Tech advancement campaign

[toaster]

I've wanted to run a campaign were tech advances between games are allowed ever since I got full thrust (Jan 1994) but FT just didn't allow that level of detail. So the talk of tech trees was one thing that really got me excited about CBF.

I'm sure Harry will have full rules in the campaign book but I'm thinking of some basic rules so I can run one now with the campaign lite rules in the basic book so I thought I'd throw my ideas out here to see what people thought.

Start with very limited tech, perhaps 10 points or so.
Design fleets to the usual restrictions.
Every second game gain one tech advance, this could be free to spend as you want or rolled at random as set by the players at startup.
Designs using the new tech still cost one strategy point to add to your roster.

C&C welcome.

I've got an opponent who's inspired by this idea but the issue is going to be finding some time to get it started.

Robert

[warchariot]

Sounds quick and easy.

You might restrict advances to areas where your opponent is higher than you to show "stealing" advances especially if you won the last game(s). Or you go the other way and have your scientist working hard in an area where you are ahead or even combine the two. So you could only advance in something your opponent is ahead if you win, otherwise you must advance where you already are ahead or even.

[craftyshafty]

Quick and easy is best for campaigns.

This morning I was thinking about using the old boardgame Warp War (and its tech advancement over time) as the basis for a CB campaign.

[TheDreadnought]

For the campaign I was thinking about starting everybody w 2 tech points.

How about winner gets 2 strategy points, looser gets one each one can be used to buy a tech level or a new hull design.

Edit typos: Wow - I get really crappy postings when I do it from my phone. LOL!

[craftyshafty]

You may want to reverse that: defeats in campaigns tend to bring their own penalties and make the overall campaign unwinnable very quickly. Providing a means for the defeated to bounce back is important in making campaigns sustainable.

You can also rationalize it pretty easily: victors don't necessarily see the need for innovation as quickly as the defeated.

[TheDreadnought]

Hmmm. . . yeah, that's a good point that I hadn't considered.

I'll keep that in mind when I'm writing the full campaign rules, but I'm planning on each planet generating resources so income will be fixed to the the extent that you can take and hold systems.

[craftyshafty]

If that "player income" is based on the number of systems controlled, that will compound your problem in the typical map campaign. The scenario generally plays out like this:

Player A and Player B have equal forces and income. They engage in battle. Player A defeats Player B and captures a system from him. Player B's forces are numerically inferior and his production capacity is also impaired. Depending on the severity, it may not be possible to repair the imbalance, making the campaign a foregone conclusion. (Can you tell I've seen it happen too many times before? )

Speaking from a game design perspective, you really need to determine what the goal of a campaign should be: "winning" a strategic boardgame or providing context for interesting tactical miniatures battles. Both a valid options, but they ultimately require somewhat different rules and structure to properly function well.

[unclejoe]

If you haven't played the 'Battlegrounds:Kingdoms' mini campaign system from Your Move Games, I highly, highly recommend it. We liked it so much we were considering 'reskinning' it and using something very similar for CB. So far, I havent been able get it off the ground, but it would make a fantastic system to emulate IMO (at least in overall concept).

[kealios]

Unclejoe, I have heard that Battlegrounds has a good Campaign system, but I dont know much about it. I have zero interest in the game itself (my friends and I call it Cardhammer and are a little boggled at how seriously some players in our FLGS treat it), but would be interested in hearing some of its finer points as to how it would work for a CBF campaign.

[unclejoe]

Well it isnt so much of a 'campaign system' as a battle generator. You dont keep the same forces from battle to battle or anything like that.

Basically the 'conditions' for a scenario are randomized between a few decks of cards. So you match up one card with the battlefield with a 2nd card that has the scenario rules (who is is attacking, how many point, where the objectives are etc). This give a good variety of battles because the odds of the same rules being fought on the same terrian are pretty low.

Between turns, you 'earn' gold and can spend that to 'unlock' some of your better troop types or to gain other small advantages in upcoming battles (perhaps being able to see some of the opponent's chosen forces before you pick or having the opponent set up some of his units before you have to deploy etc).

Obviously a direct porting of those mechanics would not be appropriate for battles in CB, but a mechanic similar might be interesting. I'm thinking each player selects techs (12 points or so?) and then builds a 'standing Navy' of 'x' points. When battles are generated, you commit points of your Navy to fighting it. Survivors return to the pool (maybe after a certain repair period for damaged ships etc). Then, based on which strategic facilities you've bought you can advance tech or design new ship and/or add ships to your pool.

In this way, you can still generate 'fair' battles between players, but you still get some advancement and opportunity to cause attrition of opposing Navies. Even if they always have ''x points (until they are below that threshold), their options for what to bring can continue to narrow. And as players 'tech up', they'll want to replace obsolete ships and upgrade old designs.

It would not be a 'deep' campaign, but it would let players play in a consistent set of battles where you could adjust to the enemy fleet rather than just one-off battles.

[toaster]

So I now have some opponents ready to start a campaign and their keen to add tech advancement so we have some initial rules

Each loss generates 1 R&D point which can be spent between games on research die rolls.
Increasing a tech level costs twice the new level, the research rolls may be kept until wanted but once rolled the generated value must be assigned to a particular tech stream. If the roll is insufficient to make the next tech level the number may be kept until another die is available to roll is available to add to it.
Once a tech level has increased it is available for any new ship designs purchased with strategy points as per page 61 of the rule book.

Games will be generated using the scenario cards I posted here www.steeldreadnought.proboards.com/thread/1064/cbf-scenario-cards
No map will be used as campaigns tend to bog down in maps.

Robert

[warchariot]

What does loss mean? Game, ship other?

[toaster]

Sorry, loss of game. We don't want tech levels climbing to fast.

Robert