Warlords of the K'Narr Sector - rules and IC conversation

By LTD, in Star Wars: Armada Off-Topic

@clontroper5

...Our merchant Fleets are currently trading with your worlds and deserving some well earned shore leave...

...They will exit your territory upon Completion of you and the Wookies full implementation of your alliance and when the restoration of your territory is complete...

Edited by Matt3412

Breaking news! Following Jawa intervention, an unexpected end to the war as a peace treaty has apparently been negotiated with the Imperium. Titled "The Radama Accords," the document returns captured territory to the hands of the Wookiee Nation's former foes in exchange for credit payments and a long term strategic alliance. Deemed "a stunning breakthrough and a resounding success" by head Nation negotiator Marrawakar, the deal has far-reaching implications for trade, law and diplomacy in the sector. Recently utilized POW camps on Radama have begun the process of releasing Imperium garrison survivors as Wookiee forces prepare to leave the planet. We'll have live updates as events continue to unfold. In other news, the New Brillia Harmony Fountain was opened to the public today; originally intended as a monument to the Wookiee Nation and her Federation trade partners, modifications to represent the Imperium in the statuary have already been announced. Grav-ball playoffs have begun, with the second all-droid team in NGL history looking to be a strong contender. Following the tragic Rancorade incident that claimed Mechs Head Coach T7-01 two years prior, conventional drinks for organic lifeforms will be forbidden on half of the field during victory celebrations.

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Coming up next: a premiere of Armed and Dangerous season 2!

Now that peace has been achieved, are you folks happy to call this one quits? Or play on?

We are close to having a "dominant" power, but not quite there yet.

2 minutes ago, LTD said:

Now that peace has been achieved, are you folks happy to call this one quits? Or play on?

We are close to having a "dominant" power, but not quite there yet.

We seem to be in a good place to call it, but I’m flexible. It’s a ton of fun, but I think the chaos would be glorious with 6-8 players involved. Plus you should get a turn to participate, you’ve done an absolutely stellar job organizing this.

Turn 14 Hyper pings:

Q, O, C, dsG, J.

In Cerullia, the GNIP MC80 is handed over to the Wookies.

Jawa blockade is maintained over Lagoona and Kalee.

45 minutes ago, LTD said:

Turn 14 Hyper pings:

Q, O, C, dsG, J.

In Cerullia, the GNIP MC80 is handed over to the Wookies.

Jawa blockade is maintained over Lagoona and Kalee.

Jerks...

53 minutes ago, LTD said:

Now that peace has been achieved, are you folks happy to call this one quits? Or play on?

We are close to having a "dominant" power, but not quite there yet.

I'm good with calling it, or we can continue, I have some long term plans that I wouldnt mind enacting

If we did call it, I would be more that happy to participate in another one, but then how would you play LTD?

I am also eager to continue, as surely this peace will expire at some point, and then things may really fall apart.

so what is the consensus here? do i need to fill out my doc

I'm happy to call it here - the Wookies are clearly ascendant, and with the Jawa blockade on J and K it would only be a matter of time. I'm pretty sure the Wookies could take on the Federation - after all they just bought THREE MC80s from the GNIPians - that's a lot of firepower.

The peace call surprised me - I thought the boot would be well and truly stuck in.

I'm not so concerned about playing in a game - happy to GM.

The question now is: what rules need changing / clarifying?

And next game we will have victory conditions made a bit clearer.

Please let me know what needs fixing before we launch again, perhaps with a larger contingent of players.

I would like to prove this wrong lol. But i'm good to be done if we can get more players

MY fleets are at 490, 485, 122 Respectively [Very peaceful fleets i Promise]

Also my 2 cents

I spamed the GR-75 cuz it was just so easy to mass produce but i feel like that was broken cuz it doesn't do damage normally.

Maybe also a Max GF Cap on a planet. i was playing around with some math and holy cow if someone ever gets like 35 GF in one place its just pointless they won. that planet

Also if Blocakeds had an efect of not letting their money earned leave the planet until someone captures it such as only spend on GF until MAX then if they break the blockade bam money or Money to the victor

Edited by Matt3412

A list of random ideas some related to what Matt has said some just my own spitballs:

-ground forces need tweeked IMO, possible fixes I though of, they could have their own Transports and can move independent of our fleets, a defense force cap could be good, I also like the idea of planetary bombardment i.e. a blockading fleet damages ground forces over time maybe to a minimum of 2 Defence forces remaining

-imperial tax SUCKS: if we could bump up the credits/IC slightly it would help, as it was I couldn't build anything in a reasonable amount of time without upgrades to my IC and it slowed me down alot in the early game (i.e it takes 2 turns to even build my smallest ship from my home planet and then 3 to build the next smallest, the raider)

-i like the Idea of faction traits to add individuality to each faction: i.e. you could have a Militaristic faction that due to its well trained troops gets an automatic +1 to autoresolve rolls, or you could have a shipbuilding trait that reduces the cost of ships by 10% etc. Perhaps the Wookies would take the Warrior trait which makes their GF do more damage etc.

