[GZG] Campaign rules

> Hi Simon,

> [quoted text omitted]

> Like the rules - very detailed. How did you handle all the record

> This seems to be a problem with more detailed campaign rules and

> they generate enormous amounts of data and you can end up playing

> "Bureaucrats in Space" rather than actual tabletop gaming - though you

> seem to come from a role-playing background so perhaps the UN meetings

> as much fun as the actual battles?

> [quoted text omitted]

> Lots of neat ideas, though! I like the UN concept and the

> system - also the trade nodes. And the fleet/task force structure. (A

> problem I'm having in the campaign I'm running is that we're now

> fleets of 3000 - 5000 points running around and a game can take 10

> with forty plus ships a side).

> [quoted text omitted]

> Did you ever get to play Ver 2, or did everybody graduate and get

We played the FTCampv0.1 for a year, then stopped after we all agreed it
had stagnated - no one was going to attack anyone and we finished for
the summer break from uni.

Over the summer I revised the rules, thus FTCampv0.2, which is the one typed
on on my web page. We played that for another whole year, making it to round
38 if memory recalls.

The book keeping did become a bit of a problem, we all developed a method of
only listing changes from turn to turn, thus I have a sheet per round that
notes the differences from last round and all the
movement this round (I might scan one in to show - developed a very
compact notation).

I'll say that running a fighter heavy fleet was a pain to keep supported.

We did enjoy the UN, we had a weekly meeting on wednesday afternoons, normally
for about an hour or two depending if any fleets meet. We averaged three
rounds a week, which was good fun. Most of us enjoyed the logistics and book
keeping (I certainly do, I'm at strategist at heart). Over the year I think
there were less than 10 actual table top battles, in the final round there
were about 15 (my ally and I launched a large scale assault on three other
players) but sadly many of those games were never played.

I have written ideas for v0.3, but no one wants to devote another year to a
new campaign on that scale. Things that are still wrong with my rules are the
distances to actually attack. It can take 10 rounds to
build, supply and move a fleet group to attack someone else - for 5 of
those rounds they can see you coming and build up their defences. Even with
simultaneous movement it wasn't possible to do surprise attacks.

Also, part of the design philosophy (read the engage orders phase) is that if
you don't want to fight odds are you can escape [space is big; really, really
big]. Many a potential battle was halted when one side ran away.

This was also a consequence of the map, having weaker worlds meant you left
them mostly undefended. For v0.3 I would get rid of the free form
map and use a node style map - with lots of interconnections, but still
nodes.

We never got the universal exchange to work either, after a few rounds we all
decided to cripple the exchange rate and then no one wanted to make it better
again.

The major change for v0.3 is the removal of static builders - they were
such large investments of points and time (mine took 7 rounds to build) and
were to easy to destroy. Instead building is abstracted so that each system
has a build rate, which you can combine similar to trade bubbles, with
combined build bubbles getting bonuses.

I learnt a lot from writing and running the campaign. I was lucky to have a
group of 6 dedicated players who turned up every week for two whole years. It
was a lot of fun at the start and middle, the end got a bit hard as we all
juggled upwards of 20 systems, and thousands of points worth of ships. We all
had different back stories and ideas for our fleets, which was interesting in
itself, a lot of role playing at the meeting made it good fun.

One day I'll type up v0.3 and post it for others to use if they want -
it is greatly reduced in certain areas, still focusing on the macro scale of
running your empire. I don't think I'll personally get a group together to
play it though, which is a shame.

Sorry, that turned into quite a long response. I hope to play more one
off battles of FT this year - using all the designs for ships we all
made last year.

Oh, final thing - for campaign inspiration I used games I love:

Diplomacy (simultaneous resolution of phases),

Space Dreadnought 3000 (nice two player campaign system),

Roads and Boats (I do love logistics, anyone who likes that sort of
thing should play this game - it's great).

Simon