Rules Questions and Comments

[Fatebringer]

but when it's turn after turn.... then you have a lot of 90's to put on different hexes. So that when the attacks come in a wide, they get whiped out in a wide bredth.

[Iron Mongoose]

If stratigy and tactics were easy and stright foward, we wouldn't be bothering with a stratigy and tactics game; we'd just RP our stailmates. 

But as it is, any player is free to concentrate their force as they see fit and be vulnerable accoringly, and any player is free to spread their forces out and be vulnerable accordingly.  I don't think either method is entirely right or wrong; you need some of each.  Though that dosen't generaly stop me from using very, very large concentrations of force when I find myself in change of deployments.

[chaosxtreme]

All true Iron Mongoose, all true!

Me personally I keep a stack or two to move to counter another guy's stack but the spread and conquer has been working for me.

I intend to maintain it until it stops working. 

[Cannonshop]

If stratigy and tactics were easy and stright foward, we wouldn't be bothering with a stratigy and tactics game; we'd just RP our stailmates.  

But as it is, any player is free to concentrate their force as they see fit and be vulnerable accoringly, and any player is free to spread their forces out and be vulnerable accordingly.  I don't think either method is entirely right or wrong; you need some of each.  Though that dosen't generaly stop me from using very, very large concentrations of force when I find myself in change of deployments.

It's all in what you're doing.  My tactics mostly revolve around getting the most out of very limited resources, other factions have huge resources that allow them to do things rather badly with a decent chance of success-for example, my recent offensive against the Spirit Cats-most of my forces were scaled to a much higher level of resistance than I actually encountered, but had those forces been there, I probably (likely) would have pulled out the same results because of HOW I used what I have-and more important than even that, is the way it was structured out-three potential ways to succeed, even if failure occurs in two I still come out relatively intact and ahead.

It was three days after the "Reports Day" before Deathrider told me my intel missions failed, but that would have just been a fourth possible in my approach.

I really can't afford to concentrate everything into one push like the Adders like to do-I don't have the slack in terms of territory, or manpower, to dump all my front-line naval into a single offensive on a single hex in hopes of breaking an enemy in a single turn, but I think I did okay in shutting down half the industrial base of the Spirit Cats and making it difficult on them in terms of resources-which was the whole idea behind what I was doing-interrupt commerce and industry so that he can't make back his losses easily, cripple his forces nearby, and generally wreak havoc while denying him easy means to respond in strength.

I kind of have to fight asymmetrically, the only states "Close to" the UIW in size are the Marians and the Taurians, and both of them are bigger than I am, so going to war requires a bit of panache instead of brute force, to include limiting my strategic objectives to Political objectives-that is, using armed force to help compel someone into a desired course of action, rather than trying to just annihilate them outright.

(with the MoC openly and publicly cranking out warships like that, and the OWA being a wholly owned Clan Territory now, neither of them constitutes 'small' in the same fashion...)

Small State tactics demand a certain difference in terms of what is worth going to war over, and who to go to war on behalf of-the UIW wouldn't even be INVOLVED if they weren't getting something from an allied power with an interest in the MH territories, simply due to cost vs. Benefit analysis-going on the offensive is risky for a small state, even successfully, because of the need to maintain force levels and flexibility.  large nations like the DC, Lyran-falcon/whatever, FWL and Dominion don't have the same problems or even similar solution sets TO those problems.  Even with 25+ attacks per round, the Adders didn't really lose much in terms of their viability, for instance, even with two turns of that-they've still got so much territory they don't NEED to defend most of it, so dumping the navy into a single assault doesn't really put them at much risk...

Whereas, I really can't affford to apply more as a percentage of my forces to offensive operations than I already have-because even without "Upkeep costs" I have upkeep costs-I have to be able to replace losses and hold territories once taken, which includes needing to be able to reinforce 'at will' with the attendant RP costs, free MP, and available forces.

which makes it a lot more interesting and engaging for me, than being able to just sling huge slothing numbers around the board at will without worrying about the impacts to my own state.

For example: IF I took Mainstreet at the end of this turn, and wanted to keep it, I'd have to figure out HOW to hold it, knowing that there's a counterpunch coming in a turn or two bigger than my entire STATE.