Each player would pick one trait at the start of the game (perhaps with a way to modify it later) to help make things more interesting.

Edited by clontroper5

Also I think it would be cool if our capitals where more significant, i.e. more I.c. or credits, maybe have some effect on the faction if the capital is blockaded etc.

He only bought two, not three.

I agree that ground forces could do with some tweaks, and I would recommend turning from the damage dealt attacker/defender you have to a classic combat die roll ratio. I can provide a simple and thorough one if you like, from an old board game.

I like the suggestions made above. Especially the bombardment, capital bonus, and faction traits suggestions. Of particular note is the gr75s. A simple fix would be that unarmed ships don't count toward the fleet total when calculating points for combat. Maybe discount them and make them purely troop transports?

IMO, Gr75s should add 1/2 their cost to fleet power, not entirely worthless but not an effective fighting force.

1 hour ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

He  o  nly bought tw  o, not three.  

True (although so long as you have the willingness to sell large warships, we have the desire to buy them. :) )

Are we up for another? I’m willing to mod if nobody else wants to, so that LTD gets the chance to play this awesomeness to which he’s introduced us.

Edit: although he’s said he’s fine modding, so I’m also happy to play.

Edited by The Jabbawookie

I am very much up for another. Let's see if we can get more players, too.

We may need a bigger map though.

Edited by GhostofNobodyInParticular

Upgrading IC is kind of weird right now. It only pays for itself after ten turns, but if you get it too early you sacrifice your expeditionary forces. I never found a point where it felt like the best move (maybe in peacetime.)

I'm happy to GM again.

Perhaps a better solution to GRM spam is just to give a flotilla cap - perhaps only one flotilla per 300 points of fleet in existence?

Yes to a bigger map. I will ask The Jabbawookie to make it pretty and distribute before we begin though.

Yes, a cap on GF might make sense - and the self transporting thing? Maybe? Though I think that makes things less interesting. I like the idea of having to carry the GFs around, and leaving squads behind as necessary.

There should also be a limit to the number of squadrons that could be left in a system without a capital ship - not that this happened much.

On the Imperial tax, the Cred / IC of each planet was random from the start (though each side had an equal amount across their two worlds), so perhaps that was just bad luck with starting.

Bombardment opens the game to needing then Ion Cannons on planets, etc. Once a planet is blockaded they are quite limited in their production of GFs - either they have high creds and low IC, so can't build many, or low creds and high IC, so can't build many.

I like the idea of a bonus for races, though these are incredibly hard to balance before the game starts.

I will certainly introduce a set of objectives, so the game has a definite end point.

I might take out the ability to increase a planet's IC and cred production - I don't think it added much apart from confusion.

What do people think about the costs of Hyperjumps? I know for the spam sides it started to add up, but it wasn't really that big? I like that the big ships were cheaper to fly about and more likely to survive combat / need repairing. Should hyper fuel be more expensive? Would that limit spam fleets of Hammer heads?

Certainly Capitals would be a part of the objectives - I'm not sure what else special ability they should have. Perhaps a garrison of GF that cannot be removed or destroyed? Like an auto-spawning militia of 4 GF or something?

Edited by LTD
22 minutes ago, LTD said:

Perhaps a better solution to GRM spam is just to give a flotilla cap - perhaps only one flotilla per 300 points of fleet in existence?

That then prevents nice easy transport fleets. I liked having GR75s to transfer troops, as that gives them a purpose while keeping them out of combat.

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Yes, a cap on GF might make sense - and the self transporting thing? Maybe? Though I think that makes things less interesting. I like the idea of having to carry the GFs around, and leaving squads behind as necessary.

I agree with this. I prefer having to transfer them. The self transferring thing doesn't make sense. The cap should probably by tied to planet size/population, so that it varies from planet to planet.

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There should also be a limit to the number of squadrons that could be left in a system without a capital ship - not that this happened much.

Why? What happened? Maybe just add a debuff to an all-squad fleet?

