Looking for a discussion here. Not trolling or picking a fight.

The game of Armada combines two different eras of naval warfare and then sets it in space. The mainstay is the age of sail, represented by the ships. The secondary aspect is squadrons taken from the Second World War.

In both of these eras a lot of the glory went to the admirals, but even by their own admission they would have been nothing without the captains in their fleets.

Now Armada does a great job of representing Admirals. Their abilities show general orders before the battle begins. There's no micromanagement of ships here. But what about the ships' captains?

They occasionally get assigned an officer, you know, from time to time.

So why not change that? Why not give every ship a captain (yes, even the one carrying your admiral)?

So now you're asking "what's the point, deez?" I have one, I swear.

There's been accusations that the initiative system can be abused. I don't care about that, but I do find it a bit silly. The whole "I go-you go" system is what we tell our kids how to play games with others when we're trying to convince them that fairness is real. Spoiler alert: it's not.

So why not assign a Captain's skill to this game, similiar to X-wing's Pilot Skill. How it would work is the higher it is, the earlier that ship can act. Now, assigning a midrange captain with a skill of 4 would cost zero points. A higher skilled captain will cost more, and I've been tossing around the idea that a lower captain skill would reduce points.

This does a lot for the game. Keep in mind I want to keep the initiative for things like objectives, I just think this would add a bit more depth to it. Crummy captains were (and still are) a thing, that's not represented in this game, but it could be. It also could possibly cut down on abuse of certain builds and ships, like triple taps with Demolisher.

Thoughts?

You already can the "captain" is represented by the officer upgrade slot

So why not assign a Captain's skill to this game, similiar to X-wing's Pilot Skill. How it would work is the higher it is, the earlier that ship can act. Now, assigning a midrange captain with a skill of 4 would cost zero points. A higher skilled captain will cost more, and I've been tossing around the idea that a lower captain skill would reduce points.

In an early interview of "changes and differences", the predictable activation order of X-Wing is something the developers deliberately wanted to remove from the much "larger" scale game. To make the admiralty battle more fluid in return.

You already can the "captain" is represented by the officer upgrade slot

Raymus Antillies was the Captain of the Tantive IV, Chrianeau was a captain.

As for your suggestion Flavorabledeez. No.

Once you do that you take away the strategy involved in placing ships in the proper positions, you limit the capacity for lists to counter multi activation lists, etc.

Top 2 of GenCon were 2 ship lists. Not just 1 player was but both were.

A few more - Captain Needa, Veteran Captain....

Officer slot is a perfect place to put the captains that stand out from the rest. It is obvious that all ships have a captain in charge whatever his actual rank badge says. Adding named captains with abilities to every ship would just make the game more complicated. Many players run ships without the officer slots filled anyway.

As for a predictable initiative based activation order I'm against it. Armada isn't X-Wing as players of both games point out regularly (and occasionally angrily). Redesigning such a basic game mechanic as this would require a second edition. Star Trek Attack Wing could be considered a game similar to X-wing bit with more upgrade slots where every ship can have a captain with initiative based activations and special abilities. Then you can add crew, Tech and weapon upgrades to taste.

I like STAW, I've not played X-Wing much, but I Love Armada. Vive la difference.

My problem is more that you can assign Admirals as Captains while lower officers command the whole fleet.

Well when you look at Star Wars the Captains were not a major part of the movie. Two captains were killed by Vader and one was promoted to Admiral. After that it was all Admirals, Generals, and Moffs.

So you want to turn it into Xwing. No. Never. Worst ever idea.

The game of Armada combines two different eras of naval warfare and then sets it in space. The mainstay is the age of sail, represented by the ships. The secondary aspect is squadrons taken from the Second World War.

In both of these eras a lot of the glory went to the admirals, but even by their own admission they would have been nothing without the captains in their fleets.

There's been accusations that the initiative system can be abused. I don't care about that, but I do find it a bit silly. The whole "I go-you go" system is what we tell our kids how to play games with others when we're trying to convince them that fairness is real. Spoiler alert: it's not.

So why not assign a Captain's skill to this game, similiar to X-wing's Pilot Skill. How it would work is the higher it is, the earlier that ship can act. Now, assigning a midrange captain with a skill of 4 would cost zero points. A higher skilled captain will cost more, and I've been tossing around the idea that a lower captain skill would reduce points.

This does a lot for the game. Keep in mind I want to keep the initiative for things like objectives, I just think this would add a bit more depth to it. Crummy captains were (and still are) a thing, that's not represented in this game, but it could be. It also could possibly cut down on abuse of certain builds and ships, like triple taps with Demolisher.

