I may be a relatively new player to the Star Fleet Universe (hell, the game is older than I am) but I'm a long term fan of the "source material" and am growing more and more interested in this divergent universe.
I spotted Federation and Empire and it immediatley caught my attention. But I've heard that it's really best when taught to you, and as I have no teacher, I am disinclined to pick it up.
But, that brings me to my point. I heard rumors of a product called Klingon Invasion, that is sort of the Federation Commander treatment of Starfleet Battles and it piqued my interest.
Does anyone know anything about it? The concept alone sounds pretty spiffy!
Klingon Invasion?
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John Carter
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Darkbridger
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Re: Klingon Invasion?
Do you mean the "Federation Commander treatment of Federation and Empire"? The Federation Commander treatment of Starfleet Battles is... well, Federation Commander. If an F&E type product is in the works for Federation Commander, I'd have to think it's a ways off. They have a lot of races to still get into the game. I'm not sure how well F&E would translate though... the original has a time line and ship availability/upgrades. I'd hate to see that level of detail in a new product. I never played a lot of F&E, but the concept would be interesting for Federation Commander. A simpler Old vs New ships could replace the timeline I suppose. I'm still skeptical of how broad the appeal for such a game would be. I have no idea how well Twilight Imperium does, for example... that's the closest thing I can think of to a Federation Commander version of F&E.John Carter wrote:I heard rumors of a product called Klingon Invasion, that is sort of the Federation Commander treatment of Starfleet Battles and it piqued my interest.
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John Carter
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Well, games like Axis and Allies and seem to do well enough - which is not as in-depth as the proposed system could be - plus there are historical games out there which do something similar (forgotten all of the names, though)
But hey, there is a preview page already up for General War (Klingon Invasion would be the first core book, with Romulan Invasion as the second - to match FC) at this link.
Gary
But hey, there is a preview page already up for General War (Klingon Invasion would be the first core book, with Romulan Invasion as the second - to match FC) at this link.
Gary
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John Carter
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Darkbridger
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Steve Cole
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I would have to say that the Wikipedia article about "general war" or "klingon invasion" is somebody's fairly good guess about where the thought-process on this product was at some point in time. It's not an official company statement of intentions or plans. There has been ZERO work done on such a product beyond pencilling in the idea that sometime in 2008 or 2009 we out to "do the FedCom thing to F&E, maybe something like axis and allies, maybe not". I have never played Axis & allies, so I don't know if that's a good target.
The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander
The Talk page for the GW game article includes a response I had recieved from SVC (and used with permission) relating to the ideas floating around at the time.
Of course, if/when the game gets going, I'll update/revise the Wiki page as necessary.
Gary
Of course, if/when the game gets going, I'll update/revise the Wiki page as necessary.
Gary
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Steve Cole
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I had to click on the 'reply to topic' button a total of TWENTY-FOUR TIMES to get it to give me a "message blank". It took me a variety of places, including the "other products menu" and the "main menu" and the "front page" and the "log in page" and the "about php page" and the "profile page".
Anyway, now that I'm here, the "ideas floating around at the time" changes at least once a week and other than the idea that Klingon Invasion would be the "fed com equivalent of F&E" there is no good, valid, non-vapor data on it. I don't even recall it being called "general war" but maybe that idea was floating around "at one time".
Anyway, now that I'm here, the "ideas floating around at the time" changes at least once a week and other than the idea that Klingon Invasion would be the "fed com equivalent of F&E" there is no good, valid, non-vapor data on it. I don't even recall it being called "general war" but maybe that idea was floating around "at one time".
The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander
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Darkbridger
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Hmmm... I've never had that sort of problem. The only problem I've encountered is having to log in twice, which I emailed Vanessa about. Apparently that's being looked at. If PhP is giving you (or anyone else) this much grief, then the site admins need to check the logs to see what's going on and how to fix it.Steve Cole wrote:I had to click on the 'reply to topic' button a total of TWENTY-FOUR TIMES to get it to give me a "message blank". It took me a variety of places, including the "other products menu" and the "main menu" and the "front page" and the "log in page" and the "about php page" and the "profile page".
I've played with PhP myself, so my best guess is that's it something tied to the nature of your Administrator account. Unless there are other users experiencing this type of link re-direction?
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Vanessa
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Steve Cole
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I'm not getting the reply problem on this trip to the forum. (I try to only come here once a day but I'm doing some experiments to identify problems.) One theory (which I'm checking) is that the problem develops as I use the forum more and more on any one trip. Film at 11.
The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander
Back to General War, which is as good a working title as any....
A stream-lined F&E would be nice (given the difficulty I'm having getting any of my peeps to play F&E
) if it didn't "abstract" the game too much. Much of the interesting aspects of F&E to me is the strategic combat and the production work. If there was an easier way to do the later (w/o all the bookkeeping) I think it would go a long way towards the FedCom target. As for the former, the only thing I can think of is more monolithic fleets (no morphing carrier groups).
Other ideas?
