Posts made by guildofblades

Hi Everyone,

The Guild of Blades is happy to announce that the first game variant for 1483 Online, 1430 AD is now available for play. This first variant rolls the clock back 53 years to provide a very different map and a 29 player massive multi player turn based game.

Game variants for 1483 Online are planned to be available for play only for our Empires of History Online Enhanced Members, but in celebration of its initial release, the first few games will be available to everyone for play.

If you are not familiar with it yet, 1483 Online is a 28 player massive multi player turn based online strategy game. Its software is free to download and games are free to play. No credit cards or other forms of identification needed. For further information visit us at:

http://www.1483online.com

Thanks,
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

Hi Everyone,

At long last, we finally migrated our discussion forums into our main web site at www.guildofblades.com. So feel free to drop by and discuss any of our Empires of History A&A variant games, or well, any of our games at all actually.

Thanks,
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

blazing saddles, spaceballs, caddyshack, airplane, top secret, naked gun, history of the world, young frankenstein, funny farm, planes trains and automobiles, pink panther, dirty rotten scoundrels, three amigos, fletch, dr. strangelove, the great race, the great dictator, etc.<<

Some of those are great, but I can’t remember laughing nearly as hard watching any of them as my wife and i did this past weekend watching Superbad. I came in expecting to watch you typical teen comedy perhaps a step up from the usual (the previews did look good), but got something far far better than expected.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

3.  Taxes are paid only ONCE on the purchase of a new product or service.

So…

• Folks who choose to reduce their tax burden by purchasing used goods (existing homes, used cars, etc.) could DRAMATICALLY reduce their tax burden.<<

Boy, could that be abused.

two companies partner with each other. I sell my products, retail, to another company for $.02 each. Another company sells their products to us for $.02 each as well. We pay the sales tax on that. We then buy those same products back “used” at a 50% reduction for $.01 each. We then proceed to sell them, tax free, to all the consumers we originally intended to sell them to, using a price of goods 23% cheaper than legitimate businesses playing by the spirit of the rules.

Also, regarding taxing a goods only once, manufactured goods are taxed just once. Unless they happen to catch import duties. In the design and publishing of our games, any component products that are a part of the final product for sale, we get tax exempt status on. So I don’t as a business pay sales tax on paper, ink, boxes, etc, then make a board game and then you pay taxes on it also. Just one tax, leveraged as a sales tax. Unless, of course, you want to look at corporate taxes such as taxes on profits, federal employment taxes, state mandated unemployment insurance, etc, etc. All of which influence the final price of goods sold.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483onine.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

Which incidentally I don’t think would dissuade anyone from trying to earn more money, even though they’ll pay higher taxes on those extra dollars.<<

You might be surprised. My Wife is from Thailand where their income tax is about 15%. When she started working here the tax rate was about 21%. With her newest W2 contract because it pays a lot better she’s getting taxed at almost 30%. She was sooo pissed off and contemplated quiting on the spot. Penalizing people for working hard and trying to achieve better and better things is a sure fire way to get people NOT to work hard or strive to better their lives. I mean, the truly Rich has many tax shelters and what they can’t shelter they blink about paying because what’s a few more percentage points on 10 million? Its nothing to them. But the middle class that works hard to save money and prepare for retirement and to afford for college tuition for the kids get penalized so much for achieving strong incomes that the progressive tax is a major means to prevent ascension from the ranks of the middle class to the rich. I mean, the lower class can climb their way to the middle class ranks merely be working hard, garnering work experience, and progressively upgrading jobs as that experience allows. But most traditional jobs have an income cap to them and a high tax at the upper end cuts those people off at the legs from securing a stronger financial future.

My Chosen Tax Structures:

1. No Income Tax whatsoever on ANYONE making less than the medium average wage (not sure if this should be based on a national average, or established locally by tweaking the national average based on local cost of living). Over the median wage a progressive tax starting at 1% going up to just 10% based on an percentile basis of where you are on the wage chart. The idea being pegging these levels to the job market with the intent to prevent greedy politicians from gradually lowering the thresh holds for each incrimental tax point.

