Moon Base Clavius Play By Email Support Page By Walter O'Hara Back to the Play by Email Emporium

This game is yet another pseudo-Cold War piece about the Soviets and Americans fighting in space... well the moon at any rate! A surprise attack by the Savyetskaya Lunaya Armia on a cluster of American facilities located near the Clavius crater on the moon's South pole brings the opportunity for victory or annihilation.  Will the elite First Marine Corps Specialized Battalion arrive to reinforce the colonists before they get wiped out to the last spaceman?  Your'e now in a position to find out.

Kerry Anderson, of the Marine 2002 (Yaquinto) and the Microgame Co-op fame, designed this one.  Moonbase features an interesting strength point-based combat resolution system; you add the combat strength of the attackers and divide by number of defenders. Arty is limited to nuclear mortars and some light GEV type vehicles that the US can call upon.  There are three regular scenarios and a campaign game which basically links the scenarios together. 

The game sequence is pretty simple, and rated EXCELLENT for PBeM play.  A Game Turn is divided into two player turns (American and Soviet).  The player turns execute like so:

1. Combat Phase
2. Movement Phase
3. Reinforcement Phase
4. Second Player Turn (at which point the GMV file is mailed)

One final note:  I matched the map as closely as possible without developing eyestrain.  Still it's a huge map for a micro and I know that each crater doesn't match up with each hex as it is written on the map.  To forestall the crtitical commentary before it comes flooding in, keep in mind that the polygon trace tool is an inexact drawing mechanism!

NOTICE: This Gamebox is created using Dale Larson's excellent Play By Email utility, Cyberboard (the poor man's Aide De Camp!)

Visit the Cyberboard website by following this link

Moonbase Clavius is copyright, © Task Force Games, 1981.

Designer: Kerry Anderson

Development: Stephen Wilcox

The Action

The graphic above illustrates some of the features of this gamebox. The Soviet attack has just penetrated the West side of the crater.

Turn Record

Since the game map or rulebook don't boast of a turn track, I made one.

How to get the files

Download Game

Download game here

Scenarios

I'm working on it.  In the meantime, here's the first of four.

Related Links/Resources:

Kerry Anderson's Microgame Coop (he's the designer... and has several cool new micros available on his site... maybe some day he'll let me make gameboxes for them if you ask him nicely)

This page content copyright, Walter O'Hara 1998