The Complete Interview - Talespin

PN: Tell us a little about yourself.

T: My call sign is "talespin", not to be confused with a tail spin or nose dive and not entirely because of the TV show, but because I enjoy telling stories. Get it? I spin tales :)

I live in New Brunswick, Canada, with my wife and two kids. I've been a kids' camp program director, a youth worker, a theatre director and producer, a teacher, and a basketball coach - sometimes all of these at once. I enjoy sports like basketball and soccer (I actually don't like hockey much, for a Canadian.), role-playing games like D&D and GURPS, strategic computer games like Age of Empires II and Planets, and being out in nature and with friends.

PN: When did you first start playing?

T: I have very fond memories of playing in the 90s. We used to call it "Planets 2.0", because that's what was on the floppy disc (I still have those files on my computer!). We thought Tim Wisseman was a genius (I can hardly believe I'm in a game with him right now!). Since we only had one copy of the game, we would play on the same computer, taking turns "doing our stuff" while the other person sniffed lines of sugar and spices (yeah, we were cool). The Commodore 64 took 5+ minutes to run a turn, so the song "Zombie" by the Cranberries would always be playing in the background. That song still brings powerful feelings of nostalgia to me, even today. I owe a lot of my understanding of file types because of VGA Planets 2.0.

PN: What's your favorite race and why?

T: That is a tough question: I enjoy playing all the races. I'm very fond of races that enable me to be sneaky (Birds, Fascists, Crystals), but, lately, I've been working on being sneaky with the typically non-sneaky races (EE, Colonies, Bots). I also tend to feel a sense of "ULTIMATE POWER" when playing the Evil Empire; I'm not yet certain if that's a good thing or not.

PN: What do you build on first three turns with them (or your general opening strategy)?

T: I study my opponents, listen to players talk, review games, and constantly adapt my playing style. As a player who is new to 11 player games (usually it was just me and my buddy), I have learned to choose my first builds very carefully, weighing the purpose of each ship against the need of the situation. I often go for large cargo holds and good engines for the first 4-6 builds, but that isn't the case all the time. Say the Birds are two turns from a rich cluster of planets, then I might build a Fearless to cross the gap without being seen (something you can't do with other races). I recently tried an early-build Lady Royale with transwarp drives to use as a long-distance colonizer, so I could control some territory before someone else got there.

PN: How many games do you play at the same time?

T: Did you say, "do I play" or "should I play"? I should stick to 2, but I do play 5-8. Since playing games with difficulty modifier of 1.00+, I'm finding that I may need to reduce my games to 2-3, but it's so tempting to add more.

PN: What types of games do you like playing most?

T: I've played a mixture of private, standard, and classic. I stay away from Campaign.

PN: Describe the process you use to make a turn.

T: My most frequent first action is to spend a long time studying the starmap to see how the sector has changed; I find that gives me perspective on how things are developing. I then study VCRs, reports, and messages. Next I tend to access ships, planets, and starbases from the starmap, so that I can focus on one region at a time. Following the above, I flip through every planet, ship, and starbase from top to bottom, adjusting things as I go. Lastly, I review my messages and respond as necessary. I often return to the game before the host runs to check for more messages.