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Its a bit Kloogey, but its pretty clean.

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By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 10:16 am: Edit

Rambling thoughts....

1. Counters. I'd rather just use GenWar ships for Y ships and print counters for W ships, but it could be done either way. In some regards, it would be better to do new counters for Y and W as we could split the attack factors.

2. Speed: 3 for W and 4 for Y is locked into the Lang Chart in GPD. Roms move 3 as W and NTW are the same strategic speed. Retrograde still works but without carriers there is no off-cycle retro.

3. Command ratings have been published in SFB and whatever they are, that's what they are.

4. Battle intensity might be reduced to 3 for Y ships and maybe 2 for Ws, or maybe to the same number for both.

5. Maps don't change. We can do a separate map for Carnivon space giving what amounts to a few extra hexes off the map edge. This would not be allowed in GW time periods.

6. Base construction is published history. The four powers war has been identified as the FIRST time that bases could be built during wartime and the FIRST time it was possible to extend an attack beyond the enemy border regions. Base construction would take at least two years and the base-under-construction would have no function until it is complete. Hence, the idea of building a base in enemy territory to push the attack further is rather awkward and unlikely to be practical.

7. Reaction ranges probably wont change. Ships have to be able to react to fleets moving past them, and bases have to give bigger reaction ranges than ships.

8. The number of variants will be drastically cut. No carriers, no escorts, no PFTs, no scouts (except a few Vulcans), no drone bombardment, no maulers, no SFGs. That leaves, what... troop ships? Not sure we would have commando ships but probably troop freighters.

By Kent Wendel (Huskerfan) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 10:21 am: Edit

Are the borders the same for EY as GW? (I admit to too much ignorance in EY)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 10:23 am: Edit

Borders: More a matter of not quite occupying all of the territory. The GW borders were established in Y125, the end of the EarWar period.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 12:12 pm: Edit

REACION RANGES. Could the following conceivably work:

Bases: 2 hex radius
Scouts: 1 hex radius
Ships: 0 hex radius but can react in the following circumstances:
- enemy units enter the reaction zone of a scout or base and that hex (that the enemy entered) is within 1 hex of the reacting ships.
- enemy units enter the hex of a Listening Post and that hex (that the enemy entered) is within 1 hex of the reacting ships.

This would, it would seem, add some new dynamics to the game (screening bases with units 1 hex in front of bases, etc.), would capture the EY flavor, but would still allow for a lot of reaction movement to occur.

BORDERS. Are there Neutral Zones in EY? Having one, in some cases, would effectively split provinces in half (due to the moved borders), yet not having them would make the current Neutral Zones appear strange (and would result in territory of no economic value). Just curious what your ideas are here.

CARRIERS. Would the Rom carriers get to use these special carrier retrograde and other rules?

VARIANTS. Besides Commando, the only other variants I can think of as possibilities are Leaders. Of these, the CC seems to make the most sense, I'm not sure if the others can be justified.(??)

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 12:16 pm: Edit

What about Drone vareints? When did the Zin CLD come out?

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 12:24 pm: Edit

PARAVIANS:

A few thoughts/ideas on the Paravians.

Since the Paravian ships are designed as Raiders, made to travel a long way away without supply (they have copious cargo boxes to represent this), perhaps they're Supply range should be extended to 8 or 12 hexes? Perhaps the out of supply penalties are reduced?

Also, alongside the raider concept, they don't get steady income from captured territory. Instead, they just transport captured goods and materials back to their Homeworld. Something like:
1. capture territory
2. move back to homeworld. SC4 can carry 1 EP, SC3 can carry 2 EP. Non-cargo variants cannot carry EP.
This might be too complex, perhaps a simple 1/2 value obtained from capture territories would suffice?

By variant, I am referring to the configuration of the ships, since all have some HDW qualities. In F&E terms, I figure the standard configuration would be Cargo, with Commando being another option (perhaps at +1 cost), with no conversion possible (must be built in that configuration).

Other conceivable options are carrier and science, but since the former would just carrier Admin and GAS shuttles and the latter would have extra labs, I'm not sure of the F&E application. Perhaps for +1 EP, a Science Version could act as a Scout for Reaction purposes only?

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 12:28 pm: Edit

David. The EY Kzintis don't have DISR to replace withe drone racks - besides, having more speed 8 drones coming at you insn't going to have a big effect. Drones in EY only hit if launched at range 2 or less

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 12:40 pm: Edit

re: Paravian Raiders

Advanced Operations has "raiding" which is what you are describing.

It would be simple enough to say that each successful "raid" nets the Paravian's 0.5 EP (remember this is 1 ship collecting the money) that they take home.

It would be easy to say that the Paravian's can have a "raid pool of available ships" of 4. To allow them to "be all over Gorn Space" and hard to intercept.

But, if ships don't have reaction zones, it will be hard to stop these raiders. Because what normally happens in a "Raid" is that any ship within Reaction Range, can intercept the raider to fight it (Or a police ship is summoned) and it being Y-era, I doubt there will be Y-Police.

But it'll suck to be the Paravian player.
"Rule (XXX.XX) says, on turn 12, if the Paravian player does not have 200 COMPOT of ships (they begin the game with 80) at the Capital, it is destroyed by the Sun Snake."

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 01:04 pm: Edit

Reaction: Too complex to have "zero with special rules". Just leave it as is.

There are NZs. We'll have to look at the borders.

Rom carriers would exist but wouldn't have the special rules.

No drone bombardment. drone variants are indistinguishable from standard combat types at this level.