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Bombardment opens the game to needing then Ion Cannons on planets, etc. Once a planet is blockaded they are quite limited in their production of GFs - either they have high creds and low IC, so can't build many, or low creds and high IC, so can't build many.

It could be a simple attrition thing. 1 GF destoyed every 2 turns, 10 fleet points damaged every 3? EDIT: Oh! Maybe only capitals could have the Ion Cannon effect.

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I might take out the ability to increase a planet's IC and cred production - I don't think it added much apart from confusion.

No! :( I quite liked this aspect. I even had a plan to get Argrab to 57 in the next 3 turns, so that I could produce MC80ACs faster. It's a nice mechanic and allows the players a bit of strategic choice: build fleets first and sacrifice size, or improve the planet and risk defeat? Plus, it allows players to improve on poor situations/planet RNGs.

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What do people think about the costs of Hyperjumps? I know for the spam sides it started to add up, but it wasn't really that big? I like that the big ships were cheaper to fly about and more likely to survive combat / need repairing. Should hyper fuel be more expensive? Would that limit spam fleets of Hammer heads?

I think it cost a decent amount. You could up it to 2, but I think more than that would be a but much. As it is, it punishes spam fleets, which helps discourage GRM spams.

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Certainly Capitals would be a part of the objectives - I'm not sure what else special ability they should have. Perhaps a garrison of GF that cannot be removed or destroyed? Like an auto-spawning militia of 4 GF or something?

I think an increase to IC/Points production should be given (say, +10 creds/5 IC), and a higher starting GF. I don't like forcing the user to keep the garrison there (your first suggestion) as that removes user choice. What do you mean destroyed? They have to be destroyed in order for the planet to be captured. Maybe they could auto-spawn back in upon recapture (with perhaps 50% decrease for non-original factions? Like if player A had a planet with 4 bonus garrison and lost it to B, B would get 2 bonus garrison. If C then took it, he'd get the 2, but if A got it back, he'd get the full 4.). Another suggestion is a 10% decrease in production costs at the capital. Also, if you implement GF maximums, perhaps the bonus of the capital wouldn't count toward its max?

Edited by GhostofNobodyInParticular

Reply the Imperial tax thing: this is my problem.

Starting planet production are 20/10 respectively.

My ships cost, 23,28,44,48,54,56,62.etc

After 1 turn my capital couldn't build anything, after 2 turns of production it can build Flottila's, after 3 turns of production it can finally build a decent amount of ships.

The problem is the rebels can build everything a turn faster, Gr75 only take 1 turn and after 2 turns Hammerheads and Cr90s are also available. Bigger then that it starts to even out.

Basically the 20 i.c. is an extremely awkward amount for Imperial ships, if the I.c. of everything was increased by a small amount it would help greatly. At least imps need to be able to build a Flottila in 1 turn

7 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

That then prevents nice easy transport fleets. I liked having GR75s to transfer troops, as that gives them a purpose while keeping them out of combat.

Yes, so perhaps it is not necessary? Just keep transports as they are. Or maybe give them 0 combat unless they have squadrons to command? But then this gets complicated. Probably just keep them the same OR - and here's a crazy idea - make FLOTILLAS cost 2 creds to hyperjump (there are multiple small ships on each base, so 1 cred each). This would discourage some spam?

8 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

No! :( I quite liked this aspect. I even had a plan to get Argrab to 57 in the next 3 turns, so that I could produce MC80ACs faster. It's a nice mechanic and allows the players a bit of strategic choice: build fleets first and sacrifice size, or improve the planet and risk defeat? Plus, it allows players to improve on poor situations/planet RNGs.

Ok - I just though it overly complicated and not adding much.

8 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

I think an increase to IC/Points production should be given (say, +10 creds/5 IC), and a higher starting GF. I don't like forcing the user to keep the garrison there (your first suggestion) as that removes user choice. What do you mean destroyed? They have to be destroyed in order for the planet to be captured. Maybe they could auto-spawn back in upon recapture (with perhaps 50% decrease for non-original factions? Like if player A had a planet with 4 bonus garrison and lost it to B, B would get 2 bonus garrison. If C then took it, he'd get the 2, but if A got it back, he'd get the full 4.). Another suggestion is a 10% decrease in production costs at the capital. Also, if you implement GF maximums, perhaps the bonus of the capital wouldn't count toward its max?

Capital worlds would be worth more. On the garrison thing, I just meant the capital world would have a garrison of 4 GF that cannot be removed from the planet, and would regenerate each turn as long as it was controlled by the original player. So if 2 were destroyed, there would be 4 again next turn.

