I'm curious about the answer, as I'm interested in knowing whether it favours either the Rebels or the Empire...

Rebels won when Imperials saw the writing on the wall and gave up.

CC suffers from some serious snowballing winners problems, so any team with a stronger group of players/fleets is generally going to steamroll the other.

I wish we had a tracking for common community minor tweaks to avoid snowballing. Campaign suffers from this as its #1 problem.

From my experience it's split pretty evenly, Rebel wins (2) Imperial Wins (1) Rebel and Imperial give ups (1 ea).

If you are a group of tournament hardened competitors, you are probably gonna have a hard time adapting to CC, and either force the other team to quit (cause you are better) or rage quit yourself (cause you aren't better and keep getting tabled).

If you approach the CC from completely outside the tournament mindset, it's balance becomes more apparent. It definitely is something that has to be played "the way it was intended" in order to work, and is a system that is easily abused if you are cut throat in looking for avenues to do that.

I think most folks play it Like a tournament trying to to just engage and kill as much as they can. Unless you're certain to kill a scarred ship you need to really pick engagements that you're unlikely to lose multiple ships, especially early on. Getting in that hole early I think is what kills people.

I've played 2, plus one ongoing.

Rebels won one, Imps won one, and Rebels are currently well ahead at 10-6.

@BrobaFett is right though: it's a really different approach from tournament play. I was on the winning side of my first one, but I personally got totally wrecked. Shifted my focus for subsequent ones and did much better.

I've completed 2 campaigns, I'm on round 2 in a third and I'm starting my fourth next month. The Imperials won the first 2 and currently lead the 3rd.

CAMPAIGN 1: 12-7 Imperial Victory

This campaign started at 300 points (maximum 500-point fleets). The Rebels focused on Spynet tokens and base assaults over economy for a full-on rush strategy. They took 0-1 CP planets and assaulted our 2 CP bases to wrack up quick points before our fleets could outgrow theirs. The Imperials played the long-game by building up their cash flow and repair yards. They purposefully stayed behind on CPs to maintain the initiative so they could unleash their stronger fleets in a double attack on turn 3.

Turn 1: The Rebels successfully assaulted Nubia (3 CPs) but lost a Show of Force (120 points) and their other match. Score = 3-1 Rebels.

Turn 2: The Rebels successfully defended Nubia, but lost another Show of Force (80 points) and their other match. Score = 4-2 Rebels.

Turn 3: The Rebels successfully assaulted Corellia (3 CPs), but lost an outpost and a base. Score = 6-7 Rebels.

At this point, the Rebels purposefully retired 1 of their fleets. This gave the Imperial team 1 CP making the score 7-7 which meant the Rebels now had the initiative again.

Turn 4: Needing only 5 CPs to win, the Rebels launched a pair of assaults at our 2 CP bases. They failed both, and then Team Empire succeeded in taking back Corellia to end the campaign 12-7 Imperials. It was quite the gambit!

CAMPAIGN 2: 8-1 Imperial Victory

This was an intro campaign for beginner players with 1 experienced player on each team acting as the Grand Admiral. Teams needed 8 points to win and 6 to call for an All Out Offensive. Fleets started at 250 points (and yet we still had Leia, Ackbar and Vader), large ships weren't allowed and non-Core Set aces weren't unlocked until turn 3 (this was done because the Rebel and Imperial Fighter 1 expansions were OOP at the start of the campaign and not all players owned them). Also, first turn base attacks and all special assaults were prohibited for the campaign.

Not much to say here, it was a beatdown by the Imperials. The Rebels won 1 match and tied another out of 9 games. The Rebels played very aggressively with their attacks, while the Imperials took low CP, mid-level resource planets. The Imperials built a base on turn 1 and that extra cash meant their fleets were much stronger on turn 3 which sealed the win.

One thing I did learn from this campaign was to institute a draw mechanic — if the score was between 0-5 points, the match was a tie. You could up the amount, but I chose 5 and under as the smallest individual unit in Armada (currently) is the Z-95 Headhunter at 7 points. I figured if you destroyed the equivalent of 1 extra squadron's worth of points it would count as a victory. This prevents a critical planet being destroyed by a 1-point difference, which seems wrong to me.

CAMPAIGN 3: Currently 2-1 Imperials

This campaign could be our first Rebel victory.

While the Imperials are currently winning, one of the Rebel losses was almost a major victory (score was 135-127 Imperials after flakking an X-Wing to death on turn 6). The Rebel player had brought down an Interdictor flagship and then had a VSD-II on 1 hull and zero shields all around, but he couldn't do that last point of damage. If he had destroyed the VSD it would've put that Imperial fleet in a serious hole.

