BAYONETS!

32 minutes ago, LTD said:

BAYONETS!

GNIPs is the Russia to your Germany, it seems...

A real tough nut to be sure.

27 minutes ago, LTD said:

A real tough nut to be sure.

I find it fascinating that you still have points to throw at me. In 4 turns you lost 1,088 points dead and 105* scarred, vs my 448 dead and 112* scarred. Heck, the long list of casualties is stunning:

LTD:

Dead:

• 1x SSD PLS Saint Crispin
• 9x Pelta C
• 3x Y-Wing Squadron
• 1x MC80CC

Scarred:

• 7x Pelta C

GNIPS:

Dead:

• 1x SSD Titan
• 1x Hammerhead Torpedo

Scarred:

• 1x SSD Titan
• 1x Hammerhead Torpedo

Interestingly, my scarred and lost lists are the same. I imagine my luck has finally run out though. . .

*Estimated by summing the total points of scarred ships and dividing by 4.

Yes, this has been an expensive campaign... but we are not done yet!

I'm glad you've been keeping track though - it shows you care! And that means a lot to an enemy. Thank you.

Turn 32 hyperpings: A2, A3, dsC, D3, dsD, G1, H2, I1, N1, N2, S, T2, Y2, Z.

A 500 point Proprietary Limited fleet engages the battered but unbroken GNIPian defense fleet over H2. A 9 is rolled; Proprietary Limited lose 2 Pelta Cs, and 2 more are scarred. The GNIPians lose a YT-2400, an HWK and a Pelta C. Proprietary Limited must retreat, narrowly.

The URASC has blockaded A2 and invaded it at the cost of 2 GF.

The Wookiees have blockaded A3 and invaded it at the cost of 3 GF.

A Proprietary Limited GR75 arrives in orbit over Z, where a 280 point URASC battle group destroys it.

A Proprietary Limited GR75 arrives in orbit over S, where a 497 point Gungan fleet destroys it.

Turn 33 is now live. Orders are due in 48 hours (extended to 72.)

Orders processed: LTD, Bertie Wooster, GhostOfNobodyInParticular, FortyInRed.

Wesa so sorry Proprietary @LTD , that was not a warma welcome. Wesa rushed orders and forgot to say no shoot.

Wesa send a replacement GR-75 in the T system?

That will not be necessary.

If you are willing to surrender an SSD for a turn to bring an end to this madness, then we would be willing to accept.

Best Regards, etc.

45 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

A 500 point Proprietary Limited fleet engages the battered but unbroken GNIPian defense fleet over H2. A 9 is rolled; Proprietary Limited lose 2 Pelta Cs, and 2 more are scarred. The GNIPians lose a YT-2400, an HWK and a Pelta C. Proprietary Limited must retreat, narrowly.

WHY WON'T YOU DIE!

29 minutes ago, LTD said:

WHY WON'T YOU DIE!

I will not leave the half achieved H2 until in her ashes she lies buri'ed!

(Orders submitted)

9 hours ago, LTD said:

That will not be necessary.

If you are willing to surrender an SSD for a turn to bring an end to this madness, then we would be willing to accept.

Best Regards, etc.

Well, surrendering an SSD for a turn might win you the game. But I can lend other ships, such as MC80CCs.

3 hours ago, Bertie Wooster said:

Well, surrendering an SSD for a turn might win you the game. But I can lend other ships, such as MC80CCs.

Please don't. 'Tisn't fair!

Thank you. That will not be necessary.

On 7/24/2019 at 2:13 AM, The Jabbawookie said:

Turn 33  hyperpings: A2, A3, dsC, D3, dsD, G1, H2, I1, N1, N2, S, T2  , Y2, Z  .

I'm pretty sure that was turn 32. I have my turn 33 orders almost ready but they weren't due until today.

Please confirm

@The Jabbawookie

Yes, this is turn 33.

1 hour ago, FortyInRed said:

I'm pretty sure that was turn 32. I have my turn 33 orders almost ready but they weren't due until today.

Please confirm

@The Jabbawookie

You and LTD are correct; it is turn 33.

Turn 33 hyperpings: dsA, A2, A3, dsB, dsC, G1, G2, H2, J, K1, L1, X1.

Some fights take place over A2, A3 and H2. I am happy to resolve them if requested.

