MT Only: Board gaming/wargaming the Rebellion

[Frankymole]

Has anyone tried to home-build some rules to run a Rebellion wargame or PBEM, at a strategic level probably higher than something like Fifth Frontier War, with possibly some non-combat options like alliances, diplomacy, research breakthroughs, etc?

I think it would interesting to game different actions and outcomes from the canon timelines, with players as separate factions (maybe a ref for some of them).

 

[McPerth]

Has anyone tried to home-build some rules to run a Rebellion wargame or PBEM, at a strategic level probably higher than something like Fifth Frontier War, with possibly some non-combat options like alliances, diplomacy, research breakthroughs, etc?

I think it would interesting to game different actions and outcomes from the canon timelines, with players as separate factions (maybe a ref for some of them).

I once tried to design a game about it, but more in Diplomacy way than in FFW one.

I even asked for players to play test it in the Recruiting Office (see this thread), but only received one PM answering to it.

Now I'd have to digg for what I had written, should people be interested...

 

[Frankymole]

I certainly would be interested in reading your ideas about it!

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Me too.

I would find it interesting too.

 

[McPerth]

Well, I found them, so here they go. I guess they would need still some (lots of) polishing, but I guess they will give you an idea of what I intended.

You'll see they were more thought for PbM than for true board game, keeping interaction between GM and players at minimum (send orders, wait for answer).

Now you can begin to fire (ducking my head)...

 

[Matt123]

I like the scale of the game, being pitched at the subsector level. I can picture the grand strategy sessions in each pretenders camp as I write

The time scale could be pushed out a bit. 4 weeks might be sufficient for a J4 fleet to cross a sector in peace time, but it would take a wee bit longer to fight across a sub-sector and longer again to subjugate it. You might consider a longer time scale, but allow fleets from several sectors away to become involved. Strategic planning time, speed of communication, time to gather the responding fleet and time needed to get to the area of operations would narrow down the range of subsector fleets that could help.

 

[Timerover51]

I once tried to design a game about it, but more in Diplomacy way than in FFW one.

I even asked for players to play test it in the Recruiting Office (see this thread), but only received one PM answerin to it.

Now I'd have to digg for what I had written, should people be interested...

Having worked a lot with Diplomacy every summer for the past 12 years, that would be a good choice to use as a basis. However, if you are including time in the game, you should figure 3 month game intervals, given the communications lag caused by the limitations of Jump.

 

[mike wightman]

The problem isn't the length of a game turn, the problem is the communication lag being modelled accurately.

Try playing a game of Risk where you have to write down four turns of troop movements and they have to follow those orders regardless of what you see happening from your god like vantage from turn to turn.

After one turn you can write your orders for turn five, then on turn two write your orders for turn six etc.

For a Rebellion set game where you are moving assets across whole sectors then perhaps you should be writing your orders six turns in advance.

 

[McPerth]

Well, I see the main criticism is the time scale, something that frankly I did not expect, So it seems most game aspects seem minimally sound...

I see this point valid, but let me defend my point:

The time scale could be pushed out a bit. 4 weeks might be sufficient for a J4 fleet to cross a sector in peace time, but it would take a wee bit longer to fight across a sub-sector and longer again to subjugate it.

While this is true, neither, to give you an example, FFW features those points. In FFW, a streamlined fleet may jump, fight, refuel, unload troops, support them with bombing all in a single week, and be ready to jump again next one...

However, if you are including time in the game, you should figure 3 month game intervals, given the communications lag caused by the limitations of Jump.

The problem isn't the length of a game turn, the problem is the communication lag being modelled accurately.

I choosed to ignore the communications lag in military opperations assuming most decisions are taken by the staff in spot (fleets' aldmirals and their staffs), while the more strategic (ressource allocation) decisions are taken by HQs, hence they are played in 3 turns intervals.

After all, the Imperium is used to work with local leaders (be them sector/subsector Dukes, fleet aldmirals, etc) to have quite a lot of autonomy in their decisions.

