Battle Cry was bought to give me something to play with the other son, Eitan.
Battle Cry is a light wargame. No, it is not anything like a Euro-game, unlike, say, Wallenstein, which has Euro game elements mixed with wargaming elements. Nothing Euro about this one.
BC's biggest assets are threefold: a) beautiful components, including the miniature pieces, the board and the rulebook, which contains lots of history and explanation for each actual scenario being re-created (15 in all). b) Easily set up and customizable game board, with a big hex board, and lots of hex obstacle pieces, like trees and houses. After playing the real scenarios, you can make your own ahistorical ones, thereby giving a weaker player an advantage. c) quick playtime, running at about an hour I would guess for most scenarios.
One item that some may consider an asset I deliberately left out: simple and simplistic rules. The rules are simple, but, unfortunately, way too simple. The entire game rules is about 5 pages including large type and pictures. Basically:
1) Play a card from your hand indicating which 1, 2, or 3 divisions can attack from a particular flank (L, M, R).
2) Move the divisions.
3) Attack with the divisions. Roll a number of dice, one less for each hex distance, and one more if you have a general with you.
4) Pick a new card.
Some extras:
- Line of sight must be considered, but it is simplistic and not always sensible. For instance, an infantry division on a hill does not have line of sight over another division at the bottom of a hill.
- Being within an obstacle gives a reduction in the number of dice rolled by your opponent.
- The object of the game is always to eliminate 6 enemy divisions and/or generals.
The choices in how they simplified were just bad choices. Way too much was cut, leaving a rather dull game without many elements that would seem rather obvious, such as shooting first at something charging you, charging altogether, moving with cover, etc...
The other problem is that the game is not really good for Euro gamers, as it is a war game, plain and simple. But for war- gamers, it is so simplistic that it is lacking. Your opponent gets no attacks on you during your turn. You can run from obstacle to obstacle and attack with impunity. All sorts of simple maneuvers are impossible. And if you don't have the right card, you can't even attack someone right next to you. I understand the cards are to simulate a lack or coordination while ordering troops, but I really think each division should have, at least, a default order, such
as "shoot at enemy".
Luckily, many people on the Geek have added many new and important rules to help the game out - yes, adding some complexity, but entirely necessary. I haven't looked closely at them but they have to be an improvement.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Weekend: Settlers of Catan
Settlers of Catan
My shabbat guests surprised me by agreeing instantly to play a game. These are two of my wife's serious no-nonsense 40-50 year old friends who have never expressed any desire to play a game before). And my wife wanted to sleep, so that left just the three of us. I nervously brought out Settlers, anticipating a lot of confusion even before I finished explaining the rules.
I have explained many games, and some games, like Settlers, I have explained many times. I have gone over and under, in different directions, and I have a feel for how to minimize the pain. The biggest issues are: the lack of coordination between symbols on the convenience chart and the board (only the resource cards themselves have both symbol and background), the complexity of the robber, and the complexity of both the rules and variance of the development cards.
For the symbols, I carefully showed them the match between all three items: convenience card, board, and resource. I very carefully explained the object of the game, what things were worth what, how a turn went, how you start with two settlements, how you place new ones, how you upgrade to a city, and what a city gives you. Then, how the robber worked. Again and again I went over the basic flow of a round: roll, collect, trade, build. I kind of hoped to leave the development cards until after the first turn around the board, but they asked "what are these?" "I was kind of hoping to wait for the first turn around the board" "No no, we want to know now". So, development cards, soldiers, vp's, other cards, one per turn, only after you get them except vp's, largest army, longest road.
Well, amazingly enough, it went very well. Yes, they complained about too many rules, but by turn 3 they were pretty well into it ... except. One of them was a Sensitive Person.
Actually, both are sensitive people, but one of them was a game sensitive person. The first time I refused a 1 for 1 trade with him, and asked for two cards in instead, he got angry and passed the dice. Why? He figured I was trying to take advantage of him since he was a new player. Wuh-hoah. I explained that I run and teach a game group, and believe me, my reputation rests on being a fair broker.
This of course, occurred again, when I suggested that he was winning and was a more logical person to rob from, when I took an intersection I needed before he could get it, etc... I think, as he also got to do these things, that he began to realize that he wasn't being exclusively targeted. But, some people have a hard time of it. Thank
goodness I didn't start them playing Diplomacy.
They had to end before the game ended. All of us had 8 or 9 points, so we were all doing well, and I think she enjoyed it, at least. We will see if they ever ask to play again. Maybe something a little less confrontational, like San Juan.
