Dramatic SFB: New "Main" Campaign

Sun Jan 24 22:10:34 PST 2021

I understand your frustration Don, 5 battles over 3 campaigns is
depressingly low. I like your idea of scaling the BPV reward based on the
fleet size(s), that seems like a really workable solution that doesn't take
any choices away from the players by limiting our deployments or removing
core mechanics. But I don't want to make even more work for Matt than he
already does for us.

If not having enough battles is a big concern for everyone, and with Matt's
permission, would we all be willing to try the "Wayne method"? If even just
half the players share the move-cost of their bid for only one sector a
turn, then we're all going to get to fight a lot more battles.

Respectfully,
Brent

On Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 23:15 Don Lavanty <emeketos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Don't get me wrong I like/love the economic construction part of the game
> but "winners are decided for the campaign solely on economic reasons who
> has the biggest fleet. So the player who avoids the most fights while
> increasing their borders the most wins. Generally, players will ally with 2
> of their borders (in my experience and maximize income by either agreeing
> on who gets what or how can we increase borders. This does nothing to
> indicate who won the game on tactics or strategy just economic's hell the
> player with the most allies PF game won clearly on this alone. Victory
> shouldn't be scored just on economics but a level of victory  * your
> BPV/opponent something that encourages activity, risk, and reward. .
>
> ideally, if you win overwhelming or no show opponents you get a minimum
> economic or point value otherwise it's victory*(your bpv/opponent bpv) *
> economic value of the scenario.  winning a fight with a bpv disadvantage
> should be worth more while loosing should be worth less. Of course, this
> could be abused like the border system is by players agreeing in advance
> that the lower bpv player wins to max econ too.
>
> I am just pointing out this will continue unless something changes. I
> don't know what the right solution is but I am hoping we can figure
> something out going forward otherwise the economic side is literally
> getting in the way of actual gameplay and that is unfortunate.
>
> last 3 campaigns start to finish I had less than 5 maybe 3 total over all
> of them entirely if your experience is different than mine I am all ears.
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 11:40 PM Brent Stanton <brentzkrieg39 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> 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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>>>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
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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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