GCWIII -- New Combat Model? Let's Mock!

[SWSF Eidolon]

Specs. . .

   How the game is visualized in ones head in terms of both position, value resolution, and short and long term strategic considerations has TONS to do with the time put in to battling, and for me at least, that is tied directly in to how specifications are laid out and especially in to the value ranges being considered.  It's much easier to throw 1-10 or 1-20 around in your head than 50-7440 etc.


Battle. . .

   I like the concept of the Order of Battle.  The reason is because it makes engaging in a battle more of a known commitment in terms of what you will need to do and put in to it and how a conclusion is reached.  It also helps hasten many things with respects to Retreats, surviving fleet constituents etc.  Also I like that it puts things in a neatly framed perspective.  All the choosing to be done is further constricted to given Phases, it will eliminate a lot of loophole gaming by more definitively spelling out what can be done when and where.


Unit Roles. . .

   I really dislike idea of going back to One Ship + Support.  It worked before because of our numbers, you could put together a whole fleet with several people.  The only way in my mind it makes sense and woudl work out capturing the "feel" of the game, is if it were a restricted scope*, meaning not a whole galaxy at large.  This is not something I am at all opposed to.

    For Fighters/Aux/Support, rather than treat them as a finite individual unit attached to a larger unit, we could just treat them as abilities of a sort of that greater unit.  So it's not so much fighters get tracked and deployed and attack individually or are destroyed, but they have functions that factor in to a Capital Ships greater abilities.  Then the amount of squadrons a ship would have could translate in to how many times in a battle a certain ability could be used, or to what effect?  This also eliminates mass delpoyment of every support unit a ship has for every battle creating swollen globs, and forces "Support" to take on the respective roles they are meant to instead of generally augmenting any kind of attack.


Scope. . .

   Big & Simple is doable in my mind, but like I say I think it's tied in to more how you present Units and what they can do.  The OoB will help straighten things out immensely and 'nsync to it's name, help establish some Order.  You can have a person with a fleet of 5 ISDs, but then everything those ISDs can be used for needs to be tightened up and VERY SUMMARILY presented, their support would need to be tied more directly to them, and tracked along with them as well as a part of their actions more or less, rather than separately.  Basically Aux would have no durability associated with them, they'd be able to be Countered/An Ability Rendered Uselses by other Support Abilities of opposing players uses.

   Galaxy scope wise, you could take a single planet and a single battle and make that the focus of the game.  There's really no more pivotal event in the Galactic Civil War era/The Star Wars we most all know and adore most intimately/EmpireVSRebellion than the Battle of Coruscant/NR Invasion.  Something of such magnitude could go on for years IC and involve any entity conceivable.  It'd take careful design (what doesn't) but you could set it up to be a really long drawn out chess match for the Battle itself.  Possibly too unorthodox to draw interest, but a cool concept to me.

[SWSF Hale]

I think in terms of scale, capital ships are not the issue. We could very easily do the 2 ISD, 3 VSD, 4 CRAK setup we have now IF support craft didn't take up so much time/room to manage.

We can do big and simple perhaps, but only if we push for macromanagement of fleets.

Maybe we can push the "Squadron" idea to the next level by creating SF "Wings"?
Or maybe we regress and go back to individual SFs with some other sort of "lumping" mechanic for easier computation of damage?

To me that's where the butter on the bread is... because I don't think anyone has a problem with managing 2 ISDs, 3 VSDs, and 4 CRAKs... it's the 22 SF Squadrons and 10 AUX groups attached to it that give players headaches before writing a post.

Again, we could very easily do a massive battle calculation with 22 TIE Squadrons vs 16 Rebel Squadrons, and figure out some way to handle rollover damage or whatever, but this removes every sense of small-scale tactical gameplay from the battle.

[SWSF Hoppus]

I think there is merit to the idea that Eidolon has put forth as regards SF/Aux being modifiers on capital ships, rather than managed units. The question is how the modifier might function in combat.

Taking from suggestions so far put out in this thread, some ideas..

Premise: Capital ships have attack rating VS CAP and VS SF/AUX; and defense ratings VS CAP and VS SF/AUX -- perhaps we could add a Bombard rating, for large capital ships attacking from range.