Taking it without the intent of keeping it, however, is tactics of terrain-denial-I only need to garrison enough of it to make it expensive to retake, then negotiate with the opposition, a much more realistic set of options in the absence of major allies.  Turning it over to a major ally gets me good diplomacy with that ally, and I don't have to try and work out how to hold it against the inevitable (given the value of the real-estate) counter-attack, plus it allows me to press the enemy in ways he MUST respond to-most of which attack his ability to repair or reinforce against losses-which is leverage, and why when I spent my development money, I spread it out so that loss of any single system save my National Capital would not, in itself, be a crippling or fatal blow.

Marlin appears to have taken the hint, which means most of what I took last turn, is probably going to go back to him without a fight-at least, without a fight from ME.  all he has to do, is have the Cats turn up with a negotiated peace settlement signed by the Marians and the people paying the UIW-because that ends the contract,  and the UIW isn't trying to grow beyond its' ability to defend itself.

[Cannonshop]

Naturally, as an OOC analysis, eventually the Lyrans will end up knocking on the door with more intent to own, than to aid or trade.  It's the nature of the game-once the larger threats are dealt with, tiny nations become the next target du-jour.

Hence the paradox-I can't really see the UIW affording a massive territory increase, because such an increase requires suitable garrisons to hold (and in this game, 'suitable' is a couple scales bigger for a nation that size, than it is for, say, the Federated Suns), but staying 'compact' means one has only one's own resources and infrastructural development to fill the coffers-so each system becomes rather more valuable a prize than an equivalent neighbour does.

which, in turn, requires larger and more effective-per-pound garrisons to hold relative to size of the nation.

The way to be able to 'afford' to have a military with ANY offensive capability, then, is to focus on flexible, as opposed to line-item-powerful, layouts.  Task-forces instead of Transported Squadrons, for instance, because you can break a TF into a variety of roles, or recombine several into an offensive force, depending on need, and spending more on the garden-variety intel operations, and doing THOSE in large numbers before you move, and, of course, setting up any offensive so that you have more than a single objective over-all, with several ways to 'win' at each location in hopes that one of those ways will be successful enough to justify the risk.

BIG states don't have to do that, they can usually afford to go in blind, strip defenses in one area to attack another, or just not defend some territories in order to hold others.

[chaosxtreme]

The key is multiple alliance's for a small state.

If you have an alliance or arrangement with a single state well you have a problem because you will be attacked when it's other large neighbor attacks it.

If you have an alliance or arrangement with several? Then your not a puppet and a large state is unlikely to risk a multi-front war against two or more large state's because you could potentially attack.

They will just wait for the attack and then make you regret it.


---------

That being said Marlin making peace with the UIW is frankly your best case scenario. You can go further but he has a much more robust Touman then the UIW as he has the  inviolate Clan Home World's to rely upon for resources and production.

Were he to decide to build up you would be very much in the position where turn after turn the UIW advantage would start to recede. You can not reach all of his Inner Sphere holdings before he reinforces/creates new forces on a scale you can not match.


Mind you this assumes the UIW/Spirit Cat war remains between only those two powers.

[Cannonshop]

The key is multiple alliance's for a small state.



That being said Marlin making peace with the UIW is frankly your best case scenario. You can go further but he has a much more robust Touman then the UIW as he has the  inviolate Clan Home World's to rely upon for resources and production.

Were he to decide to build up you would be very much in the position where turn after turn the UIW advantage would start to recede. You can not reach all of his Inner Sphere holdings before he reinforces/creates new forces on a scale you can not match.


Mind you this assumes the UIW/Spirit Cat war remains between only those two powers.

That's a permanent risk with ANY Clan faction-the existence of the Homeworlds even for factions that were kicked out of them decades ago in-game provides a permanent-safe-haven. There's absolutely no risk for them.  There are even still wolf clan holdings in the HW. (look at the map!)

[Iron Mongoose]

Its true, but at least in theroy the Homeworlds could be opened up if the situation demanded it.  To that end, Grae stationed many of the Adder's best galaxies in the Homeworlds, so if anyone thought that the Adders were really milking their free ride to that account, that's not the case.

