Hey all,

As a player who regularly plays against the same opponents, I felt a desire to have an overarching story or importance to add some depth to our games, so I created a system for a Galactic Campaign - still very much work in progress.

The core mechanics of the game are largely intact, with the campaign wrapped around the individual battles to create depth that links them together, but there are some key differences - Heroes are permadeath, but to counter this ships with hyperdrives can attempt to flee mid-battle. The campaign is played in a series of alternating turns between the rebel and imperial players choosing what type of attack mission they want to initiate (and where).

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RjMSICA32LKhSxG35gEtBIKACEfxbUDYrggA6Iz-bno/edit?usp=sharing (Main campaign document)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19umW3KeF4i37sq_LvrJy6nzFicPJAT1e3cJoFQdf7ME/edit?usp=sharing (Rebel roster template)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pe0jC81k-832ns-kzEsm4k-mGpXxOibdfqRu2xNcYSk/edit?usp=sharing (Imperial roster template)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18j6ShRp2AM9pi6XZIatiLxwGW0Og9jGWrAG369EtE2M/edit?usp=sharing (sector bonus cards)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6kiDa2E9hicQnVxVlhlT2U4RHc/edit?usp=sharing (WIP campaign map)

- All links now fixed to be viewable to the public.

Be great to hear what people think, or how it goes for you if you try it out!

Changelog:

8/7/14 - modifications are now permanently bound to the first ship they are used on and are discarded with no refund if replaced with another modification.

7/7/14 - Added Recon as a default covert action always available to players. Added list of Hyperdrive equipped ships and listed effect of Ionisation on hyperdriving ships.

Not all of your documents are set to be publicly viewable.

You have massive balance issues.

* Requiring spent ordnance upgrades to be repurchased makes them exceedingly expensive in a campaign setting. In my system we ended up giving players three of an upgrade when they purchased it to mitigate this issue.

* Any time you asymmetrically mess with the point values in a scenario, it creates a significant imbalance. Anyone with +15 squad points is almost never going to lose.

*Getting ordnance upgrades in your squad without accounting for their cost is also bad idea as it removes battle balance at a fundamental level. Combined with the above point, I could conceivably field a squad worth twice as many points as my opponent and never lose.

*The above two points create a snowball instability where the player that wins is more likely to win and keep winning.

*The emplacements cost way too much for what they do. Why would I buy a turbolaser turret over two kitted Rebel fighter or a Golan over a fully equipped CR-90?

*Star Wars does not call such things "hyperspace inhibitors." They are interdiction fields from gravity well projectors.

*Why would anyone want to hold part of their squad back as reinforcements, especially unreliable ones? That just puts them at a severe disadvantage in battles. If the reinforcements could arrive at other edges, then maybe it would be useful.

*Your hyperspace fleeing system greatly favors high PS pilots when there is no thematic reason that their hyperspace jump calculations would be faster than anyone else's. In my system, fleeing ships have so survive until the End Phase to escape.

*You might want to explicitly list which ships do and do not have hyperdrives. Not everyone knows this off the top of their heads. I do not know what is wrong with them either.

*Your damage repair mechanism is excessive, potentially removing ships from player for the rest of the campaign. Why bother fleeing if I am going to lose any further use of that unit anyway? In my system large/small ships repair in one turn. It used to be two turns for large base ships, but we found even that kept those ships/pilots out of play too long.

*Supply Convoy is very imbalanced in a campaign setting, as we found in my campaign with the Political Escort adaptation. Giving the defender free ships that the attacker has to target to win means that they are free to inflict real losses on the attacker while any transport losses do not come out of their pool of available ships. Even in your case, it will cost the attackers far, far more than 30 points worth of ships to kill a GR-75 before it escapes the board (and gives the defender even more points to boot).

*Bonus points will be a hassle to track and calculate every game.

*Sector bonuses. Same problems as above with messing with scenario point values.

If you are interested in seeing how my campaign system dealt with these issues, here is a link. To date we have had two playtests, one with 12 players, including a World Champion and several FFG playtesters.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kbe1j8x8vwca82q/X-wing%20Campaign%203.3.0.docx

Hey Rekkon,

Thanks for the feedback, links are now fixed.

I did look at other campaign systems (including yours) during the creation of mine but they didnt quite fit with the theme or systems that we were looking for (the people I game with). I wont go into specifics because I dont want to turn this into a "mine vs yours" thread, but I would say that yours is a lot deeper in terms of the pilot customisation / RPG / advancement elements, while this campaign structure sticks a bit closer to WYSIWYG in terms of the pilot cards.

