Fan Council OOC Thread

[Marlin]

You could do it in public too. I mean the boasting and stuff.

[Fatebringer]

Keeping in mind the new Dominion was a Mega-Faction with 3 members, we did okay for ourselves.

When I first pushed for it's creation, Clan Snow Raven was already on the rise, nearly double it's size with strength and holdings from what it started with. For several turns, I was just barely hanging in there while I learned the game. But with the relaunching of the Star League fleet and a renewed invasion, people were trading me Binaries of Faction Specific designs for MP allowing me to create units without spending anything. Then came the battles vs the TH where we took the Raven's share of all salvage. There were few contestations to our claims because the other clans wanted us strong, they wanted us out front to face off against the TH fleet.

Clan Ghost Bear and the Rasalhague Republic were on their second incarnation, the Rasalhague Dominion and on the verge of being attacked by the Grand Council, but with secret alliances and deep plots that kept them confident that only a fool would weaken themselves against the middlemen in a time of war. Of course I wasn't completely up to date on the depths of all the plots and was going off of GM guidance.

The Ravens needed a solid roost in the IS (after the Hell's Horse formed the "Horse Alliance.") We started out politically courting each other and after some RP, the New Dominion was born. When the Wolf imploded, we pounced on the opportunity to finish the one goal of the New Dominion, the reunification of all worlds that were once held by the FRR under the New Dominion Banner. After some serious negotions with the factions that absorbed the remains of the short lived Clan Camel, we finally achieved that goal and then some. Each member of the faction had a protectorate of about the same size with 2 regional capital worlds.

There was a very detailed description of our political, economic and military systems that I didn't send parm, but here is the breakdown of what we had without differentiating the 750 FP or so we lost contact with in the homeworlds at the end there.

Faction: The New Dominion
Members: Clan Ghost Bear, Clan Snow Raven, Free Rasalhauge Republic
Capitol World: 1, Tamar
Regional Capitols: 6 (2 per Member)
Control Worlds: 100
Member Worlds: 35

Military Strength
Aero: 1300.25 FP (60 Clusters)
Ground: 1931 FP (196 Clusters*)
Naval: 2267.25 (90 Vessels**)

* Some of the Ground Clusters are BA Clusters or Keshiks that are very small hence the low value for so many ground line items.

** Naval FP includes warships and escorts, all Jumpship listings are under Aero Clusters.

[FoxxItal]

A naval star with Leviathan II's and Thera + nightlord 

[Iron Mongoose]

Is that for the twenty year reset, or for the 3070s?

At the time the Terrans jumped the bourder, the FWL had about 800 FP of fleet assets, and a token bit more of air units assigned to ground units.  A bit part of that was a building freeze that we'd had put on us when we raced to that figure by about turn ten or so.  Another factor was Dan trying to be too clever (may he rest in peace); he built a lot of smaller flotillas, rather than a few huge ones to bulk up the over all size of the navy.  Maybe he thought that we'd surely be the big kid on the block and we needed flexability more than over all strenth.  I never really had a chance to get into it with him.  But, I did have about 250 FP banked for naval construction once we got aproval, with a target of 320 to build four super-flotillas, which would have added 160 FP in two week battle groups to our navy (one a stealth one, assigned to VINH and kept off the offical books).

Anyway, when the Terrans invaded in turn 20 or when ever it was, the assualt on Irian had something like 750 FP, which would have been enough to take nearly the entire FWLN, and they still had enough left over to achive naval superiority at Romita and Circinus, send a fleet to lose at Orestes (against my Mandrills) on the very same turn, and send a seperate task force to lose at Ulan Bator the next turn.  So I think we managed to do pretty well for our selves to have three Theras left after the war.  Though despite the fact it would have likely wrecked our chances at Ulan Bator (which as it was was come from behind underdog win) I do regret that the FedSuns backed down when faced with our Irian fleet and not just the Cappies over Necromo.

A big thing that hurt us, that I alternately complained about too much and too little was damage resolution in thouse turns.  I knew I was going to be the test for the new rules, and I was ok with it, but had the version of the damage resolution and salvage rules that came into being after the war been in place, it would have likely softened the blow, and also enabled the FWL and CC to expand their fleets.  The Terrans probably could have salvaged the two Theras lost at Romita, but maybe not if they didn't have a yard ship, but the FWL and CC could have picked up a few Luxors from Ulan Bator, to say nothing of replacing our own losses.  So while wins in battles like Alshain and Summerset and the Falcon world often left the victors better off rather than worse off, the FWL's wins were harsher (more ships totaly distroyed and some totaly undamaged) and with no salvage oppertunity, and even our losses were worse than they could have been.

The one thing I will say, that I never said enough at the time, was that as much as the GMs (mainly Olive, who was my chief oppoent) didn't get off to a good start, and they never fixed things, they did learn fast.  After something proved unreasonable, they imediatly abandoned it and tried something else, and so they fairly quickly got to where we remained for several turns as a resualt of that experiance, and I think they did a good job of comming up with a fix.  I just wish they could have turned around and applied it retroactively.

[Iron Mongoose]

At its hight, the Mandrill's IS side had about 250 naval FP and 400 ground FP, though 50 of that was garison forces that never went out to attack.  The Homeworlds side had some too, but it was never really something I had access to or controll over, and I've largely lost track.

