After reading way too much WW2 history lately, I have come up with a couple of proposals to give admirals some "flavour". Submitted for your consideration...

Graduated Admiral Effectiveness

The fleet commanders and their staffs in the General War were simply unused to the practical
difficulties involved in the large scale fighting of the General War. The Federation had largely neglected fleet and squadron level training until the battle of Adanerg. Hard won experience in border wars with the Romulans and Kzintis was largely forgotten during the intervals of peacetime.

Although the Hydrans, Lyrans, Klingons and Kzintis had fought in the Four Powers War, that conflict was, in the end, just another border war. The General War featured much larger fleets, increased use of raids behind enemy lines, and logistical capabilities that far exceeded those of earlier conflicts. It took time for fleet commanders to develop techniques that would enable them to get the most out of the equipment and personnel under their command.

Under this proposal, all of a race's admirals begin the game at "incompetent" effectiveness
(-1 BIR). As they command an increasing number of battles, they become better at their jobs and
their effectiveness increases.

After 2 combat phases "in action", an admiral's effectiveness changes to standard (no BIR
change).

After another 10 combat phases "in action", the admiral will become legendary (+1 BIR).

To be "in action", an admiral must be included in a battle force that uses the full command rating of the largest available flagship, and fight at least 3 combat rounds (including fighting retreats).

By Sean Dzafovic (Sdzafovic) on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 08:44 am: Edit

Admiral Specializations

Some admirals developed specialized techniques for, or simply had an affinity for employing,
certain types of units. These had the effects noted below.

Carrier Admirals: All carrier groups, fighter squadrons, PF tenders and flotillas receive +1 BIR.

Battleline Admirals: All ships of compot 8+ receive +1 BIR.

Battlegroup Admirals: All ships of compot 6 or less receive +1 BIR.

By Sean Dzafovic (Sdzafovic) on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 08:52 am: Edit

Notes

The restrictions on what counts for "in action" are so that a player simply can't have an admiral participate in a couple of BATS busting missions against no opposition, and then suddenly start channeling Stormin' Norman. If someone else has a better mechanism to reflect this I'd like to hear it.

There is also what I have come to call the "Fed problem" in that the powers which enter the war early get a leg up in the number of better admirals. while this mimics reality, it may cause balance problems. Simply giving the later powers standard admiral or two may solve this, but defeats the spirit of the rule. In the SFU history, the Federation is noted as having really questionable strategies at the start of the war and it took time for the likes of Kosnett and Stocker to come to the fore (the Federation's stupendous industrial capacity didn't hurt either).

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 09:45 am: Edit

I quite like the "start at -1 BIR".

However, I have always been of the opinion that a +1 BIR admiral is way too good, at least until it becomes easier to kill them (currently, it's almost impossible).

To a certain extent, I'd prefer it if admirals started by adding no ships to the Battleforce, followed by +1 ship, then by +2 ships, gradually negating the need for command points. (i.e. +2 ships is still the max).

Admiral rules could also be made more interesting if you said that any ship with CR9 or higher loses one command rating unless it has an admiral on board. Command points then play normally, allowing up to +2 ships. Good (10 battles) admirals add an extra ship (removing the need for one CP) and legendary (50 battles) admirals add two.

NB please note that capital battles can easily generate 20 rounds, so a legendary admiral is perfectly possible.

By Sean Dzafovic (Sdzafovic) on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 10:06 am: Edit

With E&S prime team rules for assassinating admirals its a little easier to kill the elite guys.

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 10:24 am: Edit

Now if your going to the trouble of keeping track of numbers of battles fought then I think you should just go to a die roll after each battle.

#1 just give each admiral counter a name.

#2 after any battle round in which an admiral takes part and scores more damage then the enemy the admiral may roll for improvement if the enemy compot was at least 80% of the admirals battleforce. (optionally in addition if the enemy battlefroce was smaller the admiral must have rolled higher then the enemy)

Roll for improvement (2d6)

Lyran/Klingon/Hydran/Kzinti
2-3 = promoted
12=double promotion

Fed/Romulan/Gorn
2-3=promoted
11-12=double promotion

ISC (and all other powers after the general war)
2-4=promoted
11-12=double promotion

All admirals have two ratings that start out as 0/-1
the first is command, the second is tactical (BIR)
A single promotion will increase either value by 1 to a maximum of 2, no admiral may be promoted more then 3 times.

By Clell Flint (Clell) on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 11:06 am: Edit

Why the different promotion rates, it would be simpler if they wer all the same.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 11:12 am: Edit

I saw nearly identical proposals before we published AO. None of them made it into AO. Figure it out. This way lies madness.