@Bertie Wooster has won. I'll have a full breakdown after dinner, and an analysis.

Standings:

1. Bertie, with conquest of the C and F systems (1VP), completion of all 6 research tiers (1VP), control of the E, C, P, and S systems (1VP and the SSD Eclipse ), visits to H1, Z, M and S (1VP) and bombardment of Stroheim from 14 to 0 credits (1VP).

2. LTD, with conquest of the G and I systems (1VP), completion of all 6 research tiers (1VP), visits to H1, Z, M and S (1VP). He was close to victory; had he ordered an immediate bombardment of a low-income world, and taken H2 this turn, it could conceivably have led to a tie.

3. Dras, with control of the A system for 3 turns, and Fortyinred and idjmv with conquest of 2 systems, each for 1VP.

Thank you all for playing, it's been a pleasure to moderate for you. I would love to hear your feedback: what worked? What didn't? What could work in the future? Highlights? Low points?

My sheet (some of the latest production is missing): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LrE_z6SADlklotD17tAnwwvbKdhSw-cQI9DOSJIRPas/edit#gid=0

@LTD

@Bertie Wooster

@GhostofNobodyInParticular

@Matt3412

@FortyInRed

@idjmv

@Drasnighta

My Takeaways:

Bertie Wooster is really good at this.

Also LTD, who almost owned half the sector by the end. Seriously, guys, these two are terrible neighbors.

I'm not going to give away too much of their strategies, but basically: expanding early and constantly is a big deal. For this game, taking a 10 credit planet by turn 5 would yield 2 1/2 ISD1s for a player by the final turn. Planets you hold for a while, even cheap ones, are worth a lot of credits and ships.

Gridlock

It still happened. Part of that, I think, is the psychology of not wanting to look like a loose cannon. It's easy to dogpile on one aggressor and walk away with a piece of his territory. Everyone got an "SSD world" to take from a non-allied player, but we got trades and cooperative investigations instead. I think passive play may be a fundamental part of free-for-alls. This makes me curious about 1 vs all, werewolf, co-op or team formats. In fairness, having a lot more space meant a lot more fighting, but these conflicts happened in parallel.

The fleet cap

I continue to have mixed feelings on this. As has been pointed out to me, it helps the underdog have a maximum threat to plan for, and sometimes a fighting chance. That said, it can reduce campaigns to a brutal, dice-reliant war of attrition (see also: H2) that I'm not convinced benefits anyone. My decision to remove the fleet cap was based both on the need to speed things up and to reward bold plays, though in hindsight I don't think it would have actually taken much longer for LTD to straight up win. Making the change halfway through the game was probably a mistake.

Some ships are better than others

Specifically Quasars, Pelta Cs, and Flotillas. Large ships were less popular this game, and smalls with a low squadron value were rare. idjmv built a fair few Gladiators and Raiders, which is thematically awesome and strategically confusing. I'd love to find a way to make more ships worth taking, but it's tricky to figure out. Research went some way to encouraging ISDs and MC80s, because of individual refit packages that either only fit larges or were more cost efficient on that platform. The hard part is justifying MC30s and the like...

Flavor and wild cards

I have no idea what you all thought, and hope you'll be honest. I enjoyed creating story-linked content, but with the amount of personal choice in this game it was hard to weave into a continuous whole. If there's sufficient interest in a more narrative-driven structure, one approach might be to have chapters trigger from certain scenarios (or just write as you go, or create content in advance and edit as the situation demands.) Paellos had a lot of unconnected little discoveries, and I'd love to work with something focusing on far-reaching consequences for your choices. I'd also like to use flavor you create as players, as some people found out. The Inkwell was never listed as a destination, but you would get a victory point for jumping there, along with an easy path to more points.

I've started work on a new map and campaign concept already, though I'd imagine everyone could use a good, long break. If someone else wants to mod the next game (if we have one), I'm happy to offer what I have or eager to play with whatever they come up with.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TaYJPL6xIa296ge6f8PzLpuqhHGjnzdhzfXYiErAzdE/edit?usp=sharing

Victory conditions

Consensus seems to be a list of missions awarding victory points is more fun than complete or partial domination. I can agree with this.

I think that's everything. Once again, thank you all for seeing this through to the end. Modding and designing everything has been really enjoyable, and I'm lucky you all made it happen. 😊

All hail Bertie Wooster!

