Here are the results of the SGS Reader Poll conducted in the September issue. There was a total of 23 responses: six via paper mail, one via email, and 16 via the on-line reader poll I set up on my Internet webpage. This total is much smaller than the great response past editor Kula got with his reader poll in 1997, the last time we pulled something like this, but then again I wasn't offering any prizes (cheap bastard that I am). I found many of the answers very interesting;

A. "Personal" Section

This was where I tried to find out who was answening the poll, without being too intrusive.

Age: We definitely serve an older demographic: 19 of the 23 responses to the age question were over 31. The mode was 31-40, with 12 responses.

Education: A highly educated crowd, with 17 of 23 responses reporting at least an undergraduate degree. The mode was graduate degree, with nine responses.

SGS member: A large number of people (14 of 23) reported "less than one year" and all of these responses were online, suggesting that this poll caught a number of the new chums we've acquired thanks to our higher Internet profile.

Game Player: However, the answers here were at the other extreme. Only one person reported being a game player for less than one year, while nine reported playing games for 16-25 years, and 10 were real grognards: 26+ years of pushing cardboard around.

E-mail, Internet and webpage usage: 18 of 21 respondents reported having an e-mail address and 20 of 22 reported using the Internet (but three of those specified "not for gaming purposes"). Only six of 22 respondents had personal webpages.

B. "Game Habit" Section

This was where I tried to find out what you have and like to play.

Games owned/bought: 10 of 23 responses reported owning upwards of 100 games (not counting the six people who said, "I'm afraid to go into the closet and count them"!). Acquisitive bunch, aren't you... 13 of 23 responses reported buying at least 13 boardgames a year, with eight of these buying over 25.

Preferred German Game: Answers were well spread out among the crude taxonomy I devised to describe these games, but the crowd favorites were "building" type games (rail games or Settlers of Catan) and " power-mongering" (e.g. El Grande, Web of Power), with 13 and 11 responses each.

Preferred historical board wargame era: " none in particular" and Ancients were the favorites, with a smaller spike for the two world wars and the ACW.

Preferred type of historical board wargame: Land operational and strategic games were the clear winners here, with naval games a runner-up.

Miniatures: Only two people were miniatures fans enough to indicate favorite eras (SF spaceships, Napoleonics and ACW), Yet another 10 indicated that they had dabbled in it. Yet another 10 reported no involvement at all.

C - Strategist Content Section

Here I tried to find out what you do and don't want to see in Strategist. The numbers indicated are the average of all answers to that question, with "1" meaning a highly negative opinion and "5" a highly positive one. The next editor may want to think about these answers, but only if he has a choice of material to run - mostly this year I just found myself running what people sent me. So if you marked a preference for something you'd like to see in this zine, you ought to regard that as an impetus to go out and write it, too!

Hobby news: 4.18 No surprise here, really. Though I will admit this year I did not run a lot of this kind of thing.

Game vahants/scenarios: 4.27 The most highly rated question - prospective contributors take note!

Convention listings: 2.90 Not too welcoming; I guess its relevance depends on what part of the country you live in.

Complete playable games: 3.70 More positive than negative, but the responses were polarized with a lot of 5s and 1s. I'm not sure whether this is more due to the idea of having a game in the zine, or the arcane subject matter of the games I've run this year.

Reviews of German games: 3.41 Another somewhat polarized response: it appears some people hate German games and other folks will play nothing else.

Reviews of historical wargames: 3.66 And vice versa, but a bit more charitable.

Reviews of SF/F games: 2.90 Not a favored subject, I guess. One respondent took me to task for lumping both science fiction arid fantasy together, as he played only SF.

Miniatures gaming: 2.3 Still less a favorite subject: most responses were neutral or slightly anti.

PBM/PBEM material: 2.10 Even less popular.

Material on computer games: 1.59 Aaaagh, never let this stuff darken our pages!! Everyone hated this topic - but that's OK, there are more than enough free reviews and zines exclusively devoted to computer games of all types.

Reviews/guides to Internet material: 3.45 Middling positive; I think Pete de Rosa has done a good job reviewing sites these last couple of years. We need a guide to test the turgid waters of the Net for us, I think..

Articles on strategy/tactics for a particular game: 3.77 Not bad but I guess it would have to depend on die particular game.

Game replays: 2.68 Hmmm, I suppose not. I haven't seen many of these anyway.

Interviews with game designers: 3.82 This was a surprisingly popular feature, one I don't recall seeing in Strategist before. Erik Arneson, keep these interviews coming!

Game errata listings: 3.36 The Internet is getting to be a better resource for this, though I am not familiar with any site that keeps errata for German games.

More graphics: 2.8 This got a lot of neutral responses, but more 1s than 5s. Perhaps this is more an issue of the editor's taste in illustrations.

Once again, thanks to everyone who did take die time to write and express your opinions oil making Strategist a better zine.