Try playing a game of Risk where you have to write down four turns of troop movements and they have to follow those orders regardless of what you see happening from your god like vantage from turn to turn.

After one turn you can write your orders for turn five, then on turn two write your orders for turn six etc.

For a Rebellion set game where you are moving assets across whole sectors then perhaps you should be writing your orders six turns in advance.

While pre-planned games are a fine way to feature the communications lag, they also have several problems:

• They allow situations like two enemy fleets advancing (in opposite directions) along adjacent subsectors while ignoring each other (something I guess no aldmiral would do)
• People could argue that the advance time to write orders should be dependent on the distance to player Capital, it it tries to simulate the communications lag, adding complexity

The main points I wanted to feature in the game are:

1. Subsector/fleet game scale
2. Main fleets used for large opperations, while subsector/reserve fleets used as static defenses
3. An initial phase of consolidation preceding most large fleet actions (neutral subsectors)
4. Uncertinly of those neutral subsectors attitudes at the begining
5. Slow force eroding combats
6. Slow replacement pace that would erode fleet's power at long run if continuous campaigns are kept
7. Possibility of cooperation/betayal among players
8. The possibility for most factions to win together by maintaining the Imperium functioning, as long as none of them are the main contendents to Imperial Throne

Being untested (and even unfinished), off course, I cannot tell you which of those points (if any) would be well represented in the game (mainly point 6, as I'm not sure if the resource points allocations are too generous to represent it).

Another thing I was considering at the time I abandoned the project was a gradual eroding of economies (ressource points allocations) as the game advances, representing the damage to economies, depots mothball fleets finishing, etc...

 

[mike wightman]

Emm - if the two fleets are in adjacent subsectors how do they know of each others movements?

You only know where the enemy is and what they are doing in real time if you are in the same system, otherwise you are at a minimum of a fortnight delay - one week to receive intel and one week to deploy response, assuming within only one jump. The greater the jump distance the greater the comm lag.

Like I said, god like perspecticve does not model the communication lag, which is the most important feature of Traveller interstellar war.

Your intel and fleet deployment can only be based on best guess about what your enemy will do, by the time you find out they have already moved on.

 

[McPerth]

Emm - if the two fleets are in adjacent subsectors how do they know of each others movements?

You only know where the enemy is and what they are doing in real time if you are in the same system, otherwise you are at a minimum of a fortnight delay - one week to receive intel and one week to deploy response, assuming within only one jump. The greater the jump distance the greater the comm lag.

Like I said, god like perspecticve does not model the communication lag, which is the most important feature of Traveller interstellar war.

Your intel and fleet deployment can only be based on best guess about what your enemy will do, by the time you find out they have already moved on.

Even when a fleet is represented in a subsector, that does not mean all of it is there. You can be sure scouts are sent (and I'm not talking about type-s, but scouting ships), some raiding screens, etc are in adjacent subsectors, etc...

Also, refugees, merchants, etc tell you about what is happening in nearby space. Not at real time, sure, but you can expect to know what is happening in adjacent subsectors in about a month, I guess...

By plotted movement, you asume that you don't know what happens in your vecinity until about 3-4 months after, when you have already left the area and the enemy has too...

Don't forget that most fleets in FFW will have their movement ploted 4-5 weeks in advance at worst, and that represents about a turn in this game.

Another thing I was also pondering (sorry, forgotten in last post, I abandoned the project about 4 years ago) was to allow only to know about fleets adjacent to your fleets or entering your own subsectors, assuming that those are the only areas where your intelligence (inclouding scoutting) are reliable.

 

[elbmc1969]

You need a reaction roll. If an enemy fleet is in an adjacent subsector, you can roll a die to try to act outside of your orders. This could be moving to engage the enemy fleet, running away from the enemy fleet, etc. You should probably prohibit skirting around the enemy fleet to cut it off, simply for sanity reasons.

