Dramatic SFB: Campaign Tweaks

[Roch Chartrand]

Matt,

 

Oh boy! Your email did generate a lot of comment!  First let me compliment
you on you awesome campaign, when I heard about it I was skeptical on the
format of a scenario driven campaign, now I like this format and I would
play again with the exact same setup!  I understand that it is a work in
progress and people want to see or balance thing up differently.

 

About the structure:

No map, I’m 100% converted, I like the scenario driven encounter.  Would
probably add some new scenario, but the one I have seen up to now were
giving me plenty of diversity and challenge.

 

 

New Tweaks:

Not sure I would remove the Income scenario, but I would drastically reduce
the value gain in them.  If we remove the Income aspect in the scenario it
should be replace by a fix Income for everyone.  My reasoning behind this is
that a player not fortunate in his EP encounter could rely on this to
survive a few turn!  

 

Fleet restriction, it a very hard issue in any type of campaign, I would go
with the command rating divided by 2, that would keep us more in line with
the SFB rule in the S section, so the biggest fleet available would 7 ships!

 

I’m not a big fan of a lot of campaign admin, so all the pay here, pay
there, kept track of 
 etc.. don’t like, I like the current format.  If we
go into a multiple turn per year, we could then apply more than 1 turn for
ships repair according to the amount of damages or SC.

 

Possible Tweaks:

Buying your on fleet at start, I kind of like this ideal, we would need a
turn 0 than would generate no scenario, just to record our buy.

 

End condition:

I would like to have a no end condition and play forever!  This current
campaign king of ended at a point where I was getting momentum!  Kind of
disappointed of the ending.

 

Exploration scenario could be added randomly just like the current scenario,
but it would be a solo scenario and depending on the type and SC ship sent
to this scenario player would gain: EP, borders,  Income or even a ship.

 

Weapon status: should never be at 1 at any point in any scenario.  By
specified in scenario or roll between 2 to 4 have no difference for me, You
adopt the tactic according to it!

 

Campaign startup:

I prefer the historical border for start for sure, after that anything is
good!  

 

Start date, I’m definitely a General War player starting the campaign
between Y172 ± 3 year is my preference, if it last long enough it could lead
us into the later War period with the X-ships.

 

Someone suggested a 12 turns Year set for each month of the year, I think it
would overkill this year set and we would never be able to progress in the
time line.  I would be ok with quarter turn (4) per year set, for the
seasons! J

 

2 thing I would like to see added/fixed:

-be able to unselect a ship from the scenario, went you are in the assign
order page.

-be able to transfer EP, just like we are able to transfer ships.

 

I will remain available if you have question about some of my suggestion,
and looking forward to start the next campaign.

 

Roch C.

   

 

From: SFBdrama [mailto:sfbdrama-bounces at lists.mattnet.org] On Behalf Of
Matthew via SFBdrama
Sent: 10 octobre 2017 01:00
To: Matthew via SFBdrama
Subject: Dramatic SFB: Campaign Tweaks

 

I have a bit of an outline for the structure of the campaign I want. This
has driven the initial version and continues to guide me with this campaign.
Additionally, there are some tweaks that have been in the planning for this
iteration for the last [couple/several] months. Finally, I cover some of the
startup variations available, which really drive the flavor of the new
campaign when compared to the previous one.

Structure first:
- No Map
This means borders are an abstraction. Wonder how a Klingon can find a
border with the Gorn? They must have met in the middle while carving out Fed
turf or worked around the Feds.

It gives the players alot of flexibility on controlling their borders. Don't
worry that completely shutting down a border hurts you too. If you're
dealing from a position of strength, then you'll be opening up larger
borders on your other sides at the same time. The important thing at that
time is that you are shutting off a certain player from hitting you hard.
Don't want to fight against the Jindarians while playing Gorn? Close down
the Jindo border and make a larger border with the Romulans.

