Honorary Traveller Mini-Wargame

[Jeffr0]

I recently picked up Fiery Dragon's new science fiction "Counter Strike" game.

The Final Frontier uses ship combat that's similar to the old Imperium game, but the focus is on the colonisation of the solar system.

One of the coolest thing about the game is that the planets shift in their orbits each turn. (Earth moves one hex each two month turn.)

My review is here:

http://jeffro.mindsay.com/?date=2005-11-28

 

[jappel]

Looks interesting. Who's the publisher?

-John

 

[Jeffr0]

Here's a link to Firey Dragon's page:

http://www.fierydragon.com/counterstrike/index.htm

and Here's a link to the game:

http://www.fierydragon.com/counterstrike/frontier.htm

 

[jappel]

D'oh! My eyes just glazed over where you had written "Fiery Dragon" in your original post. I blame the Zhos.

Thanks for the links!

- John

 

[Ptah]

Jeffr0,
Thanks for the review. Now I know what I want for Christmas. Did you ever play SPI's BattleFleet Mars? If so, how does it compare? If not, you may be interested in this 80's gem. No colinization aspect, but a resource aspect, big political dimension, planets move in orbits (which effects strategy), etc.

 

[The Oz]

Battlefleet Mars is one of my all-time favorite games! I especially like how the way to win is to get the other side's population to throw in the towel.

 

[Ptah]

The Oz

Battlefleet Mars is one of my all-time favorite games! I especially like how the way to win is to get the other side's population to throw in the towel.

So true. Every game I ever played ended in political victory which had little correlation to total ship strength. Staging the initial rebellion was also incredibly fun, as well as strategizing fleet movements off of the planet positions and fleet diversion rules. I could go on, and on

.

 

[Jeffr0]

I haven't played battlefleet Mars...

But I think this game can be notated-- sot so easy as chess much much easier than typical wargames.

If I can squeeze it in, I'd like to finish a solitaire game of Final Frontier I'm playing and notate it. That way you can see how a complete game plays out.

So far, the person that owns Mars tends to win... so I'm looking at what happens if there's a fight over it early on.

Player A might occupy Mars with a Planetary Defense. Player B might call A's bluff and send a mine/colony over anyway. If A attacks... everyone can use space combat with no penalties and B's interest will increase by two instead of one. (If A doesn't attack, then B can colonize Mars.... Or maybe A won't attack until B tries to send military forces to Mars?)

To colonize the outer planets... B will have to escort his mines and colonies with frigates and destroyers... or else A can take them out for free with space units if A has already tried to shoot B out of Mars's sky. A is behind in NI... but can make it up by building up his Mars colony.... If A doesn't expand to other locations, then an uprising or rebellion on Mars could really hurt him because all his eggs are in one basket.

B has to expand his economic base... but if he tries, he may not be able to catch up with A. But if A paid for a multi-turn head start, B may have more GNP to start with.

So... if A defends Mars well enough... B may choose to expand economically because it's no use to fight. But B should keep a reserve of funds and wait for any good chance to strike at Mars from a Random event or something. He can buy fleet escorts for his outer system colonization... and can then later use them to blockade Mars later on.

Agh!

So these are the sorts of things I'm looking at in my solitare game(s). I want to try it a few different ways so I can see if certain strategies really work or not. If I can finish a game or two and notate them, I'll post them!

There's just enough randomness to keep the game from having One True Strategy, I think-- yet it is still fairly chess like. It is definitely a game... but there's a strikingly large amount of simulation/modeling built into it.


Oh... and there's an optional rule that forces you to pay maintenance for ships or suffer a chance for damage! As if long term planning wasn't complicated enough!

 

[Jeffr0]

I played my Mars strategy against a live opponent yesterday. Once again, we see that a crushing lead in GNP early on can be decisive. It appears that the Mars strategy can work-- but you must not sacrifice much of your early investment in GNP to do it. (I tried 2 turn lead, plus one mine, plus 20 GNP against my opponent's 1 turn lead plust 40 GNP. That's way too big of a gap.)

Shooting down my opponent's reinforcements was fun, but of course handed him an edge in National Interest. The value of Mars real estate does not match the value of a 20 GNP lead-- with or without the NI bonus.

After about 12 or fourteen turns, it appeared obvious to me that I could never catch up economically... and waiting would mean that the entire outer system could be colonized by my opponent potentially.

We had huge space battles lasting for several turns. The retreat rules combined with Earth being a no fire zone means that dealing a decisive blow can be difficult even when someone has an edge in production. Perhaps adding the maintenance rules for ships can yield a more interesting game.

This game appears to reward passivity-- aggression of any kind doesn't seem to pay off in the long term UNLESS it can crush most of the opponent's units quickly AND eliminate his economy. Also, it is difficult to change the game once someone gets a lead except by major luck or incredible blunders.

In future two player games, I expect to see more of an economic race with less military action-- or at least postponed military action. We'll probably play the maintenance rules in order to eliminate the dull mega-fleet tit-for-tat war... and also to encourage people to by other units.

After "real" game number three the feeling is that we'll continue playing the game to explore the strategies, but we want to mix it up with four players just so it doesn't dissolve into a routine affair. The game is engaging... intriguing... but I wouldn't call it fun. It's almost dull. But the system as a whole is completely different from any other game I've played... I feel compelled to study it more to see how it works.

Hurm.

 

[Jeffr0]

Played a quick 16-turn game with a new player over break. It went surprisingly well-- it is as easy to teach as Ogre. There are several rules to learn, but all are simple and there's no need to reference the rules so much.

This was the first game that had a decisive ending. My opponent invested nothing in defense... and even 20 credits (2 turn's worth of production at turn 8 or 9 or so) can clean someone's clock if they're caught with their pants down.

The political events add a lot of spice and make it more likely to give you a chance to mop up.

This game has replaced Ogre as my mini-game of choice.