Each SF unit has a different modifier value on the CAP ship they are assigned to (perhaps with SF having offensive/defensive settings).. So it increases either offensive or defensive value.

...
ISD
AR vs CAP: XXX
AR vs SF: XXX
Bombard: XXX
DR vs CAP: XXX
DR vs SF: XXX

TIE/F
AR vs CAP bonus: 1%
AR vs SF bonus: 7%
DR vs CAP: 0%
DR vs SF: 15%

...

So, some ideas:

1. GRIDLESS (no grid, simple as, best possible thing for us doing this online with no graphics).
2. BOMBARD FEATURE (large capital ships can attack from range vs other large CAP ships, lower value, but turn following a bombard, opponent can only bombard them back (not engage directly)).
3. Calculate your ship values, then choose your targets (usual damage applied).

Not sure if this would be all that satisfying in terms of game play though.

[Erasmar]

It's much easier to throw 1-10 or 1-20 around in your head than 50-7440 etc.

Precisely.

All the choosing to be done is further constricted to given Phases, it will eliminate a lot of loophole gaming by more definitively spelling out what can be done when and where.

I don't quite see the need for phases that much, though this point is a great one. I think my number two concern about battling after having to manage large numbers was making sure I was doing everything I should have been doing at that time, and wondering if there was a loophole that someone else would exploit.

For Fighters/Aux/Support, rather than treat them as a finite individual unit attached to a larger unit, we could just treat them as abilities of a sort of that greater unit.  So it's not so much fighters get tracked and deployed and attack individually or are destroyed, but they have functions that factor in to a Capital Ships greater abilities.  Then the amount of squadrons a ship would have could translate in to how many times in a battle a certain ability could be used, or to what effect?  This also eliminates mass delpoyment of every support unit a ship has for every battle creating swollen globs, and forces "Support" to take on the respective roles they are meant to instead of generally augmenting any kind of attack.

Fantastic idea to me. This is something innovative. Maybe just have statuses that fighters are in. My TIE squadron is in CAP mode, +1 DEF or something like that. Bombers in attack mode, +1 ATK vs capital ships.

I don't think anyone has a problem with managing 2 ISDs, 3 VSDs, and 4 CRAKs... it's the 22 SF Squadrons and 10 AUX groups attached to it that give players headaches before writing a post.

Correct. It comes down to how many individual units a person has to "touch" per post. We all have different ideal numbers, but they likely aren't as high as 30. If we were doing a 1-v-1, really detailed battle -- where the battle WAS the game -- then different story. (And that's an idea worth considering as a separate project, sort of like what Eid suggests about scope.) But I think, while some would lament the loss of fighters as units, most would rather focus on capital ships if it meant better gameplay.

1. GRIDLESS (no grid, simple as, best possible thing for us doing this online with no graphics).

Me personally, while I'd love an easier way to track units, I also think the inability to maneuver would take away from the potential tactical fun in the game. If we could find a way to reduce the number of support ships, speaking only for myself I wouldn't mind still having to worry about location for the fleet.



There's also the idea -- separate from this and I don't want to muddy the waters -- of a starfighter-oriented game. I've toyed with rules for it in the past, can't remember who I was working on them with. The idea being each person controls up to a squadron or two, individual fighters. Launching from GM-controlled cap ships. Pretty much a sim version of X-Wing vs TIE Fighter. But I'm not sure we have the interest or time for that. The net result of the rules would be the same amount of time required per post, just managing SFs instead of ISDs.

[SWSF Hale]

I like the idea of an X-Wing vs TIE Fighter aspect, but that to me sounds like an entirely NEW and DIFFERENT game than what we're trying to do with GCW. Remember the specs we developed for Aburik? They were highly detailed, had "Action Points" and all of the units had a handful of special abilities, such that players were micromanaging 3-5 individual SFs, 1-2 AUX, and a NEB or something. A game like that sounds really fun, and is a worthy pursuit perhaps as a different entity... but to stick with the GCW brand, I think we need to focus on MACRO gameplay and not MICRO.

GCW I think should be an intergalactic geopolitical game reinforced with occasionally huge fleet on fleet battles. I think Hoppus would agree. The idea of capturing faction management with system control and fleet battles is the essence of the brand. We have the faction management and system control parameters in place with Supply Units and what not, so I think really the hurdle we need to focus on jumping is this new combat model that I think we ALL want to work in a fun and particular way that gives players that sense of awe when two huge fleets clash... as they do in the movies and books.

