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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.<br>
<br>
<b>Structure first:</b><br>
- No Map<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
- Simple econ<br>
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.<br>
<br>
- Scenario Driven<br>
Some campaigns are simply "Battle Generators". Others are "Chess
with SFB ships". This is the former. So scenarios drive all of the
important decisions. <br>
<br>
<b>New Tweaks:</b><br>
- Remove the {NO}INCOME rewards:<br>
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.<br>
<br>
- Add fleet Limits<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<b>Possible Tweaks:</b><br>
- Buy your starting fleet<br>
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.<br>
<br>
- Define ending conditions<br>
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.<br>
<br>
- Exploration<br>
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.<br>
<br>
- Weapon Status<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<b>Campaign Startup:</b><br>
- Food Groups vs Historical<br>
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.<br>
<br>
- Starting Year<br>
There are four main eras to start things in.<br>
General War (GW) era: this starts in Y169 +/- 3 years.<br>
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.)<br>
Early Year era (EY): this starts at Y120. I only have module Y1 in
the DB, though "recently" have gotten Y2 and Y3.<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<br>
--Matt<br>
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