apterous.org

Jamie M A couple of things to clarify:
- All games must be in ENGLISH (no CSW) as they will be in all challenges;
- Custom games will feature heavily in this challenge. If you're setting up a custom game you ARE allowed to give yourself the pick in every round. This saves some rounds picked by bots being useless, and generally makes things easier.

Callum Todd This is more difficult than I first imagined, but it's going to be fun. Nice idea.

Rhys Benjamin Agree with Callum, had one go on this and had F, G, J, K, W, X, Y, and Z left.

Jamie M I'll be honest, it's pretty hard. It might take a bit of experimentation with different variants to see which one(s) you're most likely to complete it with.

Callum Todd I didn't mean any criticism when I said it was a bit difficult, I think it's an excellent challenge.

Rhys, my tactic has been to try and use those letters (other than G) from the start. Wherever possible, pick those letters if you think you can make a max with them. If not, just play the round normally. The other letters should fall into place by themselves.

Rhys Benjamin Ah, but you're not playing my variant, owing to how utterly crap I am at Normal/Goat/etc.

Jamie M I've barely played Spoilage (here's my fairly unspectacular attempt at an LA to try it out http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=1248088) so I really don't have much of an idea how hard it is for this challenge, but I definitely think it's worth trying other variants besides whatever "your" one(s) is/are. The same probably applies to anyone who specialises in Hyper variants; mine are Hyper Unlimited, Omelette and possibly Aegilops, but not all of them would be useful for me here.

Jon Stitcher I have been 3 letters away and I missed 2 rather simple maxes for the remaining 3 letters. It's definitely possible.

Callum Todd It is absolutely possible, just not easy. Rhys, are you using spoilage? That may be very difficult. I think goatdown is probably best here,, unless you're really good at touchdown.

Rhys Benjamin Sadly my goat skills are awful.

Jon Stitcher The best option here is omelette in my opinion. Much higher probability of the more obscure letters.

Callum Todd Fair enough. I guess it's doable with spoilage, you'll just have to be very luck with selections. Waterblommetjies or middelmanetjies probably essential for the J.

Jamie M Would people prefer challenge completions to be secret or public? As it stands not much happens on this page, and I just wondered if people would prefer to comment on here with completions rather than have to do it by Aptomail.

I could also keep a challenge leaderboard on here and update it every now and then so people know what they're up against, and in some cases know if there's much scope for them to improve.

Kevin Stoba I'd certainly like to see a leaderboard -- it'd give an extra bit of motivation to keep attempting the challenge beyond the opening flurry.

Jon Stitcher +1

Jamie M Ok, good enough for me. Provisional scores for people so far:

Bob De Caux 90
Kevin Stoba 67
Stephen R 60
Callum Todd 55
Richard Freeland 40
Jon Stitcher 10
Thomas Cappleman 10

Jamie M Update - improvements and new players have a star.

* Bob De Caux 97
* Kevin Stoba 92
Stephen R 60
Callum Todd 55
Richard Freeland 40
Jon Stitcher 10
Thomas Cappleman 10

Jamie M Sorry I'm late Marcus...

Bob De Caux 97
Kevin Stoba 92
Stephen R 60
Callum Todd 55
Richard Freeland 40
* Marcus Hares 15
Jon Stitcher 10
Thomas Cappleman 10

Jamie M One in, one out...

Bob De Caux 97
Stephen R 60
Callum Todd 55
Richard Freeland 40
* Matthew Tassier 16
Marcus Hares 15
Jon Stitcher 10
Thomas Cappleman 10

Just a couple of days left for this one.

Zarte Siempre http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=1258167