I think the solution might be in the "qualitative modifiers" and in a creative new way of looking at "capital ship fleets" like we have with SF squadrons and AUX groups.

Alpha Fleet (1 ISD, 3 VSDs, 6 CRAKs w/ 18 SF squads + 12 AUX groups)
Attack Rating: x
Defense: x
Bombard: %
Some other feature: x
# of SF/AUX on CSP: +modifier to defense rating
# of SF/AUX on Attack: +modifier to attack rating
Special Abilities (based from unit composition):
TIE Swarm (+modifer)
Orbital Bombardment
Battlefield Dominance
Etc.

In this model, we return to our Command Point feature but we treat Fleets as one collective individual unit. If we gave players some sort of limitation... like you cant have more than 3 fleets in the same system, then this prevents players from splitting up their units into smaller and smaller fleets and forces confrontations to occur at the micro-fleet level. After a battle, players could split their units up again and send multiple fleets back to their home systems. Alternatively, players could decide to just lump everything into one big fleet and give it a go... it don't matter!

Making sense?

Imagine a space battle where 2-3 of these Micro-Fleets square off in our current space grid. Each could move around and try and kill each other, but at the end of the day, it's just a few units you're keeping track of instead of 30... but we allow tactics and strategy all at the same time, especially when you factor in special abilities.

Game?

[SWSF Hoppus]

This is gettign somewhere...

[SWSF Hale]

The secondary benefit in going with this Fleet model is that the same thing can work for ground battles. Just thought I should throw that in there. =)


Here's a live example... making some calculations using the same specs from this thread, I knocked a decimal place off and rounded everything to the hundredth. For SF and AUX I also rounded everything to the tenth decimal place, and I created a single "Combat Rating" by adding AR, DUR, and UCR.

Imperial Fleet 1
Composition: 1 ISD (Command Ship), 2 VSDs, 3 CRAKs
Support Units: (Space) 6 TIE Fighters, 3 TIE Interceptors, 3 TIE Bombers, 1 TIE Avenger, 2 Skipray Blastboats, 6 Lambda Shuttles, 2 Stormtrooper Transports / (Ground) 14 Landing Barges, 1400 Infantry Squads, 5 AT-ATs, 15 AT-STs, 8 Speeder Bikes
Attack Rating: 1440
Durability: 1335
SF Combat Rating: 467
AUX Combat Rating: 504

This is basically where it gets interesting/fun. Nearly all of the strategy in this model takes place BEFORE the battle, in terms of how you configure your fleet, how its support units are utilized in either defensive or offensive positions, etc. Special Abilities are what will be the butter on the bread. How units are positioned in your fleet and the modifiers they grant will obviously make for some interesting combinations.

In the example above, now that we have some numbers to throw around, I could assign my SF to CSP, thereby letting them soak up SF/AUX Combat Damage before the Fleet gets hit, and instead use my AUX for a firepower boost. This sort of paper-rock-scissor scenario is what I think will be more fun than anything else.

[SWSF Eidolon]

The fleet composition thing could be an interesting angle to pursue.  You could expand the strategy aspect of assembling a fleet and what it's made of a lot more, then as you say, once in combat, the abilities boil down any state of change.

Just to touch on something mentioned earlier, I think the ability to maneuver should be maintained, adapted to the system of choosing of course.  But I think a difference in a distance/Range for some abilities and how it relates to your compositions and such are important angle for differing, not to mention with composite fleet values/ability, all tracking is incredibly reduced making grids much much more manageable themselves.

Similar use for ground combat application could be very cool as well.  I think then we ought to look at treating ground units grouping larger, Infantry as Companies vehicles as squads etc.  So you end up sticking a bunch of Vehicle Squad and Infantry Companies together to form your army.  maybe Covert infantry squads would be a feature? Medical Companies to improve a Army durability.  Artillery squadrons give long range attack abilities etc.   ATAT squadrons would just be plain beasts.


I like concept of 1 Fleet/Army per grid space as well.  Helps keep the game board not a mangled mess.

Hex Grids are still optimal imo ;p  any range beyond adjacent easily translates in to a "ring".