Its great to hear your feedback on what we have sofar - some of them are definitely intentional choices, I'll try to briefly outline below the reasoning behind them.

* Requiring spent ordnance upgrades to be repurchased makes them exceedingly expensive in a campaign setting. In my system we ended up giving players three of an upgrade when they purchased it to mitigate this issue.

Yes, this is intentional to make munitions more expensive - it means that players have to budget their munitions purchases and consider the value in saving (possibly retreating) craft who are damaged but still carrying large amounts of ordinance rather then considering them expendable. Note that there are two map sectors that halve (rounded up) the point cost of munitions as their bonus (non stackable), making these very valuable sectors to hold.

* Any time you asymmetrically mess with the point values in a scenario, it creates a significant imbalance. Anyone with +15 squad points is almost never going to lose.

If this is referring to the supply line bonuses, then yes, this is intended but are placeholder values at present. The idea being that it should be harder to attack a system that is well connected to the rest of a faction compared to an outlying sector that is poorly connected. It is likley that these values will reduce or tweeked (or possibly even removed) with further playtesting and balancing.

*Getting ordnance upgrades in your squad without accounting for their cost is also bad idea as it removes battle balance at a fundamental level. Combined with the above point, I could conceivably field a squad worth twice as many points as my opponent and never lose.

Again an intentional mechanic, as it seemed particularly unfair to charge players "twice" for munitions or upgrades, once on a campaign level, and again at a battle level. Given the expense of ordinance and its disposable nature we have not yet seen excessive overuse, (also due to the risk factor of it being lost if the carrying craft is destroyed before firing it). If a player wants to spend an excessive amount of points on say, missiles, for one particular battle that they think is a "must win" then yes, they will have a huge advantage in that individual battle, but they will pay the price for that in the long term of the campaign when their opponent may have more points left in hand at a later stage.

*The above two points create a snowball instability where the player that wins is more likely to win and keep winning.

That is something we are trying to measure at the moment in order to look at balance across multiple campaign turns, hence the request for play testers

*The emplacements cost way too much for what they do. Why would I buy a turbolaser turret over two kitted Rebel fighter or a Golan over a fully equipped CR-90?

Because a turbolaser turret or Golan are defenses that are added to the system map (only for capture missions) and as such are not a "fleet" so are in addition to the players point limit. That is why they are so overpriced and only single sector specific. It comes down to being willing to pay a significant premium to try and protect a sector that the player feels is strategically worth it. For the attacker it means they may want to consider alternative targets, or accept that there will be very heavy losses in trying to take that sector (possibly even requiring a seperate initial raid to try and eliminate the defence emplacements).

*Star Wars does not call such things "hyperspace inhibitors." They are interdiction fields from gravity well projectors.

Yes, I am aware of that but was trying to keep it newbie friendly for those who might not be up with the technical jargon of the Star Wars universe, given the description is pretty clear as to what it does I have renamed it.

*Why would anyone want to hold part of their squad back as reinforcements, especially unreliable ones? That just puts them at a severe disadvantage in battles. If the reinforcements could arrive at other edges, then maybe it would be useful.

Indeed it does put them at a disadvantage, however there are situations, particularly if one were bringing in a very large ship or one that would be seen as a "high priority" target in terms of the wider campaign (like a very high level hero), where a player may wish to get the rest of their forces established away from the board edge, or engaged with the enemy first.

*Your hyperspace fleeing system greatly favors high PS pilots when there is no thematic reason that their hyperspace jump calculations would be faster than anyone else's. In my system, fleeing ships have so survive until the End Phase to escape.

The way we see Pilot skill is as a reflection of reaction time, so it makes a lot of sense that a pilot with a higher skill value will react quicker to their ships readyness to jump to hyperspace then a lower level pilot. (Imagine Han Solo with his hand on the falcon controls just waiting for the instant the ship is ready to jump). This is also a key element for the campaign in helping higher level pilots who might be a bit too "squishy" for their value, with their survivability given the permadeath nature of the system (I'm looking at you Luke, R2 and Wedge). It also gives the Imperials a reason to field high level pilots like Vader, because they become excellent "hero-hunters". (goes with the "I have you now" bonus point acheivement).