My shabbat guests surprised me by agreeing instantly to play a game. These are two of my wife's serious no-nonsense 40-50 year old friends who have never expressed any desire to play a game before). And my wife wanted to sleep, so that left just the three of us. I nervously brought out Settlers, anticipating a lot of confusion even before I finished explaining the rules.
I have explained many games, and some games, like Settlers, I have explained many times. I have gone over and under, in different directions, and I have a feel for how to minimize the pain. The biggest issues are: the lack of coordination between symbols on the convenience chart and the board (only the resource cards themselves have both symbol and background), the complexity of the robber, and the complexity of both the rules and variance of the development cards.
For the symbols, I carefully showed them the match between all three items: convenience card, board, and resource. I very carefully explained the object of the game, what things were worth what, how a turn went, how you start with two settlements, how you place new ones, how you upgrade to a city, and what a city gives you. Then, how the robber worked. Again and again I went over the basic flow of a round: roll, collect, trade, build. I kind of hoped to leave the development cards until after the first turn around the board, but they asked "what are these?" "I was kind of hoping to wait for the first turn around the board" "No no, we want to know now". So, development cards, soldiers, vp's, other cards, one per turn, only after you get them except vp's, largest army, longest road.
Well, amazingly enough, it went very well. Yes, they complained about too many rules, but by turn 3 they were pretty well into it ... except. One of them was a Sensitive Person.
Actually, both are sensitive people, but one of them was a game sensitive person. The first time I refused a 1 for 1 trade with him, and asked for two cards in instead, he got angry and passed the dice. Why? He figured I was trying to take advantage of him since he was a new player. Wuh-hoah. I explained that I run and teach a game group, and believe me, my reputation rests on being a fair broker.
This of course, occurred again, when I suggested that he was winning and was a more logical person to rob from, when I took an intersection I needed before he could get it, etc... I think, as he also got to do these things, that he began to realize that he wasn't being exclusively targeted. But, some people have a hard time of it. Thank
goodness I didn't start them playing Diplomacy.
They had to end before the game ended. All of us had 8 or 9 points, so we were all doing well, and I think she enjoyed it, at least. We will see if they ever ask to play again. Maybe something a little less confrontational, like San Juan.
Weekend: Hansa
!$^%$%$ IE destroyed my long review of Hansa, which I will try to re-create.
I had the unusual opportunity to play three nice games this weekend, two of which were first plays.
Hansa
Hansa, a relatively new game from last year, was not high on my priority list for two reasons: 1) the board and mechanics looked uninteresting, and 2) it received good, but not great, user reviews.
Still, the game was brought to my house by Gilad on Wed and left with us, so, as long as it was there, Saarya and I decided to try it out 2 player. Summation: not as uninteresting as I expected, but otherwise good, but not great (possibly very good for younger players).
The word that hits me most when I think about the game is "gimmicky" - normally not an inspiring word. Still, there is bad gimmicky and good gimmicky. San Juan is kind of gimmicky, since the cards work as buildings, cash, and trade goods all at once, but it flows pretty well. Here, the gimmicks are more glaring, sometimes a little strange, but, at the end of the day, they fit together, if not particularly brilliantly, at least servicably.
The upshot: you have cash tokens, goods tokens in several colors and numbers (1-3), and market tokens (each player has 18 in his color). Get 3 cash each round, move the ship or buy goods with cash, buy markets with goods, buy vp's with markets and goods. Markets are in short supply, access to goods and vp's is hindered by the ship's movement. Most vp's wins.
The long version:
- Each player gets 3 cash per round, and you can only save 3.
- Moving a ship costs 1 GP. Ship can only move along arrows, and no two cities go back and forth with each other, although several form triangles (gimmick 1).
- You can only do 1 action per city (gimmick 2).
- Buy a good chip for 1 cash, regardless of the number of goods this represents (gimmick 3). Pay the bank, or, if someone owns the majority of markets in this city, pay that person (gimmick 4).
- Discard a good chip to place that many goods worth of markets in that city.
- Discard a good chip and 1 market to earn that many vp's plus 1 (huge gimmick - I think this is supposed to simulate "flooding the market", but I don't see how). Every time you do this, everyone else has to discard one chip they have
of the same color - in 2 player, this never happened, because we always used our chips almost immediately after buying them.
- Lastly, you earn 2 points for each location that has at least one of your markets at the end of the game, 4 points if only you have a market there.
