The current rules heavily penalize the Alliance if the Tholians don't get back inside their territory by the end of turn 28. But Tholians can apparently self-kill with no problems. That feels wrong. My suggestion:

In a battle outside of Tholian space, if the Tholians self-kill, other than the self-killing required by (302.617), then the Tholians, and any allied forces, must retreat after that round.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, February 16, 2020 - 03:40 pm: Edit

Hi William,
What do you see this chsnge stopping from happening?

And why do you think it is happening?

Cheers.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 08:47 am: Edit

It stops the Tholians from self-killing a bunch of their ships on turns 25-27. It hasn't been actually happening to my knowledge, because very few games get that far, and players may not have realized that it is to their advantage to do it. But if there is a battle with any value at all, they should do it, because their fleet is essentially worthless on turn 28, provided they have just a few ships to deter a Coalition attack at that point.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 12:46 pm: Edit

If the Tholians have only a few ships, then it might not deter the Coalition from taking Tholia.

In the full game, the Seltorians are a thing and would provide a reason not to self kill Tholian ships willy-nilly.

By Alan De Salvio (Alandwork) on Tuesday, February 18, 2020 - 04:19 pm: Edit

And the benefit to the Tholians to self kill is...

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Sunday, January 09, 2022 - 10:14 pm: Edit

In my current game, I just self-killed 8 Tholian ships in order to drag a big battle out a little longer, thereby crippling maybe 5 more Klingons. The Tholians I self-killed included 2DN.

Easily worth it IMO. The Tholian ships effectively disappear on turn 28. So who cares if they are dead?

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, January 10, 2022 - 12:55 am: Edit

This is a valid Tholian tactic. I generally advise allowing the Seltorians into the game for variety.

In any case, suicide Tholians do run the risk of the Coalition capturing Tholia due to weakened defense, so be wary.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Monday, January 10, 2022 - 03:29 pm: Edit

>> I just self-killed 8 Tholian ships

How about awarding some victory some points based upon the size of the Tholian fleet? Or subtracting some victory points if the Tholian fleet is too small? So it becomes advantageous for the Tholians to conserve their ships, even while assisting their temporary Alliance partners?

This might more accurately simulate the Tholian fear that the Seltorians may find them, even in scenarios where the Seltorians are not directly included.

I think Richard's point is a good one in that the threat of Coalition invasion should make the Tholians want to conserve their fleet. However, in a game where the Alliance is doing well there is little threat of Coalition invasion so the Tholians are all too happy to throw away their ships helping their Alliance partners even more.

It is particularly ludicrous for the Tholians to be throwing their big ships like DNs into the meat grinder, as the SFB history clearly indicates how much the Tholians stuggled to build large ships!

Of course, a real Seltorian threat would change the behavior of the Tholians, but depending upon the rule set/scenario played, the Seltorians may simply not exist to offer such threat.

--Mike

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Monday, January 10, 2022 - 05:24 pm: Edit

Isn't the main campaign balanced around the fact that the Tholians sell out to help their allies? I mean, I haven't heard a lot of complaining that the Alliance has too big an advantage in the General War; in fact, I think it is the opposite if anything that is the general consensus.

I mean, it isn't "realistic" that the Lyrans convert masses of CAs into CCs that they don't intend to command anything, ever, because they have too many CR10 ships to ever need the CR9's, or that the Romulans keep building awful WE hulls five years after they rendered them obsolete while every other faction replaces them with new construction plans, or that the Klingons set up the Home Fleet close to the Hydran border in Y168.

But a game needs rules, and sometimes they are "unrealistic" abstractions and mostly we shrug our shoulders and say "It's a game, and it works."

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, January 10, 2022 - 05:35 pm: Edit

@Graham, I wouldn't say the grand campaign is balanced around the fact that the Tholians "sell out". The Tholians are really a minor player, there mostly because the SFU history had them and F&E was designed to simulate SFU history "what ifs".

The game is (theoretically) balanced as a whole set of rules integrated together.

While veterans disagree, most veteran players I know think that the vanilla game (2010 rules only) is slightly unbalanced in favor of the Coalition and the full rules game (all expansions) is slightly unbalanced in favor of the Alliance.

I'm in that camp (been playing since the game came out, but steadily since 2008). However, as I said, people argue about either case all the time - which AFAIC is a good indicator there's nothing seriously wrong with game balance and there's enough variety in tactics to encompass many outcomes.

YMMV.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Sunday, January 30, 2022 - 01:15 pm: Edit

I just had a battle where the Tholians lost DN and PFT killed. The Klingons took D5V, D5 and F5 crippled. Easily worth it IMO. We even stayed a second round with vastly worse compot, which resulted in the DN killed versus the F5 crippled. Unclear whether or not that second round was good for us. But the first one definitely was. All of this was on turn C27. The Klingons wanted control of the hex.