On 5/24/2019 at 9:14 PM, Drasnighta said:

However.

Nothing is stopping you from having an Engineering command later in the game, and re-generating points.

Slicer Tools

1 hour ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Slicer Tools

I don’t feel That’s really relevant to the rules discussion in a Rules thread.

it gives s false impression that slicer tools stops you from EVER having an engineer command

I had a question regarding the requirement of disclosing your fleet build to your opponent before and during a match. I understand that in casual matches players could agree to custom rules. However, I read under tournament regulations:

"2. Players reveal all of their ship and squadron components ."

I'd like clarification on the meaning of ship and squadron "components" because I've encountered different interpretations. Are Commander and Upgrade card considered components?

Most people believe that Commander and Upgrade cards are ship components, which is why players are allowed to look at their opponent's cards before and even during a match.

IMO it should not be required that players disclose their fleet builds before a match begins. It doesn't make sense that each player should know everything about their opponent's ships and squadrons, because in a real battle the belligerents wouldn't know who the Commander of the opposing fleet was (unless the Commander communicated with the enemy before the battle) or that Luke Skywalker was leading a particular X-Wing squadron or that the Onager-class Star Destroyer had equipped the Orbital Bombardment Particle Beam Cannons instead of the Superheavy Componsite Beam Turbolasers (or no super weapon). It's plausible that the opponent would become aware of relevant information during the battle, like when a ship rolled a Blue Crit and triggered Overload Pulse. But how would (and why should ) the opposing player know that a ship had the Overload Pulse upgrade equipped before the battle even started?

This also pertains to the Bail Organa and Governor Pryce Officer cards, wherein the player must place a round token on the card to indicate what round they will use the card's ability. Why is the player required to telegraph their intentions to their opponent? Why would someone ever do that before a battle? IMO the round tokens should be one-sided and the player should have the choice to place it number-side-down on Bail Organa or Governor Pryce's Officer card, and that token would be revealed during the indicated round.

Both of those Officer cards were introduced in Wave 7, but IME they're rarely used because they telegraph the player's plans, and no one wants to do that, even in casual play. On the rare occasions Bail or Pryce are used, they're not nearly as effective as they would be if the player could conceal the round token.

In conclusion, I'd appreciate a clarification on the rules regarding players having to reveal their ship and squadron cards to their opponent. Thanks.

1 hour ago, Reavern said:

IMO it should not be required that players disclose their fleet builds before a match begins. It doesn't make sense that each player should know everything about their opponent's ships and squadrons, because in a real battle the belligerents wouldn't know who the Commander of the opposing fleet was (unless the Commander communicated with the enemy before the battle) or that Luke Skywalker was leading a particular X-Wing squadron or that the Onager-class Star Destroyer had equipped the Orbital Bombardment Particle Beam Cannons instead of the Superheavy Componsite Beam Turbolasers (or no super weapon). It's plausible that the opponent would become aware of relevant information during the battle, like when a ship rolled a Blue Crit and triggered Overload Pulse. But how would (and why should ) the opposing player know that a ship had the Overload Pulse upgrade equipped before the battle even started?

This also pertains to the Bail Organa and Governor Pryce Officer cards, wherein the player must place a round token on the card to indicate what round they will use the card's ability. Why is the player required to telegraph their intentions to their opponent? Why would someone ever do that before a battle? IMO the round tokens should be one-sided and the player should have the choice to place it number-side-down on Bail Organa or Governor Pryce's Officer card, and that token would be revealed during the indicated round.

In a real battle the point totals would almost never be the same, initiative wouldn’t be determined by force size, a CR90 wouldn’t enjoy 45% of an ISD’s firepower, the Imperials would adhere to a more standardized set of upgrades (XX-9s and NK-7s on an ISD-1, etc.) and Biggs wouldn’t fly alongside Lando.

As Armada is a game at its core rather than a simulation of a real battle, upgrade information is made public to reward strategic decision-making without resorting to guesswork. For a casual format hidden information Armada sounds like a lot of fun, but theme is not the goal of competitive events.

As for the rules side of things : under the definition of “upgrade card” in the RRG, it is stated that equipped upgrade cards are placed next to their ship cards, and that an upgrade card is flipped facedown when it is discarded.