2. State sales taxes (basic consumption tax), with food and medical items and services exempt. Key insurance industries should be tax exempt as well, especially any type of insurance which is more or less an essential of life (health insurance, car insurance, house insurance)

3. State income taxes. 2% at maximum. A revenue share can be worked out between the states and the fed. Exempt for anyone earning under the poverty level.

4. A single one time property tax when purchasing a property. Not annually. A minor (and I mean minor) tax reduction on reduction on this amount for 1 and 2 children, but nothing additional for more than 2 children.

5. Capital Gains taxes such as, stock dividends, interests gains or the sales of stocks. But I also think this should be on an annual basis only and ONLY when you chose to remove cash from those investments. Growth on the investments should be left with the investments, tax, free, and allowed to keep growing. I think a very small capital gains tax upon successful selling of a property might be ok, but only on the “Gains”. So, as the buyer, maybe you pay a state tax of 10% when you buy the property and lets say you buy a house valued at $200K. 10 years later you sell it for $350K, maybe a small tax of 5% of so on the $150K in increased property value might be reasonable.

6. Renters Tax. 1-2% tax leveraged on rented housing. This very specifically would be designed to encourage home ownership.

7. Taxes on corporations much as they exist today. No “special” or heavier taxes on industries just because they are large or more profitable than other industries. Where civil infrastructure or environmental costs are involved for the business to be established, operated/monitored, would be charged to the business as pass thru fees, not taxes.

8. Import taxes. Only where we chose to leverage importing fees on products. For instance, if China charges import duties on our products, we would return in kind. Import fees should never be considered a means for government to make up lost taxes from other areas. Where needed, port inspection fees may be reasonable if the cost of safe inspection of imported cargo is necessary to safeguard our country.

9. Wartime act, emergency spending. If the nation goes to war and the government needs additional funds to finance the military spending everyone above the poverty line could be assessed a one time annual fee, but no greater than 10-15% of a persons income wage rate for that whole year. This fee would be a “loan” to the government at a market rate APR that the government would have to pay back within a fixed amount of time at the declared end of the war. If, for some reason, a person could not pay the assessed fee when required, they should be able to get a federally backed loan from most any financial banking institute where the rate for that loan should be the governments APR plus maybe 1-2% at worst. With money for surplus military spending coming, at least temporarily, directly out of the savings accounts of the average citizen (as opposed to nebulously from our taxes), its a fair bet the average citizen will care a whole lot more about international issues and hold their elected officials more directly accountable. My bet is wars or major military actions or even UN support roles will only get approved by the majority of people come that point and if approved, at least they would have more personal accountability there. And with surplus military funding being having to come from loans accountable to the average citizen rather than taxes which the government officials all too often regard as “theirs”, they would know darn well that how they attempt to vote on such issues will very much impact their chances for re-election.

10. Not strictly tax related, but every citizen should have the right to establish a 401K program under their own name and administration, even prior to the age of 18. This is not something that would be registered with an employer, but rather with the individual so it need not ever be transferred or shifted to a Roth or whatever when you change employers. Money invested into the 401K should be pre tax, as now and all “market gains” as opposed to principle you put into the account, should get taxed at half the the standard capital gains rate when it is taken out for retirement.

Really, that should be about it. I have a hard time seeing where the justification for any other taxes should come from.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

As for moderation, all the current rules are just fine.

A moderator should not be empowered to delete posts or lock a thread in any discussion where they have been a participant in any manner other making moderator oriented comments. Regardless of impartial a moderator is in adjudicating an issue, the appearance of bias is there.

So we either need one moderator that won’t participate in the discussions, or two or more moderators who would steer clear of discussions already being engaged in by one of the other moderators.

