1) If you use NI or IF, you've got some issues.
No official designs. If you start allowing non-
official designs, people will want quite a variety of ships (esp if they're
stuck with a NAC fleet!).
2) Who is going to play in your CanAm?:) I'm only half way kidding. Last year,
some of us stepped up at the last minute because the Canadian FT players
couldn't make it (Mr. Han, your papers please!). But Adrian and I were out of
our element and Jim was graciously acting as filler. It showed. I believe,
despite their crushing victory, the US side would have had much more fun
playing a game that was a) better balanced (by having a bit more worthy
opposition!) and b) playing against people more familiar with FT. Jerry
doesn't really like competitive games, which meant he probably wouldn't have
played CanAm anyway. Are there Canadian FT players who can and will (with a
reasonable degree of
surety) be attending ECC-V? If not, perhaps you
might run a non-CanAm event. You can run the
same style of battle, but it just won't be CanAm.
I've taken my lumps once and realized that FT isn't my primary game. Further,
I don't do cinematic (I fly as bad in cinematic as Jim did in vector and it
isn't for lack of playing... I just can't seem to get it). I'll play FT if its
part of a campaign (such as at CampCon), but I must admit to having not much
interest in one off.
I'm more than happy to see a reprise if some Canadian FT players will make the
trip down.:)
Just my 0.02. (And BTW, thanks for running
CanAm 1 - it was very fun). I'll be at ECC-V
barring Act of God, but I might not run much. I kinda found out I enjoy
playing:)
<Though, with the new FMASk rules in playtest now, I'd be quite happy to run
an FMASk CanAm. I think Jon's new rules are going to be a smash hit!>
It seems to me that with a few exceptions (Savasku, games with huge amounts of
ordinance, grossly mismatched opponents) FT balances very well, at least in
the FB1 era. Why not allow customized ships? To me, building good ships is
half of why I love the game.
Or, build the scenario with fixed ships which you playtest a few times to
verify it's pretty balanced and stick with those ships. If you want to match
the Kra'vak against UN forces, I can supply some interesting UN SSDs! I use
the Babylon 5 Earthforce ships (Omega destroyers, Hyperion Cruisers, Victory
Destroyers, and so on). Why not let one side be the repacious invaders and the
other side the defending humans?
I'm used to playing vector and would be relatively hopeless at cinematic
movement. If both sides are familiar with one kind of movement let them play
that movement style. Make sure you playtest a fixed scenario both ways to see
if there are any landmines with one type of movement.
Of course you should do whatver is fun.
> --- Thomas Barclay <kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca> wrote:
> Thomas Barclay wrote:
...<snip>...
> <Though, with the new FMASk rules in playtest now, I'd be quite happy
Cool! When can we see the new rules?
***
It seems to me that with a few exceptions (Savasku, games with huge amounts of
ordinance, grossly mismatched opponents) FT balances very well, at least in
the FB1 era. Why not allow customized ships? To me, building good ships is
half of why I love the game.
***
Absolutely, but Tom's point is that the NI and IF are not as rigorously
playtested against the other three FBI fleets, so playing one FBI fleet
against a non-FBI is asking for trouble.
Playing totally scratchbuilt fleet scenarios can be hard to GM if you are
playing a 'serious' tourney, though most FT tourney's still have fun as the
major object.
> --- devans@uneb.edu wrote:
Well then the pretested, fixed ship scenario would appear to be an answer.
Playtest it well, and switch sides regularly so one good player won't tilt the
results. If you can develop a good scenario, any ships could be used, as long
as you have them to playtest in advance. Perhaps you could ask the CANAM
players to submit ships in advance? Could they build a team in advance before
the tourney in time to send in their ships to be playtested?
From: "David Griffin" <carbon_dragon@yahoo.com>
> >
<snip> Perhaps
> you could ask the CANAM players to submit ships in advance?
The players would not design them at all. I would design IF ships and NI ships
(the latter being based on Noam's published examples) and post them. If a
player wants a CH. he'd be able to pick IF Heavy Cruiser A or B, or Israeli
Cruiser Aleph or Beth, but no modifications
Certainly nothing wrong with that. If you wanted to give them a little leeway,
you could design variants of your design that made slight differences (more
PDS, less PDS, Pulse vs. salvo missile, whatever) but there's no reason why
you should.
Just do decent designs and playtest. I played a scenario where the designs
were so bad I was little better than a practice target for my opponent. Mainly
it was just poor matching rather than poor design (salvo missiles against a
lot of Kra'vak).
> --- Chris DeBoe <LASERLIGHT@QUIXNET.NET> wrote:
> David Griffin wrote:
As ECC organizer and scenario consultant, let me throw in a few points that
Chris and I discussed as he was formulating the rules for the FT CanAm event.
He was interested in making a balanced scenario that tested the tactical
abilities of the players and not their ship building prowess. My initial
suggestion to him was to require each side to build a fleet consisting of
equal points of ESU, NAC, FSE, and NSL ships, straight from the Fleet Book.
Chris modified that for his own purposes and the first CanAm event is in the
history books.
Chris could design a set of ships that are available to all players that they
build their fleets. Again, the goal is to test the players' abilities in fleet
manuever, target selection, and tactics.
I've run a similar scenario at previous ECC conventions that the players play
twice, once as the attackers and once as the
defenders. The players are given the scenario - a convoy attack -
and a list of cruisers with which to attack. They choose the ships and their
starting locations relative to the convoy before we choose who plays which
side first. It's made for some highly competitive games.
G'day
> he'd be able to pick IF Heavy Cruiser A or B
Oh he wouldn't want one of those they always roll 1s!!!;)
Beth