Anyway, weigh that against the great houses:  is Atreus or New Avalon really that much more vulnerable than Ironhold or York or Hector?  It would most probably be quicker than to march across undefended space to the Clans' homes than it would be to chew through all the IS worlds to get to the core of any proper great house (the Lyrans and Cappies are bourder line here  )

[Fatebringer]

You think we don't feel paranoid about someone deciding to go hit the homeworlds? During the last invasion, the offensive naval groups sort of came together, but we actually had a plan in place for the defense of the homeworlds. When I heard that the TH might have over 100 FP slipping around the Dominion and making a run for us... I was like.. CRAP! What do we have? Lydia Sukhanov! You are now the Pro-tem Adjudent Senior Star Admiral, Make a plan, NOW! The biggest problem we had with that plan was when the Scorps left the homeworlds without telling anyone. They had a nice chunk of FP for our defensive plan even if they only bid one warship in the defense, they had like 4 or more aero clusters. And them vipers I go to deal with the second actual naval threat to the Homeworlds, the first being with TF Bulldog / Serpent, and they get pissy because I'm hunting Davions instead of helpng them out with the people that took New Kent from them I like the fact they RP'd their pissed offness at us for that. Even though we did help them with the retaking of New Kent when it finally came around, we were chided for being there and refused repairs from the isorla. Oh well, once a viper...

[Raginar]

on resource raids do i got to do Pirate Insertion before i do the raid table? also naval recon if successful they find out what there and can not be attaked?

[chaosxtreme]

You think we don't feel paranoid about someone deciding to go hit the homeworlds? During the last invasion, the offensive naval groups sort of came together, but we actually had a plan in place for the defense of the homeworlds. When I heard that the TH might have over 100 FP slipping around the Dominion and making a run for us... I was like.. CRAP! What do we have? Lydia Sukhanov! You are now the Pro-tem Adjudent Senior Star Admiral, Make a plan, NOW! The biggest problem we had with that plan was when the Scorps left the homeworlds without telling anyone. They had a nice chunk of FP for our defensive plan even if they only bid one warship in the defense, they had like 4 or more aero clusters. And them vipers I go to deal with the second actual naval threat to the Homeworlds, the first being with TF Bulldog / Serpent, and they get pissy because I'm hunting Davions instead of helpng them out with the people that took New Kent from them I like the fact they RP'd their pissed offness at us for that. Even though we did help them with the retaking of New Kent when it finally came around, we were chided for being there and refused repairs from the isorla. Oh well, once a viper...

Hey the utter refusal of Clan BLood Spirit to leave York to defend "False" Clan's who had not prepared to defend their holdings was a big disruption as well. :-)

[Dave Baughman]

on resource raids do i got to do Pirate Insertion before i do the raid table? also naval recon if successful they find out what there and can not be attaked?

Raginar:

As long as your raiders are starting in a different star system (i.e. they are jumping into the system) you can choose to use pirate insertion. You must decide whether or not you will do so before you roll on the raid table, since pirate insertion potentially modifies the results of the raid table roll.

You are correct about Naval Recon; if the recon force succeeds in their roll, they get the intelligence and leave undetected.

[Raginar]

so i was suppose to do incert then next reply on that post do the raid table i messed that up

[Dave Baughman]

so i was suppose to do incert then next reply on that post do the raid table i messed that up

Well, its not all bad. There are risks associated with pirate insertion, including the chance to disappear into hyperspace and never be seen again, so sometimes its just as good to do a normal attack. The only downside with standard insertion is that if the enemy has air defenses they might try to defensively interdict you (which is basically intercepting you as you make your run-in)

[Dave Baughman]

Some thoughts on addressing Hex Improvement Ratrace. What are your thoughts?

New Hex Improvements Concept
OR
The End of Hex Improvement Rat-Race
OR
Dave's Crazy Idea #5313301753086580315


Introduction
One of the systemic problems in the FGC 3062 rules set – including the current 2nd Edition Revised rules were are using, it a phenomenon I like to call "Hex Improvement Rat-Race." It boils down to three inter-related game mechanical issues:
   Hex Improvements directly create income and are one of the few ways for a faction to increase its per-turn income without actually conquering more territory.
   Hex Improvements directly determine the upper production limit of a faction, with no other mediating factors (other than availability of cash). This is compounded by the abstract construction system that allows all production to be funneled to any one Hex Improvement of the right type.
   Hex Improvements are permanent and have the same effect regardless of their location on the map, making it a viable strategy to "hide" Hex Improvements deep inside a large faction without any downside.
Collectively, these create a situation where everyone is building hex improvements, and if they ever stop they will permanently fall behind factions who don't – unless war or sabotage damages or changes control of a hex element. In a perfect world, this might actually be OK, but there are two other issues that make it a major problem.
   The prices on Hex Improvements are balanced with the largest factions in mind, making it very difficult for small factions to build Hex Improvements and thus raise their income (to, presumably build more UIs)
   The largest factions (who can best afford HIs) have the greatest strategic depth (and thus the best ability to safely hide them). Until recently, they also had the cheapest intel ops, making it easier to guard their factories against sabotage – though that issue has been fixed.
So, how do we fix this? The short answer is "totally change the Hex Improvement system." The slightly longer answer is "speciate the hex improvements a bit to more clearly define their uses and add a system to reign in large faction super-spending without making the paperwork too nutty."