This could be modified by admiral quality.

The number of turns that a fleet must plot in advance might be based on how far it is from the faction's capital. You'll have to figure out how the round-trip times work out. This provides a self-balancing factor, but that also means that it will tend to draw out games.

 

[mike wightman]

You do not know it is there - you are not omniscient.

 

[McPerth]

You do not know it is there - you are not omniscient.

You're right, you are not, but neither is the whole fleet concentred in the same subsector, as I said, and, just because of this lack of omniscence by the aldmirals, you can expect screening light forces in neighbouring subsectors (as well as intell efforts, after all, a whole fleet is not easy to hide).

Another thing I was also pondering (sorry, forgotten in last post, I abandoned the project about 4 years ago) was to allow only to know about fleets adjacent to your fleets or entering your own subsectors, assuming that those are the only áreas where your intelligence (inclouding scoutting) are reliable.

See that this will limit the omniscence more than any ploted movement, and using both (limited intelligence and ploted movement) would make a game where reaction would be far too slow and allow for quite deeper penetrations than told in Rebellion, as the enemy will take about 3-4 months at least to react when you pass among two of its fleets.

I personally see ploted movement as useful at a lesser strategic scale (as FFW), but I envision it as just added complexity and player frustration in this scale.

I must also admit that plotted movement lost part of my favour when I played AH's Air Force and I saw two planes aproaching straight frontaly for 7 hexes, bypassaing them on what would have been a collision should they finished in the same hex and, as they finished the turn having overpassed each other, they could not fire each other...

 

[Frankymole]

Well, I found them, so here they go. I guess they would need still some (lots of) polishing, but I guess they will give you an idea of what I intended.

You'll see they were more thought for PbM than for true board game, keeping interaction between GM and players at minimum (send orders, wait for answer).

Now you can begin to fire (ducking my head)...

Brilliant, thank you McPerth! I've just got back to this thread, so will give them a peruse now I've taken a break from wrangling near star lists...

The problem isn't the length of a game turn, the problem is the communication lag being modelled accurately.

Try playing a game of Risk where you have to write down four turns of troop movements and they have to follow those orders regardless of what you see happening from your god like vantage from turn to turn.

After one turn you can write your orders for turn five, then on turn two write your orders for turn six etc.

For a Rebellion set game where you are moving assets across whole sectors then perhaps you should be writing your orders six turns in advance.

Yes, the order lag / advanced order-writing was a big part of the appeal of FFW for me.

 

[Frankymole]

While pre-planned games are a fine way to feature the communications lag, they also have several problems:

• They allow situations like two enemy fleets advancing (in opposite directions) along adjacent subsectors while ignoring each other (something I guess no aldmiral would do)
• People could argue that the advance time to write orders should be dependent on the distance to player Capital, it it tries to simulate the communications lag, adding complexity

One way to model this is to have contingent orders (we used to do this for En Garde as a postal game) thus allowing local fleet commanders some initiative to attack targets of opportunity. Extending that slightly to a license to have a local authority coordinate turns for a time (remove or reduce time lag) could still accommodate higher-level strategic (but more laggy) directives from the factions' supreme commanders / cores.

 

[McPerth]

Brilliant, thank you McPerth! I've just got back to this thread, so will give them a peruse now I've taken a break from wrangling near star lists...

Glad you think this, though, being untested, I'm sure many flaws would appear if really played...

I'm looking forward your comments.

Yes, the order lag / advanced order-writing was a big part of the appeal of FFW for me.

One way to model this is to have contingent orders (we used to do this for En Garde as a postal game) thus allowing local fleet commanders some initiative to attack targets of opportunity. Extending that slightly to a license to have a local authority coordinate turns for a time (remove or reduce time lag) could still accommodate higher-level strategic (but more laggy) directives from the factions' supreme commanders / cores.

Also I like FFW, but trying to play the whole Rebellion at its scale would be a daunting entreprise to say the least...