Under “effect use and timing,” it is stated that when a card is flipped facedown, its effect is no longer active in the game.

So these cards need to be face up, and next to their ship cards. The RRG completes this by referring to “ships, squadrons and cards” during the gather components step of setup.

@The Jabbawookie Yes, I often play with custom "No Fore-Knowledge" rules with my friends and it is incredibly exciting/infuriating and fun. It's even fun to watch these matches because when one player pulls off an epic attack and smashes a ship, everyone reacts very loudly!

It just seems strange to me that competitive matches require players to disclose their fleet builds. It's the opposite of competition to have that fore knowledge. It's like if in sports, the teams showed the opposing side their playbook. It just makes no sense.

IMO strategic list building would become even more important in competitive play without knowledge of the opponent's fleet build. And adaptive, tactical decision making during matches would be vital -- instead of players following their game plan from start to finish.

The only risk is that without fore knowledge, both players might play extremely cautiously, be reluctant to engage, activation advantage would become even more important, and there'd be a risk of matches dragging on and on with virtually no shooting. That would be boring.

However, that hasn't been my experience with these "No Fore-Knowledge" rules. My friends and I play "straight" because we're not constantly countering each other's abilities and plans, because we don't know what they are. This has allowed us to use the Starhawk and Onager's super weapons to their full effect and experience how powerful they are. I've experienced having my opponent freeze my ISD with the Starhawk's MCTBA and then destroy my ship in a single activation on the next turn. It was a devastating loss -- but it was also awesome to behold. And I pulled off the same trick against him later and it was just as fun.

I think that videos of tournaments and championships would be a lot more exciting to watch if "No Fore-Knowledge" rules were adopted. Or, as a fair compromise, it became a second category of Organized Play competition, allowing players to choose between traditional Armada tournament rules and these proposed new rules.

42 minutes ago, Reavern said:

It just seems strange to me that competitive matches require players to disclose their fleet builds. It's the opposite of competition to have that fore knowledge. It's like if in sports, the teams showed the opposing side their playbook.

... not their playbook, but maybe the players on their team and how many players they could field at any one time. In Armada a player isn't required to disclose their strategy or plans, merely what they have on the table.

If you want to play it that way, though you can. Maybe whereby ships are revealed to the opponent when deployed, and Upgrade Cards start face down and only need to be flipped when their effect is resolved (think of the fun you could have with Raddus). It might make for some interesting games.

Personally I see two big concerns with this in normal play - particularly competitive play. Firstly, it denies your opponent the chance to get clarification on how some effects work or interact with other effects. There are now around 226 upgrade cards and 75 squadron cards in the game. Plus at least a couple of ships with special mechanics. There is a non-trivial chance in any competitive game a player will come across a card they've not played with or against before, and a pretty good chance of getting a new combination or interaction. Armada is a complicated game. Revealing everything before gives the players a chance to discuss what things do and how they work, saving awkwardness during the game.

The second is about the practicalities of this. Actually keeping everything secret is going to be really difficult at an event, without taking a lot of extra steps. Players have to get their cards out, they have to set up, they have to dig through their binders or whatever to find the right thing, they have to get their models ready; doing that in secret is hard. For a multi-round event you'd need to insist that players remain in isolation; not talk to each other between rounds, not wander around the tables to look at other games and so on. With this rule you'd be giving a bonus to players who cheat in hard-to-enforce-or-prove ways. We already have this a bit with Objectives, which are supposed to remain hidden until the player with the bid picks who has initiative, but in practice are often revealed incidentally either through earlier rounds or while unpacking. Making lists secret would be this problem but so much worse.

But if you want to play the game that way, do so; see what happens, it sounds like it could be fun and interesting, so let us know if you can.

5 hours ago, Grumbleduke said:

... not their playbook, but maybe the players on their team and how many players they could field at any one time. In Armada a player isn't required to disclose their strategy or plans, merely what they have on the table.

If you want to play it that way, though you can. Maybe whereby ships are revealed to the opponent when deployed, and Upgrade Cards start face down and only need to be flipped when their effect is resolved (think of the fun you could have with Raddus). It might make for some interesting games.

