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Maintained by:
Morten Larsen
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Welcome to pbem.dk, home of COSMOS play by email games

Here is where you can play Stellar Conflict, War of the Dark God, Throne of Cofain and other games developed for the COSMOS play by (e)mail engine.

What to do at this site?

Use the menu on the left to visit the sub-sites for Stellar Conflict, War of the Dark God and Throne of Cofain. Or take a look at the user interface demo. Or go to the "shop" to buy a game set-up. Or go to the game sign-up page to see which games are currently filling up.

Register yourself to receive more info!

If you would like to receive an email notification when new games become available on this site please register yourself as a user!

Latest news

2019-02-01: This site is now https only
The server now redirects all attempts at access via a non-secure connection (http) to a secure connection (https). The server has supported https for some time, alongside with http, so the change is actually that non-secure traffic is no longer accepted.

2014-01-25: Turn forecasting now works in Stellar Conflict
The forecasting which has proved so useful (and popular) in War of the Dark God is now also working for Stellar Conflict. No more missing the timing on those matter transmission transfers of crucial resources from your gas giant mining operations!

Please see the help page on "Forecasting" for further information. You can also try it out in the user interface demo by selecting one of the demo games "dragons" or "jellyfish".

2013-03-28: New edition of the COSMOS Fantasy rule book.
There is a new edition of the COSMOS Fantasy basic game rule book, replacing the March 2007 edition. There are only very minor rule changes and some clarifications. The rule book changes are detailed here.

The new version can be downloaded from the document library.

2009-01-08: Turn "forecasting" has been implemented
I have (finally) finished the forecast mechanism intended to catch the errors in your orders that the syntax checker cannot. It only works for the fantasy games at present. Please see the help page on "Forecasting" for further information. You can also try it out in the user interface demo by selecting one of the demo fantasy games (blue/red/green/white).

2007-02-28: Stellar Conflict bomb/enslave simulator updated
The Stellar Conflict bomb/enslave simulator has been updated so that now you can easily set up the defending colony with the population and installations of a primitive colony from the tables of primitive colony development. At the bottom of the "Defending colony" box you'll find some selection boxes and a "Set up!" button which you can use to draw data directly from the development tables. Just select the turn of the attack, the size of the terran planet and the expected development ("maximum" being the worst case) and hit "Set up!" and the fields will be filled.

2007-02-01: Stellar Conflict resources updated
The Stellar Conflict resources such as the bomb/enslave simulator, the tables of primitive colony development and the tables of minimum fleet strength needed to destroy primitive colonies have been cleaned up and updated to reflect the current rules (some stuff remaining from the playtest was removed/revised). The Stellar Conflict example game(s) in the interface demo were similarly updated to be consistent with the current rules.

2007-01-11: Now accepting payments though PayPal
PayPal has been added as a payment option when you pay for your games in the "shop". You can still select to use your credit card as always.

2006-04-09: Now out of playtest: Stellar Conflict
Everyone can now sign up to play Stellar Conflict, the new strategic science fiction game offered at pbem.dk. The game is fresh out of playtest and is now offered in two versions: A standard free-for-all game and a new team game variant in which teams of four compete against each other. See here for more details.

You can sign up for either version of Stellar Conflict here.

2006-04-07: New edition of the Stellar Conflict rule book
There is a new edition of the COSMOS SciFi Stellar Conflict rule book, replacing the play-test edition. It can be downloaded from the document library. There are quite a lot of changes and also a few clarifications and other improvements. The rule changes are detailed here.

2006-02-10: Stellar Conflict: An online bomb/enslave attack simulator is now available
There is now an online invasion simluator which you can use to experiment with bomb and enslave attacks against colonies. You can specify colony strength and fleet composition and the simulator will give detailed statistics on your chances of success and the fate of the colony and warships.
The simulator can be reached from the Stellar Conflict resources page.

2006-01-29: Stellar Conflict: Tables of primitive colony development and needed fleet strength for bombing now available
The new tables are available from the Stellar Conflict resources page.

2005-05-17: Improved order entry
New features have been added to the order entry page and the order checker has been improved. There are now "Get template" buttons on the order entry page which will give you a template for filling in orders. The order checker will now process break, clear, embed and insert orders and report any errors with these. Finally, the order checker will add additional information at the bottom of the order entry page which shows the order status of units et cetera at the start of the turn, after the orders you have submitted have been given to them.

2005-05-08: New feature: "Known blubs" report
It is now possible to get a report of all known rules blurbs for your game position by email or online on the web site. To get it, you select "known blurbs" as the report type from the drop down menu when ordering email or online reports from a game.