The tactics: Try to set up a shipping triangle so that you can move back and forth buying goods from yourself and then trading them for vp's. Leave the ship far away from where your opponent's need it. Try to balance the need for using goods
to buy markets versus the need to use goods to earn vp's. Get the goods before they are gone. That's about it.
When I played, I missed the obvious triangles in several parts of the board several times, which hurt my moves. Generally, I tried to make Saarya pay for the replenishing of the good, figuring that my money was better spent doing other things. So we passed 3 cash back and forth, flipped and tossed goods, placed and removed good markers, and slid the ship around in circles, and at the end of the game we were about 2 points apart.
I wanted to play again. Like other good but not amazing games, I will probably want to play this several times, but I don't expect my interest to hold for a long time. On the other hand, the mechanics are just about the right complexity for younger players, although the theme is not so interesting for them. The game might be very good for kids if rethemed.
I had the unusual opportunity to play three nice games this weekend, two of which were first plays.
Hansa
Hansa, a relatively new game from last year, was not high on my priority list for two reasons: 1) the board and mechanics looked uninteresting, and 2) it received good, but not great, user reviews.
Still, the game was brought to my house by Gilad on Wed and left with us, so, as long as it was there, Saarya and I decided to try it out 2 player. Summation: not as uninteresting as I expected, but otherwise good, but not great (possibly very good for younger players).
The word that hits me most when I think about the game is "gimmicky" - normally not an inspiring word. Still, there is bad gimmicky and good gimmicky. San Juan is kind of gimmicky, since the cards work as buildings, cash, and trade goods all at once, but it flows pretty well. Here, the gimmicks are more glaring, sometimes a little strange, but, at the end of the day, they fit together, if not particularly brilliantly, at least servicably.
The upshot: you have cash tokens, goods tokens in several colors and numbers (1-3), and market tokens (each player has 18 in his color). Get 3 cash each round, move the ship or buy goods with cash, buy markets with goods, buy vp's with markets and goods. Markets are in short supply, access to goods and vp's is hindered by the ship's movement. Most vp's wins.
The long version:
- Each player gets 3 cash per round, and you can only save 3.
- Moving a ship costs 1 GP. Ship can only move along arrows, and no two cities go back and forth with each other, although several form triangles (gimmick 1).
- You can only do 1 action per city (gimmick 2).
- Buy a good chip for 1 cash, regardless of the number of goods this represents (gimmick 3). Pay the bank, or, if someone owns the majority of markets in this city, pay that person (gimmick 4).
- Discard a good chip to place that many goods worth of markets in that city.
- Discard a good chip and 1 market to earn that many vp's plus 1 (huge gimmick - I think this is supposed to simulate "flooding the market", but I don't see how). Every time you do this, everyone else has to discard one chip they have
of the same color - in 2 player, this never happened, because we always used our chips almost immediately after buying them.
- Lastly, you earn 2 points for each location that has at least one of your markets at the end of the game, 4 points if only you have a market there.
The tactics: Try to set up a shipping triangle so that you can move back and forth buying goods from yourself and then trading them for vp's. Leave the ship far away from where your opponent's need it. Try to balance the need for using goods
to buy markets versus the need to use goods to earn vp's. Get the goods before they are gone. That's about it.
When I played, I missed the obvious triangles in several parts of the board several times, which hurt my moves. Generally, I tried to make Saarya pay for the replenishing of the good, figuring that my money was better spent doing other things. So we passed 3 cash back and forth, flipped and tossed goods, placed and removed good markers, and slid the ship around in circles, and at the end of the game we were about 2 points apart.
I wanted to play again. Like other good but not amazing games, I will probably want to play this several times, but I don't expect my interest to hold for a long time. On the other hand, the mechanics are just about the right complexity for younger players, although the theme is not so interesting for them. The game might be very good for kids if rethemed.
Friday, February 25, 2005
Roundup
No, I didn't get to the game session in Reut, which was my last chance before next week when it moves to Tel Aviv (and has an entrance fee), so I won't be getting to it any time soon. Too bad. I would have liked to have met some other players from outside my area.
I hope that they will be amenable to coming to Jerusalem for our game day during Passover.
I got to play Web of Power this week, one on my list of desired games, and I enjoyed it (see session report for details). As the game was inadvertently left in my house, I can play it a few more times before it gets back to the owner. Said owner also left Hansa. Time to break out the rules and look at that one. Hansa is one of the new games from 2004 which got some good comments, but no stellar comments, so I haven't been itching to play it. However, since it is in my house already ...