Other than that, so long as moderators set their own political opinions aside and moderate only as based by the rules, then the rules are fine as is and simply need to be enforced.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

And to clarify Jen, you were suspended specifically for violating a forum policy which explicitly states that if you have an issue with a moderator ruling on an issue, you take it up with the site owner, admin, or another Mod privately.  Had this not been a formal written forum policy, it would not have been an issue.<<

Switch, being on the outside looking in I realize that perhaps I missed some of what happened. But what I saw was a long thread where both you and Jen were arguing over the value of the markets and to the degree they had risen during the current president’s term, with both of you choosing different dates and means of interpreting the numbers, both to fit your particular political view points. Nothing wrong with that, mind you.

But what “seems” to have happened next was that you put in your last word, then closed the thread. Jen then got in “trouble” for posting on the subject again my opening new threads.

Not really fair for you to engage in an argument, sneak in a final word, then lock out the person you were arguing with from responding. It was an abuse of your position, given your intimate involvement in the argument that was going on.  It was like saying your final word, then using your position of power to shut up the opposing view.

I have no problem with the thread being closed and if some other moderator had made the decision independently that would be fine. But the situation just looked wrong the way it worked out.

Maybe these sections need two active moderators so the “other” one can moderate when needed when the first one is too intimately engaged on the discussion?

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

1483 Online is still in beta testing, but it has come a long way since it was first launched. Right now only the 28 player, Europe 1483, is available, but our programmer (who is a college student) is now on summer break and working with us full time and we’re cranking out advancements very quickly and hope to have the 95 player full world out within a month, killing all known bugs in the same process.

If you have any questions feel free to post them in our forums, or on here. Either is fine.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guilodfblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

The only reason Eagle went into Poker in the first place is that their board games weren’t giving them a good enough profit margin to pay back a fairly substantial loan they had taken out, I presume, to crank up the production runs needed when they got placement with Comp USA (or at least I think that was the major chain they got placement with). That bank loan is eventually what killed the company. Someone in my family actually issued that loan, which I found out later.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

Hi Everyone,

Since early 2006 the Guild of Blades has been developing some of its Axis & Allies variant board game and game series into FREE multi player online games. 1483 Online has been our flagship game for this project. This summer we will be completing the Full World edition of the game which will provide online play for 95 players per game.

Map Preview:
http://www.1483online.com/full_world.php

Nation List and Resources + Trade:
http://www.1483online.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=732

And while you wait for this exciting development to get completed, we still have the 28 player variant, Europe 1483 currently available to play and also free. Its at http://www.1483online.com

Thanks,
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

Of course, MOST colleges are not government institutions, but rather private, and thus not exempt from negotiating any discounts they can.

And how is this penalizing the rich Jen? They were getting discounts. Now, maybe, in a few select colleges, they are not.

However, the other 50-60% of the young population that is NOT going to college because they couldn’t afford it were NEVER getting those discounts in the first place. So I find it hard to view this as an attack on the rich.

heck, maybe the message trying to be sent is that college students should spend a bit less time screwing everything that can and a bit more time focusing on their school work. Judging by the radical elements we’ve seen growing on college campuses recently, I would say many students have waaay too much time for lots of things besides school and homework.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

Hi Jen,

I agree.  Americans do not need two cars in every garage.  It’s nice.  However, what possible purpose is there in two or more televisions?  Why should you keep up with the Jones’ anyway?  Do we really need to purchase 12 pounds of candy for halloween?  Where can we cut?  How do you budget?  Where do we teach these skills?<<

They need two cars for a number of reasons. Maybe even three cars. If both husband and wife work and they have jobs in different directions, then that right there is a need for two cars. A third car is a back up in case one of the other two fails or needs to spend a day in the shop. Myself and my wife only have one car at present and its 15+ years old. I’m not worried about keeping up with the Jones’. I drive an older car right now because it saves my wife and I an extra $300 a month between car payments and additional insurance and thats an extra $3,600 a year we can invest in our retirement. And we feel investing in our retirement while we are still relatively young is important. Newer cars will late to later. But I drive her to work each day, then work from home 3-4 days a week, and only head up to the shop to do printing and fill orders a couple days a week.

