Hi My friends and I want to try playing a campaign game of FT. We would like
to (at least in theory) base it on the official world as we use FT designs
only. I've seen there has been some campaign rules discussed here and some of
them looked really good. The only problem I have is that none of the systems
I've seen thus far has any data on the starting position of the players. There
are several rules for how much a planet can produce etc etc. but nowhere is
there any information about what kind, number etc you should start with. SO...
I've taken a look at the starmap's at the Encyclopedia and compiled the
information I've found there. I have a ESU fleet myself so I'll be playing ESU
so I'll use that further on. I've seen they controle 14 outer colonies stars
as well as the Nova Moskva (the capital I seem to recall?) in the Inner
Colonies. Do they have any of the other Inner Colonies? What exactly is at the
outer colonies systems? How many planets, what kind of facilites etc.
Similar questions go for the other 3 major powers.
Is this something the list has already discussed, as I'm still new? If anyone
have any suggestions, material, ideas I'd be very grateful.
From: Sindre Cools Berg <cobos@saers.com>
> My friends and I want to try playing a campaign game of FT.
Good. I suggest that you keep the number of players around 5-7, as
having too many seems to lessen the interest for some participants
(when you affect 20% of the universe, you stay interested--when you
run 2%, you don't). I also suggest that you keep it simple,
especially if this is your first campaign. Maybe 5-8 systems per
player. Don't try to run the whole ESU--run just a section of it,
playing the part of a provinvial governor, for example.
> Colonies ? What exactly is at the outer colonies systems ? How many
No one has done any development on this kind of thing that I've heard of, so
feel free to make it up as you go. That's what we do anyway. Just beware of
getting bogged down in too many details.
There are several variables you need to allocate before you start. Are the
Inner Colonies going to be involved? If so, then you'll need a UN player with
a reasonably powerful fleet. If the Inner colonies aren't going to be
involved, then you can generate your own sector of space and assign your own
stats to the Outer Colonies.
The Outer Colonies should have between 25-60% of the homeworlds'
production. If the Inner colonies are supplying ships, etc, then you need to
factor in travel time for reinforcements, tech upgrades etc.
The other main factor is the time scale you want to use. 1 week turns don't
really allow for much in the way of shipbuilding, whereas 1 year turns lose
the tactical control for lighting strikes & assaults. If you want production
to mesh nicely with combat, you need either a separate production turn about
every 3 months, or pick an acceptable midground. 1 month is about right, as it
takes into account concentration of forces, resupply, extended ground
campaigns etc.
If you haven't got it, check the archives on 14/12/99 for the Simple
Campaign rules, & just tailor it to a customised section of space with all the
planets allocated & assigned a production status.
Neath Southern Skies - http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
[mkw] Admiral Peter Rollins; Task Force Zulu
[pirates] Prince Rupert Raspberry; Base Commander
> -----Original Message-----
We did a campaign about 18 months ago. The campaign points system was very
simple but it gave us LOTS of games as a result!
Try this link...
http://www.netspace.net.au/~sneakin/expansion/expansion.html
Owen G
> -----Original Message-----
> Laserlight wrote:
> From: Sindre Cools Berg <cobos@saers.com>
The original idea was to have around that many players yes, with
hopefully two people controlling each of the factions (ESU/NAC/FSE/NSL)
so that if one person can't attend we can still play even though it goes a bit
slower...My intention was also to keep it rather simple, especially since none
of us have any ground based figs, nor even have the rulebooks I think, we'll
make really simply ground attack system...
> especially if this is your first campaign. Maybe 5-8 systems per
Yes...sounds good, but you thought then 5-8 systems with 1-4 actually
inhabited colonies? Any idea on what kind of production they got? What would
make good campaigns do you think?
> >Colonies ? What exactly is at the outer colonies systems ? How many
Well I suspected I had to make it all up...:)
One thing I've been playing around with re campaigns.
1 month turns, each of 4 weekly phases.
Movement - Thrust / 2, so Thrust 2 = 1 campaign area.
EXCEPTION: any ship that starts in Hyperspace may always move in a phase.
Star Systems contain a core area, and a zone for each hyperspace link. So they
look something like this:
etc
_______|_________
| link 2 |
___|________________|__ ______________ _______________
etc___|Link 1 | ALPHA| link 3 |____| Hyperspace |_____|Link 1| BETA |
|_______|______|________| |____________| |______|______|
|Link 4 |Link 5 |
|_______|_______|
/ \
______/_____ _______\____
| Hyperspace | | Hyperspace |
|____________| |____________|
/ \
etc etc
Thus a Thrust-6 FTL ship would be able to go from the core worlds of
system BETA through the outer zone of BETA in phase 2, into Hyperspace in
phase 3, and arrive in the No 3 outer zone of ALPHA, at the last part of phase
4.
A Thrust-2 FTL ship during the same period would only go to the outer
zone of Beta.
Ships arriving at each place can be given orders to either "push through", in
which case any enemy ship there can ambush them, or "stop at contact", in
which case even a single enemy scout can halt the progress of a battlefleet.
Ships that co-exist with an enemy at any phase cause a battle.
Counters representing task forces move as follows (dice for initiative in case
of ties)
Phase 1: 8's then any ship in Hyperspace that's slower than 8 Phase 2: 6's
then 8s then any ship in Hyperspace that's slower than 6 Phase 3: 4s then 6s
then 8s then any ship in Hyperspace slower than 4 Phase 4: 2s then 4s then 6s
then 8s then any ship in Hyperspace
The strength of each task force is noted separately, and may consist of a
single neutral freighter or friendly scout. A task force that's encountered is
immediately removed (and is available next turn) if it's a freighter.
The number of task force counters is determined by the size of the fleets.
Usually 1 per capital ship, plus one per friendly system. Any
ships not in a task force are shown "face-up".
Rules re ships arriving from Hyperspace, where ships go to if activating jump
drives in combat etc should be obvious. And, for the hard of
thinking, non-FTL ships can't enter Hyperspace (unless carried or towed
by an FTL Tug).
For small asteroidal or M-class systems, there may be no "core" as such.
Note that this system works pretty well even for a 3-D starmap - in pure
mathematical terms, it's only the existence of vertices and adjacent edges
that are important in the graph, not the length of the edges.
This Hyperspace method can be well represented by Hypertext <g>, giving href's
to adjacent zones.
> My friends and I want to try playing a campaign game of FT.
Try Nyrath's excellent page:
http://www.clark.net/pub/nyrath/ft/ftmapmain.html
I would suggest starting small and working up. Do 3-4 worlds each
with a production of 100 or so each and see how that goes before you get
large. I've seen many of those big campaigns die after 2 or 3 turns because
they were too much hassle.