Counterstrike

[robject]

Jeffr0 has come up with some excellent ideas for a set of interlocking, scalable, strategic (mostly) Traveller games, bringing together concepts from Book 2, Mayday, High Guard, Imperium, and Fifth Frontier War, plus some ideas of his own.

I've tentatively named these conceptual elements "Counterstrike", 'cause it sounds exciting.

I imagine standard sector and subsector maps should suffice. In-system actions would need its own representation, perhaps on a hexgrid centered on the primary. That might make hexes quite large (0.25 AU per hex!?); HG has shown us that battles for systems are generally battles for the mainworld, so maybe the focus is better placed on the mainworld on a hexgrid (and that goes for vector-based play, too).

At its core, the concept covers military and economic warfare, stretching from sector-level strategy down to planetary assault. Since much of this has been done already for Traveller, the goal is to fill in the blanks and provide conversions. A loftier goal would be to tweak the designs to allow maximum interoperability. But first things first.

Oz, with help from Sigg, have come up with a good mechanic for converting FFW counters to High Guard Squadrons, and vice versa, thus providing a theoretical path from single Book 2 ships and the Mayday system up to FFW counters.

Mercenary (LBB4) and JTAS 9 (I think) bring in ground/planetary assault elements into the game. How they mesh with FFW or HG remains to be seen.

I wondered if there needed to be an intermediate unit between the Squadron and the single ship, and I tentatively came up with a "Task Force" thing: essentially a squadron of auxiliaries, usually in support of a single capital ship (or two?).

Something Jeffr0 specified, but no work has been done on, is a Tradewar/Economic Warfare conversion. Such rules would probably leverage existing combat rules, with elements that are weaker but are rated for carrying capacity (rather than bombardment, for example). Tradewar would involve capturing markets and crippling competitors. There could probably be rules for running 'automated corporations' as adversaries, too.

My gathered thoughts to date (this is conceptual draft stuff only) is here:

http://home.comcast.net/~downport/rules/counterstrike.html

 

[Jeffr0]

My initial thoughts after reviewing the web page:


Mini-game Definition Brain Storm:

** The games must be fast playing and easy to learn. Each game could provide a option for introducing some aspect of Traveller to a new and more casual audience.

** Much like Voltron, the seperate games could combine to form a gigantic game that could satisfy the most grognardy of grognards.

** Optional layered expansions could flesh out each individual game to a slightly more 'mature' design. (See how the relatively simple game of Ogre was fleshed out into almost a 'real' wargame with the classic G.E.V. supplement.)

** Each group of players could assemble the 'perfect' game my mixing and matching which games would be played out and by choosing which layers of rules would be applied for each mini-game. (Example: Players might choose to combine simple strategic games with advanced tactical games while ignoring the trade/economic mini-games.)

** Ideally many of the mini-games should be designed so that they are easy to play by email or some other online approach. (I don't expect these games to take the CCG and CLIX crowds by storm, so we need to be able to get players somewhere!)

** Some of the mini-games (or mini-game subsystems) might be similar to the Classic Traveller character design system, allowing for a kind of solitaire play.

** Some of the mini-games might use a system of secret and simultaneous orders with perhaps some types of conditional orders being allowed in some cases. The sequence of play will have to be as lean as possible in order speed up game play and make things managable by email.

** Ideally it should be possible to codify your basic strategy into a set of orders so that players can play even if they have to drop in and drop out of the game occasionally.

** Taking these ideas to their logical conclusion, it should be possible for all of the 'players' of the game to be 'programmed' so that a sort of gigantic cellular automata of the Traveller Universe could be built. Like Conway's classic game of Life, this could be an amusing Zero person game in itself.

** If any of the more obscure ideas I'm mentioning here turn out to be too difficult to implement, they should be ignored. Playable face to face game designs should remain the top priority in any case.


Economic Game Brain Storm:

** The Strategic game could have counters defining an office or team set up on a specific planet. Each type of office will have a set of strengths and weaknesses. Different players might have different sorts of offices on the same planet. Ships move on a route from planet to planet. The amount of money made each turn depends on competition between offices on each planet interacting with the frequency of the passage of the ships. Each turn the offices engage in varios "contests of skill" stacking up various resource and product blocks. The big ships move from system to system shuffling the blocks around for the big pay off.

