Dramatic SFB: Alliances and mechanics

[Marcel Trahan]

Hi Majead, Brent

There is a big difference between resolving battles by diplomacy and making
alliances.

To diplomatically resolve battles is normal and expected. You are outgunned
or you outgun your opponent and offer him to leave is ok, because it can
speed up the campaign. (i still love to blow up a few ships when i am
outgunning my opponent or trying to escape with my ships when i am
outgunned, those can be very fun scenarios to play)

What  i am talking about is more of 2 or more players making alliances,
deciding beforehand how to share the scenarios, and only sending very low
BPV units to reap the EP, and increasing those borders as much as possible.
When a player has 20+ friendly borders and lots of police ships that are
there to cover those friendly borders, this is where the campaign gets
boring.

An example would be you and me having a 12 scenarios border, you build 6-8
FXE at 26 BPV each and i do buy 6-8 SNP at 55 each (smallest ship i can
build) and we do each send ships to the borders that we are defending and
whenever we have a chance to get a BORDER scenario, we take it. This would
end up each making on average 240+ EP per turn without risking any ships
and using useless inexpensive units. After 5-6 turns of doing that, we
soon get to 20 common borders, building another 4 cheap units and reaping
on average 600+ EP each

Once a few players start doing that, the other players will only have the
option to start doing the same thing or they will quickly get relegated and
fall so much behind that they cannot compete in the other scenarios. It
takes 4-5 turns of doing that before the campaign turns into a stalemate
and grind to a stop.

If players want to have a strategic/diplomatic campaign, go that way or
play F&E. If players want a SFB scenario generating campaign, just don't
make alliances, manage your borders (not too many or too little) and send
ships to try to get as many EP as you can and try to remove as many EP's
from your opponent as you can. I love to be the attacker in those Colony
Raid or Convoy Raid (yum yum, minus EP) or i will try to take as many enemy
ships as i can when defending those ones.

I currently have 1 SUB carrier group (I ended up with the SUB because the
SUP-K that i had was deemed to require escorts, so i refitted it into a
SUB) that could probably take any of my opponent fleet and i send it to a
critical scenario and as for the rest, i will send 1 or 2 heavy ships (MC
2/3+) or a few smaller ships to most borders, hoping to outwit my opponents
or have just enough ships to have a minimum chance of winning the scenario,
hoping that my opponent did not send a big fleet.

This turn, i am sending ships to 16 of my 22 borders, 3 of them with 4
ships, 1 with 3 ships, 5 of them with 2 ships and the rest with only 1
ship. I do hope this will end up having a few scenarios to play out. My 3
or 4 ships fleet are spread among 4 opponents and my 2 ships fleet are
spread among the other 3 opponents. Single ships are spread among all of
them.

This is way more fun than making alliances, reaping EP and sending huge
fleets on the few non-allied scenarios that would be left. At least that
way, i get to play scenarios, which is why i join those campaigns.

Matt's last campaign turned out to be an alliance based campaign (and i was
part of that alliance based campaign with my Hydrans and i plead guilty)
and at the end, nobody was playing any scenarios because we where dealing
with 1500+ bpv fleets and who wants to play those huge fleet games that
takes weeks to play.

I do sincerely hope that this campaign will not turn that way and end up
with whomever as more allies.

Marcel


On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 8:07 AM Brent Stanton via SFBdrama <
sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org> wrote:

> I can assure you all I have no nefarious "game-killing mega-alliance"
> intent in reaching out to one of my neighbors to seek a brief truce. I have
> infact turned down two perfectly good offers of alliance with great terms
> for what are essentially role play reasons. I have also made a habit this
> campaign of "leaking" approximate BPV values or ship names for one scenario
> each to my neighbors (much after the fashion of Wayne's Warp signature
> leaks) so it's not as if I'm depriving my neighbors of battles.
>
> I think there's some really interesting counterplay to be explored if you
> discover a pair of players setting up a huge border and farming out EPV
> with each other. Forming temporary counter-alliances, trading or selling
> ships to players who are engaged against the offending mega-alliance, the
> risk of being betrayed, and so much more!
>
> I respect that some of my fellow players are in the campaign to play the
> maximum number of battles possible - that's what would give them the most
> enjoyment. The campaign exists for more than just battles though, it's the
> context For those battles - My PFH is locked in a bitter civil war with
> Joseph's Tall Enough Hydrans, and I'm less likely to retreat even when the
> odds are long because we'd "rather take those Monarchist Hydrans straight
> to hell with us!" Or my defeated RN+ "HPS Tenacity" searching for an
> opportunity for redemption after being routed by Matt's Just Colonial
> Commission.
>
> I don't think it's any more appropriate to ban diplomacy because it has
> the potential to complicate things with an additional dimension of gameplay
> than to ban CV's or PFT's for the same reason.
>
> Respectfully,
> Brent
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