4 minutes ago, clontroper5 said:

Basically the 20 i.c. is an extremely awkward amount for Imperial ships, if the I.c. of everything was increased by a small amount it would help greatly. At least imps need to be able to build a Flottila in 1 turn

Yes, that is a good point, and I will bear it in mind.

How about these draft rules:

Warlords of the F’Tarq Sector

WotF’TS is a multiplayer forum game. The objective of the game is to win by scoring 10 victory points.

Each player controls a number of planets, ships, squadrons, and ground forces. The ships and squadrons are those found in a normal game of Armada. Upgrades, officers, and commanders may be added later.

Turn: There will be at least one turn per week, with hopes of two or three. Players are expected to reply to any message from the GM within 36 hours. Orders must be submitted by the appointed deadline, or no actions will be taken by the side. The turn has four phases:

1. Gather Credits
2. Construct Units
3. Jump
4. Combat.
Each phase occurs simultaneously among players.

Map: The map is map up of planets, systems, and hyperlanes. Ships in a ssystem may travel to any planet in the same system or planet is a linked system in one “jump” – the distance a Capital ship can travel in a week. Ships do not have to end their move at a planet but can instead specify to land in deep space in a listed System.

Planets: Planets have two attributes – the number of Creds (C) they produce each turn, and the Industrial Capacity (IC) of the planet. For example: Redjik 15/30. Redjik produces 15 credits each turn and has Industrial Capacity of 30. Planets can also contain a number of ground forces equal to its IC or a maximum of ten, whichever is less.

GATHER CREDITS

Creds: Creds are the currency of the game, representing resources for production, fuel for movement, and supplies for military forces. If a world is not blockaded, the produced creds are automatically added to the treasury of the side and can be spent at any non-blockaded world. Blockaded worlds still produce credits but can only be spent on production of Ground Forces at that world. Ships cannot be produced at blockaded worlds. Any unspent credits a blockaded world produces are lost.

CONSTRUCT UNITS

Industry (IC): a number of credits may be spent each turn at a planet to produce ships, squadrons, and Ground Forces. A planet with IC of 10 can produce up to 10 points of units, assuming 10 creds are also spent. Ships and Squadrons have the same cost as in Armada. Ground Forces cost 10 credits / IC to be produced. Units that cannot be fully produced in a turn will remain partially built (and non-operative) until a future turn.

For example: Redjik 15/30 produces 15 creds and has an IC of 30. Assuming the side has a full treasury, up to 30 creds can be spent each turn at Redjik to produce units. The planet could construct 3 Ground Forces; or 2 squadrons of X-wings and 4/13 of another; or build 30/39 of a CR90B. Only one partially constructed unit may be left at each planet per turn. If another unit is begun before the partial is completed, the partial is considered destroyed and any resources invested are lost. For example, Redjik spends 30 creds to use all 30 IC in turn 1. The player builds 2 A-Wings (11 each, 22 total) and 8/13 of an X-Wing. In turn 2, the Player decides to spend 30 creds investing in 30/57 of a Nebulon B Escort. The 8/13 of an X-Wing is lost.

Newly constructed units may jump / move in the same turn as they are constructed.

Industrial Capacity may also be used to increase a planet’s Industrial Capacity. The planet may spend 10 creds and use 10 IC of a planet to increase its IC by 1. For Example: Redjik 15/30 can spend 30 creds to increase cred production by 3 to 18. Planets with 0 IC can never increase IC.

Credits may be spent to increase a planet’s Credit production. For each 10 credits spent, the credit production of the planet increases by 1.

Please note: Creds can be saved for future turns, IC cannot. If not used in a turn, the IC is lost.

JUMP

The Jump to Lightspeed allows ships to travel between planets. Only ships may do this – squadrons and ground forces must be transported in ships. Ships may carry their Squadron value in squadrons or ground forces. So, a corvette can carry 1 squadron or 1 GF. An AF2 can carry up to 3.

For our purposes, all ships have the same kind of jump capacity. A ship can jump to any planet in the same system OR any planet in an adjacent system. Ships can also jump to a non-planet place in a square – deep space. While in deep space the ship cannot be attacked – it is simply at some random place, and space is very, very big.

It costs 1 cred for each ship to Jump – this covers the cost of fuel. Flotillas cost 2 creds to jump.