This would be a Grand Strategy game. Fleets here are not what they are in FFW, but what in Rebellion Sourcebook are called Named Fleets. Each player would have at most 3-4 fleets to maneuver, the rest of the Naval power being represented with the sector fleets. The whole FFW would be just 2-3 fleets per side (plus one each Sword worlds and Vargr) per side.

That's why I asume they are not really all in the subsector they are in the game, This is where the main concentration is, but they have elements to neighbouring subsectors, akin of what most games call ZOC.

See that in FFW response time depends on the aldmiral, and some of them (e.g. Norris) may react without delay to what is happening several sectors away.

Precisely, being a Grand Strategy game, I didn't want to feature individual aldmirals. Fleets are nominally commanded by an Aldmiral, but are directed by compentent staffs, most of them (in fact all but the Solomani) with the same doctrinal training.

Ploted movement in FFW is a way to represent the communications lag and lack of omniscence by the aldmirals (though some of them seem to be, as told above), but an Imperial aldmiral can still react in 4-5 weeks time (I repeat, about a turn in this game) to the Zhodani reseves shift behind their lines :CoW:.

Contingent orders are fine, but they add complexity (and GM work and assumptions). What is intended here is orders to be so simple as

• Vengeance Fleet: attacks Zagushagar E.
• Corridor Fleet: Mop up.

Here, this lack of omniscence is not just represented, but enforced when neither the players are omniscent, as they do not know where enemie's fleets are, unless they are attacking own territory or adjacent to a fleet of theirs (representing the small skirmishes both fleets sustain in the bordering zone). They will not even know what subsectors are controlled by who, (except their own, of course) unless bordering with their own.

NOTE: As stated in former posts, the rules about limited intelligence are not in the rules I posted. As said, there are from several years ago, and still to be polished, and those rules (and probably some more) were only in my head, and some of them I remember as we discuss.

 

[simonh]

I have a question as I've never played Imperium. In that game, with 1 week turns and individual units and their jump movements modeled, how long does it take typically to conquer a subsector? That will give you an idea of how long realisticaly it might take for a unit at the strategic level to move through a hostile subsector.

I think I've got a way to minimally model communications and intel lag at a strategic level though. For the time being let's assume a 3 month turn. Normally if a unit is moving tactically and maintaining unit cohesion and command, and moving through potentially hostile territory it gets to move 1 subsector per turn. That includes sending scouts into neighbouring subsectors and maintaining tight communications with HQ and neighbouring friendly units.

However in theory it might be possible to move faster than that by sacrificing scouting and not maintaining tight communications lines. So to model this you do allow units to move 2 subsectors in one turn, BUT the unit's movement order is written down secretly 1 turn in advance, perhaps immediately at the end of the player's previous turn. It cannot be changed to take into account anything that happens during the enemy player's intervening turn. This simulates the unit's lack of awareness of changes in the strategic situation while it's performing it's fast dash.

There would need to be rules about whether you can only do a dash if the first subsector you move through is friendly, or only lightly defended. Maybe you can only do it if the forces in the intervening subsector are below a certain threshold and you defeat them by a sound margin in an 'extra' combat phase, otherwise the dash ends prematurely.

You wouldn't have to write down orders like this if you don't intend to make any dashes, but many players might choose to pretend to do so even if they have no plans for any of their units to do this, in order to keep the other players guessing.

Simon Hibbs

 

[aramis]

I have a question as I've never played Imperium. In that game, with 1 week turns and individual units and their jump movements modeled, how long does it take typically to conquer a subsector? That will give you an idea of how long realisticaly it might take for a unit at the strategic level to move through a hostile subsector.

Imperium's turns are 2 years long...

 

[elbmc1969]

I believe Simon's thinking of FFW.

FFW rate of conquest is mostly going to depend on besieging higher-tech worlds with lots and lots of defenses. That can take a while ...