Applying Campaign rules to the larger Galaxy

By Swusn, in Star Wars: Armada

After reading through the Corellian Conflict rules I started thinking if they could be applied to the larger galaxy to get a larger campaign going.

The Corellian Conflict is designed to be played with 4 to 6 players and has 25 map locations.

There are currently 8 Admirals available for each faction so I started thinking what exactly would be needed to play an 8v8 campaign and frankly with a different map the rules wouldn't really need to be tweeked that much.

I started looking at the "Rebellion" board which has 32 systems. If you added the "Strategic Effects" and "Objective Card" numbers from page 17 of the Correlian Conflict Campaign Guide to the systems on the Rebellion map where they would make sense(using a couple of them more than once of course) you would have sufficient systems to run an 8v8 Campaign.

The only rule adjustments I would see needing to be made are:

Place Bases: The Imperials place their extra base on Coruscant Instead of Corellia.

Hyperlane Raid: Target System has to be in a Sector Containing a System with an Imperial base or a system adjacent to a system containing an Imperial base"

Show of Force: Target Location cannot be in the Coruscant Sector or Any System containing an Imperial base.

The campaign is played until one side reaches points equal to 2 times the amount of players. (i.e. a 16 player campaign plays until one side reaches 32 points.)

Ultimately if each side place all the bases and outposts they could in accordance with the rules there would still be 4 empty systems left over (although it is highly unlikely that both sides will have the maximum number of bases and outposts built. If this is an issue the number of bases and outposts that can be deployed will need to be reduced.)

"All out Offensive" It would either have to be done in a larger area maybe 12'x3' or 18x3 depending on player count.

So do you think it's possible? Would it be fun?

Now my little brain just wants to figure out how to add in Imperial Assault Skirmish mode and find 15 other people to play this with and I will be happy :)

Edited by Swusn

8v8 means a lot of fighting for uniques. Not sure how well that will go over. And a lot of coordination to pick who attacks and defends. Also, you need to find 16 players. I like to think NC has one of the largest player bases in the US, currently around 12-14, with 7-8 weekly players, so not even we could run this massive campaign.

It is an intersting idea though. It would literally be the epic of all epic games.

In regards to your mechanincs, 32 points seems like a good place to start to end the game. Granted, if one team tries to go for several bases in 1 turn, they can rack up a huge amount of points. Thinking about max possible points, 4 assaults on bases that will give 3 points each, and if the 4 defenders win that another 4 points. So about 16 points if one side destroyes 4 bases and wins all the games. That's half way through your campaign in a single round. Very unlikely, but it could happen.

With your limited planets, some players will be forced to attack a base, and taking down bases is really hard. So you might get matched up week after week trying to take bases and always losing some of your fleet. You may have to tweak your income as well. with 3v3, we are getting about 40-50 resources a turn. With 8 bases, thats already 200 points, and if you can't get the high income worlds, you may be sharing like 30 resources to each player.

I don't think you can do the final battle with 16 players. That just sounds painful, not to mention if would be like several small games going at the same time. On a 18x3, the people at the ends will have no impact on the rest of the game, since the game ony goes 6 rounds. Perhaps you could pair people off in 2v2 and play it on a 3x3, but have all the games in one line, so you have a single board. And the players on their mat play and individual game, but can join in on another game by flying over. And with alternating activations, the 3 player can just jump into the action when he discusses it with his peers. This way you get a massive battle in a timely fashion, but still have an interactive portion with the rest of the team. Calling in support or fighters to help take down valuable targets. Or even retreating behind your own lines.

Could do it with 4 to 6 players and they fight for control of a sector, the. Can leave a fleet behind to protect that sector.

So if you group removes and win a sector, the number of fleets you can control increases by 1. This fleet is the sector defense fleet. Other players may swap their fleet for the sefense fleet as needed.

It sounds like a ton of fun, though Undeadguy already raises many of the things you'd have to address.

For my sake, as someone who likes to model the way that the galaxy would likely work, I would not want galaxy-scale warfare to work in the same way as sector-scale warfare.

I love the Corellian Conflict as the foundation of a broader campaign, which would involve more people, modelling additional dynamics. The player base I have to recruit from would be X-Wing and Imperial Assault players, and so I would like to make the sector-level more interestingly complex, one dynamic (ie. rule set module) at a time.

But that's me.

I'm intrigued by how you would pull off your idea, and would like to know more.

@Undeadguy

-8v8 means a lot of fighting for uniques. Not sure how well that will go over.

I agree it would be difficult and could start some issues. It would have to be up to the group leader to figure out who gets what if there is a dispute and everyone would just have to be mature about it.

-Also, you need to find 16 players.

Yeah, I am having trouble just getting enough regular players to do the CC right now so this would be impossible in my area but I was thinking it would be great to run on Vassal as a community game. but the planning phases would be almost impossible unless you just had each sides grand admiral pick the battles and the players play them.

Edited by Swusn

As a vassal thing, maybe?

Easier to find players and manage schedules, I would think.

@Undeadguy

-8v8 means a lot of fighting for uniques. Not sure how well that will go over.

I agree it would be difficult and could start some issues. It would have to be up to the group leader to figure out who gets what if there is a dispute and everyone would just have to be mature about it.

-Also, you need to find 16 players.

Yeah, I am having trouble just getting enough regular players to do the CC right now so this would be impossible in my area but I was thinking it would be great to run on Vassal as a community game. but the planning phases would be almost impossible unless you just had each sides grand admiral pick the battles and the players play them.

Yea I think this would work for Vassal. But I also think a lot of logistical planning needs to go into this as well. There is just a lot going on. I think a better thing to would be to create a new campaign. Use the same mechanics from CC, but just make it bigger. And have bigger battles. So still cap at 500, but allow 2v2 or 3v3 fights at a single system or base. I think that would make it feel more thematic, with huge battles going on. This can also help with the Unique fights, if you allow your allies to activate your squads and allow the upgrades to carry through them.

So player 1 has Yavaris, player 2 has 2 VCXs, and player 3 has Luke and Nora. Player 1 activates Yavaris and has a squad command, bounces it through player 2s relay, and activates player 3 squads. Now player 3 gets to activate them, but gets Yavaris's buff.

This way you can have "battle groups" each capable of doing things on there own, but also able to come together and do even more crazy stuff.

If I knew how to play Vassal, I'd even be interested in this. Time becomes a serious issue, but there are ways to work around that.

I think it could work with the uniques. You might have to set up some sort of system, like a draft, to spread it out, like first round everyone picks admirals, then the last to pick an admiral gets first dibs on ship titles, then move on to officers, then squadrons, etc.

Yeah, if I were on Vassal, I'd want to be in on this.

Spread out the "large battles" - have them timed, or delayed, or triggered at some point.

What about having multiple sectors and having commanders in charge of separate sectors that way all 8 can't just attack anywhere, but rather have to attack/defend within their own sector, but having it all tie into a larger, more "galactic" campaign? It could also be used to address the all out offensive somewhat as it would be amongst each sector rather than 8v8 you end up with something like 3v3, 3v3, 2v2.