On 18 Aug 2003 11:44:50 GMT, Harry Mason <s
...@no.spam> wrote:
> Fish-face wrote:
> > Hi, all!
> > Having recieved the secret of Mornington Crescent from my parents, I
> > have developed a great liking for this "game" and have been cunningly
> > using my double-underhand-oaks to great effect... however!
> > To take part in any "official" game, I really need to understand some
> > of the conventions. Basically, definitions of commin maneuvers, states
> > etc. (e.g. loops, reversals, passes) and to what playing style they
> > apply to - whether it's actualy rule-based, or free-form.
> The problem here is that there is no real standard set of rules used
> throughout the world. Here in Southampton, England, the common convention
> seems to be the British Standard Reformed ruleset, though we generally play
> with many optional amendments such as weekend rules. The World Championships
> use United International rules, but they are not recommended except for very
> experienced players. The "I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue" team still play with
> the now antiquated British Orthodox rules (as defined in 1927 by the National
> MC Players' Union), and many traditional players choose to use this ruleset.
> Of course, just about all rulesets will include the standard moves such as
> shunt, strile, and loop, and the common states such as knip, spoon, and huff.
> The game wouldn't be the same without them! These days it's unusual not to
> include token play, spin, and LV calculations, as they increase the degree of
> challenge for experienced players.
That's a nice summary, but you've not really explained much, have you. :)
Anyway let me explain how the standard moves work. For this example, I'm going
to assume that all players have equal and constant LV and spin (obviously this
never happens in play, but it's the best way to explain the concepts).
Obviously it's important to note the similarities and differences between moves
such at the Shunt and the Strile. Both manoeuvres require you to have a low
spin, but the Shunt works best with a high LV, whereas the strile is best
suited to low LV.
Anyway, Harry has failed to mention the cannon, possibly the most useful
defensive play tactic in use in modern MC. Obviously there are only certain
situations where this is a valid move (You can work this out from your LV
coefficients table) but when employed it can have overwhelming results.
For example:
In this example, there are four players, who we'll call North, East, South and
West. Their current status is as follows, and they play in the order above
North: Bethnal Green, LV: 3.27, Spin 1.25c
East: Tower Hill (Attached to the District line) LV: 5.46, Spin 0.75a
South: Camden Town, LV: 0.23, Spin 0.00
West: Mile End (Unattached), LV: 1.02, Spin 1.00a
North moves to Holborn, thus opening one of the diagonals, but opening an
attack vector too.
East moves to Liverpool Street, blocking North's return on the Central line and
restricting Zone 2 play.
South then moves to Kings Cross, St. Pancras to place the Northern Line in
knip, preventing all players from exiting via this route.
West attaches to the H & C line, but moves on Central, towards Liverpool
Street. The result is that East is moved to Holborn and shunts North to
Greenford (this is the cannon), but as East has such a high LV, they continue
to move to West Acton.
This is only a short example, but you can see clearly how West has improved
their position greatly, by virtue of this stunt. It should also be pointed
out that I have not taken token play into account, as this would have opened up
new possibilities. Additionally, had East chosen to Bifurcate, then the
resulting overall LV would have unlocked the Piccadilly line and modified the
shunt parametrics.
Hopefully this should be fairly clear to anyone with a reasonable understanding
of the basics. I recommend purchasing a copy of the latest BSR Basic ruleset,
(dated June 2002, as I recall), but they're getting harder to come by these
days. If you can't find this, then Simmond's Mornington Crescent Advanced game
draws most of its groundwork from BSR, so the first few chapters of the
Simmond rulebook are very rewarding reading for the novice seeking proficiency.
--
Andrew Paul Landells <apl...@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
WWW pages at <http://www.landells.cjb.net>