*You might want to explicitly list which ships do and do not have hyperdrives. Not everyone knows this off the top of their heads. I do not know what is wrong with them either.

A great suggestion, thanks! I will work this in.

*Your damage repair mechanism is excessive, potentially removing ships from player for the rest of the campaign. Why bother fleeing if I am going to lose any further use of that unit anyway? In my system large/small ships repair in one turn. It used to be two turns for large base ships, but we found even that kept those ships/pilots out of play too long.

With most ships only being a handfull of hull points, this isnt normally an issue. (Plus there are sectors that increase the amount of cards repaired in a turn). What it does do is promote variety and the realities of fleet management. If the Imperial player fields his TIE Bombers in a mission and they get heavily damaged, he faces a choice of either purchasing more bombers with points that could be spent on other ships in order to use bombers again in the next battle or two, or finds another fleet composition which can achieve the same outcome. Specifically though it helps reduce the might of the Falcon as it means that the rebel player must either jump the falcon out as soon as its shields are depleted (leaving the rest of their force well below points for the remainder of the battle), or risk it being damaged and unavailable for a few turns (if not destroyed). This acually works really well with the theme because no ship (like the falcon) fought in every single battle of the galactic civil war.

*Supply Convoy is very imbalanced in a campaign setting, as we found in my campaign with the Political Escort adaptation. Giving the defender free ships that the attacker has to target to win means that they are free to inflict real losses on the attacker while any transport losses do not come out of their pool of available ships. Even in your case, it will cost the attackers far, far more than 30 points worth of ships to kill a GR-75 before it escapes the board (and gives the defender even more points to boot).

This is one that we are still actively balancing - our current playthroughs to date have actually found the opposite, that a GR-75 struggled to survive the 3 turns of focused enemy fire, even with an equal defending force (though the attackers did take losses), resulting in a large loss of points to the defender. The current iteration of lower points cost and 2 defending ships placed next to the GR-75 is actually a step back from the original of 150 points and only 1 defending ship per transport in an effort to help the defender out a little.

*Bonus points will be a hassle to track and calculate every game.

Actually these only took a couple of minutes at the end of the game and are actually a really fun way to wind down and laugh about the crazy things that happened during the battle. We run our fleet rosters on laptops right next to the table so making point adjustments for us is instant and easy.

*Sector bonuses. Same problems as above with messing with scenario point values.

We found the sector bonuses really good at making some sectors strategically more valuable (and therefore desirable) than others, which gives meaning to the overall strategies developed by the players. Again they are still in progess and some have already been radically changed since the first iteration.

Again, thanks for the great feedback, will be interesting to hear if you decide to give it a go sometime as to how it plays out for you!

Edited for spelling and grammer/clarity.

7/7/14 - Added Recon as a default covert action always available to players. Added list of Hyperdrive equipped ships and listed effect of Ionisation on hyperdriving ships.

No worries. I was merely trying to share lessons we learned playing my system, many of which are not obvious from reading the current version of the rules. After some initial misteps, I proceded *very* cautiously when it came to balance. That is why just about every scenario is a minimally modified version of the ones provided by FFG. Assymetric scenarios got extra scrutiney. Originally I wanted a full cartesian product of squad sizes and scenario types, but it quickly became apparent that was not a good idea for the assymetric games. My rule of thumb became to restrict meddling primarily to strategic aspects and leave the already heavily FFG-tested tactical aspects alone for the most part.

I never allowed any mechanisms to directly give players extra squad points, both because I have variable battle sizes (so +5 points in a 50 point game is a much bigger deal than in 150) and because even a small point increase in a game like this can make a big difference. I wanted the individual battles to be as fair as possible. They are the core of any campaign, and the currently losing faction always needs reasonable expectations of winning fights to have hope of turning the situation around. What I did allow was some small mixing up of the rules (via pilot improvements) to allow combinations that were otherwise impossible and very small cost efficiency improvements. For example, EPTs used as pilot improvements have a point point cost reduction. However, this cost improvement always comes with reduced flexibility. If you add an EPT ability to a generic pilot, you can never again deploy him without that ability, so if you are at 95 points, and your improved pilot is 6 points, you are out of luck. Additionly, anything that effectively adds points to your squad comes at the cost of campaign turns and/or XP. This dilutes any over powered combinations over time and earning XP requires exposing pilots to combat, where they have a non-trivial chance of expiring or being captured.