First order of business is to play Battle Cry. My son Eitan, who doesn't play with us on Wed's is willing to play only wargames, so I hope this will give me a rare opportunity to play with him.
The only other games he plays are: a wargame he created that requires you to draw cool guys in order to play, Warhammer, and computer games (such as Red Alert, Ceasar's, etc...)
I also organized a trade on BGG, my third.
Cosmic Encounter: Gilad posted a journal entry comparing CE to *shudder* Munchkin.
Well, I suppose that the similarities are: they both have a goal of reaching a certain victory condition, the players often gang up on the person about to win the victory condition, and that the ganging up involves playing from your hand of hidden and unique cards. That's really about it.
I imagine, if I wanted to, I could come up with as many similarities between CE and football. To each his own.
Yehuda
I hope that they will be amenable to coming to Jerusalem for our game day during Passover.
I got to play Web of Power this week, one on my list of desired games, and I enjoyed it (see session report for details). As the game was inadvertently left in my house, I can play it a few more times before it gets back to the owner. Said owner also left Hansa. Time to break out the rules and look at that one. Hansa is one of the new games from 2004 which got some good comments, but no stellar comments, so I haven't been itching to play it. However, since it is in my house already ...
First order of business is to play Battle Cry. My son Eitan, who doesn't play with us on Wed's is willing to play only wargames, so I hope this will give me a rare opportunity to play with him.
The only other games he plays are: a wargame he created that requires you to draw cool guys in order to play, Warhammer, and computer games (such as Red Alert, Ceasar's, etc...)
I also organized a trade on BGG, my third.
Cosmic Encounter: Gilad posted a journal entry comparing CE to *shudder* Munchkin.
Well, I suppose that the similarities are: they both have a goal of reaching a certain victory condition, the players often gang up on the person about to win the victory condition, and that the ganging up involves playing from your hand of hidden and unique cards. That's really about it.
I imagine, if I wanted to, I could come up with as many similarities between CE and football. To each his own.
Yehuda
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Session report up
On my site: http://www.jergames.com. Games played: Geschenkt, Cosmic Encounter (Mayfair), Web of Power (1st play)
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
ASL - The Game
First fallout from the new Hebrew board gaming contacts is Ran, a wargamer who was "surprised to see that there was a board gaming group in Jerusalem, and do any of us play ASL?"
Now, ASL, or Advanced Squad Leader, as some of you may know, is a lifestyle, not a game. Many people are content to play ASL only, for their entire life. Why? The thing is freakin' huge, man.
Ran brought over the game just so he could experience the joy of explaining it to me and my son - the one who doesn't play boardgames with us but is thrilled about the idea of wargames. His only experience so far is ... Warhammer.
Ran brought a duffel bag stuffed with boxes and boxes of counters, more boxes, and a large three ring binder with the original ASL rule set - about 2-300 pages of finely typed rules. Every weapon, vehicle, and soldier type of WWII is covered, each one has a different rate of fire, movement, penetration. There are dozens of different types of roads. Vehicles can be "overloaded", equipment can be poorly maintained, there are three or four separate fire chances each round of play, etc...
And this was about 1/4 to 1/3 of his ASL equipment, and he doesn't own a lot of it.
The actual game is not so bad, except having to remember the thousand different possible pluses and minuses (and several different types of these - such as "before pluses" and "after pluses") you might have to use to adjust your roll. Basically, each game consists of a realistic scenario on one of a dozen or more boards. Each player gets assigned their resources for this scenario - guns, vehicles, etc... and their objective. One guy's objective is usually to prevent the other guy from fulfilling theirs. All resources are little cardboard squares which stack on top of each other in a hex if they are part of a unit.
In some instances of combat, you roll one die for the unit; in others, you lift each square one by one, rolling for each. Other squares get placed on top of, or in the middle of, stacks, such as: already fired once, pinned, exhausted, routed, etc...
Small scenarios last a maximum of nine rounds - about 2 - 3 hours play for experienced players. Longer ones last several days.
By a startling coincidence, I had ordered Battle Cry a while ago, and yadda yadda yadda, it arrived tonight, an hour before Ran showed up. BC has four types of soldiers/guns, and a twenty page rulebook, of which fifteen are just describing scenarios - different ways to set up the board.
