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	Archive through July 14, 2022	25		07/15 08:53am
	Archive through May 30, 2023	25		03/04 11:58am

T29-T35: Organians to the Rescue
Once the Romulans fell, the Gorns established a logistical network all the way to the Klingon southern reserve starbase. Combined Fed and Gorn forces demolished the SR and TBS starbases, at which point the entire south of Klingon territory collapsed. Simultaneously, a Kzinti strike group took out the Lyran starbase at 0608. With three major losses in one turn, the war which was obviously in Alliance favor already, was effectively over.

Final turns had some interesting shifts though. Several turns were spent repositioning and consolidating gains. The final turn saw three epic battles that were largely experiments to “see how things went.”

1) The Hydrans threw the kitchen sink at 0617, against a large Lyran force with Klingon support. The Lyrans had close to 20 X-ships, which turned the tide. The constant attrition unit degradation was just too much. Nearly 100 ships perished between both sides, but Hydrax remained under Lyran control.

2) A massive Gorn force with Fed support attacked the new Romulan shipyard and X-SB. The goal here was to see how the X-Base held up, and just how great the losses on the Alliance side would be. There was a minor planet with 2 PDUs and PFs as well, so the Coalition mustered ~270 compot on the first turn. While they could put up good numbers, the Romulans lacked depth in anything except carriers. Like the Lyrans in the previous battle, the Gorn brought many X-ships that could absorb lots of damage and grind the attrition units down. Many ships died, but the SB-X fell. To be fair, rolls went really well for the Gorn. Unwilling to commit genocide, the Gorn left the shipyard intact.

3) Pretty much the entire Federation fleet, with 150 Kzinti and Gorn ships, descended on the dual Lyran/Klingon SB at 1509. Feds didn’t get the lucky rolls they needed to instapop one of the bases, but eventually knocked one down, at which point they retreated as the point had been demonstrated.

The last turns were anticlimactic, as we knew the game was ending and it was mostly a time to play with toys. Glad we got there so we could experiment with late war builds. Probably would have stopped earlier if we weren’t so focused on “just play the whole campaign once.” Glad we did it though.

By Tom Lusco (Tlusco) on Friday, March 01, 2024 - 12:06 pm: Edit

Income Ships Capitals Starbases Sector Bases BATS BS Total
Lyran 272 201 100 4 0 2 0 774
Klingon 231 451 0 3 0 1 0 618
Romulan 27 83 0 0 0 0 0 71
Kzinti 250 310 0 1 0 1 0 588
Hydran 80 30 0 0 0 0 0 165
Federation 572 550 60 12 0 15 0 1629
Gorn 194 240 40 5 0 10 0 626

Alliance 3008
Coalition 1463

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Friday, March 01, 2024 - 02:28 pm: Edit

Good on the Coalition for playing it out. Most Coalition players give up as soon as it's apparent they can't win, and they don't give the Alliance the chance to strike back.

Well done.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Saturday, March 02, 2024 - 08:29 pm: Edit

Yes, final turn has some interesting dynamics that are different from all of the other turns. Your fleet no longer matters much, and taking crips suddenly doesn't matter at all.

By Tom Lusco (Tlusco) on Monday, March 04, 2024 - 11:58 am: Edit

Ted:

Yea, we both just wanted to play with the toys. Which is why I didn't push for Klinshai, though I couldn't take it in the time allotted anyway.

William:

Casualty-taking those last two turns is bizarre. We had roughly as many 10+ compot ships voluntarily killed the last two turns as we had killed the whole rest of the game.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Monday, March 04, 2024 - 12:32 pm: Edit

I doubt we'll get a rules change, but I really think the game would be improved if starting after some turn, EITHER player could end the game at the end of his opponents turn, and that or three capital capture was the only way the game ended.

By the end, both sides are ready for a cease fire, but it doesn't happen till someone chooses to stop attacking and shooting.

Coalition would normally end the game after an alliance turn, becaue by that point they're losing ground, but they wouldn't end it if the alliance scattered vulnerable ships everywhere to claim territory they couldn't hold and impaled the rest of their fleets on fixed defenses.

This would be a pro-coalition rule, as you'd be denying the alliance the knowledge that they COULD ruin their fleet for a fleeting advantage, but I don't think that much would be required to balance it.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, March 04, 2024 - 12:43 pm: Edit

The way to fix the "game the system" to the end-game VP system is to make the game end harder to predict. That way you don't go "crazy" on the last turns like the current rules encourage.

A simple way to do this is just roll 1D6 at the end of every phasing player's turn starting turn 30. If you roll a 1 the game is over - calculate VPs.

That's an 11% chance of game ending, which is low enough that you're going to consider what happens if the game *doesn't* end.

If that's too high then just change the odds. Roll 2D6 (or 3D6 or whatever) and pick a percentage number that puts the likelihood of game end where you want it. Could also modify the turn you start rolling. Or have a graduated system where you start earlier (e.g. turn 25) but odds are only 1/36 at start but build up to 11% by the time you get to turn 30.

Or whatever.

The point is you have a system where predicting game end is *not* obvious or likely. Then players will "behave" like the Organian interference was a genuine surprise.

My two quatloos.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Monday, March 04, 2024 - 02:01 pm: Edit

The random even of the game issue was raised about 2 years ago?

The two issues was

1) If chance of ending is too low - it could continue alot longer than intended.

2) If the chance of ending is too high - the current end of game tactics will still be done.


Perhaps a roll is made - and either side can bid VP's to add a modifier to the dice?

I.e - Roll 1 D6 from turn 31, if you roll a 6, the game ends.

Turn 32 drops it to a 5
Turn 33+ drops it to a 4

Either side can spend 50 to 250 Vp's - each 50 VPs spent adds 1 to the dice (before dice is rolled and Vp's only spent if game ends).

So you could always end the game on turn 31, for
250 Vp's.

If you wreck your fleet.... opponent may be happy to go on for a turn but you might not be!

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, March 04, 2024 - 04:06 pm: Edit

Paul's idea could work too. Probably better. A player that's ahead could bid the VPs to just win outright. Just like someone in the game show Jeopardy is far enough ahead he can tailor his wager so that he wins no matter what.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Monday, March 04, 2024 - 05:54 pm: Edit

It could work. But to balance it, you would have to adjust the VP totals depending on when the game ends. In my game with Paul, the Alliance were gaining more than 100VP per turn during the final turns.