[SWSF Hale]

Summary of Current Concepts

1. Hex Grid that is usable in both Space and Ground.

2. Simplified specs with a handful of ratings and some special abilities.

3. Fleets and Armies are lumped into single composite units.

4. Unit-to-Unit Combat ought to be done in a familiar and similar fashion (i.e. fleets moving around shooting at each other).

5. A structured Order of Battle ought to be in place to allow combat to be broken down into phases where specific game functions occur. This also eliminates the need to post every 24 hours and have your hands tied to the clock, and allows participants to know beforehand the level of commitment prior to the battle.


I think if we can all agree on those points, then we can move ahead with generating some specs and special abilities and doing some more testing.

[SWSF Eidolon]

Je suis d'accord!

[gallpizi]

I will be honest. The idea that we will be MACRO gaming again, makes me more excited for this and more likely to stick around. I just never liked the more micro gaming. Felt too small.

That being said, we need to make MACRO easier, which it seems like lumping fleets together will do. I think this has real promise.

[gallpizi]

Why is no one speaking to me?

[SWSF Eidolon]

  Didnt seem reciprocity was in order for that, but if it soothes you..

   Speak speak speak speak speak.

    Side note for the Poll here, maybe get more notice if own thread?  I kind of accidentally saw it =)

    To answer it tho, not really anything i could pick that is ideal to me.  Im tryin to just contribute but work on my story in back.  If we gonna make a certifiable game of it something brand new to us in recent memory would be cool, like force user focus.  Combine lite rpg and unit battle gaming elements.  I dont mind a sandbox to frame an over arching story or game board, and even think in a wa for a concrete game, a whole represented galaxy can be a lot.

[SWSF Hale]

Opening this up for public debacle.

IMPERIAL FLEET
Composition: 1 ISD, 2 VSD, 3 CRAK
Combat Support Group: 13 TIE Squadrons, 8 AUX Groups
Ground Army: N/A
Fleet AR: 1440
Fleet DUR: 1335
Fleet UCR: 4.5
CSG Attack Rating (CSG AR): 689 (3 TIE Interceptors + 3 TIE Bombers + 1 TIE Avenger + 4 Stormtrooper Transports + 2 Skipray Blastboats)
CSG Defense Rating: 318 (6 TIE Fighters + 4 Lambda Shuttles)


REPUBLIC FLEET
Composition: 1 MC80, 2 RAF, 3 NEB
Combat Support Group: 10 SF Squadrons, 12 AUX Groups
Ground Army: N/A
Fleet AR: 960
Fleet DUR: 1085
Fleet UCR: 4.3
CSG AR: 598 (4 X-Wings + 2 Y-Wings + 2 A-Wings + 2 B-Wings)
CSG DR: 1086 (6 Assault Transports + 6 Lambda Shuttles)


Possible attack formula:

(Fleet AR + CSG AR - Target CSG DR) x UCR = Damage

Battle Round 1:
Imperial Feet attacks Republic Fleet: (1440 + 689 - 1086) x UCR (4.5/4.3) = 1092 Damage
Republic Fleet returns fire: (960 + 598 - 318) x UCR (4.3/4.5) = 1185 Damage

Both sides process destroyed units before beginning round 2. It's up to the player to determine which units get lost, but the damage must be resolved before continuing the battle or retreating. Round 2 could be completely different, since the Imperial commander may sacrifice his CSG and a CRAK or some combination of everything. Either way, you'll be looking at a new Fleet for round 2, once that is slimmer.

Both sides will progressively destroy each other, and so it comes down to whoever has the most units really, or who winds up staying or leaving.

Observations...

I think UCR may require some tweaking. Perhaps breaking it down into an Offensive Combat Rating and Defensive Combat Rating could be an option. I also think SF/AUX specs need to be reworked to bring back UCR, such that it matters what specific units in your CSG you place on Attack or CSP.

[XCALIBYR]

It's up to the player to determine which units get lost

Bloody fantastic.  No, really.  This will allow for creative battle posting. 

I don't know what numbers are being plugged in where, but in the final draft I think they should be as small as possible.  Like... 1 for a squadron of TIE Fighters.  Just so we don't end up with AR: 15000.  Smaller numbers just seem more manageable and I don't want fleet sizes to suffer for it.