2003-09-26: Optional rules: Advanced tactics system
It is now possible to play COSMOS Fantasy games using the basic game rules supplemented with an advanced tactics system, which is actually just the system used in the advanced version of the game. A stand-alone description of the advanced tactics system and how it fits into the basic game can be downloaded from the document library.

2003-03-24: You can now get shared event reports
In games supporting information sharing (including the interface demo games blue, red, green and white) you can now get a shared event report detailing all events as seen by yourself and those you are sharing information with. Let me know if this produces any strange results for you.

There are also a couple of new report options, one of which will give you full descriptions of the forces you see in the event report (rather than just the usual "A force of 200 (SI) does something"). Reports and map notes have also been somewhat cleaned up and revised to provide more precise information than before in certain circumstances (e.g. embarking and disembarking forces are now shown as such, including which hex they are embarking or disembarking into). All in all a major revision of a lot of code so it is highly likely that a bug or two has crept in. Let me know if you find any...

2003-03-20: Diplomatic broadcasts are now properly documented
If you ever wondered how certain veteran players managed to put in-game messages in your turn report, taunting you and your allies, here is the answer: How to get diplomatic messages and broadcasts in turn reports. This feature was somewhat documented on the old playtest web site and that is why some players know of it already. There are two reasons it has not been documented on this site before now:
The first reason was that the mechanism was originally implemented for communication between players in (snail-mail) postal games and thus every message was filtered through the GM for content and formatting. With messages being entered directly on the web-site until seconds before the deadline there would be no human filter anymore, resulting in a potential for abuse. I have decided to live with that potential as my players are generally a responsible lot and if anyone should step out of line I can take it up with them at that time.
The second reason was that I really wanted to implement a proper message preview on the order entry page so you can see if you get your formatting right. This may yet come; meanwhile you just have to be fairly careful with any formatting codes you use.

2002-11-06: Improvement to shared map notes in COSMOS Fantasy games
Shared map notes now also include travel routes discovered by your allies. They also now include the supplemental notes for some quest-land locations discovered by your allies (e.g. "The Old Wizard lives here" for the tower of the Old Wizard in case any of your alllies have visited it).

2002-03-22: War of the Dark God / Throne of Cofain FAQ introduced
Prompted by a question in rec.games.pbm about the advanced version of War of the Dark God I have introduced a War of the Dark God / Throne of Cofain FAQ.

2002-01-30: New map options
Introducing three new features to make life easier for players: unit icons on maps, military / questing mode only maps and shared information maps (team maps).

If you want an instant overview of the units you can see, you can now order a map with unit icons rather than the standard "dot" unit markings. Such a map shows your own, allied, neutral and enemy armies as shield icons of different colour with nation codes and approximate army size marked. Click here to see an example. The unit icons are documented on a new help page: Map symbols not documented in the rules.

In COSMOS fantasy games, some of your units may be in questing mode (as opposed to the normal military mode) and while questing may come upon special locations or encounters. You can now order maps and map notes which are either military mode only or questing mode only in order to get a better overview of your options in each arena.

If you and your allies can agree to share map information, you can now order a shared information map directly from the pbem.dk server rather than having to combine your separate maps manually. This is of course ideal in a team game like War of the Dark God but can also be used in other games where you cooperate closely with your allies. For illustration purposes, the demo games have been set up to support shared information maps between BK and GE and between RW and WG. Try the interface demo.

2001-06-05: New game: "Throne of Cofain"
Throne of Cofain is a new fantasy scenario designed to be a player's first introduction to the COSMOS Fantasy game system. The scenario is however not only suitable for learning the game system, it can also be set up in a number of different ways to accomodate a small groups of players who wish to find out who is really the best COSMOS player...

To encourage new players to learn the game system through "Throne of Cofain" the following special offer applies if you have not played a fantasy game at pbem.dk before:
Play 12 turns of "Throne of Cofain" and get a 15% discount on your first purchase of a set-up for "War of the Dark God" (the discount also applies to the turns you buy together with the set-up).

2001-05-23: The order syntax checker has been improved
The on-line syntax checker has been vastly improved. It really tries to check as much as it posibly can without actually processing the turn and it gives you warnings whenever your orders look like they could be wrong. Gone are the days when you could accidentally mix up the position to strike and the power to use in a firestrike order...

2001-03-27: The Flagship review of "War of the Dark God" added to the site
Find it at the "War of the Dark God" sub-site.

2001-02-07: A site is born
I finally got my act together and set up a server for running my play by email games commercially. Initially I will be offering the fantasy wargame War of the Dark God, but I will soon add an introductory mini-game to make it easier for new players to get into War of the Dark God. There are also plans for adding a space conquest game I used to run play-by-snailmail.