> Donald Hosford wrote:
> No, but I have heard of it...and drooled at the adverts in my old
Excellent game, the only 3-D boardgame that I've played that really
works. Newtonian movement +3D makes for very interesting defence games,
where the defender must first go out, then kill the velocity, and come back in
in order to effectively engage the attacker. Difficult, as fuel is limited.
OTOH as most kills are Mobility kills, it behooves the attacker to make sure
that he's going in the right direction and speed to attack the objective when
he meets the opposing fleet, otherwise he just won't have enough firepower to
zap the defences when the fleet gets there. There'll be lots of drifting ships
far from the action on both sides. What makes things more interesting is the
fact that in many cases, the attacker is only trying to sucker the defending
fleet out of position
> Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:
> Excellent game, the only 3-D boardgame that I've played that really
There'll
> be lots of drifting ships far from the action on both sides.
> Donald Hosford wrote:
Not as such: The SF games that SPI made were:
Stand-alones:
BattleFleet Mars : Newtonian 3D tactical, and 2-D strategic (within
Solar System) space combat.
Freedom in the Galaxy: Diplomatic game, similar in concept to Sorceror,
Empires of the Middle Ages etc.
StarForce series:
* StarForce Alpha Centauri: 3-D tactical and 3-D Strategic game covering
a volume up to about 20 LY from Sol. Used hexes + altitude, a poor
compromise, but it worked. Combat between humans, and later L'Chal-Dar
and Rame is relatively bloodless, with non-lethal weaponry employed.
Then the Xenophobes come in and start Novaing systems....
* StarSoldier: Basically, Psi-Immune Starship Troopers in Powered Armour
in the StarForce genre. Hex-based game, one soldier would rather
dominate an area the size of Rhode Island. The main limitations on his powers
were not to cause too much collateral damage with the TotalConversion
warheads, he was expected to hold ground, not Vape it. Of course Xenophobes
have no such restrictions.
I use "he" literally: the psi-immune gene is linked with the X
chromasome, just as all the (human and L'Chal-Dar) starship telesthetics
in SF:AC are female. Rame are a hive mind and operate in Killer Swarms, and
Xenophobes are very Serbian (with apologies to the sane majority of Serbs).
* Outreach: A Very, very VERY strategic game. 2-D, because at this
scale, the Galaxy is 2-D. Covers this spiral arm, and a few others. Very
abstract combat, with "Prisoners Dillemma" situations, and combat often
being religious/philosophical conversion (or even a massive advertising
campaign) rather than Novaing starsystems.
Universe series; * Universe RPG. Not a bad system, but a tadge complex for the
time. Contained its own tactical combat system, which was published seperately
as:
* Delta Vee - a Newtonian boardgame of tactical space combat, set in the
Universe mythos. This may be what you're thinking of as a sequel to BFM.
Have a look at http://www.crossover.com/costik/spicom/index.html
Greg Costikyan's excellent SPI index.
From: Alan E & Carmel J Brain <aebrain@dynamite.com.au>
> Excellent game, the only 3-D boardgame that I've played that really
There'll
> be lots of drifting ships far from the action on both sides.
I remember seeing more ships drift out of the battle than being destroyed.
One of they're best game IMHO. In fact somehow I ended up with two copies of
this fine game after buying a number of items in a game auction in Seattle
three or four years ago. Now if only I could find an interested opponent in SE
Minnesota.
Another interesting facet was the difference in weaponry on the two opposing
sides. IIRC (it's been a few years since I played) in the later stages of the
game one side develops a viable fighter and the other side uses nukes on
missiles (nasty, very nasty).
> Kevin Walker wrote:
> One of they're best game IMHO.