There are just the two of us in our household yet we own 4 tvs. On in the living room, one in the guest bedroom, one in my wife’s office and one in the master bedroom. We watch tv in all of those rooms at one time or another. But then, except for the TV in our living room, the other three are all 19" TVs that we bought on sale between $60 and $100 and we’ll own them for years, so its not like this is a huge expense.

Anyway, my wife puts 12% of her salary directly into her 401K with 6% matched from her employer. We recently set up a 401K plan here at the Guild for the staff and I am currently putting 10% of my salary into my 401K. It just makes sense. The second we have our first kid we’ll begin investing into a tax differred college fund for them to make sure we invest early and smartly into making sure their college tuition is taken care of.

As to the subject of teaching Economics, yes, I think that is VERY important. However, I very much fear the idea of economics being taught to children currently in the American school system. Such a large portion of educators in our country proscribe to a level of liberalism that it worries me and with that comes a completely different take on global economics than is conventional and, well, it just doesn’t match real economics much. If given the choice of having the children indoctrinated into the wrong teachings on economics vs having no teachings, I would prefer none. That way we can at least educate our children ourselves on this very important topic.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

The Battle of Talas. 751 AD.
Battle between the Chinese Empire and Arab Caliphate. A time in history where China had expanded its control of central Asia more than any other time. Also the time when the early conquests of the great Arab Caliphate was growing. The defeat of the Chinese army there ultimately led to Islamic dominion of central Asia and the middle east which has remained the strong holds of the Islamic faith ever since. A loss to the Chinese at this battle may have likely left the Islamic faith no central core of lands to proposer in and its impact on our world very different today. Who knows what long term Chinese dominion of these lands may have meant. Could be the Mongol Empire would have had no place to expand into initially and have never formed.

The Battle of Baghdad. 1258 AD
While not a well matched set of forces, the fall of Baghdad and the Mongol sacking of the city and the subsequent destruction of the irrigation canals and other infrastructure shattered this land and set a land of open trade, free knowledge and understanding into its own dark age. Civilization in the middle east suffered a set back that to this day it has failed to recover from economically and culturally.

Battle of Samarkand (not sure if that is its proper name). 1220 AD.
Ghengis Khan and the Mongols capture and sack Samarkand. This was one of the most difficult challenges faced by the young Mongol Empire and conventional wisdom suggested it could not be won. It was the last serious road block preventing the Mongols from going into arguably the most influential empire in history.

Battle of Bun’ei (1274) and  Battle of Kōan (1281)
Two massive efforts by the Mongol Empire to try and conquer Japan. Both efforts met disaster when significant ship loses happened due to unusually strong typhons allowing the Japanese to resist and defeat otherwise much larger armies.

Just to toss out a few non Euro centric battles that have greatly influenced the shape of world history.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

We’ve never produced an actual WWII game excepting for the micro game that came bundled with the first and only issue of the Empires of History Magazine. That was a Stalingrad game. We’re going to re-release that game as a stand alone game using the new style game units and cleaned up rules under our Compact Game line. The newer evolution of that line took the games to full color maps and full color units on chipboard (but still cut outs) and the price got bumped from $4.95 to $7.95. So far we’ve release Jutland, Ramesses’ War and Fallen Blackhawk: Somailia in this style as well as upgrading the Barbary Coast War, Beyond Hadrian’s Wall and the Battle of Thermopylae. The Battle of Stalingrad will soon join it.

We’ve been working with our Empires of History: WWII game for a couple of years now but it hasn’t left internal play testing yet. Still needs some more balancing. A game that big and involved takes a long time to get right.

On the space front we have a couple ideas in the works. We’ve recently put a bid in on a fairly significant sci fi property and if we can hammer that out, that’ll become a line of space board games done under the same game play style of our Empires of History game line, but with more stats and rules emphasis on the ships.

