For my next trick...

I will now attempt to explain the procedure for playing PG2 by e-mail.  I will try to explain it in great detail for those who aren't familiar with using Windows Explorer or WinZip.

First some prerequisites.  You must have PG2 installed (duh!), and the version 1.02 patch as well.  And you should play with the original SSI equipment files, and the original SSI scenarios.  (I think you can play e-mail games with different equipment files and/or user-made scenarios, but I've never had any luck with that.)  You will need to have WinZip.  If you try to send the turns without zipping them, they will become corrupted in the transfer.  You MUST zip the turns.

For purposes of this explanation I will pretend to be playing a duel of Dunkirk against... oh... say, Hitler?  That ought to work.  Even I am a better strategist than he was!  :)  So I should thrash him quite thoroughly.  For amusement I will start the duel.  Since he always seemed to be the one to start everything else, having someone else start things for once should be enough to drive him crazy!  (well... craziER, that is!)  :-)

The first thing I will do is to start up Panzer General 2.  In the main menu screen I click on "play by e-mail" -- the fourth icon from the left, the one with the "flying pizza box" picture.  A new dialogue box will open up.  I select "New Game" and click the check mark.

Another dialogue box opens up and asks for a password.  The password keeps your opponent from seeing your behind-the-scenes (outside of spotting range) moves.  So don't tell him what your password is.  If you are playing against a stranger who might try to cheat, make sure you enter a password he wouldn't easily guess.  But if you think your opponent might cheat, you shouldn't be playing him anyway!  If you are fairly confident your opponent will play honestly, you can just use a password that is easy to remember and easy to type in.  You will use this password to open every future turn in this scenario, and if you're like me, you'll use the same password for every game you ever play so that you don't have to keep track of which passwords go with which games.  If you forget your password, you're screwed.  That's one of the only ways you can really screw up a PBEM game, so write it down if you have to.

After I enter my password and click on the check mark, I am taken to the scenario screen where I choose which scenario we will play.  In this case I scroll down to "Race to Dunkirk" and click it.  Me and my pal Hitler are purists, so we'll play with both sides at 100% prestige.  If you change one or both of the prestige modifiers, make sure you tell your opponent about this so he can use the same settings when he starts the second game of the duel.

{At this point I might as well inform you that Lasse Jensen --of PG Builders Paradise fame-- offers a free "PBEM Cheat Checker" program.  With this program you can check to make sure that your opponent used the agreed upon prestige settings, along with a host of other common cheats.  So DON'T CHEAT!  Even if you don't have Lasse's cheat checker, remember that your opponent might!}

So I have chosen Dunkirk, and left the prestige at 100% for both sides.  Now comes the familiar part.  I click on the check mark and the map opens to a familiar scene.  I play my first turn of Dunkirk as the Germans.

When I'm done with my turn I hit the "end turn" icon (picture of the hand) to end the turn, as usual.  But now a dialogue box opens up and asks me to save my turn.  I choose the "empty slot" and name it using the following guidlines:  Scenario_Player_Side+Turn number.  So in this case I type in "Dunkirk_Joel_Germ01".  Then I can choose to do one of the most fun things involved in a PBEM game.  I can type in a message to my opponent in the "game comments" area.  It's not a windows interface, so you can't go back and edit what you type other than using the "backspace" key to erase.  And if you accidentally hit the "enter" key ("return" for those of you who remember typewriters :), your comments are done and can't be fixed.  So type carefully.

And be creative.  Some players type nothing here.  Others write comical dialogue between the real or imaginary leaders of the units in the scenario.  Others use the space for taunting their PBEM opponent.  Although it's against my nature, I will use this space to write a taunt since my opponent in this game is none other than Hitler himself.  So I will type in:

"Hmmm, 'dolfie.  I seem to have knocked the wind out of your limies and frogs alredy in turn 1.  What a shame.  But look on the bright side, perhaps you'll end up knocking one or two of my auxiliary units down to half strength sometime between now and the time I take home the Brilliant Victory.  Good luck!  (yeah right!)"  There.  That ought to rile him up a little and perhaps distract him in the moments before he plays his turns.  :)

Anyways... I now click the check-mark or hit the "enter" key, and exit the game completely.  Now that I'm out of PG2, I begin exploring my hard drive.  I use Windows Explorer to access my hard drive.  I click on C:/ (my hard drive) and look for the folder named "panzer2".  Next I double-click on the panzer2 folder to enter it.  Inside you will find several folders.  One of them is named "Save".  Here is where you find all your saved games.  Double-click the Save folder to enter it.

(By the way, while you're in there, go ahead and save yourself some disk space by deleting any old saved games you don't plan on reloading.)