** The abstract resolution of the Strategic game could be expanded into a stand alone M.U.L.E.-like game taking place in a single star system. If there would be a way to make the game playable on a map similar to the classic Traveller world maps, that would be really cool.

** If the above two economic could be automated, you'd have an interesting system for generating background for a Far Trader type single ship game.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:

Economic Game Brain Storm:

** The Strategic game could have counters defining an office or team set up on a specific planet. Each type of office will have a set of strengths and weaknesses. Different players might have different sorts of offices on the same planet. Ships move on a route from planet to planet. The amount of money made each turn depends on competition between offices on each planet interacting with the frequency of the passage of the ships. Each turn the offices engage in various "contests of skill" stacking up various resource and product blocks. The big ships move from system to system shuffling the blocks around for the big pay off.

** The abstract resolution of the Strategic game could be expanded into a stand alone M.U.L.E.-like game taking place in a single star system. If there would be a way to make the game playable on a map similar to the classic Traveller world maps, that would be really cool.

** If the above two economic could be automated, you'd have an interesting system for generating background for a Far Trader type single ship game.

You're a good Idea Machine, Jeffr0. These ideas are simple yet powerful, and can have complex interactions with a minimum of rules. I see you have learned a few things from MULE.

I love the idea of having an office established on worlds. This is a great way to represent market saturation, since competing offices can be on the same planet.

Perhaps the sum of all office strengths for a world cannot exceed the planet's population?

What kinds of offices are you thinking of?

 

[robject]

Just had a note from BeRKA suggesting that Piracy will also fall under the Tradewar banner... perhaps under the tactical facet of the game?

 

[Jeffr0]

>> What kinds of offices are you thinking of?

"Offices" could range from the usual Factories, Farms, and Mines to Brokers, Elite Management and Corporate Espionage teams.

Ideas on running the planetary level M.U.L.E. game:

If you've ever played the dice game Farkel, you'll have an idea of how this might work. You roll 6 dice and get points for 1's and 5's. X-of-a-kind and Straights get huge scores. Each turn you may reroll as many dice as you want, but you must 'freeze' at least one or more point scoring dice for each roll you make. If you ever fail to roll any scoring combinations, you loose all of your points. If ALL the dice are showing points, you gather them all up and start again.

The strength of your factory could determine the number of dice to roll. The type of economic unit would determine the scoring combinations. Management and Espionage intevention would determine the number and type of rerolls. Planetary and Terrain affects might determine the type or color of the dice.

Each production round would contain several mini-mini games that are kinda exciting in and of themselves. 'Hitting the jackpot' might be frustrating if you can't transport your 'winnings' to market or if they go bad before the next starship comes.

Edit: Here's the Farkel rules-- http://www.surfsdsa.com/farkel.htm

 

[robject]

Jeffr0, while we're brainstorming, let me work off of your ideas above.

Setting the MULE concept aside for a moment, can an economic game be so organized that 'score' is implicit in the positions and potentials of the counters on the map/gameboard?

And how can one represent transport lines without becoming overwhelmed with maintenance tasks or cluttering up the map with tokens? Can they be assumed to exist between two nearby planetary systems with the required offices?

I'm asking both of those questions because I'm trying to figure out how to minimize or remove bookkeeping from the game.

I'm seeing two levels of game detail here: interplanetary and planetary/insystem. The "Land War" maps -- probably standard Traveller planet maps, eh? -- ought to be usable for the planetary/insystem level of detail.

 

[Jeffr0]

>> Can they be assumed to exist between two nearby planetary systems with the required offices?

Playability Playability Playability

The 'Terrain' ought to be determined primarily by a few numbers on the system hexes. Far Trader states that there aren't any Major/Minor/Feeder routes the way the Villani used to do it. I have a hunch it will be more workable to leave connections off the map for the most part and just let the players push their ships where ever they want.

We may have the Trade goods dissipate to represent independent traders leeching away the Big Dawgs trade goods.... The 'leeching' might just be applied to the planets with the biggest stockpiles. (Or maybe the leeching will be too much accounting to bother with?)

Remember that the WTN system of Far Trader was made to eliminate the imbalances of the single player CT system. With multiple players competing on the game, we shouldn't have that same sort of problem. The players might compete so much for the sweet spots that the returns for them won't be that much.