Well done young man!

All hail the GM! Vive la Jabbawookie!

@Bertie Wooster congratulations! Now go take care of your family.

And @The Jabbawookie , many thanks for being an excellent GM. You deserve a nice long break, (and a beer if of legal age 👍 )!

Thanks Jabba! It was fun! And congrats to Bertie!

I would like to know. . . did I win the last battle? Did my men come out of the game still standing strong under their own flag? Or did they finally cave in, in an ill-timed surrender?

Also, I would be open to modding a game, however I haven't much talent for creating scenarios or maps, so any help would be appreciated.

I too wish to know the outcome of the battle for H2.

@Bertie Wooster great work sir! You earned it! You really made this fun. Back when you were first crushing my empire I took some time to lay out our tactical situations on the coffee table for my wife using salt shakers, bottles of sunscreen and silverware for planets. We spent half an hour going through various contingencies. We finally decided that X1 was to heavy for you to take in one turn and I couldn't afford to lose C1. Whoops. I later ended up losing both!

@LTD I'm really glad we weren't neighbors. Haha, I watched what you did to @Matt3412 and was glad I was far away.

@idjmv thanks for being a great ally through thick and thin! I was actually planning a massive attack for turn 34 to assist you in your war against the wookies. I was going to drop two 500-pt, 20gf fleets on D2 and D3 to open a second front for you.....

@Drasnighta really glad you came back in. I appreciated your contributions and posts. When you hit me early at C1 it was crushing. I was on an "big ships only" strategy that I thought was key to Bertie winning last time, and you came in the turn before and ISD II was done. That's a lot of credits down the drain early on the game. Well done to take the initiative like that!

@GhostofNobodyInParticular maybe next game I'll actually interact with you haha!

@The Jabbawookie thanks for being a fantastic DM!! While sometimes the narrative jumps hurt (after getting attacked three turns in a row, I finally take a planet only to watch my GF disappear to angry Jedi ghosts ...which I later tamed.....) they all added a layer of randomness which was fun overall. I had lots of fun trying to convince Bertie that I had something mean and nasty for him without actually lying. I had this overreaching fear that you'd jump in and correct me if my claims got too bold so I was very careful on my wording...

I'm biased, yes, but I like the change to ground combat. I wish my rolls had been better but it meant that you had a chance to take (or lose) your fortress worlds with bad lack.

I'm mixed on the combination of credit/IC after playing through a game with both.

There were times when I needed just one or two more credit production on a world for it to be useful. I'd be open to revisiting.

Agree that objective speed things along. It was pretty clear to me by mid game that the only way I was going to win by planet count was betraying an ally (not going to happen) or by going through Bertie. And we all saw how that went....

Towards the end it felt a little tedious but I think that's mostly because I felt so far behind after seeing the size and scale of the battle. If someone had hit me with an 1100 point fleet I would have died of fright.

Thank you, everyone. Thanks to @The Jabbawookie for modding this incredibly complex, months-long game. I had a hard enough time keeping up with my own spreadsheet; I don't know how you did it for all of us.

@FortyInRed @idjmv Thanks for putting up with my aggressiveness for another game. I'm glad we were able to resolve things peacefully two-thirds of the way through this game. Also, I have to admit I got some REALLY lucky rolls against you, Forty. You fought well.

@LTD I had a feeling from the beginning you'd be the one to beat. You played well.

@BiggsIRL @Ardaedhel Sorry you guys couldn't play the whole game with us. I almost joined you in backing out, but instead I just phoned in very simple orders when things got too busy for me.

A very special thanks to Jeeves. I don't know how, but you've done it again. As much as it pains me, I'll give away that Jar Jar Binks blazer you despise so much.

"The Inkwell was never listed as a destination, but you would get a victory point for jumping there, along with an easy path to more points. "
...And we all collectively smacked out heads. I was using a spy ring to scan the planets in the I system, looking for the Inkwell.

As for game mechanics, I appreciate the change to ground combat. After two games though, I found myself wanting a more complex space combat system. Something more like Twilight Imperium, but automated so that you wouldn't have to make decisions mid-battle. Squadrons could be like fighters, flak could be like anti-fighter barrage, MC80s/ISDs could be like Dreadnoughts, etc.

The missions were very fun and made me more interested in the game. And I loved Jabba's flavor and memes that he shared through PMs.