Ran left his rulebook for my son to read, since real playing in ASL can't really start until you've read the rulebook and watched someone else play a few times. For BC, I'm ready to roll. I wonder which one we'll pay first. I wonder which one my son will eventually gravitate towards playing more often.
Wargamers - is it all wargamers, or just ASL players who "only play the one game"? I know it's true of Bridge, Go, Scrabble, Chess, etc... players, as one can see in my own city.
Eurogamers play lots of games. Is that because the games themselves don't hold enough interest? Or is it because the "game" we really play is "Keep looking for better and more interesting things to do with mechanics"?
Yehuda
Now, ASL, or Advanced Squad Leader, as some of you may know, is a lifestyle, not a game. Many people are content to play ASL only, for their entire life. Why? The thing is freakin' huge, man.
Ran brought over the game just so he could experience the joy of explaining it to me and my son - the one who doesn't play boardgames with us but is thrilled about the idea of wargames. His only experience so far is ... Warhammer.
Ran brought a duffel bag stuffed with boxes and boxes of counters, more boxes, and a large three ring binder with the original ASL rule set - about 2-300 pages of finely typed rules. Every weapon, vehicle, and soldier type of WWII is covered, each one has a different rate of fire, movement, penetration. There are dozens of different types of roads. Vehicles can be "overloaded", equipment can be poorly maintained, there are three or four separate fire chances each round of play, etc...
And this was about 1/4 to 1/3 of his ASL equipment, and he doesn't own a lot of it.
The actual game is not so bad, except having to remember the thousand different possible pluses and minuses (and several different types of these - such as "before pluses" and "after pluses") you might have to use to adjust your roll. Basically, each game consists of a realistic scenario on one of a dozen or more boards. Each player gets assigned their resources for this scenario - guns, vehicles, etc... and their objective. One guy's objective is usually to prevent the other guy from fulfilling theirs. All resources are little cardboard squares which stack on top of each other in a hex if they are part of a unit.
In some instances of combat, you roll one die for the unit; in others, you lift each square one by one, rolling for each. Other squares get placed on top of, or in the middle of, stacks, such as: already fired once, pinned, exhausted, routed, etc...
Small scenarios last a maximum of nine rounds - about 2 - 3 hours play for experienced players. Longer ones last several days.
By a startling coincidence, I had ordered Battle Cry a while ago, and yadda yadda yadda, it arrived tonight, an hour before Ran showed up. BC has four types of soldiers/guns, and a twenty page rulebook, of which fifteen are just describing scenarios - different ways to set up the board.
Ran left his rulebook for my son to read, since real playing in ASL can't really start until you've read the rulebook and watched someone else play a few times. For BC, I'm ready to roll. I wonder which one we'll pay first. I wonder which one my son will eventually gravitate towards playing more often.
Wargamers - is it all wargamers, or just ASL players who "only play the one game"? I know it's true of Bridge, Go, Scrabble, Chess, etc... players, as one can see in my own city.
Eurogamers play lots of games. Is that because the games themselves don't hold enough interest? Or is it because the "game" we really play is "Keep looking for better and more interesting things to do with mechanics"?
Yehuda
New in the Israeli Gaming scene
So, the new Board Game club, which started a month and a half ago, after starting a forum on www.tapuz.co.il, is meeting its last meeting in Reut this Thursday. This is the first week that I've heard of the group altogether. Someone added a link to my site onto the forum, and I was then contacted by the owner, Gilad.
Gilad is now starting a more centralized game club (entrance fee) in central Tel Aviv in a location that is regularly used by a bridge club. Good luck to him.
I see that there are now a few stores that sell these games in Israel. In addition to SilverStars.co.il, there is Freak.co.il, in addition to Sportel (the original Magic importers and Magic league organizers). Got to add their links to my side pages.
On the one hand, I'm please to have these games available in Israel. On the other hand, like many other Israeli endeavors, what should be a simple markup with regards to shipping and VAT (17%) turns the game into a huge cost for the average Israeli. The games are generally not too much above retail (e.g. a Magic booster costs something like $5, T&E costs $55, Settlers costs $45), but most Israelis earn something like $1250 a month, we have high rent, a 60% tax bracket, etc...
The result is that even in Israel it is cheaper to buy the goods over the Internet and have them shipped to Israel than to buy locally, assuming you are getting more than one game. Still, it is nice to support the local stores (not local to Jerusalem, but local to Israel, at least).
Debates about this have ranged on Spielfrieks, Gamefest, and BGG, so we'll leave this one alone.
