Play By Email

SAS WW2 supports play by email ('PBEM').

PBEM requires each player to save their game file each turn (with a password), after making all their moves and before attempting to run the turn calculation. Each player then sends their file to the other.

To use the PBEM feature, follow these steps:

  1. Complete all moves for your side for the current turn of the game you want to play by email.
  2. Now, click on the 'Out' box on the desk of your Admiral's Office:
  3. You will now be prompted to enter (or edit) a password for your file but only if you want this game to be played by email:

  4. If you are not playing this game by email, then leave the field blank and click the 'OK' button.

  5. Else, if you If you do want to play this game by email, make sure that you enter a password at least one character in length. If you leave the password field blank, the computer does not recognise the save file as suited to PBEM. (For more information on using passwords, see the Using passwords help file). Enter a password, and click the 'OK' button. (Do not click the 'X' button, as this has the effect of cancelling any current password and closing the dialog).
  6. The computer will now save the game file with your latest moves, to a folder called 'PBEM'. This folder is located under the place where you installed to. For example, the default installation location is 'C:\NWS\SAS-WW2'. If this is where you installed SAS WW2, then the 'PBEM' folder can be found at: 'C:\NWS\SAS-WW2\GameData\PBEM'
  7. If you are playing this game by email, you then email this file to your opponent, (or send by some other suitable means), He then saves the file to his PBEM folder.
  8. Your opponent does the same by sending you his game file, and you save it to your PBEM folder.
    NOTE: Both files must be in the PBEM folder. Saving the enemy's file to any other game folder will not work.
  9. Now, when you load up the game and click on 'GO', the computer will load up both files and start calculating the turn.

Note that to help you keep track of things and visually validate that you both have the most recent files, each turn file is appended with a suffix that shows the turn. Files are named by the computer in a standard way: the campaign name + a hyphen + the player name + a hyphen + the turn number + a standard '.sas' extension used for all SAS files. For example, the British player's file for the Atlantic1 scenario, for turn 5 would be 'Atlantic1__Harry Nelson_t5.sas'


When PBEM files are loaded

When you are playing a PBEM game - which by definition is any game where either side's file is password protected, the computer tries to find and load the PBEM files for both sides when you attempt to run the turn. (See running a turn for how to do this).

If your file is found but the enemy side's file is not, you will see this error message:

Clicking the 'OK' button returns you to your Admiral's Office. The turn calculation cannot start until you have received the enemy's end-of-turn file and have saved it to your PBEM folder.


Limitation on Tactical Play

A PBEM game is typically played on physically separate computers. Each player runs their turn calculation separately. Yet the calculation MUST guarantee that the results are the same for both, otherwise the game would quickly get 'out-of-synch'.

SAS includes many options during calculation for a player to make changes to the orders given in the planning stage. These options add much interest to game play, but they are designed for play-against-the computer mode and are automatically disabled in PBEM games.

Tactical decisions that are automatically disabled in PBEM games include the ability during hourly calculation to: