We just finished a Corellian Campaign here in Perth, Australia. It was great fun, but we hit the same problem many people have reported, which is that the rules reward success to the degree that the winning team can quickly leap ahead of their opponents, making future wins easier, and creating a snowball effect.

Rewarding success makes a sense, but all players were of the opinion that individual games are more fun when more evenly matched.

The simple anti-snowball rules below are designed to narrow the gap somewhat while still leaving the advantage with the player who has earned more points.

• The points difference between the players fleets is awarded to the disadvantaged player as temporary recruitment points.

They may spend these points with the following restrictions:

1. If they can afford a capital ship(s) with these points, they must buy the ship(s) before any squadrons*. Flotillas do not count for this rule**
2. No title or upgrades may be purchased for this Capital Ship***
3. Any remaining points can be spent on non-unique Squadrons
4. The Capital Ships and Squadrons do not count as friendly to the fleet****
5. All ships and squadrons bought with Temporary recruitment points count towards the game score, but are then permanently removed after the tally has been made.

*the reason players must buy capital ships if they can is to reduce the risk of an unusually amount of fleet of squadrons actually benefiting the disadvantaged player. In practice this means a Rebel will never be able to spend more than 38 temporary points of Squadrons (if they had 39 remaining they would need to buy a Corvette-B) and an Imperial will never be able to spend more than 43 temporary points on Squadrons (if they had 44, they would be required to buy a Raider-I).
**buy one if you wish, but these rules are not intended to actively encourage more flotillas.
***the rule is intended to narrow the gap, not allow TRC Corvettes or OE Flak Raiders. It should always be better to buy ships using real resource points.

****this means that the freebooters do not benefit from Admiral's abilities or similar rules that affect friendly ships, to ensure that properly purchased ships and squadrons are superior.

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For example:

• Charlie has an Imperial fleet of 460 points.
• Samantha a Rebel fleet of 410 points.
• The gap between the fleet sizes is 50 points, so Samantha may spend 50 temporary points. She can afford a capital ship so must buy one first (she chooses a Corvette-B for 39). She then has 11 points left, so buys an A-wing.
• Both fleets are now 460 points, although Charlie's carefully selected upgrades on his ships leave him feeling confident of victory while Samantha thinks she at least has a good chance of a win.

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The result should be a campaign that has much closer games, and while there are major benefits to being the team that is makes the most points and takes the least casualties, the individual matches should be more fair and enjoyable.

Comments and additional suggestions are welcome. We'll be trying this out in a campaign starting here this week.

This sounds like a great idea btw. Really masterful.

Even if you got a free flotilla cuz youre 20 pts under. Hey thats good.

I'm also happy about the "allied" but not "friendly" rule. Doesn't really allow for extra shenanigans and comboing.

This is a great rule.

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Are there any other simple balance changes you'd make to CC? Simple and towards helping a balanced fun set of games?

I heard something about only allowing you pick one type of special engagement thing.

I'm looking forward to trying this out, that final game where we equalised the points somewhat helped make it much more fun.

I would clarify, they must buy ships (plural) before squadrons.. no more than 1:1 ratio .. if flotillas are allowed, no more than 1 total.

If the gap is too small to buy even a flotilla (18 or 23) you can play normally.. if no flotillas allowed, and you cannot afford a capital ship, allow 2 squads maximum.

So say we have a 60 point gap, you cannot buy a gr-75 with 3 xwings and an a wing.

you could do 39pt cr90b, and 1 xwing for 52 or some other fighter/flotilla at 21 points or less. there will still be some lost points but it encourages buying the biggest ship you can rather than the cheapest ship and as many fighters as possible.

Good comment Daht.

I've changed the note to the following. Note that the difference between this and your suggestion is it doesn't require anyone to buy Flotillas, so it's not quite as rigid as your suggestion.

• If they can afford a capital ship(s) with these points, they must buy the ship(s) before any squadrons*. Flotillas do not count for this rule**
• **the reason players must buy capital ships if they can is to reduce the risk of an unusually amount of fleet of squadrons actually benefiting the disadvantaged player. In practice this means a Rebel will never be able to spend more than 38 temporary points of Squadrons (if they had 39 remaining they would need to buy a Corvette-B) and an Imperial will never be able to spend more than 43 temporary points on Squadrons (if they had 44, they would be required to buy a Raider-I).

yeah my suggestion would just be to stop someone from going cr90b and 3 z95's on a 60 point bid, or something. 1:1 ratio.. the 2 squad max if no ships idea is the same, to avoid cheap fighter spam... 38 points is 5 z95s or 3 ywing/awings.. 43 is 5 ties or 4 tie bombers... similar to the flotillas being limited to 1 to avoid cheap ship spam.

I don't know if I'd call that simple, but it works...kinda.

I think the bigger issue is how there's no current way to differentiate between a total loss/tabling vs "I lost by 5 points". I know a number of games I played came down to less than 50 points for the victory. In regular matches, the points difference wasn't noticeable until one player was over 100 points behind the others.

This is an interesting house rule. After I managed to completely dominate the last round of our campaign (tabled my opponent, only losses were a VSD and an Arquitens on my end) we've been keeping an eye out for ways to prevent the snowball from getting to out of control. We were considering ruling that scars can stack, costing one token each (so a VSD with two scars only gets one defense token). Permadeath would either not be a thing, or only happen once you die with no tokens. I might suggest your rule as an alternative. I'd be happy either way so I'm willing to let my opponent choose.

Edit: I should probably clarify that we were playing as if we were each two people. So I tabled him in two games, and my losses were the VSD, Arquitens, and a few squadrons in total. One of my lists didn't even lose a ship.

On 21/04/2017 at 7:05 PM, ricefrisbeetreats said:

I think the bigger issue is how there's no current way to differentiate between a total loss/tabling vs "I lost by 5 points". I know a number of games I played came down to less than 50 points for the victory. In regular matches, the points difference wasn't noticeable until one player was over 100 points behind the others.

It's a good point, after all you can score a total base destruction by killing one tie fighter if you manage to get away unscathed

The issue the rule above is trying to tackle is the one most players seem to consider the higher priority though: that each individual game is closer to an even contest.

Fair games are fun games

Title says "One Simple Rule".

I count 6 rules... just sayin.

I tried to get my group to go with:

1. First fleet retirement for each team (team, not player) costs 0 CP

2. A new fleet that comes in mid campaign is not restricted by the one upgrade per ship rule.

But then the FAQ dropped and a new player joined so everyone wanted to try out RAW one more time.

We have parsed this down to a simpler form.

In a battle that is not a base defense, if there is a handicap in points the lower-point fleet may purchase for this battle only up to 1 ship, 1 flotilla and/or 2 squadrons (z95/xwing or tie fighter/tie advanced only) up to the handicap in points. No uniques or upgrade cards may be purchased. These are friendly, but ships do not benefit from Admiral abilities.

I'm not sure it is necessary. Our CC has just started to Snowball, the rebel fleets are almost all at 500 points and our Imperial Fleets are barely above 400, One of them just had to reform. The Imperials just suffered two bad rounds in a row. But I am pretty sure that the Rebels are going to take advantage of their advantage and call for a all out battle. They can't really get above their current point values and the Imperials might be able to build themselves back up, especially if they can succeed at some Show of Force missions. So I think the campaign will be over soon. And isn't that what you want in a campaign. You want your victories to mean something, but when you get a considerable advantage, you go in for the win.

How many rounds do the games really last after one side shows a considerable advantage. And once they max their lists out at 500 points they can't really get much further ahead.