8 hours ago, slimninj4 said:

I would like to see more smaller battles. quick games, say 200-300 point builds for resource gathering or intel. Build that into the game. I do not think it can ever be thematic. Still it fun to play even with all the issues.

5

Skirmishes are an option; drawing enemy strength away (by confusing your opponents where you actually plan to commit your real force, probing them and where they're strong and forcing them to commit their forces where you could convince them they need to put), thinning out the numbers, or taking out key ships (headhunting the admiral of the sector forces XD).

Garrisons should be a thing, but it does take some time to bring in additional forces and establish garrisons. Though, the rule of thumb here when one player decides to attack a world or outpost with garrison is that the garrison is the initial force the defending player get to start with while the rest of his point allotment are in the reinforcements being called in when the garrison is under attack, arriving probably on the third round unless there's an objective that can prevent communication or divert reinforcement. The one running the game need to look at how both are set up in the campaign to determine how and where the reinforcement arrive on board for the defending player.

Play the 200pt Taskforce armada variant. Its built for that.

Do you have a link to that @Blail Blerg would love to check it out!

Basically no new rules. Just reduced everything. 4 obstacles. 3x3, distance 3 from side is no deploy zone.

still require admiral. 1/3 pts for squadrons.

Remember Corellian Conflict was an experiment.

9 hours ago, Forresto said:

Remember Corellian Conflict was an experiment.

Is that what they said?

Probably not publicly, but I think this was an experiment for Armada, but more importantly for their flagship game X-Wing.

I found it a successful experiment. It revitalized enthusiasm for the game and brought new players into our group here (Austin). Because it is casual, it lends itself easily to modification to suit the needs of each group playing it.

The campaign does not reward a play style that ignores the big picture. And it is rough for a team that consistently loses battles.

These are features, not bugs.

In our campaign, which technically we still have to do the final big battle of, we had some problems in similar fashion. Player skill was a very, very, very tiny pay off the issue though so there was that. In ours the Empire made really poor choices in the system draft and the Rebels started what we called The American Strategy of sniping all the repair yards, then taking Corellia turn one, and then then sitting back on this HUGE economic advantage.

I agree that the 'over-map' was really not that strategic interplay heavy as I'd like it to be. Something could be done there. Some did complain about being stick with the one fleet, especially when they kept losing and pulling up scars. We Rebels did assassinate each Imperial player at least once.

Just to throw an idea in the hat, the one thing I found consistent in our games and in the forums is the win ratio not mattering, and the one game resolving the battle. So, again just spitballing here, what if to take a system you had to play all objectives at that system majority wins takes the system? Or win ratio determines success, like a 6-5 game locks the battle and it has to be fought again the following round, a 7-4 or 8-3 scores a minor victory and uses normal scoring, a 9-2 or 10-1 scores a major victory which is required to destroy a Base or Outpost. Two minor victories in a row will also destroy a base.

1 hour ago, Cusm said:

Probably not publicly, but I think this was an experiment for Armada, but more importantly for their flagship game X-Wing.

Then I hope the Xwing designers get their inspiration from the fan made HotAC campaign and not from this "experiment". It is quite worrying that a free, fan-made product has a much deeper, and better gameplay than a product released by the creators of the game!

I agree that this module revitalized interest in the game in our area too, but after playing it or hearing us (regular Armada players) talk about how the campaign is played, few of the would-be players show interest any more...

HotAC?

Heroes of the Auturi Cluster.

I'm just hoping FFG builds a new campaign box off the lessons learned in this one. The framework is ok, but details need some adjusting. There needs to be a better catch up mechanic than scrap your fleet and start from scratch. There also has to be other incentives to take other locations on the map since my teammate and I in the one I'm running now just gobbled up repair yards for free repair discounts.

3 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

Heroes of the Auturi Cluster.

I'm just hoping FFG builds a new campaign box off the lessons learned in this one. The framework is ok, but details need some adjusting. There needs to be a better catch up mechanic than scrap your fleet and start from scratch. There also has to be other incentives to take other locations on the map since my teammate and I in the one I'm running now just gobbled up repair yards for free repair discounts.

Good points here. Repair Yards were so much better than all of the other features that they became the only real prize in our campaign play. Economics is king, and Repair Yards is the only special ability that effects your economy.

In a future campaign there needs to be a larger variety of good special features, so that more systems will be considered prime real estate and to expand the strategic/tactical options for teams.

34 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

Just to throw an idea in the hat, the one thing I found consistent in our games and in the forums is the win ratio not mattering, and the one game resolving the battle. So, again just spitballing here, what if to take a system you had to play all objectives at that system majority wins takes the system? Or win ratio determines success, like a 6-5 game locks the battle and it has to be fought again the following round, a 7-4 or 8-3 scores a minor victory and uses normal scoring, a 9-2 or 10-1 scores a major victory which is required to destroy a Base or Outpost. Two minor victories in a row will also destroy a base.

I think you got something there. Maybe each systems should have a track of how firm is the control of the controlling side, and after the battle, depending on the victory margin, reduce the control on the planet or gain control over it (e.g. Corellia is +9 to the Empire, so only a 10-1 victory of the Rebellion in that system removes control of the Empire over it. A minor rebel victory 7-4 would reduce control to +6) ....something along these lines.

Control could be increased over time, or through resources investment...

This could be quite thematic: you need a major victory if you want to remove (imperial) control from one system. Minor victories would help undermine this control. Maybe imperial control could be tracked in this way and devise another way to track the influence of the Rebellion over the systems...

