John said: An operational level wargame would be fun, as well as much simpler
to model adequately, but I'm the only one that thinks so.
[Tomb] Horsefeathers! I've clearly been in
this camp for a long time and you are just a late day squatter.;) (Seriously,
though it seems one of the Four Horsemen, I totally
concur with your comments - besides, I like
to fight battles or small campaigns within the constraints of
supply/logistics/objectives but I'm not
interested in farming or running shipywards...)
Tomb
On Tuesday, January 14, 2003 4:41 AM, Thomas Barclay
> [SMTP:kaladorn@magma.ca] wrote:
Maybe create some sort of economic "pick-a-box" which will affect your
overall strategy.
One side generates a low-education/high resources society and another
generates a high-education/moderate resources society to determine their
initial crew and fleet allocations.
> On Tue, Jan 14, 2003 at 09:44:19AM +1100, Robertson, Brendan wrote:
The problem is that some strategies are clearly optimal from a
war-winning point of view. I'm thinking at the moment of having a system
which lets you pick pretty much any level of resources you want in each field;
but they cost victory points from your eventual total (in
game-balance terms, because they're making you stronger; in in-game
terms, because you've shaped your society to be a war-fighter rather
than anything more interesting). So just as blowing away the destroyer
escorting a convoy doesn't count for much if you use a SDN to do it, the
NAC doesn't get many victory points for crushing Alarishi Rock #1637-B.
R
Perhaps you can apply some other factors - if you spend more GDP on
Military, your economic returns are lower. After a few turns of
compound interest, if you've invested too much in non-economic areas
you'll be behind the economic curve.
To make it interesting the gamemaster should tell the players to have a 5
year, 10 year or 20 year plan then start the campaign at some time
in-between. YOu can add random economic growth (various galactic
recessions and expansions) that impacts all the players. You could allow some
to run deficts to build fleets that would impact their
long-term economic stability and possibly allow a victory by economic
means (a la Cold War, where the Soviet Union was run into the ground by
keeping up the arms race)
You'd need to figure a model for the economy though. Probably need a
few basics like Education, Consumer Goods/services, Energy, Military,
Foreign Aid, Domestic Security. Add in factors like bureacratic red tape
(increases cost of government), graft and corruption, and the amount actually
available to spend on Military might be far less than expected.
All the player needs to do is set the precentages of GDP he wishes to spend
each year. You chug it through the various formulas for the economy and it
will spit out a monetary value for the Military. Various random events, plus
events caused by foreign nations can decrease the value. For instance if
Saboteurs cause three of your domestic fusion plants to catastophically
explode, it might cost your government 300 Mcr to rebuild them, of which 50
Mcr is coming out of the Military budget. Or subversives have raised
discontent in your populace, so efficiency at various factories, including
military related ones has dropped.
The end result is that you may or may not get exactly what you planned
to have at a certain time and/or place. If you thought that you'd have
2 SDN's done within 5 years, but labor shortages and graft might mean that you
only have 1 available with the other still only half completed after 5 years.
Some ideas.
--Binhan
> -----Original Message-----
> The problem is that some strategies are clearly optimal from a
The other problem is that the Hu'Man aren't especially rational when it comes
down to deciding whether to fight. They tend to be more sensitive to
casualties when they're winning, less sensitive when they're losing. In fact,
up to a point, taking casualties just seems to harden their resolve.
> than anything more interesting). So just as blowing away the
No, I'd say the NAC versus Mrs.Kosciusko and her kids is a little lopsided.
Isn't there a bunch of this in Pocket Empires and the old Trillion Credit
Squadron?
Michael Brown
[quoted original message omitted]
On Tuesday, January 14, 2003 10:15 AM, B Lin [SMTP:lin@rxkinetix.com] wrote:
> Perhaps you can apply some other factors - if you spend more GDP on
> You'd need to figure a model for the economy though. Probably need a
Would certainly be good if it could be implemented. This is probably the
realms of computer generated though.
Keeping it simpler might work.
You have the usual "fixed" military spending of most campaign rules, but can
borrow against future earnings at a cost. For every 10MCr you borrow, you must
pay 2MCr per turn interest and pay back the principle within 10 turns or have
it permanently deducted from your core budget due to the stagnating domestic
economy.
> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> No, I'd say the NAC versus Mrs. Kosciusko and her
As well as being highly ungrateful, given what
Great-grand-dad Tad did for 'em. . .
> the NAC doesn't get many victory points for crushing Alarishi Rock
This implies that the more powerful nation is in something of a no-win
situation. A lot of people will see it as the bully no matter what it does.
