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What is a Federation Commander Campaign?
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USS Enterprise
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Joined: 27 Feb 2009
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 5:13 pm    Post subject: What is a Federation Commander Campaign? Reply with quote

What do you mean by this? I kinda get the impression of a tactical map and when ships meet they fight (Or something along those lines) Although I don't think I'll ever actually play one, I'd be very interested in what y'all are talking about when it comes to a campaign.
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pinecone
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 5:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pretty much what you just stated, but everyone has their own variations. At least, until the official book comes out.
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Scoutdad
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

To expand on pc's explanation:
The biggest problem with duels, or even scenarios is there's no effect from game to game for recklessly throwing your ships into the fray and fighting until the last ship dies.

In a typical campaign, you receive "X" points of ships to start and your economy generates "Y" points per turn to be used for repair / infra-structure / exploration / new ships /etc.
Any ships that are involved in a combat situation this turn and are severely damaged or destoyed will not be available for the next battle. While you have to send ships out to explore and keep ships close to home to defend fro outside attacks, you are invariably going to have cmobats. The challenge then becomes one of balancing your fleets for both exploration and defense and knowing when to wtihdraw to save the ships (possibly at the cost of system that will need to be retaken later) and when to stay and fight.

As the campaign progresses (usually) territory is occupied (or taken by force) and developed to allow you to produce more and bigger units... leading to either bigger fleets or more fleets.. hopefully more and bigger than your opponent!
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Sgt_G
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, a campaign can be as simple or as complex as the group wants it to be. It's just a way of stringing a bunch of Fed Cmdr (or SFB) battles together such that damage carries over from one batle to the next.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let's take a simple campaign idea, for example. One player gets a fleet of ten ships plus two BATS bases and a planet to defend. The other player gets twenty ships to attack with. The campaign map is a pyramid of boxes, with the planet in the top box. The defending player places the two bases in any box of the two-, three- or four-box rows (not in same box). He then places his fleet in the bottom row of five boxes, splitting them up however he want (he can leave ONE box empty). The attacker enters the bottom of the pyramid, splitting his fleet up however he wants but must put at least one ship in each box. Only then does the attacker get to see the defender's ships.

Play out each battle. Use a running map: if the defender can move five full mapboards "north", those ships escape for the next campaign round. If the attacker runs five maps "south", the ships escape but are out of the campaign (but see below). Battles must be fought until only one side is left (exception: attacker does NOT have to kill the base if all defending ships are destroyed and/or retreated off-map).

After the five battles are fought, all ships (on both sides) get three turns worth of repair to fix damage. Anything not fixed is marked off at the start of the next battle.

The defending player deploys his ships in the four-box row of the pyramid (may leave ONE box empty), and then the attacker splits his fleet up but must put at least one ship in each box. Reveal defenders and do battle.

If the defender has a base in the box, it will be twenty-four hexes from the attacker's edge of the map. The defender may "dock" one ship to the base, so it can "lend" one turn of repair to fix damage from the previous battle, on top of the ship's free three-turns worth; that ship must spend the entire first turn at the base, it may fire but may NOT move.

Rinse and repeat to the three-, two- and single-box rows, but the defender must cover ALL the boxes.

The attacker's objective is to place one ship at speed zero for one entire turn in the planet's hex. (Marines will beem down and capture the government.) The defender's job is to stop this.

Optional: If the attacker had ships retreat and later had the rest of the fleet destoryed, those ships may re-enter the campaign. The defender re-deploys his fleet (what's left of it) in the five-box row, and the attacker has to fight his way back up to the planet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, there you have it. A two-player / fifteen battle campaign, straight forward and simple. But if you want complexity, you can use a map of the galaxy, add in economics, ship construction & repair, etc, etc. It's all up to you and your players. Whatever you want.
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USS Enterprise
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 7:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So, A customized version of Federation and Empire with FC combat?
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Sgt_G
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 9:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

USS Enterprise wrote:
So, A customized version of Federation and Empire with FC combat?


Only if you want THAT level of complexity. Depends on how many players you have in the group, their skill levels, how much time they can devote to it, and whether they like things simple or complex.

Of course, if you use F&E as the basis, you wouldn't want to use the Order of Battle fleet sizes. You'd go insane. Back when F&E first came out, there was a group in California that tried using SFB to resolve battle hexes. They might have made it thru the first F&E turn before giving up.
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USS Enterprise
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 9:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have heard about that. Are you saying they never finished? Or merely that you couldn't think of finishing it. Really, I don't play with anyone who'd really want to play a campaign, so I never really plan to play in one, I was just interested in how a campaign would work. Thanks everyone!
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Sgt_G
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 1:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I never heard for sure, but at the rate they were going, they might be finishing the first game right about now.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I had another idea for a simple two-player campaign. You can modify it all you want, but let's say that you have a Fed player and a Klingon player. Each builds a fleet of, say, 1500 points, plus another 500 points of allied ships (Fed = Kzinti / Gorn, Klingon = Romulan / Lyran). Set the restrictions however you want, such as "must have two FF/DD for every CA/CL", "no more than one DN, no BB", whatever you want. One that I like is "must have a separate card for each ship, if you don't have a card for it, you can't buy it".

