Archive through June 06, 2021
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E WARBOOK: Warbook Update – Basic Set: F&E Basic Set - Section 600 Reports – Scenarios: Archive through June 06, 2021
By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Sunday, February 23, 2020 - 11:57 pm: Edit

Turtle, et al:

Report suggestions for updating the General War victory conditions in this topic.

FEDS

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 06:38 am: Edit

X-Bases should get a 50% bonus for victory conditions. Reason: They cost 50% more and are paid in XTPs. This gives more reason to upgrade them in key sectors.

The current rules count crippled ships as ships for the purposes of ship count. Crippled ships should count as a 1/2 ship here. The same as they do for pinning purposes. Ships in the Depot Level Repair (424.0) count as crippled for this purpose regardless of where they are in the tracks.

Special Units formed by combining a group of ships and other units should be broken up and ships counted individually. The 77th, 23rd, and LTFs come to mind here.

FEDS is supportive of the above recommendations for a draft update of VCs for ADB’s consideration.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 03:50 pm: Edit

What from the 4PW scenario should we look at for VCs?

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 04:17 pm: Edit

Maybe enhance the VP value of xships and battleships.

Suggest that capturing planets or provinces only counts as captured for VP purposes if garrisoned by an uncrippled unit in supply to the owning empire's main grid. Possibly also count any ship in enemy unannexed territory that is unsupplied is counted as destroyed for VP purposes as well. Such ships in neutral zone hexes adjacent to THEIR OWNING EMPIRE OR ALLIED EMPIRE do not count as destroyed; they can make it back home imo.

Seltorian units not in Klingon or Tholian territory (or in the NZ hexes between them) count as destroyed. They cannot score VPs for capturing territory as their only goal is Tholian destruction.

Vudar and LDR units not in their territory are counted as destroyed unless allied to a side, in which case they are considered destroyed if not in their alliance's territory (or in nz hexes adjacent to their alliance). Note that these empires cannot score VPs for capturing territory or planets beyond their own boundaries (they don't have the strength to hold such territory).

Note that the Tholians are only fighting the Seltorians at this point generally and do not contribute to score unless they have been conquered by the Coalition. In a non historical game they score VPs in the same way other empires do.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 06:43 pm: Edit

No change to VPs earned for disrupted provinces if the disrupting ship can trace a valid line of supply. If the ship can't trace a valid line of supply then the province is not disrupted and counts for full value for the owner in question. (NOTE: Annexed planets and provinces come in to play here.)

I have to agree with Richard, that ships holding captured planets and provinces must be able to trace supply to their own empire in order to count the captured planet and/or province for the original victory conditions.

I disagree with Richard that they are considered destroyed if unable to trace a supply route to the ship's owning empire.

My counter proposal to Richard's is:

If the ship in question cannot trace a supply line then neither side gets the planet and/or province for victory conditions and the ship is not counted for victory conditions as well.

I'll have to do a little thinking on the LDR and Vudar.

My initial thought is that if the Tholians are fighting the Seltorians as part of the GW Campaign then the Seltorians points are added to the Coalition and the Tholian points are added to the Alliance. Reasoning: The Seltorians are based in the original Klingon territory, so unless that territory has been captured in such a way as to prevent the Seltorians from being able to reach Tholian space then the Seltorians are allied with the Klingons. NOTE: If a scenario is played in which the Seltorians are "hosted" by the Federation then the Seltorian VPs would be added to the side the Federation is on, and the Tholain VPs would be added to the side the Klingons are on.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 07:08 pm: Edit

Maybe enhance the VP value of xships and battleships.

(603.3) Ships are normally 20% (1/5) so have X-ships and BBs up to 25% (1/4), 33.3% (1/3), or 30%?

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 07:14 pm: Edit

As a counterpoint to both Richard and Turtle I would suggest that unsupplied ships in enemy territory that cannot trace supply are instead ‘ignored’ for either side toward victory conditions.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 07:45 pm: Edit

Having X-Bases be worth more victory points just hands the win to the Coalition.

How often can the Alliance afford to build even a full list of Frigates, let alone upgrade bases?

The Coalition spend almost the entire game rolling in cash and can do it easily.

X-Ships the same thing. I built as many as I could in my game against Peter and he ended up with double the number that I did.

I think the simple fixes are:
- Only ships (actual ships, not Aux or other) in supply count for the 5 ships per VP
- Only captured provinces and planets in supply count for VP
- If there is no supply the owning Empire doesnt get credit for the provinces or planets, its just that the Empire which captured it gets no credit

I would be wary of making too many changes. Especially when the game is skewed towards the Coalition and the above suggestions all seem to benefit the Coalition.