Personally I see two big concerns with this in normal play - particularly competitive play. Firstly, it denies your opponent the chance to get clarification on how some effects work or interact with other effects. There are now around 226 upgrade cards and 75 squadron cards in the game. Plus at least a couple of ships with special mechanics. There is a non-trivial chance in any competitive game a player will come across a card they've not played with or against before, and a pretty good chance of getting a new combination or interaction. Armada is a complicated game. Revealing everything before gives the players a chance to discuss what things do and how they work, saving awkwardness during the game.

The second is about the practicalities of this. Actually keeping everything secret is going to be really difficult at an event, without taking a lot of extra steps. Players have to get their cards out, they have to set up, they have to dig through their binders or whatever to find the right thing, they have to get their models ready; doing that in secret is hard. For a multi-round event you'd need to insist that players remain in isolation; not talk to each other between rounds, not wander around the tables to look at other games and so on. With this rule you'd be giving a bonus to players who cheat in hard-to-enforce-or-prove ways. We already have this a bit with Objectives, which are supposed to remain hidden until the player with the bid picks who has initiative, but in practice are often revealed incidentally either through earlier rounds or while unpacking. Making lists secret would be this problem but so much worse.

But if you want to play the game that way, do so; see what happens, it sounds like it could be fun and interesting, so let us know if you can.

Armada players will see the ships and squadrons their opponent has during Deployment, which is the equivalent of a sports team knowing their opponent's roster of players.

The opposing player knowing what Commander and Upgrade cards the player has equipped on specific ships reveals their fleet's capabilities and presumptive plans -- that's their playbook . If I know from the start that my opponent's commander is Admiral Konstantine and he has an ISD, VSD, and Interdictor equipped with G-8 and Phylon Q7's, I know my opponent plans to mess with my ships' speeds. Therefore, I can spread out my ships during Deployment and use various techniques to counter. That fore-knowledge makes everything less effective .

I've played dozens of custom games against my friends using these rules and not knowing brings a heightened level of intensity to matches, which is both more challenging and more fun.

I'll explain:

A neutral third-party is required to be a Moderator to observe the match and enforce all rules. Ideally, there is one Moderator per player, so each Mod can focus on each player, and they can confer with each other privately without disclosing any information to the players. I find these custom games move along faster and more smoothly with 2 Mods instead of 1. I usually play Armada with 3 of my friends at my place because I have a custom board game table, so 2 people play and the other 2 serve as Mods. It's a more controlled environment than playing in a board game shop or cafe. Instead of placing our cards and components on the edge of table on the sides of the play mat, we use screens and smaller tables to place our cards and components out of view of our opponent but still easily accessible.

We have variations of the rules depending on how "hardcore" we want to play. The more relaxed version of our "No Fore-Knowledge" rules involve revealing the card of the ship or squadron being activated by placing the card on edge of the table on the side of the play mat (like you normally would), as well as the dial stack and speed dial. Commander and Upgrade cards are revealed when they're used and left visible on the table for remainder of the round. However, the player is not entitled to read any of their opponent's cards or dials or tokens; they can ask questions but the opponent is under no obligation to answer -- but if they choose to answer they cannot lie.

The only significant change is that face-up damage cards are not disclosed to the attacker. The Mod enforces the face-up damage card's effect without divulging the specifics to the attacker. For example, a face-up Structural Damage adds another damage card and then it's flipped face-down. The attacker is informed of the extra damage card and the face-up card has been flipped face-down, but not told why.

During the Status Phase, all cards, tokens, and dials (that weren't discarded during the round) are returned to their concealed place. The Mod observes and checks everything goes back in its correct place so there aren't any mistakes or shenanigans. (We found that it's a good idea for the Mod to snap a photo at the start of each round, which makes this easier to verify.)

If a ship has damage cards from previous rounds, the player is under no obligation to inform their opponent how many damage cards a ship has or how many hull points remain. They add additional damage cards as required. If the player uses a Repair Dial and removes damage, they do not have to tell their opponent how many damage cards they've removed. The player informs the Mod of how they're using the Repair Command (or the Shields to Maximum fleet command) and Mod ensures they do it correctly.

It's the Mod's responsibility to check everything is done correctly and enforces the rules without divulging anything extra to the players.