I like those ideas. A influence track would be kind of neat. Maybe diplomats instead of the current effect can be deployed to add one to the influence for empire or do something different if the Rebels are tracked differently. A spy token could automatically reduce influence by one to a minimum of one so that you still need to fight a battle to claim systems.

We are adding potentially a ton of games to the campaign. Do you let players have two fleets to play to break up the monotony? I still like the idea that you have to play all the objectives at a location. You could have multiple fleets and try to pick the best fleet you have for each mission.

Finished one CC and partially through another. Player skill counted very heavily for us, especially in the fleet builds. The results reflected that. Weaker players running builds that are 50 or more points less than the stronger player/build, after round 1, can be very frustrating. I struggle trying to put a good game together at 400 points. 500 is a whole new experience for me. I enjoyed the experience/challenge but I think the campaign system needs rewrite. I am also wondering if this is a first foray into testing 500 point games.

I think each player should have 2 smaller fleets. Say, a 300pt and 200 point fleet instead of one big 500 point fleet. The Imperials deploy their fleets at locations and "occupy" them while the Rebels hide fleets at certain locations. Smaller fleets also allows for quicker games.

The Rebels use hidden movement and you can only jump between two adjacent systems, so this allows the imperials to play marco polo with the hidden rebel bases.

I like the idea of Rebels taking away influence from a system over flat out just taking it away after a 5-5 loss.

I'm really liking this stuff. I may be writing a new campaign system here soon. It's going to be more robust, but hopefully will play faster for everyone. I have a very small amount of time to play games but I think I could squeeze in 2 smaller games in the same time frame as one large 400-500 point game.

Hmm... some improvement ideas off the cuff mostly based on Rebellion:

System Loyalty
This can be the scoring mechanic, rather than victory points over the campaign (hold X many systems). This is the realm of a diplomatic advantage, and system loyalty can be flipped depending on battle results (total tabling).

Systems are subjugated by the Empire, or liberated by the Rebellion, if you have boarding troopers in your fleet. It's as much of an advantage as having Interdictors present to prevent retreats.

Campaign Action Cards:
Start with 2, draw one plus the number of victories in the end of the round. Play them at the end of the planning phase. Special cards with variuos effects. For example, flipping defender/attackers after they've been declared, "gamble" cards that impose a condition in the scenario and a bigger payoff if you win, cards that prevent/cause scaring for ships under certain conditions, and so on.

Limit Repair Yards on ship size:
Those repair discounts only go to certain ship classes. Makes Repair yards not as ominescent of a repair buff, because there's only one system on the map that can repair large ships for example.

That last one is actually good. Small ships can find more shipyards that can repair them than medium and large ships.

Cards gave me an idea. What if you do it like RISK. Randomly shuffle the deck of cards representing each system and deal them in the required amount to each player. Further randomly draw cards for your base/outpost systems from the cards dealt to you? This generates the starting systems. Would this not make for a more variable starting set up with totally random conditions? Corellia being the only assigned Imperial system? Even better I can just make a random chart with dice rolling.

17 hours ago, Norsehound said:

Hmm... some improvement ideas off the cuff mostly based on Rebellion:

System Loyalty
This can be the scoring mechanic, rather than victory points over the campaign (hold X many systems). This is the realm of a diplomatic advantage, and system loyalty can be flipped depending on battle results (total tabling).

Systems are subjugated by the Empire, or liberated by the Rebellion, if you have boarding troopers in your fleet. It's as much of an advantage as having Interdictors present to prevent retreats.

Campaign Action Cards:
Start with 2, draw one plus the number of victories in the end of the round. Play them at the end of the planning phase. Special cards with variuos effects. For example, flipping defender/attackers after they've been declared, "gamble" cards that impose a condition in the scenario and a bigger payoff if you win, cards that prevent/cause scaring for ships under certain conditions, and so on.

Limit Repair Yards on ship size:
Those repair discounts only go to certain ship classes. Makes Repair yards not as ominescent of a repair buff, because there's only one system on the map that can repair large ships for example.

The only thing I can see here is that a team with player advantage could take over a large ship repair yards and just concentrate on the enemies large ships each battle. I like the idea a lot, just needs some playtesting.

After one campaign's play of CC, I'm generally happy with it. I agree that people who want more can decide to houserule it, though it might have been a good idea for them to suggest 'advanced rules' or something of that nature.

I also think that they did not (and should not have) make it more complicated out of the box. Any campaign system around a tabletop miniatures game does need to keep the focus on the outcomes at the tactical level (games of Armada), because the game is supposed to enhance the drama of the tactical level, not seriously unbalance the tactical level. Also, they needed to have it simple so that there would not be a threshold to people adopting the campaign style. Maybe the next campaign will be more involved.

I agree that they could add in some elements from Rebellion. I also think that fog of war elements could help create an ignorance of balance/imbalance which could keep things exciting. I honestly think that an online campaign tracking platform would be the best way to deal with both anti-cheating/critical mistakes, as well as introducing complexity and unknown random modifiers. However, I think that's a step beyond which FFG is willing to go.

Semi-related:
In our first/only campaign, we had somewhat of an imbalance of player skill, which made things snowball. In my opinion, I think the one we're about to start makes that imbalance even worse - though this time that imbalance will be in my (Imperial) favor, rather than against me. However, I don't know how you can really address this question without becoming impolite. ("Dude, you can't be on that team, because then you would all suck, and we would cream you.")