Mapping Program (PC only)
SAENT147.ZIP  (45k)  Order Entry Program (PC only)
Unzip the contents in a separate sub-directory. Type SAMAP for the mapping program, or SAENT for the order entry program. See the DOC files, if you get stuck, or give us a call!

Please be aware that we cannot start a game without a minimum of 30 players. At present, we expect to start a new game of Spiral Arm every 3-4 months. Check the New Games page for more details.

Return to Home Page | Play-By-Mail | Troll Quest | News | About Us