COMBAT

Once all ships have jumped, planets that have units from two or more planets may have combat. For small or very one-sided battles the GM will simply roll a dice to determine an outcome. For very important or interesting battles players may have the option of “fighting it out” using vassal (or IRL? Possibly). But we can’t hold up the game for these purposes, so any such battles will have to be resolved quite quickly.

For auto-resolve purposes, the GM will roll 2d6 and apply the following table:

1 or less: Attacker takes 0 casualties, defender takes 100%

2: Attacker takes 0 casualties, defender takes 75%

3: Attacker takes 10% casualties, defender takes 75%

4: Attacker takes 20% casualties, defender takes 50%

5: Attacker takes 20% casualties, defender takes 40%

6: Attacker takes 20% casualties, defender takes 30%

7: Both sides take 30% casualties

8: Attacker takes 30% casualties, defender takes 20%

9: Attacker takes 40% casualties, defender takes 20%

10: Attacker takes 50% casualties, defender takes 20%

11: Attacker takes 75% casualties, defender takes 10%

12: Attacker takes 75% casualties, defender takes 0%

13 or more: Attacker takes 100% casualties, defender takes 0%

There will also be an adjustment for force disparity. Where equal force sizes (in points value of ships and squadrons) meet, there is no adjustment. But for every 10% difference, the superior side gains a +1 or -1 in their favour. For Example: if an attacking force of 400 points encounters a defending force of 300 points, the attacker gains a -1 to the die roll (57% to 43%). If the defender has 600 points and the attacker has 100, the defender gains a +7 to the roll (85% to 15%).

Casualties will be randomly determined by the GM.

After a battle, the force will the lower points cost of ships and squadrons remaining must retreat. The combat is concluded, and the force MUST jump the next turn to another location. If it is unable to jump, it is considered destroyed.

Invasion: Once any space combats are resolved, the winning player may decide to launch a ground assault. Ground combat is very simple: Each defending Ground Force does 0.5 hits to attacking Ground Forces, while attacking each attacking Ground Force 0.333 hits to defending Ground Forces. Combat continues until one side is eliminated. For Example: An attacking force of 3 GF land on a planet defended by 2 GF. In round 1, both sides destroy one opposing GF. In round 2, the attackers do 2/3 damage to the defender, which does ½ damage to the attackers. In round 3, the attackers eliminate the remaining defender, while losing one of their two remaining GF. The invasion is successful, and the planet is occupied.

Repairs: Any ship that takes more than half its hull points in damage in battle is “scarred” and must be repaired before it can face battle at full strength. A scarred ship counts as half rounded down of its point for combat calculations (or if playing a vassal or irl game, give the ship a number of damage cards equal to half (rounded up) of its hull value). To repair a ship it must be in a system with IC. The cost to repair is equal to one quarter of the cost of the ship, rounded up. For example, if a CR90B is “scarred” it would cost 10 creds / IC to repair.

When a ship is scarred it will be marked in your roster with an *.

Fleet Size: Fleets (Ships and Squadrons) may not exceed 500 points in any one location (planet, deep space).

WINNING THE GAME

A player wins when they have accumulated 10 victory points. Victory points may not be lost.

Each player will have a secret objective to complete worth 2 victory points.

In addition, each turn a public objective will be revealed, with a variable number of points.

For example:

I occupied another player’s planet – 1 point

Or

I control 6 planets – 1 point

These objectives are revealed as the game progresses, but each player may only claim one public objective per turn, and each player may only claim each public objective once.

For Example:

The turn one revealed objective is “I control 6 planets”, and the turn two objective is “I occupied another player’s planet.”

In turn 3, Stephanie occupies another player’s planet, and controls 6 planets. She may only claim one of the victory points.

I want to change the combat %ages as well, but I'm not sure how to word it.

I think that if a 100 point fleet beats a 400 point fleet, the 400 point fleet should not take 30% of 400 points in losses, but instead take 30% of 100 points in losses.

So the smaller fleet size determines the casualty levels. In this case, the 100 point fleet would determine the relative losses for both sides. It's embarrassing enough to be beaten by a much smaller force - to then lose a huge chunk of your fleet is just insulting.

Edited by LTD
18 minutes ago, LTD said:

It's embarrassing enough to be beaten by a much smaller force - to then lose a huge chunk of your fleet is just insulting

This. I hated knowing that a well-rolling patrol force can cripple a fleet. Instead of measuring losses in percentages, measuring “casualties inflicted ” in percentages would fix this.

Also, a flat cap of 10GF seems better than a link to the IC; planets like Ord Radama are key strategic assets with miserable industrial capacity.