By Sean Dzafovic (Sdzafovic) on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 07:29 pm: Edit

Wow. That didn't take long.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 01:07 am: Edit

I liked the first post (grow the admiral)

I hate the idea of the specialized admirals (have you ever really had to deal with fleets having different BIR's for different ships??)

the promotion thing is a huge amount of extra work to do

to solve the federation problem allow a race to buy an improvement for an admiral (at least up to normal, possibly partway up from there) say at 3-4 EP per 'action' (war college, etc) the feds are much more likly to be able to afford this so it will help them get out of the hole.

I don't remember seeing the admiral experiance leading up to AO (although I do remember seeing all the other variations) if it gets fleshed out well it may make it in as an optional rule or stellar shadows rule

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 06:47 am: Edit

If you could buy experience to improve your admirals the Lyrans would always have all Legendary Admirals. So would the Klingons. The difference in damage output between a -1 BIR and a +1 BIR is more than sufficient to justify the cost to the Coalition.

By Sean Dzafovic (Sdzafovic) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 06:54 am: Edit

Well, the specialized admirals use the same mechanism as wild SWACs. At least with the specialized admirals you know in advance you have the separate compots rather than calculating your damage twice (build line, calculate compot, here comes the SWAC, divide up your line into the various categories, calculate damage again, send the mauler over to turn the SWAC into plasma because it's just so annoying...)

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 11:29 am: Edit

Sean, I personally consider the wild SWAC thing the worst rule to deal with in F&E (it's only saving grace is the severe limits on SWAC production means that you don't have to deal with it very much) which is why I am very opposed to something that would make it more common

Daniel, note that I'm not proposing that you could buy your way up to +1, just buy your way out of -1

can the klingons really trade 3-4 F5's to gain 3 'actions' worth of experiance for an admiral?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 11:37 am: Edit

This way madness lies.

By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 12:02 pm: Edit

SVC,

a possibility for Stellar Shadows F&E? Along with other madness, like alternative combat systems?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 12:51 pm: Edit

How does "no, not even stellar shadows" work for you as an answer?

By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 02:26 pm: Edit

Works for me

Just can never tell if madness goes in Stallar Shadows or off to the asylum

By Sean Dzafovic (Sdzafovic) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 04:35 pm: Edit

True, the wild SWAC rule is a pain. The best thing I find about SWACs is they go wild once and then get terminated with extreme prejudice.

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 07:42 pm: Edit

David Lang,

Yes. A change from a -1 to a +0 on your battle intensity is still a massive bonus to damage produced over the course of an entire game. It would allow the Klingons to do more economic damage to the Alliance that 3 or 4 F5s would cost them.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 08:37 pm: Edit

Daniel, it's a moot point since SVC has declared this ll to be madness, but it wouldnt' be an improvement from -1 to 0 for the entire game, it would only be for three encounters which is the point that the -1 would become 0 anyway you would have another 3 enounters when the 0 became a +1 earlier then he would have otherwise and then it's back to being the same

so for a significant cost (3-4 FF's) you could get +1 BIR in up to 6 encounters (assuming the admiral actually lives long enough without retiring to get to +1)

By Sean Dzafovic (Sdzafovic) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 10:37 pm: Edit

The point is moot, but it never hurts to discuss it for those who may want a house rule in the future. My gaming group seems rather taken with the "role playing" aspects of the idea and may toy around with it the next time we play (possible balance issues notwithstanding).

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 05:54 am: Edit

I understand that Steve has declared it madness, but as he didn't close the topic it's still open for us to go looking for madness (for a while).

If you buy up your admiral's bonus/penalty right before taking out a starbase with him you are going to get at least 8 rounds of combat with him.

If you buy up your admiral's bonus/penalty right befor you make the big push to take out Hydrax you're going to get two or three turns with 8 or more rounds of combat. That frees your other admirals to go romping around any BATs mop up battles or to hit targets in Kzinti space. More than worth it.

Additionally, allowing your admirals to gain experience lets you eliminate any -1 admirals you have by smashing relatively undefended BATs with them in command. The two combined would let the Coalition transform all of their admirals into a +1 BIR bonus very quickly. At that point you could just give the Coalition a +1 on all battles. It just makes it too easy.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 07:02 am: Edit

"To be "in action", an admiral must be included in a battle force that uses the full command rating of the largest available flagship, and fight at least 3 combat rounds (including fighting retreats)."

Even at BIR 0, it will be difficult for a full fleet to avoid busting a BATS in 2 rounds.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 11:09 am: Edit

You can amuse youselves all you want (as long as you behave, which you have) but I'm not going to print it.

By Alan De Salvio (Alandwork) on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 12:33 pm: Edit

Honestly I would save it for the computer version. Keep the three levels as is, randomize the skills amongst named admirals, not show the admiral quality (but use it in hidden calculations), and let the player demote the ones he thinks are poor. Simple and realistic!