Re: Reinforcements

The more (points-wise) you hold back for reinforcements, the worse it is. Ultimately you are entering combat with a fraction of your force against the full enemy force. This violates most of the zero sum game rules of thumb. It might be trickier to prevent the enemy from engaging an important target on the board, but at least it is in the fight, and you have much better control of when it enters combat.

http://teamcovenant.com/theorist/2013/03/15/focusing-fire-vs-ship-to-ship/

Re: Damage/Repair

Keeping in mind that my campaigns were conducted via Vassal, one campaign turn is a relatively long time. Even the most successful iteration of my campaign lasted less than 10 turns. 10 turns is also the general target for which I tailored the campaign's "endgame." Even sitting out half of that time is a huge loss, not only in terms of value you are getting for the cost of the ship, but for general fun. If I can only use my named TY-1300 2-3 times a campaign, why take it in the first place. Originally I had large base ships take 2 turns to repair. We changed this mid-campaign because we found it excessive. Right now I require modifications and systems to sit out a turn for install, and general consensus leans against that. Every change to date has been toward less time for repair/healing, and my system started less restrictive than yours.

Re: Hyperspace Fleeing/PS

Except hyperspace calculations are not handled by the pilot. They are crunched by the nav computer and/or astromech, which are independant of pilot skill and largely uniform.

Re: Sector Bonuses

I am fine with the concept of sector bonuses, just not ones that directly affect battles for them. They should be boons at the strategic level, not tactical. Things like purchasing ships/upgrades for your list at a slight discount, but not reducing the squad point cost of ships that go into battle or free upgrades, effectively making your squad larger.

Rekkon or Maverick,

I'm looking for a Small Scale type Campaign; something for a day or two.

Maybe a handful of missions (depending on how many Teams of 2 Each Faction has).

What is your advice utilizing your system on how I can manage this?

I have til the First Weekend in September to come up with something for (as of yet) an unknown group of people.

Thank you!

My campaign is geared to be "long haul." This means 2+ players per faction playing one or two 1v1 battles per player per campaign turn over 5-10 campaign turns. The first turn or two is typically a "land grab" with fewer battles as each team goes for the most important strategic targets (they start uncontrolled) and whatever secondary targets for which they can spare an attack slot.

Because of the above, I do not think my system (used as a whole) is well geared for the limited time/scope of what you want to do. However you can pick and choose a few mechanics and just use those to suit the scale of your application. One possibility would be cutting everything to do with capital ships and XP/pilot improvements while keeping the map generation and Squadron management pieces. That restricts players to only stock pilot cards and reduces the amount of bookkeeping required. The pilot improvement system is intended to work over multiple campaign turns, so if you are only going to have 2-3 of them, the players would not see much benefit anyway. Other mechanics* could be simplified to boil my system down to something like:

1. Each player creates a 300 point Squadron list. Only one unique pilot per player, and no duplicate unique cards.

2. Generate the campaign map as detailed.

3. Fight as many battles as you want using the scenario generation rules. Destroyed cards are removed from a player's Squadron list, so they cannot be used again. Fresh Fleet Points can be used to buy reinforcements after a turn, including a new unique pilot if you lost your (lost unique cards cannot be used again).**

*I treat EPTs differently than other upgrades, but you could treat them all the same for expediency.

**If you want to reduce the rate of pilot death, keep the ejection mechanic and just require the player to buy the cheapest version of that pilot's ship to get him/her in the air again.

In this way you could get some of the strategic flavor of my system (target selection, space "terrain", trying to save ships from a battle going poorly, risk of unique assets, building for varied scenarios with limited resources) without as much of the complexity and record keeping. The players would get more immediate fun and variety without having to maintain the campaign for a large number of turns.

If you have access to a CR-90, the mission-string "campaign" included in it might be a good fit for you (though it was written only for two players). It also includes a baked in narrative, whereas my system is deliberately generic so you can spin your own story to fit the events as they unfold. Hope this helps.

I'm very impressed with your mission layout Rekkon, and I would love to see this in a large scope, ongoing, situation. However due to my situation with my friends, it's extremely cut short.

I have two CR90s and Two Transports, which could ultimately be the Mission Objective of either side with a few bounding steps inbetween.

I was looking to recruit 8 people....4 Per Faction and create 2 teams of 2 within each faction. Each team would square off against an opposing team in different battle scenarios, however, would work together for the overall goal.