Therefore the larger nation should lose glory points for starting a war,
whereas a smaller nation won't.
In addition, the nation which lost the last war should usually make better
preparations for the next war, compared to the last war's winner.
IIRC both of these are mentioned in Imperium.
Lots. Lots and lots of it. None of the Pocket Empires-era material is
really playable on its own, but if you're willing to put pieces together
they provide a good start ona good game. It's basically a kit for making
campaign games using the same system as "5th Frontier War". You could easily
throw out just a few things and find yourself with a campaign game suitable
for Full Thrust. You'd have real economies, although it'd be light on special
tech and any real research system.
One of these days...
> Michael Brown wrote:
> Isn't there a bunch of this in Pocket Empires and the old Trillion
It seems to me a lot of ideas have flown around, some of which apply to the
Operational Game, some of which apply to Strategic Game and some of which
apply to both. Furthermore, the ways in which these ideas apply from level to
level varies.
It seems to me that a Stategic Level game has real questions of logistics,
economics, resources, politics, etc. This is the level at which political
decisions are made, at which resources
are allocated for construction, where large front-
wide logistics are carried out, etc. It is also the place where you conquer
things and gain something from doing so. At any lower level,
the time frame will be to short to reap any in-
game benefit from capturing facilities, population or production bases.
On the operational level, things work differently. Politics plays a role (ROE
and Victory Point restrictions). Economics plays a role only insofar as it may
provide VP restrictions (ie identify what is worth having) and may determine
how big the force you arrive with is or how many reinforcements you could
expect. Logistics might play a minimal role, but at this level you can expect
fleet colliers and replenishment vessels to resupply fighting ships.
Construction would be non-existent and repairs
would be limited to a small amount that a portable Fleet Repair Dock would
allow. Major damage would put ships right out of the game for all intents and
purposes.
So what are the design factors for an operational level game?
Time: say 0.5 to 2 days per turn.
Distance: I'm thinking the map has to at least represent the inner system,
possibly the whole system, even if it is an abstraction.
Fleet sizes: Unless you're assaulting a core world or an inner colony, I'd
imagine you'd be looking at not more than 10K points in your incoming fleet.
5K might be more likely.
Reinforcements: The attacker probably has mostly scheduled reinforcements, the
defender random (relief forces or rapid reaction forces arriving when they
can, though he should be
allowed to let them build off-map so they don't
have to arrive piecemeal).
Logistics: Assume each fleet is accompanied by colliers (these should be
represented, but not paid for I think). Also provide some limited repair
facilities. The colliers would resupply expendables (fighters, missiles,
subpacks, etc) and provide raw materials for repairs (replacing armour, hull,
and internal systems). Losing them (if the enemy can get to them) will result
in the loss of repair/replacement ability (or the
attriting of same). These need to be modelled because hitting them will be an
important target. Also, the decision to play them deeper in system (more
vulnerable, but faster to access) or further out system (less vulnerable, but
longer to and fro times for ships being resupplied) will be an important one.
The defender, defending a base or system, should have a smaller fleet, but may
have even better resupply, repair rates (if he can hold his stations or
meaningful orbital superiority).
Minefields would only be useful in areas immediately surrounding objectives.
Space is just too big otherwise. Fighters similarly are likely to be deployed
at planets, moons, bases, etc.
At this level, fog of war is pretty much critical, as is proper rules for
recce and scouting. This explains why fleets bring small units and sometimes
why they are forced to disperse some of their combat strength. Without the fog
of war, people know things which let them make decisions about concentration
that they realistically could never make. Additionally, this adds a lot to the
challenge for the defender (where is the attack coming from? Which one is a
feint? Do I go out to meet it to protect the planet from bombardment? Or is it
not the real threat?) and to the attacker (where are his defenses? has he
added new ones since my last intel appreciation? has he hidden forces I don't
expect?).
VPs should be assigned by objectives and both sides don't necessarily have to
apprise objectives the same value. Also, throwing in some randomness in forces
(card draws like Charlie Company used might be one idea) so that it is just
possible the attacking force is about to walk into a fleet of the wall the
defender was rotating through the system or maybe the defender had just pulled
out half his mobile defense assets.... that really adds a lot to the flavour
and fun. The trick is in establishing a VP scheme for the game that means that
it isn't whether the battles are fair or not, but if the defender uses what he
has (or the attacker does) most wisely.
This is a tough thing to do, generically, doubly so without a referee. The
referee can add in a lot of judgement. To just make it a hard and fast rules
situation.... that's tough.