The campaign will run twenty-five battles. At the start of any given battle, roll dice or pull a card from a poker deck as a randomizer for the max points allowed in the battle squadrons. (Say, pull a card and multiple the face by 50 or 75.) Both sides will be "equal" value. If you want, you can have a reinforcements come in, based on another dice roll. Players must build the battle squadron (and reinforcements) using only ships from the 2000-point fleet per above, less those destroyed in previous battles of course.

Use a semi-floating map, the one with a fixed center point. Ships the move "x" distance away from the fixed point disengage from the battle. Optional: Ships that disengage take 2d6 additional internal damage.

After each battle, surviving ships get to finish repairs started that final turn, plus three free turns of repair. Any unrepaired damage must be recorded as it carries over to the next time that ship goes into battle.

After twenty-five battles, each player will calulate the remaining point value of his fleet. For ships that still have damage, count the number of internal boxes left and divide by the total number the ship started with to get a percentage, then mulitple that by the point value to get the adjusted value. (Numbers out of thin air: a 120 point ship with 60 boxes, but heavily damaged such that it only has 20 left, 120 * 20/60 = 40 points adjusted value.) The player with the highest adjusted fleet value wins the campaign.
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USS Enterprise
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 1:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That sounds interesting and easy.
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djdood
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Enterprise -

PallidaMors posts his home-grown campaign rules in his "federation commander campaign" thread periodically. A read through on those would give you a good understanding of a "mid-level" complexity campaign. They have quite a bit of detail, but nothing on the order of F&E.

I'm assuming the forthcoming ("real soon") campaign book by Victory by Any Means will be roughly at the same level as PallidaMors' in it's "stock" form, but it is also supposed to be modular and allow everything from tiny skirmish campaigns up to the full shebang.
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USS Enterprise
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 5:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you. I'll read it right now.
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Scoutdad
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 6:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

djdood wrote:

I'm assuming the forthcoming ("real soon") campaign book by Victory by Any Means will be roughly at the same level as PallidaMors' in it's "stock" form, but it is also supposed to be modular and allow everything from tiny skirmish campaigns up to the full shebang.

Yes and no.
It is at the same time, both more complex and less complex - but it is also scaleable.

It's more complex in that you "create" a hex map (size depending on cmapaign players preferences) which can be as small as 10x10 wiht 2 sides or as big as 100x100 hexes and have 20 players. This map is then populated with star systems.
From there, you explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate.
You need to track things such as populaton of the systems you control, special resources available, research performed etc.
But, conveniently enough - Jay has included the forms necessary to track this info from turn to turn.

It's simpler in that nothing that isn't already in Fed Comm (with the exception of a few support ships [Fleet Repair Dock, Tug, etc.] which will be included in a forthcoming expansion) has been added.

It's scaleable in that the system has three "levels... for lack of a better word.
The first level, or Local Campaign can be as small as a single sector. This could be considered a Sector Commander overseeing the resources available to him as he defends his Starbase and it's associated BATS and ships from the incursions of the odd pirate or the enemy located across the border.
the second level, or Regional Campaign is along the lines of a nentire front (or two). At this level, you could play out the Romulan invasion of the Federation during the Day of the Eagle or you could go back in time and play the entire 4 Powers War, or something along the same lines.
The third level, or Grand Campaign level lets you involve the entire Alpha Octant in your campaign. At this level, you could be replaying the F&E Grand Campaign with Federation Commander... Woo Hoo!

And did I mention it's scaleable? At first glance, the rule appears quite daunting. It's thicker than the Federation Commander Reference Rulebook... but remember the three levels of playability.
Some of the rules have slight differences between the various levels, especially the conomic rules. This keeps the cost of the various units inline with the production / economics ofthe area you're concentrating on.
The campaign system is also "modular". This means that entire sections of the campaign rules that do not interest your group can be left out without sacrificing playabiltiy.
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Sgt_G
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, to be honest, that FIRST campaign idea I posted wasn't entirely mine. I knew I saw something like it before, a long time ago. Well, the other night, I was looking something up in SFB and saw the basic idea there. It must be a good plan if I "borrowed" it, right?


[edit: changed word from "last" to "first" after re-reading thread -- GLG]
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PallidaMors
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 1:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

djdood wrote:
Enterprise -

PallidaMors posts his home-grown campaign rules in his "federation commander campaign" thread periodically. A read through on those would give you a good understanding of a "mid-level" complexity campaign. They have quite a bit of detail, but nothing on the order of F&E.

I'm assuming the forthcoming ("real soon") campaign book by Victory by Any Means will be roughly at the same level as PallidaMors' in it's "stock" form, but it is also supposed to be modular and allow everything from tiny skirmish campaigns up to the full shebang.


Thanks for the plug DJDOOD!

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Wolverin61
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 1:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Scoutdad wrote:
The first level, or Local Campaign can be as small as a single sector. This could be considered a Sector Commander overseeing the resources available to him as he defends his Starbase and it's associated BATS and ships from the incursions of the odd pirate or the enemy located across the border.


This sounds like the campaign we've been talking about doing for years. Maybe one of these days....
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