- Simple econ
That means we don't track what your econ is from colonies, we don't track
supply lines, no supply-tax, no bookkeeping. I know some of you really
prefer 4X campaigns. I do to. I have one in the works (I've had it in the
works for a couple years now. Don't hold your breath.) But bookkeeping has
to be a minimum here. Just point your fleet and shoot.

- Scenario Driven
Some campaigns are simply "Battle Generators". Others are "Chess with SFB
ships". This is the former. So scenarios drive all of the important
decisions. 

New Tweaks:
- Remove the {NO}INCOME rewards:
All of the scenarios will give and take away some amount of EPs. Your income
won't ever be touched, but your stockpile will roller-coaster.

- Add fleet Limits
While editing the scenarios for their rewards, I'll be introducing fleet
limits on some scenarios. Particularly the common ones where it's
unreasonable to see large fleet elements. Since I am planning to keep the CR
system (I had floated the idea earlier to use the BPV cap system and it was
unpopular), My original intent was to limit the size class (and thus limit
the fleet size) allowed at certain scenarios. I might instead limit it by
Move Cost (which will have the same effect - No ship with MC greater than
0.5 at such-and-such scenario) or by move-cost of all ships on a side (so
limit one to MC 3.0, which would be three cruisers of six destroyers.) Other
methods exist. Different scenarios might have different methods.

Possible Tweaks:
- Buy your starting fleet
At the start of the campaign, players might be given a certain stockpile and
no ships. The first turn is spent buying ships and ignoring the scenarios
(much to the chagrin of the players who draw the huge-BPV scenarios right
off). Players who enter mid-stream will probably not be able to do this
because of the one-sided benefit it gives to the player who shares borders
with the unprotected new guy.

- Define ending conditions
I wasn't a big fan of this, but I got some push-back at the start of last
game about this. Basically, we define a set of circumstances where someone
is declared a winner. A certain income, fleet BPV, or we get to a certain
turn/year. I prefer the flexibility of saying "Player A is unreachable,
let's stop this" or "Half our player base is leaving next week. Let's call
it here and start fresh." If you guys want to set up some certain goal (and
accept that some people will set up their whole tactics on reaching that
first, regardless of the "realistic" way to handle an empire), then I will
go with that.

- Exploration
There is no programmed-in mechanic for setting aside ships and getting
income or borders for it. But if we can hash out the boundaries of such a
mechanic, I can manually perform this. By reaching into the player settings,
I can add/remove either part of the econ, and add/remove ships. But it would
require players share their orders with me (which could be icky if I am also
playing) in order to show what ships they are deliberately not sending to a
battle. It also requires more behind-the-scenes administration from me.

- Weapon Status
I'm not married to the WS-Chart. But it was introduced in order to increase
variation in the scenarios and to provide the possibility for reaching
WS-III. I can roll things back to a defined-WS for each side in each
scenario, if you prefer more stability with WS.

Campaign Startup:
- Food Groups vs Historical
Traditionally I have been starting empires next to their historical
neighbors when possible, on the theory that their neighbors are better
balanced against eachother. This is a possible method to start things, where
Disruptor races only are in contact with other disruptor races. Same with
plasma races. "Strangers" (Andro, jindo, Tholian, etc) are in their own
group. Perhaps a fourth group for "core" empires with strange weapons (Fed,
Vudar, Hydran, etc). The only way to make contact outside of your "Food
Group" is to get lucky with a "NEWBORDER" reward.

- Starting Year
There are four main eras to start things in.
General War (GW) era: this starts in Y169 +/- 3 years.
Late-War era starts at the introduction of PFs: Y180 +/- 2 years. There is
spotty support in the ship-lists for X-ships. However, this does allow more
empires to join (as the Selts have ships, the Vudar have something besides a
few base hulls to pick from, and there is a difference between the PF Feds
and the 3rd-Way Feds.)
Early Year era (EY): this starts at Y120. I only have module Y1 in the DB,
though "recently" have gotten Y2 and Y3.
Dawn of Warp era: this starts at Y60 +/- 10 years. As with the EY, support
for this is currently spotty but will improve in future iterations. if we
push back the start of the next campaign, I may have better support for
this.


--Matt



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