Most player SFB Campaigns follow some kind of 4x (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Extinguish) format and usually fall apart.

This can work well with a campaign rule set that has very balanced rules and or balanced races, and or balanced player skills. In the real world there is usually a few rule loopholes someone will exploit, the races aren't historical opponents, player skills are mismatched or a multiple player gang up occurs which usually ends the game when one player drops or his empire collapses. So the best campaigns will not be 4x they will allow battle generation with a past and future, they will score points towards victory and they will compensate for mismatches.

What I call the Border Patrol format is the campaign format that can accomplish this. Territory isn't captured so the empire doesn't collapse. If a player continues to lose you can scale up a BPV handicap to compensate for both lack of skill and racial mismatch. There is also no way to "gang up". If a player drops you simply readjust the map and perhaps the number of fleets.

The strategic level map is essentially a section of border that abuts each opponent. With three or more players you can can a central combat zone where the GM can place bonuses. BPV, or commanders options, or the right to use a prototype ship or tech (advanced by year) and the like.

Each Empire has a home zone, and Border Zones 1 through 4.

You have 7 Fleets. Each fleet must have 1 ship. No fleet may have more than 4 ships. So the max number of ships you may have is 7*4=28

Each turn you secretly place your fleets in the border zones 1-4 & home. These are your defensive fleets. You may assign 2 fleets to attack, these may attack the border zones of each other player but you may only send 1 fleet against any one player(if only two players you can send both). Note that special ships like battle tugs, shock ships and things of that nature are restricted to the Home and defense positions. You can also choose not to send out your attack fleets but they then sit in your home zone unable to act at all, they can not respond like the home fleet can. You can assign one of the 2 attack fleets as a defense zone fleet but you must still maintain 7 separate fleets.

Empires have 1000 BPV to spend on 7 or more ships to populate 7 fleets(If only 2 players 6 fleets). Each empire has two species to buy from. Set the year you like but if you start before Y165 you need to exclude some races against others for balance. I suggest start at Y165. Each turn increments one year. If you can not afford 7 warships at year 165 you may purchase Q ships, but as you have 2 species to buy from I don't think that will be possible. No you may not deliberately take a Q ship or freighter in place of a warship. A drone user purchases a ship at the cost on the ssd and speed 8 slow drones come free. When in a battle you may purchase any commanders options such as drone speed upgrades you like but these count against victory points. You are purchasing the base hull of each class. Once you are in a battle you can spend to upgrade that class to any refit of that class available by year.

Example A Gorn DD is 68, Gorn buys 14 DD's, that's 2 per fleet. 952 of 1000K spent. One of these fleets is in a battle in yr 170. Fleet is 136bpv, the DD+ is 6bpv (12 for both) so at the time and location of the battle these DD's can become DD+s permanently and 12 bpv is deducted from the treasury. Fleet also buys 4 Tbombs. These are commander options and do not come from the treasury they are Victory points only. They are not permanent to the ships. The Gorn BDD+ is a refit to the DD avail in Y169 so the DD could upgrade to those instead of DD+ for 30 bpv each, but there isn't enough in the treasury for that as there is only 48 avail. So one DD is a BDD+ for 30 and the other DD is now a DD+ for 6, leaving 12 in the treasury. Similarly a D7 could become a D7L. Any refit progression mentioned in R section will be allowed if there is BPV. If there are any loopholes the GM will close them or disallow at his discretion. Victory point calculations will be used to determine close battles for who won or lost or is a stalemate/draw.

Each round after the attacks are known the home fleet may move to reinforce any one border zone of yours being attacked. The ships of three fleets are pooled and a 4 ship fleet is composed from them at that point. Any remaining ships return to Home zone.

Each round the ships are dispersed to their fleets and the fleets to locations. No Fleet may be left unassigned. This info is hidden. Each player picks Three fleets to go on the offense and chooses which border location to attack. (If only two players reduce to 2 attack fleets).

The games are played.

Points are scored
-3 for loss of a ship
-2 for loss of the battle
0 for stalemate/draw
+1 for winning the battle
+2 for a ship capture

A compensation round happens. Add the negative and positive points together. If a players total is (+) record that as a round win point.

Positive points are used to improve ships. A number of ships equal to the number of positive points can be cashed in and the bpv combined with the new BPV made available by the GM each round (default 100 BPV) and new ships purchased maintaining the number of fleets needing to be maintained.

Negative points are spent to bump the bpv level of the rounds BPV. 3 bpv(combat) per negative point. This can be spent or added to the treasury. Yes the losing player gets more BPV, but the loser can not cash in ships only buy refits to existing ones or buy new ones.

If the round winner forgoes cashing in any ships they just add the bpv to the treasury, and they lose that "cash in" opportunity.

