Sounds fun; I'm in - simon.appleton@nottingham.ac.uk

BTW, Shand - just based on the experience with the King of England, I think you should consider setting up a few ground rules.

First, I'd recommend someone takes responsibility for keeping the show moving, as Demon of Light has done with the King of England thread. Shand, as the instigator of this thread, is the obvious candidate but it will require fairly sustained involvement. I would recommend adopting a benevolent dictator role - trying to work by unanimity or by committee is not worth it for a bit of fun like this.

Second, participants need to have the right kit to take part ie a patched version of the game, winzip and an e-mail account capable of receiving and sending 1.5MB saves.

Third, participants should undertake to write-up an account of their reign, pass on the save game after finishing and take a screenshot.

Fourth, some time limits are probably required to maintain momentum. I would recommend that people must acknowledge receipt of save games within 48 hours. Playing later games can take a long time (eg if your empire covers most of the map and you manually fight battles for long wars). Nonetheless, to avoid hold-ups, I would say players should post an account every 3 days from receipt of the save game. It need not be an end-of-reign account but should be interesting for others to read.

We can be forgiving with the above rules - eg if there are problems (sickness, work or family commitments, tech glitches etc), people can have their reigns deferred until the problem are resolved, but the show should go on or the thread will lose momentum.