Thoughts?

This is really taking the design of the game in a different direction. Activation and how to approach it is hardly a unique problem and you see this in many tabletop rulesets and approached in different ways.

Some "activation" value, you go - I go, cards (and then the player makes a choice what to activate), one side moves all their stuff - then the other side, simultaneous, ...

Anyway I'm sure we could fill up a server hard drive with discussion, Armada is the way that it is and at least for me it is one of the qualities of the game I appreciate. Being able to choose and activate based on the situation you're facing I feel is part of the fundamental charms of the game.

You know, no one ever brings up this topic when talking about Chess.

You know, no one ever brings up this topic when talking about Chess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess

Good discussion on these concepts. I figured it would be seen as negative, given my comparisson to X-wing.

I was mainly looking for ways to get around people utilzing loopholes within the game. Yeah, this would add difficulty to it, but it's not like Armada is a fast paced game.

Still, this change would shake up the fundamentals of the game entirely, and I know many (if not most) are against that.

Also, I knew captains could be represented by the personnel slots. I commented on that.

So you want to turn it into Xwing. No. Never. Worst ever idea.

X-wing doesn't have captains. You must be thinking of Attack Wing.

So you want to turn it into Xwing. No. Never. Worst ever idea.

X-wing doesn't have captains. You must be thinking of Attack Wing.

Pilots in X-Wing and captains in Attack wing are very similiar.

So you want to turn it into Xwing. No. Never. Worst ever idea.

X-wing doesn't have captains. You must be thinking of Attack Wing.

Pilots in X-Wing and captains in Attack wing are very similar.

Yeah but aren't captains in Attack Wing interchangeable where as pilots in X-wing are fixed to their ships. (Then again FFG has been spamming Sabine pilots in their most recent waves of X-wing).

So you want to turn it into Xwing. No. Never. Worst ever idea.

X-wing doesn't have captains. You must be thinking of Attack Wing.

Pilots in X-Wing and captains in Attack wing are very similar.

Yeah but aren't captains in Attack Wing interchangeable where as pilots in X-wing are fixed to their ships. (Then again FFG has been spamming Sabine pilots in their most recent waves of X-wing).

Exactly, thats why I said similar not the same.

too many things to remember.

exactly how those two gencon lists won vs other things at all i have no idea. someone who watched it want to explain?

too many things to remember.

exactly how those two gencon lists won vs other things at all i have no idea. someone who watched it want to explain?

I've been running a similar list for a while myself. It's not that bad. The squadrons get most of my focus most of the time.

The Demo is just used for its flexibility, and the ISD primarily supports the squadrons.

I'm not exactly sure how Dong does it. He crushes our local tournaments, but I haven't actually played him myself.

too many things to remember.

exactly how those two gencon lists won vs other things at all i have no idea. someone who watched it want to explain?

Very easily, really.

Both lists used their overwhelming squadron advantage to eliminate any squadron threat, then used the bombers to destroy ships until there was no remaining activation advantage. Demolisher did its thing when necessary, and the Star Destroyer had enough shields and hull to just not die. More importantly, Demolisher is flexible enough that it can simply stay back until an opportunity presents itself. Similarly, the squadrons allowed the ISD to hang back and simply wait out the activations from a fairly significant range. Naturally, this doesn't encapsulate the brilliant flying and smart play both players exhibited for the match.

It's theoretically possible I could have beaten it (I faced off against a much more tanky ISD/VSD version and came within two hull points of destroying it as my last match before the cut) but it would have been very difficult, would have been entirely dependent on my raiders sacrificing themselves to clear the bombers away, and frankly the best I could likely have hoped for would be a zero point win by ship wipe. Which, when you think about it, would probably be the best way to win a championship at that level. instead I had to settle for getting to enjoy the rest of GenCon.

too many things to remember.

exactly how those two gencon lists won vs other things at all i have no idea. someone who watched it want to explain?

I've been running a similar list for a while myself. It's not that bad. The squadrons get most of my focus most of the time.

The Demo is just used for its flexibility, and the ISD primarily supports the squadrons.

I'm not exactly sure how Dong does it. He crushes our local tournaments, but I haven't actually played him myself.

It's weird that it still happens, since the ship has been with us ever since the first wave.

And this isn't knocking the finalist at Gen Con. At that level it's game play and a deep understanding of mechanics and percentages. I just know that my experience on the local level tends to see Demo get people away from their strategy before the first round even starts.

btw, does anyone have those lists...? or know where i can see them?