A stream-lined F&E would be nice (given the difficulty I'm having getting any of my peeps to play F&E
) if it didn't "abstract" the game too much. Much of the interesting aspects of F&E to me is the strategic combat and the production work. If there was an easier way to do the later (w/o all the bookkeeping) I think it would go a long way towards the FedCom target. As for the former, the only thing I can think of is more monolithic fleets (no morphing carrier groups).Other ideas?
Well, I've been thinking that when the time comes to develop the new system, the focus should be on tying it into the view of the universe that we see in Fed Commander, when it comes to ship types and what have you.
Please note these are just my own thoughts on the matter, that's it!
First suggestion - keep the same ship types seen in FC (either those we know are or will make the leap, or whatever new ships cross over between noww and the time the new system arrives). Dreadnoughts, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, SBs, etc.
The new engine could be treated as a 'scenario generator' for FC - if the players wished it, they could fight a campaign with both strategic and tactical aspects (a la Medieval 2: Total War).
If fighters are kept out of FC for the foreseeable future, then they should be kept out of this too. If we have carrier groups in this game and not in FC, it'll either force the issue in FC where it might not be ideal, or throw off players who want to be able to use FC to tackle that starbase assault or fleet bust-up (Or pirate raid, for that matter).
Funnily enough, despite the working title I cooked up for the new game, the game could be made to cover the Middle Years wars quite easily - as for much of that period the Hydrans were alone in using warp-powered fighters, and there weren't a lot of historical variants anyway...
Second suggestion - factor in random monster encounters (or, if not including an Orion player, random commerce raids). Those Juggernaut and Space Dragon cards need not be left lying around, and there are a lot of Cartels out there loooking to get a five-finger discount on hard-earned empires' credits!
Third suggestion - use the same kind of double-sided map panels seen in FC to rep the Octant.
NOTE: To those who don't know, this is a map of the Alpha Octant from Fed and Empire -
The 'normal' size map would have enough panels to equate to each of the two Fed and Empire maps (with a little modificaiton to make the two theatres fit together smoothly - which the F&E maps do not do!) and would look pretty much like your average Fed and Empire map.
For the Klingon Invasion core box, the map panels would be laid out in portrait mode (P), like so:
P P P
P P P
Panel 1 would include the Lyrans, the WYN Cluster, and pieces of Klingon and Kzinti space, Panel 6 would include parts of Fed space, the Tholian Holdfast and the Orion Enclave, and so on.
Since there are more hexes on the panels than on the maps proper, that leaves space over for the kind of ancillary information we see on current F&E maps.
The 'megahex' map could be either a more abstracted map of the Octant... or perhaps a 'close-up' of the central fronts of each theatre.
Think of the map of the Klingon and Romulan borders in the FC rulebooks - they are rotated 90* from what we might be used to seeing in 'traditional' maps of the Octant.
The map panels would be laid out in landscape (L), to represent a closeup of the 'central front' - in this case, the Fed-Klingon border:
L L L
L L L
Note that this leaves each of the races in KB on the map in KI - the corresponding 1" map in RA would again match the races in RB.
Also note that the above image is a rough crop to give a general idea of what I mean - sorry if it's not as clear as it should be!
So, the large hex sides give you the 'Klingon Invasion' and 'Romulan Invasion' to match the core titles!
And here's a thought - additional map panels including ISC, Lyran and Hydran space in 1" scale could be included in packs which feature these races (I'm imagining a Lyran-Hydran and ISC-Andro pairing), and that the smaller hex facings of the panels would assemble to form a map of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, for Operation Unity, or for adding in the Baduvai et al!
I quite like that idea, actually...
(And of course, this would allow for Megahex counters on one side, and regular-sixed counters on the other.)
Fourth suggestion - Give each empire FC-style laminated cards for marking up fleet compositions, battle groups - and, most importantly, for tallying up (and spending) economic points!
Also, include an FC-style 'cheat sheet' with combat resolution tables and other such items.
Fifth suggestion - Treat late war ship types and races (X-ships, BBs, Seltorians, Neo-Tholians etc) and non-front line ships (National Guard, Police and more Orion ships) as material for expansions, as seen in FC.
For example, as TA will give us Neo-Tholians and Selts for FC, so a future expansion for GW could include the same ship types, along with specific 'cards' for the 312th and the Hive Ship rules (might need to port the Hive into FC, too...)
Or another expansion could plug the gaps left in peacetime (or make things more interesting in war) by extrapolating the need to keep the local Orion Cartels from running the show!
Sixth suggestion - encourage a healthy bout of diplomacy between the facitons involved, in war and peace.
Since it's quite likely players may want to play free campaigns with his system (I may be wrong with this, but gamers used to the likes of Total War might) it should be assumed that options exist for players to haggle and negotiate without simply declaring war.
Since turns would hopefully take less time in such a system, more time could be left to let players practice 'jaw-jaw', as well as 'war-war'!
I have to say, this kind of game is what I have been waiting to play for about as long as I've known about the SFU - I love games like the Total War series, Imperial Glory (a Napoleonic-era TW ripoff - the campaign system is great in it, plus it's available on Mac OS X. If you have an Intel mac, you can still run the TW games if you use Boot Camp to install Windows on a disk partition, though.) and what have you - and the option to tie it into FC makes the idea even better.