Gilad promised to come by our club tomorrow to check us out. I am not going to be able to make it Tel Aviv regularly (travel and expense). But Reut is closer, so, if I'm able to, I'll try just this Thursday, if only to meet more people and spread the love.
I have moved to cable Internet, instead of ADSL, so less money to the state monopoly, Bezeq (Note to self: if I ever apply for a job at Bezeq, remove this blog entry.) I had to change my email address, so I got me a Gmail address (shadejon at). I then had to change about a gazillion web pages, mailing lists, shopping sites, contacts, etc... to the new address. Most situations were not too much trouble ... except for eBay. It took me a week of emails every day before I got pointed to help in online chat, and an hour and a half of chat to determine that I can't do that. Why? Because a) my account was registered in America, so even after changing my address to Israel, they won't accept a credit card with an Israeli address b) I need to give them a new credit card to change my address, because c) Gmail is not a secure email address, unlike aol, msn, or any .org . Scritch scratch.
Well, I tried to start a new account registered as an Israeli, in the hopes of merging the old one into the new one after 60 days, and they still won't accept any of my three credit cards. Urgle. Amazingly enough, they are - literally - unable to change my email address themselves, even after presenting enough personal information to verify my identity.
The other problem was getting my old address to forward my email for a month - that also took a week, and in the meantime, I was bouncing emails.
Otherwise, things went pretty smoothly. Gmail is pretty neat - you can pop it, forward it, webmail it, just about anything, and the interface isn't too kooky, even if you have to get used to working with "tags" instead of folders. There are still some things I don't want passing through eBay, but what can I do? Receiving email at a local pop isn't any more secure - it is just more of an illusion of security.
Yeeha.
Gilad is now starting a more centralized game club (entrance fee) in central Tel Aviv in a location that is regularly used by a bridge club. Good luck to him.
I see that there are now a few stores that sell these games in Israel. In addition to SilverStars.co.il, there is Freak.co.il, in addition to Sportel (the original Magic importers and Magic league organizers). Got to add their links to my side pages.
On the one hand, I'm please to have these games available in Israel. On the other hand, like many other Israeli endeavors, what should be a simple markup with regards to shipping and VAT (17%) turns the game into a huge cost for the average Israeli. The games are generally not too much above retail (e.g. a Magic booster costs something like $5, T&E costs $55, Settlers costs $45), but most Israelis earn something like $1250 a month, we have high rent, a 60% tax bracket, etc...
The result is that even in Israel it is cheaper to buy the goods over the Internet and have them shipped to Israel than to buy locally, assuming you are getting more than one game. Still, it is nice to support the local stores (not local to Jerusalem, but local to Israel, at least).
Debates about this have ranged on Spielfrieks, Gamefest, and BGG, so we'll leave this one alone.
Gilad promised to come by our club tomorrow to check us out. I am not going to be able to make it Tel Aviv regularly (travel and expense). But Reut is closer, so, if I'm able to, I'll try just this Thursday, if only to meet more people and spread the love.
I have moved to cable Internet, instead of ADSL, so less money to the state monopoly, Bezeq (Note to self: if I ever apply for a job at Bezeq, remove this blog entry.) I had to change my email address, so I got me a Gmail address (shadejon at). I then had to change about a gazillion web pages, mailing lists, shopping sites, contacts, etc... to the new address. Most situations were not too much trouble ... except for eBay. It took me a week of emails every day before I got pointed to help in online chat, and an hour and a half of chat to determine that I can't do that. Why? Because a) my account was registered in America, so even after changing my address to Israel, they won't accept a credit card with an Israeli address b) I need to give them a new credit card to change my address, because c) Gmail is not a secure email address, unlike aol, msn, or any .org . Scritch scratch.
Well, I tried to start a new account registered as an Israeli, in the hopes of merging the old one into the new one after 60 days, and they still won't accept any of my three credit cards. Urgle. Amazingly enough, they are - literally - unable to change my email address themselves, even after presenting enough personal information to verify my identity.
The other problem was getting my old address to forward my email for a month - that also took a week, and in the meantime, I was bouncing emails.
Otherwise, things went pretty smoothly. Gmail is pretty neat - you can pop it, forward it, webmail it, just about anything, and the interface isn't too kooky, even if you have to get used to working with "tags" instead of folders. There are still some things I don't want passing through eBay, but what can I do? Receiving email at a local pop isn't any more secure - it is just more of an illusion of security.
Yeeha.
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