I was thinking of 6 planets being involved setup in a hexagon type formation. 2 Planets at opposite sides of the map would be consider the "Home" planet and then everything else would be neutral and up for grabs.

Then maybe run mission scenarios that you have in your document for each planet in between. Win the Scenario...win the Planet and move closer to the "Home" Planet of the Opposing faction.

Rekkon or Maverick,

Does this sound ok...or am I off?

Thank you for your input and use of your materials.

That should be workable. Keep in mind my battle system was geared for 1v1 play, so if you are going to run players in pairs, you may want to always use the biggest squad size available and give each player half the available points, rather than just doubling the size. For symmetric scenarios doubling would be fine, but not so much for the other ones. Another option would be to have a "main" battle that is 2v2 using one of the symmetric scenarios while one or two "side" 1v1 battles happen with scenarios that do not lend themselves to being increased in size. Do that for one or two campaign turns, then have a big 200-400 point "final" battle with all the players where each side brings a corvette and/or transport. If you did this, I would specify a set number of points for the capital ships and their upgrades that each side gets for free, and the rest of the forces are populated from player Squadrons. The advantage to doing well in the earlier battles would be earning more Fleet Points to buy more equipment, giving you greater flexibility in what to bring to the final battle.

Thank you for the recommendations! I particularly appreciate the point size values recommendation...I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind as I try to put this all together. Hope you don't mind me bouncing more ideas off you and asking future questions.

Rekkon or Maverick,

I'm looking for a Small Scale type Campaign; something for a day or two.

Maybe a handful of missions (depending on how many Teams of 2 Each Faction has).

What is your advice utilizing your system on how I can manage this?

I have til the First Weekend in September to come up with something for (as of yet) an unknown group of people.

Thank you!

Hey JCDisaray,

You could certainly look at using the ideas that I have in my campaign system on a smaller scale - you could reduce the points limits of the battles if needed, the number of sectors you want to feature on the map, and also the amount of points awarded after each battle.

Updated 8/7/14 - modifications are now permanently bound to the first ship they are used on and are discarded with no refund if replaced with another modification.

Interesting today, after two games of the Rebels kicking the Imperials tails, we unlocked the second tech level - A-Wings for the Rebels and TIE Interceptors for the Empire - In a 250 point capture mission the Rebels attempted to claim Nar Shaddaa however the Imperials sent a strong force of bombers, Interceptors and TIE Fighters with a support shuttle. The Imperials lost the acclaimed Turr Phennir, a bomber and some TIE Fighters, but the Rebels lost 2 A-Wings, 2 Z-95's, 3 X-Wings and received heavy damage to one Y-Wing. When the battle ran out of time, both forces were left to lick their wounds and count their losses, but one thing is for sure, the temporary quiet in the sector will not last long..

Rekkon or Maverick,

I'm looking for a Small Scale type Campaign; something for a day or two.

Maybe a handful of missions (depending on how many Teams of 2 Each Faction has).

What is your advice utilizing your system on how I can manage this?

I have til the First Weekend in September to come up with something for (as of yet) an unknown group of people.

Thank you!

Hey JCDisaray,

You could certainly look at using the ideas that I have in my campaign system on a smaller scale - you could reduce the points limits of the battles if needed, the number of sectors you want to feature on the map, and also the amount of points awarded after each battle.

Yeah, I'm pulling ideas from both yours and Rekkon's layout. Really wish I had a group to play test all this!

Maverick,

Love your time released ship system!

When FFG designed XW they designed a ship to have a preset cost say for a Tie Fighter at 12 points based on the dial its guys and stats etc adding another dimension (Hyperspace) and not changing the points cost is a little silly, you need to either add a cost to some of the craft that can Hyperspace or break fluff and say everyone can. (Maybe if the Imp Huge is a carrier they will solve some of the problem for you)

Cost of installations are silly

one use secondary's as has been said before is a little silly

Generally I like it but feel you have messed to much with the core of the game without balancing out the ship point costs as above!

I think the mechanics that will work will be ones that allows two winners for every battle

1 player completes the objective and takes the sector and wins the battle

1 player who caused the damage they wanted to the enemy fleet in order to win the War when it captures that it will be a good system, this will allow a good Strategic command and make a real campaign

but it's not there yet

This looks like a great idea, I've been brainstorming same kind of campaign on Axis and Allies style, but this looks much more mature. Too bad I cannot help on testing during summertime as my gaming group is scattered for summer vacation but I'll be watching this with great interest.