I can 'see' the "MULE" game in my mind's eye fairly well. I think I can work up a prototype of that that even my wife and my office mates would play against me.

 

[Jeffr0]

OTOH, we might could have certain standard/major routes on the board and the offices on them earn a base set of points each turn?

We could try making a game without routes... then see what balance problems exist... then maybe use the routes (or something else) to solve the problem.

(Sort the opposite of "Premature Optimization...")

 

[robject]

You sound like you're a local (i.e. from Texas) ... the way you toss about that "might could" construction...

Re: routes. A game without demarcated major routes might be interesting. It might be interesting to see what patterns emerge, too.

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

Totally go sans predetermined routes. You should have a system where someone could roll up a subsector or whatever and not have to use a canned map. Alternately, have some way to generate or derive the routes.

Just my opinion, of course!

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Jeffr0:

I can 'see' the "MULE" game in my mind's eye fairly well. I think I can work up a prototype of that that even my wife and my office mates would play against me.

OK, work on those planetary rules!

I'm trying to get a picture of the interstellar rules. I think the difference between Tradewar and Real War is that, with RW, the worlds are owned by only one 'government', and production is based on the UWP, so to them, the "office" is implicit and uncontested insystem.

In Tradewar, it seems that many players can have an office (a conglomerate unit made up of the planetary MULEish units) on the same world.

If we push trade squadrons around the board, then there ought be only one squadron per trade route per player, to represent all trade between two systems. Also, the 'game economy' ought to be such that the player will only run trade routes between the best trade routes available.

Thus, a fledgling line will fool around with, say, up to four far traders operating on relatively boring routes, while an established line will manage, say, up to four trade squadrons operating in those coveted high-yield routes.

In other words, the operating cost dictates what the player will deploy. Bigger company = higher costs for all units. This may also make it easier for new players to 'jump in' to an established game, with fledgling lines of their own (just the kind of thing that Oberlindes did against other locals and megacorps).

This may also imply that there may be only four or five offices per player.

Something like that would manage complexity very nicely.

As for combat, I see (1) hired corsairs, (2) Q-ships, and (3) a security squadron, maybe.

 

[Jeffr0]

>> Totally go sans predetermined routes.

The way I see it, the "routes" are there so the Beowulf captains will know to stay out of my way. If I'm CEO of Oberlinde, then I get to decide where the routes are! So there!

But seriously if the routes are just going to overly restrict the tactical options, I say omit them. It might just feel like your trolling along on somebody else's notion of what the future economy would look like.

...

I have a preliminary sketch of the planetary rules. I call it "Mularkle."

It's a straight ahead point scoring game right now. It doesn't have the wild fluctuating supply and demand influenced values that made MULE so exciting, though.

(Of all the Traveller stuff I've seen, it's most closely akin to the solitaire Space Prospector game I think I saw somewhere.)

I think I've got a decent system for handling planetary terrain and allowing the player to 'manage' production.... I don't have a system worked out where the ships come and buy up the products. I couldn't come up with a way to simplify that. If something creative can be done to handle that, the game might get a savoury new dimension to it....

As simple as I've tried to make it, it still seems a little too complex to spring on a 'civilian.'

 

[BeRKA]

Just an idea how to make the TW points system very simple...

Assign a value to each planet based on population (real population, not logarithmic), tech-level and trade class. All ship counters currently in the system will divide these points between them, with the largest ships getting the points first. (This rule is needed to force small lines from the main routes.) The maximum number of points a ship counter will get is equal to its cargo value.

If there is an office on the planet, the points are doubled. If there is a warehouse it is tripled, and if there is a factory, it is quintupled.

The points can then be used to buy new ships (or old ships), buy offices, warehouses, insurance, protection etc...

If a ship has been attacked, but not destroyd, then it will get no points. If the attacker stole the cargo, then the attacker can get points in another port. Pirats will appear randomly close to pirates havens, and on lesser trade routes...

 

[robject]

OK, let me take that and twizzle it around a little. Just glancing at a subsector map, we've got a nice abstract bag of data. Can it be made relatively easy to estimate value?

Economic value of a system:

1 point if the pop > 8 (name is ALL CAPS)
1 point if the starport is A or B
1 point if there's a naval base
1 point if the Xboat route enters this world
1 point if the Xboat route leaves this world
1 point if there are no competing ships and no buildings (including yours!)