I know it'll be a long time to wait to see the game, but all the same I look forward to it - the SFU game I really want to play!
Gary
Please note these are just my own thoughts on the matter, that's it!
First suggestion - keep the same ship types seen in FC (either those we know are or will make the leap, or whatever new ships cross over between noww and the time the new system arrives). Dreadnoughts, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, SBs, etc.
The new engine could be treated as a 'scenario generator' for FC - if the players wished it, they could fight a campaign with both strategic and tactical aspects (a la Medieval 2: Total War).
If fighters are kept out of FC for the foreseeable future, then they should be kept out of this too. If we have carrier groups in this game and not in FC, it'll either force the issue in FC where it might not be ideal, or throw off players who want to be able to use FC to tackle that starbase assault or fleet bust-up (Or pirate raid, for that matter).
Funnily enough, despite the working title I cooked up for the new game, the game could be made to cover the Middle Years wars quite easily - as for much of that period the Hydrans were alone in using warp-powered fighters, and there weren't a lot of historical variants anyway...
Second suggestion - factor in random monster encounters (or, if not including an Orion player, random commerce raids). Those Juggernaut and Space Dragon cards need not be left lying around, and there are a lot of Cartels out there loooking to get a five-finger discount on hard-earned empires' credits!
Third suggestion - use the same kind of double-sided map panels seen in FC to rep the Octant.
NOTE: To those who don't know, this is a map of the Alpha Octant from Fed and Empire -
The 'normal' size map would have enough panels to equate to each of the two Fed and Empire maps (with a little modificaiton to make the two theatres fit together smoothly - which the F&E maps do not do!) and would look pretty much like your average Fed and Empire map.
For the Klingon Invasion core box, the map panels would be laid out in portrait mode (P), like so:
P P P
P P P
Panel 1 would include the Lyrans, the WYN Cluster, and pieces of Klingon and Kzinti space, Panel 6 would include parts of Fed space, the Tholian Holdfast and the Orion Enclave, and so on.
Since there are more hexes on the panels than on the maps proper, that leaves space over for the kind of ancillary information we see on current F&E maps.
The 'megahex' map could be either a more abstracted map of the Octant... or perhaps a 'close-up' of the central fronts of each theatre.
Think of the map of the Klingon and Romulan borders in the FC rulebooks - they are rotated 90* from what we might be used to seeing in 'traditional' maps of the Octant.
The map panels would be laid out in landscape (L), to represent a closeup of the 'central front' - in this case, the Fed-Klingon border:
L L L
L L L
Note that this leaves each of the races in KB on the map in KI - the corresponding 1" map in RA would again match the races in RB.
Also note that the above image is a rough crop to give a general idea of what I mean - sorry if it's not as clear as it should be!
So, the large hex sides give you the 'Klingon Invasion' and 'Romulan Invasion' to match the core titles!
And here's a thought - additional map panels including ISC, Lyran and Hydran space in 1" scale could be included in packs which feature these races (I'm imagining a Lyran-Hydran and ISC-Andro pairing), and that the smaller hex facings of the panels would assemble to form a map of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, for Operation Unity, or for adding in the Baduvai et al!
I quite like that idea, actually...
(And of course, this would allow for Megahex counters on one side, and regular-sixed counters on the other.)
Fourth suggestion - Give each empire FC-style laminated cards for marking up fleet compositions, battle groups - and, most importantly, for tallying up (and spending) economic points!
Also, include an FC-style 'cheat sheet' with combat resolution tables and other such items.
Fifth suggestion - Treat late war ship types and races (X-ships, BBs, Seltorians, Neo-Tholians etc) and non-front line ships (National Guard, Police and more Orion ships) as material for expansions, as seen in FC.
For example, as TA will give us Neo-Tholians and Selts for FC, so a future expansion for GW could include the same ship types, along with specific 'cards' for the 312th and the Hive Ship rules (might need to port the Hive into FC, too...)
Or another expansion could plug the gaps left in peacetime (or make things more interesting in war) by extrapolating the need to keep the local Orion Cartels from running the show!
Sixth suggestion - encourage a healthy bout of diplomacy between the facitons involved, in war and peace.
Since it's quite likely players may want to play free campaigns with his system (I may be wrong with this, but gamers used to the likes of Total War might) it should be assumed that options exist for players to haggle and negotiate without simply declaring war.
Since turns would hopefully take less time in such a system, more time could be left to let players practice 'jaw-jaw', as well as 'war-war'!
I have to say, this kind of game is what I have been waiting to play for about as long as I've known about the SFU - I love games like the Total War series, Imperial Glory (a Napoleonic-era TW ripoff - the campaign system is great in it, plus it's available on Mac OS X. If you have an Intel mac, you can still run the TW games if you use Boot Camp to install Windows on a disk partition, though.) and what have you - and the option to tie it into FC makes the idea even better.
I know it'll be a long time to wait to see the game, but all the same I look forward to it - the SFU game I really want to play!
Gary