By Kosta Michalopoulos (Kosmic) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 08:11 pm: Edit

I have to agree with Jason. The suggested changes thus far do not address the fundamental flaws of the current VP calculations and the end game. Playing with a random ending, the Coalition has a huge advantage under the current system, unless the game goes much longer than was the case "historically." The current VP calculation system can also be gamed by the Coalition by just building/upgrading bases in numerous locations, something the Alliance is incapable of ever doing unless things have gone REALLY bad for the Coalition. That has to change.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 08:19 pm: Edit

It depends on how the game goes. It isn't set in stone.

One game Mr Calhoon and I played, we accomplished ship parity with the Coalition on about turn 12. It was a full rules game; if the Coalition player continued it wasn't going well.

I've read of at least one full game (perhaps no longer in reports from the front) where the Coalition lost pretty badly by the time the game ended.

It depends on the players and balance options selected. If the group thinks the one side has an advantage, it can be mitigated by using balance options (or that can be done just for variety).

By Kosta Michalopoulos (Kosmic) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 08:32 pm: Edit

Achieving ship parity by turn 12 requires massively disastrous play by the Coalition. What did they do? Attack the Tholians with insufficient forces, lose scads of ships, then fail to take Tholia?

Assuming reasonable play by both sides, ship parity will not be achieved until very late in the game. The Coalition just starts with too large an advantage, and can afford to build more ships than the Alliance for many many turns. That only changes once exhaustion sets in.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 08:50 pm: Edit

I've seen ship parity acheived by or before Turn 15 in 3 different games I've been in. Some of it can be attributed to poor play by the coalition. Some of it is just plain bad luck in key battles and die rolls (Just ask Paul Howard about that).

Also keep in mind that bad luck goes both ways. In theory, with the length of the game, it should even out. However, that is not always the case.

Keep in mind that when most games achieve ship parity or something close to it that early, then the game is basically over and usually not played to conclusion.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 09:51 pm: Edit

If the Coalition have a huge advantage the game ends early.

If the Alliance have the advantage they either play a long game and win by VP 10 or 15 turns later or they go for Coalition Capitals, lose heaps of ships and the game can balance out.

It almost feels like getting to the end should favour Alliance for surviving 30+ turns of being on the back foot.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 10:30 pm: Edit

Kosta:

It was fiendishly good play by the Coalition. Mr. Calhoon was one of the best F&E players I have ever played against (or allied with) and we put serious effort into that particular game. Ted Fay is a good Coalition player. He did botch an attempt to capture Kzintai on turn 10 or so and that and massive borrowing under ADS by the Alliance did the trick. The Feds, for example, put more than 60 SEQs on the map on turn 10 turn through ADS (and accumulated EPs due to limited war) and overbuilds.

The Coalition had succeeded in destroying all ground defenses in 1401 and the SB but had to retreat as the Kzinti ships were just a bit too strong at that point in the battle to force offmap. Then a LOT of Alliance ships showed up by hook or by crook in the Kzinti theatre, managed to pin the Coalition out and were guaranteed to get a new Starbase over Kzintai before the Coalition could stop it.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Tuesday, February 25, 2020 - 07:32 am: Edit

Quote:

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 03:50 pm: Edit

What from the 4PW scenario should we look at for VCs?



After giving some thought to comments by the others above, one thing I think overlooked is that fighters and PFs on carriers and tenders, EW factors, G factors are overlooked in the value they add to the game. Granted fighters and PFs on carriers and tenders were never counted to begin with in the basic game. Scouts either prevented you from suffering a -1 penalty in a battle force or gave your enemy the -1 penalty if they didn't have the offesetting scout. Scouts becomes a lot more valuable when Combined Operations is added to the mix as EW can help reduce the damage your battle force would otherwise suffer. G factors can have a very surprising effect on combat in key hexes by reducing the number of rounds required to kill a base or when attacking a planet with an 3 or 5 PDUs.

My thoughts is these should be counted on the surviving units, not the dead as listed under (607.62).

Fighters Factors should be 6 or 8H (8Y Fed) or 9H (Fed) or 10V (Fed) = 1 Ship. Only those on ships, not bases. Each full strength P factor at the end of the game equals 1 Ship. Only those PFs on ships, not bases. FCR factors [#] and PF replacement factors [P] are not counted for this purpose. These are added to the number of ships that are divided by 5 as per the original (603.3). This gives carriers and PF Tenders a little more weight and more than likely will equal out.

I would suspect that EW factors should be fairly close when added up as attack factors. Ships with multiple EW options should be calculated at their highest attack factor and lowest EW level.

G units should count on 1 for 1 basis.