For this campaign we're using some interesting house rules. Starting with 300-point fleets. No base assaults or attacking unoccupied Repair Yards planets on turn 1. Each team can launch 1 special assault per campaign. In addition, teams may only start with 1 Repair Yards planet (automatically Corellia for the Imperials). They can get +1 starting Repair Yards planet if they take 2 out of 3 commanders from the following list:

Rebels: Garm bel Iblis, General Cracken, Commander Sato

Imperials: Admiral Konstantine, General Tagge, Grand Moff Tarkin

We ended with up with Madine, Garm and Sato for the Rebels and Tarkin, Konstantine and Motti for the Empire (I'm really looking forward to a Konstantine-Sato match up ). This has made for a nice variety of lists. And by starting at 300 points but with a 500-point cap, I'm excited to see how these fleets will grow over time.

CAMPAIGN DATA

I've kept a spreadsheet of all the data from my campaigns so far (planet selections, attacks, resources/refit generated, resources/refit spent, damage suffered, damaged inflicted, veterans, scarred — everything that each fleet has done). After completing my 4th campaign I'm going to crunch all the numbers and come up with some averages, such as how much each team makes per turn, how much impact a successful Show of Force has on the campaign, if restricting turn-1 base assaults is more impactful than restricting special assaults, average fleet growth, etc...

Ours was snowballing way out of control. Imps had two fleets at 500 with no scarring, and one fleet at around 470, while the rebels had to retire one and the other two were at or under 450, with scars. The Imperial commander stressed resource control and lots of murder, and his tactics were as undeniably effective as he was devestatingly handsome and charismatic.

18 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

The Imperial commander stressed resource control and lots of murder, and his tactics were as undeniably effective as he was devestatingly handsome and charismatic.

Who was this mysterious, yet no doubt tall dark and handsome, dashing and somehow humble, imperial commander?

3 minutes ago, MattShadowlord said:

Who was this mysterious, yet no doubt tall dark and handsome, dashing and somehow humble, imperial commander?

Some say he never blinks, and that he roams around the woods at night foraging for wolves.

1 minute ago, MattShadowlord said:

Who was this mysterious, yet no doubt tall dark and handsome, dashing and somehow humble, imperial commander?

No one knows his name, but the citizens of the galactic empire know that whenever the unruly head of unrest should rise from the shadowy depths of the interstellar sea, he shall rise to meet the challenge and champion the cause of law and order in the galaxy.

SNOWBALLING

Beyond prohibiting base assaults on turn 1 and limiting the use of special assaults (namely Show of Force), one house rule I've used to help prevent the early snowball is to cap fleets at certain point levels each turn (or at least on turn 2). For example, if you're starting at 400 points, fleets can only be 450 points maximum on turn 2 and possibly 475 for turn 3. This still benefits the winners as they can bank resources for the future, but it means there won't be as much of a points discrepancy for the first 2 turns at least.

I find this is a bit easier to do when starting fleets at lower point values (250 and 300) while still keeping the 500-point ceiling. You have longer to go before hitting that maximum, so you can restrict fleets heavily on turns 2-3 and then open up the floodgates after that. I've found that most teams generate roughly 50 points in resources per turn (with no special assault) + 40 refit points, so capping fleets to 50 extra points on turn 2 has worked well.

Another option is to give everyone a bump in points between turns 3 and 4. If you're limiting special assaults to 1 (or none), you can base this on an 80-point Show of Force (roughly 27 points per player). The team with the stronger fleets + more resources generated that turn earns 20 bonus resources per fleet while the weaker team earns 30-35.

So I played one to completion (Rebel victory) and had one stall out recently with the hope of restarting when the new wave came out.

The problems I see are pretty straightforward, but they are also hard to overcome.

The most obvious issue is snowballing: A single big win that doesn't have an equally catastrophic loss elsewhere, especially at a repair yard, effectively ends the game immediately. It is impossible to realistically climb back from a full blown loss without tremendously bad play by the opposing team as a group.

The second issue, tied to the first, is the over-dependence on specific locations for meaningful resource gain. If you don't have at least two stations at the end of round 1, you can just go ahead and quit now because you are perma-****ed.

The third issue is the overt punishing of list building mistakes. Turns out that your upgrade is junk? Too bad, it's a permanent albatross around your neck until you scuttle the ship. Combine with the first two problems and you're as good as done.

The fourth issue has nothing to do with the campaign design and more the problem of balancing a group of competition and non-competition players. Competition players see a very different game than the casual players, even excellently skilled casual players. However, there's no effective way to handicap players who are running away with big wins or boost casual players to play on an even field.

Things I'd do to balance the game more:

Implement a resource drain on fleets when at the resource cap, such as not allowing players to carry resources to subsequent rounds. This prevents players from becoming effectively invincible and unable to lose ships or squadrons involuntarily.

Players who discard a fleet to restart do so before spending resource points and keep those points for the rebuilding process, giving them a faster path to rebuilding a viable fleet that can immediately compete with players fielding over the cap.

Enable the free disposal of upgrades between rounds for the cost of the upgrades themselves instead of having to scuttle the entire ship they're attached to. Currently, the game punishes experimentation when trying to create a thematically appropriate build with unfamiliar fleets and commanders.