If the license doesn’t pan out we eventually plan to put out the Empires & Overlords space setting as a stand alone board game. That is the space setting that is tied to Button Wars but the primary game will be playable as a strategy board game and will not require any button wars pieces. It will have a secondary option of being used as a Button Wars campaign gaming map too. This game will have ship development tech, ships, fighters and mecha. It will also have a variety of ground troops. The game will come with a variety of planetoid templates…maybe as many as 20 of them. Each major “homeworld” planet with significant population will hence be its own zone world map that can be fought over. Homeworld defenses, both orbital and planet-side can be used. Ultimately a good sized fleet should be able to pound a planet and its people to oblivion from space, but it may take a few turns and otherwise tie down the fleet. And if you toast everything from space there is nothing less to conquer and hence no economic benefit. Should prove to be an interesting game. We have a preliminary map for the game on the Button Wars web pages already, though it was drafted a few years ago, so don’t take it for being the final map.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

Did you get the printer fixed yet?<<

We’ve replaced both black and white and color machines since I last spoke to you about it. We now laminate our game maps too. As for the game units to WWI (and most of our games now, as we upgrade them) have had the units printed on traditional offset presses onto chipboard stock and die cut. They look great with some great artwork. You can see samples of them at:
http://www.guildofblades.com/wwicore.php

The Guild of Blades has enjoyed years with a core following of gamers who have appreciated good playing games that were well designed and available at affordable prices (aka, lower than most of our competitors). In the case of the new War to End All Wars 3rd Edition I dare you to find a game with more than 1300+ die cut counters and 1700+ total counters that retails for just $34.95 or less.

fancy professional business lexicon than actually making and playtesting games<<

I’m not familiar with that usage, but if it means we spend a great deal of time managing and running our business, then yes, yes we do. That is what is required to run a professional publishing business in the gaming industry. Just a fact of life. As for the play testing of our games, that has always been a core feature that has helped us to develop a solid customer base and allowed us to grow. We maintain two regular outside play test groups and have done so for years, just to double check on our already vigorous internal testing. With perhaps one exception, that has served us very well over the years and led to a whole bunch of well balanced games that play well.

As a small company the physical production value of our games has not always been the highest; we’ve produced games with a realistic business investment vs expected return on that investment and in quantities that made sense for the market we were selling into. Thats just good business and its why 13 years after we began, we do this for a healthy living and and STILL HERE providing games to the public when so many before us have fallen. Every step of the way we have taken small steps to improve the physical quality of our games, always keeping in mind the lower selling price vs the gaming content we planned to pack into it. This latest evolution of our games, with the laminated game maps and the nice full color die cut chipboard pieces has been by far our largest leap forward in this. Though it surely won’t be our last.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

The War to End All Wars 3rd Edition Board Game Released!

March 9th, 2007. The Guild of Blades Publishing Group is happy to announce the release of the Third Edition for its flagship World War I strategy board game, The War to End All Wars. An Empires of History game. First released in early 1998 The War to End All Wars quickly became the best selling strategic level game providing a broad theater play of the WWI conflict the world over. Since its release The War to End All Wars has gone through a number of evolutions, including two boxed sets and an human moderated multi player online game. The Guild of Blades has taken nine years of customer feedback and refinements to completely redesign the War to End All Wars so that we could offer the ultimate strategy board game for World War I.

The War to End All Wars 3rd Edition is a massive upgrade over its previous edition and contains a newly designed and digitally rendered game map that is 50% larger than its predecessors. The game map is now 21" x 49.5" and comes laminated with new mountain and rivers features added to it. The game rules have been rewritten and upgraded to make the game easier to lean and to add a whole host of new diplomatic options for the nations to utilize. Submarine rules have been simplified and convoy of trade resources have become more important to better simulate the conflict at sea. Most impressive has been a complete change over in the style of units provided with the game, which now includes over 1700 full color large format game counters, the majority die cut for ease of use. A 32 page rule booklet, 11 nation reference sheets, 3 game charts and a D10 round off the contents of The War to End All Wars 3rd Edition. An amazing game and all for the same low price of its previous editions at just $34.95.