Hex Improvement Types
Broadly speaking, the existing classes of hex improvements (MF, SY, IC, PF, RS) all still exist; however, several of them are broken out into multiple categories.

MF & SY form the Military Production and now represent three distinct types of units:
   Repair Facilities: These are easy to build and inexpensive. They do not build new units but can repair existing units of the appropriate type.

   Military Factory: Factories create FP, which can be combined into units. Only Transported and Static units can be assembled by a Factory however – Shipyards are needed to assemble higher-class units.

   Shipyards: Shipyards build JumpShips and WarShips; they can combine their FP production with FP from factories, but any products must be assembled at the SY.
MFs and Sys may be "built into" the appropriate WarShip hulls as YardShips (MF for Faslane, SY for Newgrange). RFs may be build into ground units as Mobile Field Bases.
MFs and SYs do not produce RP, though their products can be sold.

ICs will be revised as part of the communications rules, and are not touched on here.
PFs will be revised as part of the R&D rules and likewise are not touched on here.
Recharge Stations will be revised as part of the Trade rules.

Hex Improvement Costs
A faction's first few hex improvements are fairly inexpensive to produce, but their price escalates are more are built.
Each corporation (see Corporation rules below) that wishes to build a hex improvement must pay the following cost:
Base Cost: RF – 4 RP*, MF – 8 RP, SY – 12 RP
*RFs always belong to the Faction Army pseudo-corporation
Cost modifiers:
   Multiple Improvement Modifier: T^2/10 where T equals the number of pre-existing Hex Improvements of the Military Production type belonging to the building corporation
   Strategic Depth Modifier: 〖(H-1)〗^2/10 Where H is the shortest route (in hexes) to another faction
   Stacked Improvement Modifier: P^2/10 where P equals the number of pre-existing hex improvement in the target Hex, regardless of ownership
Add the total of the modifier above to 1 for the cost multiplier.
Example: Eric wants to build another MF. The corporation that will build it already has four military production type hex improvements and his target site is four hexes from the nearest border and already has an SY . The MIM is 1.6, the SDM is 0.9, and the SIM is 0.1, for a total of 1+2.6 or 3.6. Eric's MF will cost 28.75 RP to build (after rounding).
RFs take 1 turn to build, MFs take 2, SYs take 3. Building them as part of a unit (RFs for ground units – i.e. Mobile Field Bases) or MF/SY as part of a mobile unit impact the production as if their adjusted production cost was part of that unit's FP but do not automatically take extra time. Note that movement class modifiers apply to this 'virtual' FP so YardShips will be quite expensive.

Corporations
Any faction may create up to 10 game mechanical corporations, two of which are pre-set. Corporations "own" Military Production unit improvements; multiple corporations can be used to keep the Multiple Improvement Modifier from getting out of control. However, corporations cannot easily combine their production output.
General rules:
   A Corporation may produce or repair no more FP per turn in a single location than the total of its MFs x 2 and SYs x3.

   Exceptions: Corporations may undertake joint ventures; however, for each additional corporation that participates in a venture beyond the first, there a 'cooperation surcharge' of (5(C^2 ))% of the total production cost.

For example: If two corporations cooperate on a project, they can combine their manufacturing capacity, but must pay a 10% surcharge. If three corporations combine, the surcharge is 45%, and if four do so it is 80%. While such massive ventures can quickly complete an expensive project such as a WarShip, the inefficiency is hard to afford.


   The first two "corporations" a faction has is its Army and its Navy. The primary purpose of these groups is to account for mobile units such as YardShips and military owned Hex Improvements like Repair Facilities. In general, a faction will want to have its MFs and SYs owned by other corporations to reduce MIM on Repair Facilities.

   [tie-ins with R&D and Trade Rules go here]

Hmmmm the board seems to have digested my numbered lists. I hope this is readable :/