Paravians should use standard raid rules but with a huge raid pool.

By Donovan A Willett (Ravenhull) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 03:31 pm: Edit

Is it possible for EY fleets to conquer Hydran space without building bases? Or did the conquest take long enough thatt the Klingons and Lyrans were able to build a few in lull years?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 03:47 pm: Edit

There is a special rule for that.

By Donovan A Willett (Ravenhull) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 04:00 pm: Edit

Gotcha. Thanks.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 04:32 pm: Edit

How about "Ships can react one hex, but only if the enmey is within X number of hexes from a friendly base or scout" where X is some number large enough to be effective but small enough to prevent reactions deep in enemy territory?? Perhaps X = 12 or so.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 04:32 pm: Edit

Convoys would work but would be vulnerable. By the time you stacked a huge fleet on the convoy to defend it, where do you get the ships to actually attack something?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 07:32 pm: Edit

Sorry for missing some thing here.

What, if anything, is wrong with using GW ship counters in Early wars? the basic ships are all there, FF, dd, CL, CA & CC (not to mention Early Dreadnoughts?) In most cases the net difference works out to a pt differenctial between classes.

Except for the purists among us who would want a complete set of counters to represent historical fleets, I fail to see an overriding need to replace 10 or 12 counter sheets with a whole new set of FF,DD, CL,CA and CC clases of W and Y periods.

Samething with maps, unless we can talk SVC into the next F&E map run leaving off BATS and Star Bases, there really is no need for new maps.

(without preprinted bases, then the same F&E map could be used for multiple generation campaigns, just have to use counter bases or post it dots (paper circles in various colors with postit note clue so the dots are transferrable)(that would also work for neutralzones)

Bottom line here, is a Early wars game with 1,000+ counters is going to ball park in the same range as F&E ($50.00 + extra counters) whereaas if Early wars can be released as an F&E expansion that has 1 count sheet and a rule book I'd guess the price line could be held down.

Plus a bonus, using the existing counters and a new rule book makes play testing easier as most of the experienced F&E playtestors already have the game.(just needs the rules)

This could logically follow after ISC wars, and depending on bottle necks with ISC wars playtest, could actully come out earlier(don't know, just a guess, but seems logical).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 07:38 pm: Edit

I think you'd have to have W counters and could use general war counters for the Y counters, but you'd never be able to play the Y125-Y150 period (Middle Years) without new Y counters to go with the new W countrs. Assuming lower ship density and a derth of variants, you'd not need ten sheets. Maybe five.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 07:46 pm: Edit

Just out of curiousity.

The appeal of Early Wars will be?????

There is no "great Campaigns" really (like the Invasion of the Feds Turn 7) just lots of border bashing. Fed-Kzin war, Romulan-Gorn war, Romulan-Fed war, etc.

EXCEPT: the Hydrans losing, then getting back Hydrax, and the Paravians.

Right? Or do I just not know any "history"

By David Lang (Dlang) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 08:25 pm: Edit

re: reaction range.

remember that with only vulcan scouts fleets will only be able to react 1 hex unless they are on a base (remember that early warning stations taht are part of PDU's don't assist reaction range)

Jeff, the problem with useing GW counters in the early years perios is that there is a extended transition period where both EY and GW ships are in the fleet fighting side by side (races would build a new cruiser, but not design a new DD for several years for example)

Scott, the appeal of early wars would be simplicity, you can play F&E and with smaller fleets and few varients it should go much faster

is the four powers war at the end of the EY period or the beginning of the GW period or does it span them?

By David Lang (Dlang) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 08:25 pm: Edit

Scott, also the tholians arrive (and they don't need new counters )

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 09:01 pm: Edit

What about killing 2 birds with one stone?

If Early wars only needs 5 counter sheets, could you "combine" the NTW ships as a "bonus"?

May not be practical, but it would get a sublight wars product out for the Gorn verses Romulans and the Fed vs Roms...

Only real advantage is that Sublight wars may not be a good seller by it self and its the last chance the Romulan players will have for conquest on an "even" playing field. Once the Gorns get Tactical warp and the Romulans don't, it kinda kills galactic conquest as a factor until the General War (from a Romulan perspective that is!)

Might also build interest in sublight wars game system for SFB equivelent.

By Robert Herneson (Rherneson) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 09:47 pm: Edit

Scott, there is the Paravian / Gorn war, the first Gorn / Romulan War, the Klingon / Lyran war, the first Federation / Romulan War, Lyran infighting, The first Klingon / Kzinti War, the second Gorn / Romulan War, the first Hydran Klingon war, the Tholian Annexation, Hydran / Lyran wars, and on and on....

No, you aren't going to get the ComDens & ComPots that you get in the GW, but there are LOTS of wars.

By Andrew C. Cowling (Andrew) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 10:19 pm: Edit

SVC: you said 'no maulers'. Don't the Roms have the Falcon late in the EY period?

Or would the Falcon be considered to be incapable of F&E-style mauling, and be treated as a standard warship?

By David Lang (Dlang) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 10:22 pm: Edit

Jeff,

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Once the Gorns get Tactical warp and the Romulans don't,it kinda kills galactic conquest as a factor until the General War (from a Romulan perspective that is!)

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By David Lang (Dlang) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 10:25 pm: Edit

re: the falcon, without warp engines you have batteries and impulse engines to power the mauler, that just isn't enough power to be effective, they may exist, but not be enough better then other ships to be worth building (say they have the F&E mauler capibility, but with a 3-6 compot and are twice as expsnsive)