As I look around in the panzer2/save folder, I find a white envelope icon with the name "Dunkirk_Joel_Germ01.eml".  That's the PBEM turn I just finished.  The ".eml" file extension shows you that it is an e-mail turn.  But you can't send it like that.  You first have to zip it up so the info won't become corrupted during the transfer.

Right-click on the white envelope icon and choose the option near the top that says,

"Add to "Dunkirk_Joel_Germ01.zip".  After a moment a new file will show up.  It will have a WinZip icon and will have the same name as the envelope icon except that it will say ".zip" at the end instead of ".eml".  This is what I want to send off to my pal Adolf.

I crank up my e-mail program and begin a new e-mail message to him.  I happen to have a button on my e-mail program's tool bar which says "attach".  You might find the attach feature under "insert" or a different drop-down menu in your e-mail program.  Either way, there should be some feature which says something like "insert a file attachment".  When you click this, a "browse" dialogue box opens which works just like Windows Explorer.  Click on your hard drive (probably C:/ or something like that), then scroll until you find the "panzer2" folder on the hard drive.  Then double-click it and find the "save" sub-folder within the panzer2 folder.  Double-click the "save" folder and scroll until you see the turn you just got done zipping.  You can either single-click on it and hit the "attach" button, or just double-click it to attach it to your new e-mail.

Then that dialogue box will close, and you should now see the WinZip icon with your turn's name attached to your new mail message.   I'll rub it in a bit more by typing an additional message for my pal Adolf in the e-mail message, and send the e-mail off to him.  After the message has been sent, I create a sub-folder within my "Save" folder which is called "Dunkirk Adolf".  I store the zipped turn in there just in case.  I can now delete the turn that has the .eml file extension on the name and the white envelope icon.  Once it's been sent, I have no need of it; and if we ever need it again, I still have it in zipped form anyway.

Now I wait.

Meanwhile the old paper-hanger has been sitting by his computer in Argentina, waiting with bated breath for my first turn of Dunkirk.  Once he has received it, he quickly opens my e-mail only to find that I've hurled insults at him in the message body.  He tries to ignore this and proceeds to get his turn unzipped and ready to be played.

First he double-clicks on the zipped turn which I attached to the e-mail.  He is then asked if he wants to open the file or save it to disk.  He chooses to "save to disk".  Another window opens which asks him to browse his computer and specify where to save the file.  He double-clicks "My computer", then "C:/" (his hard drive), then the "panzer2" folder, and finally the "save" sub-folder.  Then he clicks the "save" button and the dialogue boxes disappear.

Now Hitler cranks up his Windows Explorer and explores his C: drive (hard drive) until he has found and double-clicked on the "save" sub-folder in the "panzer2" directory.  There he finds the zipped turn.  When he double-clicks on it, the WinZip Wizard pops up asking where he would like to save the extracted file.

Now, old 'dolfie is pretty stupid.  He used to just hit the highlighted "unzip now" button which would extract the turn to his "unzipped" folder on his hard drive.  Then he would have to go searching for it and cut and paste (or drag and drop) it into the panzer2/save folder.  But I felt sorry for the old buzzard and clued him in on a shortcut.  Instead of accepting the default "extract to the unzipped folder", I showed him how to use the "select different folder" button in the WinZip Wizard.  Then all he has to do is browse his system for the C: drive, then the panzer2 folder and then the "save" sub folder, and THEN press the "unzip now" button.  That way it is unzipped directly into the folder where he wants it to end up.  You can do it either way.

Now that he has unzipped the turn, he can go and play it.  But first I've taught Adolf another handy tip.  I've instructed Hitler to always keep my past turns at least until we're done playing the scenario.  That way if we ever have trouble and need to go back a couple turns, we can pick the game back up at any point.  So here's what he does:  (you don't HAVE to do it, but it isn't a bad idea to have at least one of the two players keeping the old turns until the end of the game.)

He creates a new folder in the save sub-folder.  So this will be a sub-folder of the save folder, which is a sub-folder of the panzer2 folder.  All he has to do is direct his Windows Explorer to panzer2 and then to the save sub-folder.  Without selecting anything within the "save" folder, he goes to the top of the window and opens the "File" drop-down menu, and selects "New" and then "...Folder", to create a new folder within the "save" folder.  He right-clicks it to rename it, and he calls it "Dunkirk Joel".  Since he's already unzipped the actual turn, he can go ahead and drag (or cut/paste) the zipped file into that new folder in case we ever need to refer back to it.

Now he's ready to see what happened in my first turn as Germans at Dunkirk.  He loads up PG2 and clicks the "play by e-mail" button.  But this time he selects "Load Game".  This time a "choose game" dialogue box opens.  Now, thanks to my tutelage, he has become a rather savvy computer-nerd-fuhrer.  He never leaves old PBEM turns lying about in his "save" folder, so there is only one game to choose from in the "choose game" dialogue box, and that's my "Dunkirk_Joel_Germ01" turn.  He selects it and clicks the check-mark button.  He enters his password (he knows I'm an honest sort, so he just uses AH --his initials-- as his password in all his PBEM games).