If a Ship is destroyed the player gets it back after playing one round without it or the value can be added to the rounds BPV and used to purchase a new ship and gets it immediately.

Example: Two 100 bpv ships fight and player A wins. Player A gets +1 point, player B gets -2 pts. -2*3=-6 so B gets 6 bpv. 100 BPv for the round and could buy a ship at 206+treasury. If no ship(s) is available with better refits then those points accumulate in the treasury. Player A has +1 point towards winning the round.

Damaged ships repair half(round up) their internal damage each round. Things repaired in battle fall apart after the battle. Shields are completely fixed. A round win point may be deducted from a players total to do complete repairs on one ship. The next round's repairs will complete a ships repairs. If a ship is destroyed the next turn they don't have that ship, the turn after that they get it back.

Ships may be shuffled as to what fleet they are in at each round.

Each player plots in writing then takes turns announcing what positions are being attacked and no position may be attacked by more than one player. If a double attack occurs the attacker with the closest bpv level to the defending fleet is the one that attacks. The other is blocked and returns home, or at the defenders choice both attackers act as allies and the defender calls in the home fleet. Once all attacks are announced the fleets(and their contents) are revealed.

The home fleet may contain a special(except a minesweeper/layer or carrier). The home fleet may react and reinforce one defense point. If someone attacks a defense point that can't be defended by the home fleet it is an auto +1 win for the attacker but no (-) loss points for the defender.

Specials such as Shock ships(e.g. maulers), Stasis, Minewsweeper/Layer, Battletug, Monitors, Carriers Will not be used except as an extreme balancing measure or unless the players want to add that level of complexity.


Rules:

Rules in use:

All of B2, All of B3, C1.31, C 1.312, C1.313, C1.33B, C1.34, C1.341, C1.35, C1.4, 32 impulse chart, C1.6, C1.7, C2.0, C2.1, C2.2, C2.4, C2.42, C2.43, C2.44, C2.45, C2.46, C3.0, C4.0, C5.0, C6.0, C7.0, C8.0, C10.0, C11.0, C12.0, D1.0, D2.0, D3.0, D4.0, D5.0, D6.0, D7.0, D9.0, D12.0, D13.0, D14.0, D23.0, E1.0, E2.0, E3.0, E4.0, E5.0, E7.0, E10.0, E11.0, E12.0, E13.0, E14.0, E15.0, E16.0, E17.0, F1.0, F2.0, F3.0, F4.0, FD1.0, FD2.0, FD3.0, FD4.0, FD5.0, FD6.0, FD7.0, FD8.0, FD9.0, FD10.0, FD11.0, FD12.0, FD13.0, FD14.0, FD15.0, FD16.0, FD17.0, FP1.0, FP2.0, FP3.0, FP4.0, FP5.0, FP6.0, FP7.0, FP8.0, FP9.0, FP10.0, FP11.0, FP12.0, FP13.0, FP14.0, G1.0, G2.0, G3.0, G4.0, G5.0G6.0, G7.0, G8.0, G9.0, G10.0, G12.0, G13.0, G23.0, G24.0, G28.0, G33.0, G34.0, H1.0, H2.0, H3.0, H4.0, H5.0, H6.0, H7.0, J1.0, J2.0, J3.0, J4.0, J5.0, J8.0, K1.0, K2.0, K3.0, K4.0, K5.0, M1.0, M2.0, M3.0, S2.0 for determining win, draw, loss

Modified Rules:

S1.4 Use the 80*60 map, it is fixed. Units that go off it disengage.

S3 We are generally adhearing to this but have our own Calculation but ours will not violate the Max commanders option percentage.

S4 Always WS-3

S5 May be set and in effect in the central combat zone via the GM.

S8.0 Max limit of 4 Ships. No Conjectural, Stasis, Maulers, or Captured ships, Limited duty ships are restricted to defense zones.

Rules not in use:

Anything not specified as in use but also.... C1.32, C1.322, C1.323, C1.33A,C,D,E, C1.342, C2.14, C2.3, C3.8, C9.0, C13.0, C14.0, D8.0, D10.0, D11.0, D15.0, D16.0, D17.0, D18.0, D20.0, D22.0, D24.0, E8.0, E9.0, E20.0, FD5.252, FD2.255, FD21.0, G10.8, G11.0, G14.0, G15.0, G16.0, G18.0, G19.0, G20.0, G21.0, G22.0, G25.0, G26.0, G27.0, G29.0, G30.0, G31.0, G32.0, G35.0, J6.0, J7.0, J10.0, J11.0, J12.0, J13.0, J14.0, J15.0, J16.0, J17.0, J18.0, M4.0, M5.0, M6.0, M7.0, M8.0, M9.0, M10.0, M11.0, P170, S7.0 X

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Sunday, April 08, 2018 - 09:49 pm: Edit

Welcome back Les !
And you're back in a big way, kicking off a campaign after how many years away ?
Cheers
Frank

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Sunday, April 08, 2018 - 10:22 pm: Edit

A couple of thoughts:

You may want to ban some Empire combos. Some can be unbalanced in combination.