1 hour ago, Yipe said:

one house rule I've used to help prevent the early snowball is to cap fleets at certain point levels each turn (or at least on turn 2). For example, if you're starting at 400 points, fleets can only be 450 points maximum on turn 2 and possibly 475 for turn 3. This still benefits the winners as they can bank resources for the future, but it means there won't be as much of a points discrepancy for the first 2 turns at least.

The best way to mitigate early snowballing is to delay the fruits of victory by one turn.* That way, the loser gets to strike back with fairly even forces before the winners get an overwhelming advantage. (After the first turn, this can handicap comebacks by delaying rewards to badly beat up fleets.)

There's a serious problem that taking an enemy base can be fairly easy, but produces a devastating swing. Delaying the reward for a turn reduces the incentives for base assaults, especially early, while allowing the former owner a turn to reclaim the base location.

Everyone wants battles to influence the future in campaigns, but everyone hates snowballing. Hard as anything to avoid.

*Or give 50% reward the next turn, 100% after that.

1 hour ago, thecactusman17 said:

The third issue is the overt punishing of list building mistakes. Turns out that your upgrade is junk? Too bad, it's a permanent albatross around your neck until you scuttle the ship. Combine with the first two problems and you're as good as done.

You missed the rule that you can set upgrades aside and just not use them. They're held in reserve if you need them in the future. Page 11, below the "A Note on Secrecy" box, third sentence.

2 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

The third issue is the overt punishing of list building mistakes. Turns out that your upgrade is junk? Too bad, it's a permanent albatross around your neck until you scuttle the ship. Combine with the first two problems and you're as good as done.

Enable the free disposal of upgrades between rounds for the cost of the upgrades themselves instead of having to scuttle the entire ship they're attached to. Currently, the game punishes experimentation when trying to create a thematically appropriate build with unfamiliar fleets and commanders.

These are great ideas. The FAQ does allow you to discard ships and squadrons from your list, so I think a house rule that allows you to get rid of upgrades (not just set them aside which is allowed) would help players be more flexible from turn-to-turn. I haven't tried this house rule yet, but I would likely implement some type of cost. Perhaps the player only gets back 1/2 the value of the upgrade, rounded down. Any unique upgrades discarded this way cannot be repurchased for the remainder of the campaign.

I do think that starting at 400 points hurts campaign play because there's not much you can do to radically alter a fleet's options with only 100 points. 500 points sounds like a lot, but after you add some upgrades to your 400-point fleet, it's not much. Maybe 1 combat ship and some squadrons?

Starting at 300 points gives you more freedom. That extra 100 points opens up all kinds of design space. With smaller fleets you often have to make sacrifices on turn 1, but you can also change your entire fleet's concept on turn 2. Did you start out thinking your pair of VSDs would turn into long-range gunboats? What's that, the Rebels took a massive bomber build? You can quickly swap into an anti-fighter or bomber build yourself and still have enough points left over to add new elements on turn 3.

I did this with my 300-point Vader fleet during my first campaign. Turn 1 it was an ISD + Gunnery Team and an Interdictor meant to brawl with other ships. My fighter cover consisted of 1 TIE Fighter and 1 TIE Advanced as that's all I could afford. We kept our fleets secret and I discovered the Rebels had an MC80CC in 1 list and an AFMk II B in another, both with solid fighter wings. Turn 2 I added 4 TIE Defenders giving me a potent anti-fighter wing with a little bomber punch. On turn 3 I added a VSD-I with Flight Controllers to act as a dedicated carrier for my Defenders. What started out as a ship-focused Vader fleet morphed into a mixed-forced build that could match up to all 3 of the Rebel lists.

1 hour ago, elbmc1969 said:

You missed the rule that you can set upgrades aside and just not use them. They're held in reserve if you need them in the future. Page 11, below the "A Note on Secrecy" box, third sentence.

They still count towards your fleet score.

At release, two campaigns played to massive rebel victories. It was the consensus that the best admirals and most efficient starting builds, along with the effort by the two rebel team captains that did a lot of pre-campaign thinking, that led to these vastly overwhelming scores. Both imperial teams didn't try to look at any 'projections' before planning their first few turns, or their initial system grabs, the snowball effect did the rest. In the campaign I Captained Rebels for instance, I decided the most vulnerable time to attack Corellia was the first round, and won. After that it was massive economy vs high repair costs. But seriously at the time the only rock solid admiral for the Empire was Motti. And this proceed itself in game results, winning even mismatches from time to time. But Rebels had Ackbar, Dodonna, and Riekan. All of which were ready to run on a budget build or setup.

We're planning to start a league season with the campaign again, and are eager to see how the games expansions play into it. As of the moment, we have not decided to alter any rules, but recognize certain flaws in the game structure.

In our first run, the Imperials got 3 victories in the 1st turn. After 2 more victories in the second turn the Rebels quit.

As much as there is a tendency for people to play the CC like it was a tournament - there is also a tendency to quit too early. You can't have a dramatic comeback if you never fall behind.

I have blatantly stolen from all of you fine folks to create a campaign modification document for our next run.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wRTKOM2yx1Aj670IaSjqEN1NXPVAI0z9ZXwseu4QHeY/edit?usp=sharing