Dramatic SFB: New "Main" Campaign

Sun Jan 24 20:39:58 PST 2021

I think the light economic and construction aspects of the campaign are
important because they add extra weight to the decisions of what ships to
commit to battle, and how fiercely one is willing to contest each battle.
Do I fight this one to the bitter end regardless of the damage I may
sustain, or do I make a fighting withdrawal; the economics add an extra
layer of consideration instead of every battle being a knock-down, drag-out
fight to the death.

That said, I agree with you that the current situation does not create a
large number of battles each turn for any given player. I think scenario
alterations are out at this point as a solution, just because of the
complexity of doing that. That leaves us with rules modifications to drive
player behavior in a certain direction - in this case towards more frequent
and evenly matched battles. I have lots of ideas, but I just don't know how
to make that change real without compromising the core integrity of what
the Dramatic SFB campaign is built around. Requiring each player to send a
ship to every border before they can send more to any one border was a good
idea, but didn't result in more battles afaik, even if we all had the time
to play a dozen cruiser or frigate duels every week. A BPV cap for every
scenario wouldn't resolve it. Say we set it high enough we can field small
carrier or DN groups - that doesn't fix the war cruiser vs frigate
mis-match because the BPV is set too high to impact duels.

The only solution to play more battles that I can think of is to steal
Wayne's idea from the last game, and message your neighbor with a little
force estimation, and trust that they will be sportsmanlike. For example he
would tell me he's bid a single or multiple vessels to a sector with a move
cost totalling X, and trust me to bid a roughly appropriate force. That
still preserves the secret bidding, and the integrity of the campaign with
all its mechanics as they are currently implemented. It doesn't guarantee
battles, but it does give us at least the opportunity to play more battles.
This wouldn't be strictly required, but perhaps strongly encouraged.

Respectfully,
Brent

On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 8:44 PM Don Lavanty <emeketos at gmail.com> wrote:

> I guess I am just coming to the conclusion the current format and style of
> play strongly discourages any actual games except for the few die-hard
> players.
> honestly, I could do away with the entire economic and purchase system and
> base scenarios purely on BPV, and the year campaign game winner is
> determined by who has the most victory points per scenario won(levels of
> victory etc). The fleet purchase and economic system are great for a
> campaign with real borders and ship movement to deal with they can
> sometimes detract from the whole reason I joined the game to begin with to
> play scenarios. I know that wouldn't be the way Matt's system is set up to
> do.
>
> unless there is something to change that is going to alter player behavior
> or scenario constrictions I don't see this trend going to ever change. Last
> 3 campaigns I can list on 1 hand the total number of battles I actually
> fought.
>
> On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 9:29 PM Wayne Power via SFBdrama <
> sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org> wrote:
>
>> perhaps limit the total number of borders that an empire can have
>> (perhaps 28,or less depending on player numbers, and have two-three size
>> class 4 ships for each size class 3 ship, so the fleets of CAs are not on
>> the field.
>>
>> On Monday, 25 January 2021, 12:04:24 pm AEST, Brent Stanton via SFBdrama <
>> sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I'm not 100% in agreement on the need for new rules to push everyone
>> towards a specific style of 'strategic level' play. I understand we need
>> some rules to make sure everyone has as much fun as possible, but not so
>> many that it begins to stifle the fun - and to make things more complicated
>> for the GM, that threshold is different for everyone.
>>
>> Let's take the ship assignments as an example. If I decide sector # is
>> the most valuable thing on my border and assign the biggest fleet I can
>> command to it, that's its own handicap everywhere else along my border
>> without even needing extra rules.
>>
>> Similarly if I notice my neighbor always assigns big fleets to sectors
>> with +10 income, I can choose to bid a big fleet against them in that
>> sector and play the battle or to take advantage of their weakness every
>> where else.
>>
>> Respectfully,
>> Brent
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 15:11 <sfbdrama-request at lists.mattnet.org> wrote:
>>
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. Re: New "Main" Campaign (Wayne Power)
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Wayne Power <wdpower at yahoo.com.au>
>> To: Peter DiMitri <pdimitri67 at outlook.com>, Majead Farsi <
>> majeadfarsi at googlemail.com>
>> Cc: "sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org" <sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org>, Brent
>> Stanton <brentzkrieg39 at gmail.com>
>> Bcc:
>> Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 19:59:33 +0000 (UTC)
>> Subject: Re: Dramatic SFB: New "Main" Campaign
>> Matt did say campaign set between Y166 and Y180.
>>
>> "So it's time to start up a new "Main" campaign:
>>
>> - This is open to anyone and everyone, with no limit on the number of
>> players
>>
>> - It will be set sometime between Y166 and Y180. Three turns to a year.
>>
>> - No conjectural ships (unbuilt variants, impossible builds, or other
>> non-historical designs.)
>>
>> - The game will go for 24 turns (8 game years). The winner will be the
>> player with the largest fleet BPV at the start of the 25th turn".
>>
>>
>>
>> On Monday, 25 January 2021, 03:24:19 am AEST, Majead Farsi via SFBdrama <
>> sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I'm easy with the year! But think we should go with the following choices
>> Y170, Y175 or Y180! From what I have read so far I would think Y175 to be a
>> good choice, but 178 is OK too !
>>
>> Majead
>>
>> On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 16:19, Peter DiMitri via SFBdrama <
>> sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org> wrote:
>>
>> I like 178 too.  In those 8 years you get the PF deployment and the last
>> "refits" and some x-tech.  It's a good transitional period.
>>
>> My only issue with starting 171 in and 8 year campaign is that it ends in
>> 179, where some races will have PFs and some races won't.  I'd rather a
>> timeline that allows the new technologies to be fully deployed across the
>> empires.  That could be solved by making it longer than 8 years, but I
>> guess 8 years and 24 turns is a long campaign!
>>
>> Peace,
>>
>> Peter S. DiMitri
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* SFBdrama <sfbdrama-bounces at lists.mattnet.org> on behalf of Brent
>> Stanton via SFBdrama <sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org>
>> *Sent:* Sunday, January 24, 2021 9:07 AM
>> *To:* sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org <sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org>
>> *Subject:* Dramatic SFB: New "Main" Campaign
>>
>> Great news Matt! Thank you for the work that you do for us.
>>
>> Concerning the starting year, I'm easy. Perhaps Y178? That would give
>> everybody interceptors and a short lead up to full PFs and X-tech, and then
>> several turns to play with all the advanced designs as they become
>> available.
>>
>> No preference on Omega stuff, just about everything is new to me anyway
>> lol.
>>
>> Don, on getting into more battles: Last campaign Wayne had a neat idea.
>> He would send me the approximate strength of some of his fleets when he was
>> spoiling for a scrap, something like "You detect multiple vessels with a
>> warp signature of 1.5 in Sector ###". With that I was able to assign a
>> force of approximately the same strength and we could do some shooting. If
>> you've got a gentlemanly neighbor who won't take advantage of that
>> information to steamroll you, that could be a potential solution without
>> needed hard changes to the rules.
>>
>>
>> Brent
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