I would also consider a change of the repair rules. As it stands a ship that takes two hull hits takes two turns to repair as does a ship that has all but one excess damage box lost. Maybe multiply the DamCon rating by a factor of 5 or so and fix that many boxes?

By Les LeBlanc (Lessss) on Monday, April 09, 2018 - 09:32 am: Edit

There is a GM and any GM with a brain will not allow a PPD/Jindo Hellbore combinations. I didn't feel it necessary to point this out. It can be allowed by not allowing such ships in the same fleet.

By Les LeBlanc (Lessss) on Monday, April 09, 2018 - 09:53 am: Edit

Frank. Running 3 campaigns on vassal (1 still to start as one of the players is writing the rule set[I expect they never will start]).

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Monday, April 09, 2018 - 09:32 pm: Edit

I looked into Cyber board a long time ago, did not understand it.
Never played around with Vassal .
How are battles played ? Using Vassal again ?
Is Vassal played via email, ftf, online or some other forum I am unaware of ?

By Les LeBlanc (Lessss) on Wednesday, April 11, 2018 - 03:10 am: Edit

Vids of games https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqFqtJPivN4&list=PL32gkZI6CaptE1dPZIiQmQGCPGbQ9ELY5

Vids on the client https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRVhFY7389Y&list=PL32gkZI6CapuP-AjjMXDawrX9NpAig5vi

Sfbol is better than vassal but vassal is free and has limitations imposed by SVC and some by the nature of the client(and me not being a programmer).

By Les LeBlanc (Lessss) on Wednesday, April 11, 2018 - 11:32 am: Edit

Scoring Example

Battle 1: Player A attacks undefended area of player B A scores +1 for win B incurs no loss

Battle 2: Player A attacks BZ1 (border zone) area of player B. A wins battle but loses a ship. A scores +1 for win -3 for loss of ship. B -2 for loss of battle

Battle 3: Player A attacks BZ2 area of player C A scores +1 for winning battle for win C -3 for loss of ship

Battle 4: Player D attacks BZ3 area of player E D scores +1 for win but loses a ship -3, E -3 for loss of a ship -2 for loss of battle

A +1, +1, -3 , +1
B +1, -2
C -3
D +1 -3
E -3 -2

A = 0
B = -1
C = -3
D = -2
E = -5

You can if you want try to cross mitigate the handicap across players that fight by reducing the next highest handicap of those that actually fought against each other(but not a greater handicap)[this is much simpler if only 2 players]
Battles were A:B, A:C, D:E So A,B,C mitigate each other. D and E against each other alone
B get -1*3= 3bpv so 100 for round = 103
C gets -3--1 (from B)=-2 *3 100= 106
D gets -2*3+100=106
E gets -5--2=-3*3+100 =109
If no cross mitigation it would be 100, 103, 106, 109, 115

A wins 3 battles so gets a 1 point round win D gets 1 battle win, but not a win for the round as A did more battles.

With cross mitigation
A get 100 bpv for the round
B gets 103 bpv for the round
C gets 106 bpv for the round
D gets 106 bpv for the round
E gets 109 bpv for the round

A can cash in an existing ship add that bpv to the 100 and repurchase & or use for refits/ upgrades to all ships.
B and C can not cash in any ships but can each spend 103 & 106 to buy upgrades/refits for existing ships or buy a new ship.
D can cash in 1 ship and add to the rounds BPV
E can not cash in a ship but gets BPV

A, C, D & E lost a ship, so next round they don't have that ship available, but the round after that they get the same ship back.

Any ships that were damaged repair half the damage. (This is simpler than basing off the damcon as the damcon method means tracking damage across more than 1 round.)

Cross mitigation gets complicated really fast so should only be used with two teams. Drop it is more than 2 teams.

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Friday, April 20, 2018 - 10:54 am: Edit

Checked out your vids Les, very cool !
However I will stick with SFBOL. :>
Thanks.
Cheers
Frank

By Les LeBlanc (Lessss) on Friday, April 27, 2018 - 06:28 am: Edit

Campaign related vids so far... https://www.reddit.com/r/StarfleetBattles/comments/7yj738/4x_border_patrol_campaign/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-RnFTQeLT0

https://youtu.be/R3ezLQ3s1_8

https://youtu.be/c0YqypIgGFg