After hitting the check-mark button, the Dunkirk map opens up, showing my troops and the devastation I have reeked upon his poor Allied defenders.  He is tempted to just start shooting.  But, again, he has learned over the years that it isn't wise to be rash.  So he finds the "replay" button on the right-hand side of the screen (two dots) and clicks it.  Then he can watch me play my turn.  It goes rather quickly -- about as quickly as the A.I. moves in a single-player scenario -- maybe even a little faster than that.  So he watches carefully.  There was a little bit he didn't see too well, so he watches the replay again.  Sometimes, due to his advanced senility, he has to watch the replay a dozen times.  But that's okay.  He can even hit the replay button after he has started moving his own units if he feels the need to see my turn one more time.  The replay is another one of the best and most fun aspects of the PG2 PBEM game.  So ol' Adolf takes his time and gets the most out of this feature.  (He did succeed in dominating most of Europe for a time, you know.  So it isn't like he's retarded or anything.  Crazy -- yes.  But stupid, no.)  Finally he has seen enough and decides to start moving his own Allied units.

He moves and fights with his Allied units in a feeble attempt to stop my on-rushing Wehrmacht.  When he's done, he hits "end turn" and the "save" screen pops up.  He saves to an "empty slot", using the name "Dunkirk_Adolf_Allies01" for his turn.  Now it's his turn to start the other half of our duel:  with HIM being the Germans.

Now, once again, I do so hate to speak ill of him, but old Adolf used to do a really stupid thing at this point.  Rather than exiting PG2, he would just continue on with starting a new e-mail game.  But then our game wouldn't work because of the "Password Bug".  So nowadays he's a little smarter about these things, and he completely exits PG2 at this point, and then starts it back up again.

Before he starts it back up, he does a little housekeeping.  He no longer needs the little envelope icon .eml file I sent him.  He has moved the zipped file I sent him into the "Dunkirk Joel" sub-folder, and he has played his half of that turn I sent.  So he can safely delete the file called "Dunkirk_Joel_Germ01.eml" which has the white envelope icon.  But he obviously doesn't touch the "Dunkirk_Adolf_Allies01.eml" turn he just completed.  He'll zip it up later.

Now he can go back and reboot PG2 to play the second game of our duel.  He chooses, "Play by E-mail".  Then "New Game".  He enters his password (for simplicity, he uses his same password from the other game) and chooses the "Race to Dunkirk" scenario at 100% prestige.  (surprisingly, he rarely cheats, although he does throw the occasional temper tantrum when things don't go quite right.  He gets very irritated that you can't sack your leader units when things don't go well!)

He plays his first German turn and saves as "Dunkirk_Adolf_Germ01".  When he exits PG2, there are now two envelope icons in his "save" folder in the "panzer2" directory on his hard drive.  He right-clicks on "Dunkirk_Adolf_Germ01.eml"  and chooses "Add to Dunkirk_Adolf_Germ01.zip".  Then he does the same with "Dunkirk_Adolf_Allies01".  Now both his Allied first turn and his German first turn are ready to be sent to me.

He starts a new e-mail message and attaches both zipped turns.  After his e-mail has been sent, he does one last housekeeping chore.  He goes back into the panzer2/save directory and deletes both envelope icons and moves the two zipped turns into the "Dunkirk Joel" sub-folder in case we ever need to go back to them.  He must wait to do this only after the message has been completely sent out or it won't work properly.  But he has a fast cable modem courtesy of the Argentinean telephone company, so it doesn't take long before his message with the turns attached has been sent.  Only then does he delete the two .eml (envelope) turns, and move the two zipped turns to the "Dunkirk Joel" sub-folder.

When I get the turns, I will double-click each zipped turn icon in his message and save both of them to my C:/ drive, panzer2 folder, save sub-folder.  Then I'll unzip one of them and play that turn.  Then I'll delete the envelope icon for the turn I just unzipped.  Then I'll unzip the other turn and play it.  Then I'll delete the envelope icon for that turn.  Then I'll zip up both of my latest turns with the envelope icons ("Dunkirk_Joel_Germ02" and "Dunkirk_Joel_Allies01") and send the zipped versions to my opponent.  After it's been successfully sent, I delete the two envelope icons, and move the two zipped icons into the "Dunkirk Adolf" folder I have made.

And Awaaaaay We Gooooo!  :)

Playing by e-mail is one of the most fun things you can do with PG2.  It's nearly fool-proof, and it really does only take a turn or two before the steps start becoming second-nature.

Good luck, and good hunting!