Auxiliaries carriers and PF Tenders, and those designated as scouts or troop ships do not count in the ship total, but their fighters, PFs, EW factors, and G units are counted as they have value more so on defense than offense, but they still have value and deserve to be counted.

As to G Factors and EW points they need to have value and I would venture to guess that totaling them up and divide by 10 and add that result to the number of ships would be about right. NOTE: I haven't done any number crunching on this yet. Just some thoughts about this from looking at the Empires of the Dead game.

I know Peter and company did a fairly good job of keeping count of what died over the course of the game. I have a spread sheet full of what has died so far in the Empires of the Dead game. However, the living should have value not the dead.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Tuesday, February 25, 2020 - 02:56 pm: Edit

Not sure including EW and G factors is good for the game - in that whats to stop one side building a stack of cheap Aux ships for the EW/G value, if they are worth more a ship being built?

Or 'different' ships, like the D5G becoming more valuable than normal ships?

What about Pods on Tugs also - should a VP, SP or T-Pod be worth more than a Battle Pod?

On PF's - not sure that's good either - whats to stop one side burning them all in a turn and rebuying them instead of crippling/killing ships - which can't be replaced/repaired as easily?

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Tuesday, February 25, 2020 - 06:31 pm: Edit

Debt is what will stop the killing and replacement of PFs. You can only borrow so much each turn, even with ADS. ADS itself has a Victory Point penalty under (447.6). On top of the fact that you can't go into debt on the last turn of the game in most scenarios where (603.3) is used to determine victory conditions.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - 06:47 am: Edit

Also PFs can be replaced by both players under (105.0-M17) 6D before the end of the current turn. So there is no big advantage there. Fighters and G Units are also replaced there for both players for all units in supply at that time.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - 11:52 am: Edit

603.15 - change "... an SPC (SparrowHawk-C scout/survey cruiser) ..." to "... an SPC survey cruiser (SPS*, PE*, KRE*, etc) ..." as Romulan SRs have been defined in Strategic Operations [using * in place of the double dagger symbol].

By Ryan Opel (Feast) on Sunday, June 06, 2021 - 02:13 am: Edit

(602.12) KZINTI: All Kzinti forces are available and can move in Klingon, Kzinti, Lyran, and Hydran territory within the limits of other rules. Kzinti forces cannot enter the Federation during this scenario; exception (411.7) or a tug to get EPs.

"tug to get EPs." should read "tugs to get EPs."

By Ryan Opel (Feast) on Sunday, June 06, 2021 - 02:22 am: Edit

(654.2) Actions not allowed while on limited war. (654.2D) Conduct Surveys. (505.0) Does this include (603.15) Romulan Exploration of on map provinces? Ryan Opel 6 Jun 21

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Sunday, June 06, 2021 - 09:28 am: Edit

Update to post By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, February 24, 2020 - 06:43 pm: Edit

Quote:

I'll have to do a little thinking on the LDR and Vudar.



The LDR and Vudar should follow the same guidelines I outlined for the Seltorians in the same post right below the above quote. They count normally as describe for the side that they are an actual combat participant. Thus if not playing with the LDR and/or Vudar they do not count for any victory points or conditions at all. Supply may not be traced through LDR Territory. Vudar territory is the property of the Hydrans or Klingons, or anyone who has managed to annex those said provinces at the time the scenario ends.

By Ryan Opel (Feast) on Sunday, June 06, 2021 - 02:33 pm: Edit

Add note to rule (602.12) to include clarification. (602.12) All Kzinti Forces are available and can move in Klingon, Kzinti, Lyran, and Hydran territory within the limits of other rules. Kzinti Forces cannot enter the Federation during this scenario; exception (411.7) or a tug to get EPs. Note: Any Kzinti ships that had been interned in Federation territory during the previous scenario (601.0) are released from internment. These ships are subject to rule (411.7) and if the cost is not paid would have to leave Federation space at the earliest opportunity. (L.Bergen 12-22-06)

By Ryan Opel (Feast) on Sunday, June 06, 2021 - 02:42 pm: Edit

(308.852) Says that BATS or BS cannot self-repair. What about Sector Bases? Ryan Opel 6 Jun 21 and Lar Bergan 29 Dec 06

By Ryan Opel (Feast) on Sunday, June 06, 2021 - 06:36 pm: Edit

(659.42) Planet: Delete the Tholian homeworld. In that hex is the minor planet Kalesta, a Klingon colony. Should read: Delete the Tholian homeworld. In that hex are the three planets, Kalesta, Kelanon and Kordahn. Kalesta is a major planet and the other 2 are minor planets. Above based on (511.22). Thomas Mathews 30 Nov 2009

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