TBH it's less complicated than it seems. IMO it is common sense. Basically you reveal to your opponent only what you must reveal to prove you can take a particular action. It's virtually the same as the game is played now, except you conceal your cards and components at the end of the round. The onus is on each player to remember or record what their opponent has revealed during the course of the game and use that information to adapt their tactics and win. And the Mod just keeps everyone honest.

In practice, it's easy for any experienced Armada player to learn. The uncertainty makes the game thrilling and pulling off a devastating attack is intensely gratifying. When I reveal a powerful card, like Heavy Ion Emplacements , it's like revealing a winning Poker hand, replete with the obligatory gloating and reply of obscenities from my friend whom I just dunked on. It's way more satisfying to play a card like HIE when your opponent doesn't know it's coming.

My custom "No Fore-Knowledge" rules are especially great for Wave 8 because you can actually use the Onager and Starhawk's super weapons, instead of your opponent countering them and spoiling your fun.

tl:dr: "No Fore-Knowledge" rules are A LOT of fun. Try it out and let me know what you think.

14 hours ago, Reavern said:

@The Jabbawookie Yes, I often play with custom "No Fore-Knowledge" rules with my friends and it is incredibly exciting/infuriating and fun. It's even fun to watch these matches because when one player pulls off an epic attack and smashes a ship, everyone reacts very loudly!

It just seems strange to me that competitive matches require players to disclose their fleet builds. It's the opposite of competition to have that fore knowledge. It's like if in sports, the teams showed the opposing side their playbook. It just makes no sense.

IMO strategic list building would become even more important in competitive play without knowledge of the opponent's fleet build. And adaptive, tactical decision making during matches would be vital -- instead of players following their game plan from start to finish.

The only risk is that without fore knowledge, both players might play extremely cautiously, be reluctant to engage, activation advantage would become even more important, and there'd be a risk of matches dragging on and on with virtually no shooting. That would be boring.

However, that hasn't been my experience with these "No Fore-Knowledge" rules. My friends and I play "straight" because we're not constantly countering each other's abilities and plans, because we don't know what they are. This has allowed us to use the Starhawk and Onager's super weapons to their full effect and experience how powerful they are. I've experienced having my opponent freeze my ISD with the Starhawk's MCTBA and then destroy my ship in a single activation on the next turn. It was a devastating loss -- but it was also awesome to behold. And I pulled off the same trick against him later and it was just as fun.

I think that videos of tournaments and championships would be a lot more exciting to watch if "No Fore-Knowledge" rules were adopted. Or, as a fair compromise, it became a second category of Organized Play competition, allowing players to choose between traditional Armada tournament rules and these proposed new rules.

Hidden information is a regular occurrence in strategy games, but is far from a norm. Rather than being the opposite of competition, open information is just another part of ground rules used by many deck and army-building games (and other iconic strategy games like chess, go and risk.)

The reason for this is ultimately pretty simple: fun is subjective, and players may or may not have a preference for hidden information. Personally I dislike any elements of a game I find arbitrary or inherently unpredictable: dice are the thing I like least about Armada, but others may love the variance they bring.

However, placing a significant disadvantage on those who fail to blind-memorize the upgrades, interactions, common ship builds and archetypes of this game objectively makes the competitive scene less accessible to new or casual players (some of whom can perform quite well in the current structure.)

Given that the game continues to offer abundant challenge to all skill levels as is, it’s understandable why we have open information in the standard format. Additionally, most tournaments only have a single TO to maintain secrecy across 10-30 players, and testing lists outside of the event would risk revealing information beforehand, meaning opponents familiar with each other would be in some respects playing a different game. This isn’t just something lacking the resources for enforcement, it’s unenforceable.

Even if secrecy could realistically be maintained, it would prevent one from finishing a round early and walking among the tables of future competitors, chatting and spectating. To get subjective, I’ve found that relaxed atmosphere almost universal among Armada tournaments and no change comes to mind for which I would sacrifice it.

So practically speaking, it’s probably a combination of these factors.

This discussion is also best taken to its own topic.

2 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

This discussion is also best taken to its own topic.

Yes, I understand. I started with a Rules question about what must be revealed to the players and the topic snowballed from there.