G'day all,
> Strikes me that one of the ways to use 'terrain' cards, as it were,
This is what my husband and I intend to do with regards to campaign
settings and battlefields (we've got to get/make the terrain first
though). He got the idea from "Mighty Empires" I think its called and from
what I
can remember it seems to work pretty well there - can never be sure
who's going to run into dragon mountain first:)
Cheers
Beth
Strikes me that one of the ways to use 'terrain' cards, as it were, would be
to make up a series of terrain tiles (either graphically or just with a text
description) in 1'x1' sizes. Then a battlefield is composed of a draw of a
bunch of these tiles. Now if a given mission mandates something, that may
specify something like "An industrial complex, the objective, forms a two tile
square at the centre of the
board". Non-specified terrain would be drawn from a tile mix based on
either selected or random area (that is to say, you are unlikely to
see swamp and desert side by side - but a desert tile mix might
include flats, low dunes, high dunes, some scrub, oases, etc.). This would let
you 'deal' your battlefield. And then whatever mission is run on that
battlefield.
This has been used in random dungeon generation in FRPs and I think is viable
in this venture too. I'll try to work out some tiles and some typical tile
decks for different terrains.
Tom.
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Beth spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> G'day all,
Failing to have tiles (most of us won't) in the actual 1'x1' scale, which I
have seen, you just have cards from a deck assigned the types of your tiles
(River, Swamp, whatever) and treat your battlefield as
a lengthxwidth matrix of 1'x1' areas (or some rough approximation -
this is Gov't work...). Then deal yourself a battlefield. I'm working out some
ideas here for different decks for different geographic areas. I'll put it all
out sometime in the coming week.
I think it gives a good random feel to your battlefields.
Tom.
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[quoted original message omitted]
Glover, spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> Terrain tiles are a great idea, unfortunately a lot of people neihter
and
> also a couple are doing 4'x2' reversible!
I meant get a deck of cards and fill in 1x1 sections of the board according to
that (it wasn't till later that it even occcured to me that such tiles may
exist).
> The system we've used in some of our games is simply to break the
Of course, neither side would likely lay swamp. I like the idea of random
terrain (bias the deck towards the terrain you own obviously!) and that way
neither of you really has a choice. Sometimes you end up fighting over an area
that no one really wants but for whatever reason people are fighting over.
Vietnam and Korea both had this kind
of terrain - no reason for people to die for it, but it happened.
> Some people disregard the importance of balanced terrain a game but
I can see your point. But part of the game is in dealing with the terrain.
Another interesting way to slant a scenario is give the one player knowledge
of terrain (the ambusher for example) and make
the other side buy/pick forces BEFORE they know what the terrain will
be.
> So, I think I'd rather see some guidlines on terrain in the scenario
I agree. I did mention that if you had a scenario card, it could say something
like "Defend the bridge. Requires a bridge, a road to and from the bridge (off
opposite board edges) and a river under the bridge that goes off board sides
on each side. Rest of terrain random assortment for Temperate Plains." That
would give you the major points, but let the rest be random.
Tom.
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> Thomas Barclay wrote:
> Strikes me that one of the ways to use 'terrain' cards, as it were,
> This is something I heard of before....(great minds think alike! 8D
> At 01:09 15/10/98 -0400, you wrote:
SNIP
> 2) The other was an old GDW traveller game. the interstellar
Dark Nebula- still a favourite of mine; Aslan v. Solomani using the
Imperium system. The 8 map sections were geomorphic (cosmomorphic?) and
included the dark nebula itself, exploration of which might provide
technological insights as well as resources and warplines. Interesting to
play, loads of replay value, looks good, and I think it cost me £4.50...
Nostalgically Rob