Visit us online for further information on The War to End All Wars 3rd Edition. You can see box artwork, view the game map, see samples of the game units, read the entire 32 page rules set in HTML format and view/download all of the game charts and nation sheets. Join us online at: http://www.guildofblades.com/wwi.php.

––

Founded in 1994 the Guild of Blades Publishing Group is a leading adventure games publisher supporting games in print, digital PDF game downloads and its Empires of History Online Gaming Network of multi player online games. Its notable brands are the Empires of History line of strategy board games, Overlords: Fantasy Battlescape Wargame, Button Wars Spaceship Combat Game, Heroes Forever Role Playing Game and Worlds of Heroes & Tyrants. For further information on the Guild of Blades visit http://www.guildofblades.com . For further information on the Empires of History Online Gaming Network visit games sites http://www.1483online.com and http://www.thermopylae-online.com .

Guild of Blades Publishing Group
409 Amesbury Dr
Davison, MI 48423
810-625-3000
http://www.guildofblades
dowrie@guildofblades.com

I don’t think people are looking for another program to play A&A with (though that is really, really great for you to potentially offer up aid in that regard).<<

Just saw that what you guys were talking about seemed a bit similar to what we’ve already done for our Empires of History Online games and was pondering the potential for a business opportunity there. Since now that we’ve got the core game engine its a great deal easier to just apply that code to a new graphical map and image map it. Like less than 10% of the work compared to starting from scratch.

But the real question is, how many players would play a turn based online A&A if it were free, but advertising supported? Not sure that would be enough to cover what Hasbro would want for the official license.

Of course, by adding it to our network of other games, it might have potential as a gateway to draw more players to those other games. I’ll have to ponder that.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

Was the CD Rom game playable only in real time? Meaning it could not play a turn and let the players come back to it at a later time?

If you want to check out http://www.1483online.com I think we have a piece of software that is more or less structured already in the manner you guys have been talking about. Its a VB map application that uses database stored data and XMLs. Though I know our programmer is actually restructuring to move away from much database houses data at all and towards just using a database to store the XML files for parsing.

Seems to me it wouldn’t be a huge amount of work to just drap the A&A map and image map it and our code would handle the territories and unit population just fine. The more interesting part comes in the form of the combat script. Movement or turns would have to be handled in two phases to account for aircraft rebasing. Not sure how that would work.

The big kicker is, the software can be made. But without a license kinda of need to keep it relatively hush hush.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

Hi Everyone,

Not sure any of you know me, but my company, the Guild of Blades Publishing Group has been one of the longest lasting A&A variant publishers, but for a variety of legal and strategic reasons we chose to stop promoting that connection much. But our games all remain variants.

This project you are talking about sound a great deal like what we have been trying to accomplish with our Empires of History Online Gaming Network. Currently we have games 1483 Online and Thermopylae Online, but based on their original A&A variant board games we published years ago. Anyway, these programs were made in visual basic and use XMLs in some fashion.

I’m not the programmer (other than stuff like PHP and HTML my last programming experience dates back to IBM Basic and Pascal. lol) so I can sort of follow some of your discussions, but not all of them.

I guess one real question is, what would you be trying to achieve that is not already achieved with the A&A computer game that Hasbro did a few years back?

I guess the reason is, there is the potential that once our own games get their legs under them a bit more we could seek to get an official license to render an online version for A&A. But I sort of thought that market was already serviced by the past software releases, more or less. So what new would you want brought to the table with regards to functionality?

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

Hi Everyone,

For those of you that don’t know us, we are the Guild of Blades Publishing Group and since 1998 we have been publishing the Empires of History series of board games…axis & allies variants, all of them.

Throughout 2006 we have been working on online interactive versions of some of our board games…which are FREE to play and simply supported with banner advertisements instead. Early in 2006 we put our A&A Variant, Europe 1483, into beta testing. Just this past week, we put Thermopylae Online into beta testing. Links for both are below so come check them out…

1483 Online:
http://www.1483online.com

Thermopylae Online:
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

And if you are interested in any of our A&A variant board games there is always:
http://www.guildofblades.com

Thanks,
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group