We could even add one point if there's water present, or if the mainworld is an asteroid, if we had to.

Now, what's the economic value in trade?

As BeRKA said, there are X points divided up between transport units, with remainders going to the largest ships. The amount shipped cannot exceed the carrying capacity of the transport used.

Note that the most useless systems are worth 1 point, if there's noone else there. This makes startups barely feasible -- we assume small initial successes.

Consider that Offices, Warehouses, and Factories might be scoring units rather than game-production units. In other words, their cost of operations balances out their turn-based value; i.e. they're capital. So at one level, the game requires the player to establish beachheads on target worlds, and expand to the point of crowding out the competition. The value of said buildings could be 1, 2, and 3 points, plus the economic value of the world they're based on.

On the other hand, what if ground-units actually cost 1 point per turn each? It would hurt to establish a new office, but it hurts less for big companies that can build offices in big markets, and even less for a big company that owns a world's market.

Which brings me to prices. How about the price of an Office be set equal to the economic value of the target system? So the cost of establishing an office on Regina is initially 5, but the next guy to establish an office there only spends 4, and the cost of a establishing an initial office on Treece is only 1. But then there's the upkeep costs to worry about...

The nice thing about having a (simple) upkeep cost is that it's a natural force to keep the number of units on the board down.

And yet... I've forgotten the transports themselves. Surely they need upkeep!

Could that be made random? A roll of 1 on d6 each turn requires one point per ship for upkeep? This could emulate a dip in the business cycle, where downgrades could occur as a result to a shift in the market customers. Marginal operations may be forced out naturally this way.

Is this too complex?

 

[robject]

OK, I could add 1 point if TL = A+.

Also, I see I have to have some incentive to establishing offices. How about limiting the number of trader units to 1 + the number of offices established?

Finally, I'm thinking there could be 1 point per leg of the Xboat route connecting to a world. This makes worlds like Jae Tellona more valuable.


A start-up could be as simple as a tramp trader. For example, a Free Trader with range 1, capacity 2 (on the order of 100 tons cargo), working two worlds: Macene, with a value of 3 (Starport B, Tech E, Naval base) and Fulacin, with a value of 2 (Starport A, Tech A). This guy would make 2 points per turn, with no recurring costs (except for that pesky random ship overhaul). Here's the picture:

http://home.comcast.net/~downport/rules/counterstrike/tradewar1.jpg

Now, supposing in three turns he earns 5 points -- enough to upgrade his Free Trader to a division of subsidized merchants. With a carrying capacity of 3, he can move his ship to a more lucrative route:

http://home.comcast.net/~downport/rules/counterstrike/tradewar2.jpg

In three more turns, he earns perhaps 8 points, and upgrades again.

http://home.comcast.net/~downport/rules/counterstrike/tradewar3.jpg

After a turn or two of this, the player can then establish an office, allowing him to buy another trader group.

You know, an office serves another purpose. It allows a player to create a trader group at that world. So this player could establish two offices: one at Macene (where he could build a Macene-Risek route and perhaps a Far Trader to open up new markets) and one at Jae Tellona (where he could operate the JT-Rhylanor route).

 

[Jeffr0]

... and here's my roughed out sketch of how Mularkle might work.

Might could.

Might be a little silly, but I'm shooting for something my wife would even play with me. It's sort of a Yahtzee meets Settlers of Catan family game at this point....

http://jeffro.mindsay.com/?date=2005-04-08


Edit: That looks pretty cool, robject. I amazed at how fast an off hand remark I made is turning into a real game.

 

[robject]

Sometimes all you need is a spark...

Actually, the concepts have recently been smouldering around another COTI concept: Sigg and Oz recently figured out how to convert Fifth Frontier War counters to High Guard and back. In other words, your suggestion was a smack-on-the-forehead natural extension of their work.

 

[hcobb]

Actually the larger the ship is the lower its defense value should be because it becomes a much easier target and one meson hit is all it takes to trash any battleship.

 

[robject]

Which specific rule are you referring to? Single ships, I assume?

 

[PBI]

That won't work, though, because it doesn't take into account the effect of small ships being hit by big meson weapons. The two effects tend to cancel each other out.

This idea sounds pretty good, just be careful that it doesn't become a Traveller version of Campaign for North Africa.