Problem is, we bought it all at the old prices, so with a super flotilla 1FP of LFB warship cost just 2FP, and not 10.  So when we lost our McKenna at Orestes, we never managed to get it replace, though I was able to churn out a few smaller ships to suplement the fleet, and a captured Lyran something (Aegis?) helped a bit from Somerset. 

After I left though, the Mandrills either had some rotten luck (half the fleet was left behind when the Clan side escaped!) or else just GM fiat to ware down the playerless faction, or whatever, so by the time we became the Camels, we'd lost nearly half what we had had.

[Fatebringer]

I sent out the last orders I had wich was after the jump forward. It was only a difference of about 10 naval vessels for us because we a well rounded update.

New Dominion - Repaired Ground Units
New Dominion - Repaired Naval Units
Completed Escorts KF
Completed Escorts LF
New Dominion -Reconstituted Ground Units
New Dominion -Reconstituted Naval Units, Naval inluces Warship & Escorts
New Dominion - Warship Conversion
New Dominion - Warship Designs
New Dominion - Creating New Ground Units
New Dominion - Creating New Naval Units
New Dominion - Creating New Ground Units for Non Dominion Factions
New Dominion - Creating New Naval Units for Non Dominion Factions
New Dominion - Warship Conversion  for Non Dominion Factions
New Dominion - Naval Acquisition from Non Dominion Factions
New Dominion - Ground Units - Training
New Dominion - Naval Units - Training
New Dominion - Intel Spends
New Dominion - Infrastructure Costs
New Dominion - Member World to Control World

The last one was one of my favorites as we upgraded 20 of our 55 Member Worlds to Controls. Make the people happy, make it harder for other people to take you over.

[Marlin]

Yes, the Mandrills were hurt badly by their split, which is natural. But still, IM, you managed to get them into the thick of things when you led them. The shutdown and loss of players with their natural tendency to fight intra Clan doomed them. Still, they single-handedly showed all the farce of the Pasig accords.

Not a small feat considering their small size and the force of those they encountered. Oh, and they also were responsible for showing all that the Terrans were made of Wolverines. Instrumental to stir things up further.

[Iron Mongoose]

Yeah, we put enough scare in the IS that the Terrans, Dracs, Lyrans, FedRats, Bears and Wolves all felt they had to try and stop us.  I'm fairly happy to have in effect kicked off the next round of Clan vs IS wars, since the renunciation of the Pisag Accords set the stage for the joint attack on that SL base were we missed out because of orders snaffus, the combined defense of Somerset from the Lyrans, and the combined counter attack, and all of everything that came when the Terrans and the FS and the Star League

Had I not been trying for a knock out blow, we might have even put a worse hurt on the Cats at Orestes, too.  I thought that we could get our second wave in before anyone could react; the hope was that debate in the Star League and on going tensions across the IS would keep anyone from really getting a big force out there for an extra turn.  I hoped that taking three of the four FRR hexes, leaving only Tukayyid, which as a multinational base world I couldn't attack, would offer the IS a fiat acompli, in which the FRR basicly went away, and there was effecitively no one to rescue, and no war to fight.  When the Terrans were able to get out there on no notice with a fleet and army, the whole thing was undone anyway.  Clearly, I'd like to have won, and its intresting to think what would have been the case if we'd been able to scrape it out.  Probably worse for us, since the Terrans and Co would have never accepted our take over, and we'd have bled ourselves dry fighting.  But, maybe dieing on our feet like that would have been better than what eventualy came.

[Marlin]

Well, the loss of players was the reason the game halted and Factions died. The Mandrills could have been around for much longer, just think about all the Society stuff. As no player Clan, the HW Mandrills were one of the prime candidates for destruction.

Its the same problem now. We have huge factions and so few players to RP stuff. The size of Cannonshop's land was almost too big, but he is a good enough storyteller to fill it up with life. They rapidly had to expand, though. (From very small, admittedly.)

The Mandrills and Camels downfall was not set in stone.

[Fatebringer]

Having achieved our main objective, I think the one thing that disappointed me when it ended was that we only got to have one Niflsmeet. We had good participation in that and I wanted that to be a yearly event. So we could do it twice a year in real life.

[Fatebringer]

One of the things that made me sad was the end game Star Adder decline due to lack of player involvement. The Falcon Flip-Flop was a big political contention.

If I ever played another Clan game I would want clear and defined rules about Zellbrigen, bidding and the consequences for overbids and honor violations. Maybe create a new Codex Rating (CR) stat that describe the level of honor a unit or individual has. Kinda like a Credit Rating

CR 850 - Warrior is completely honorable and has never broken the code
CR 750 - There is one or two questionable trials, but for the most part the warrior is honorable.
CR 650 - The Warrior is opportunistic and will break zell if there is a clear advantage to win.
CR 550 - Warrior is dishonorable and nearly every trial has a major Zell violations on their codex.

[Iron Mongoose]

Maybe.  But, that only works so long as the warrior needs access to credit, or honor, or whatever.  If they don't feel they need it, its still the wild west.  Might work in a 3050s or 2900s era Clan setting, where access to honor is paramount, but in the 3060s?  Its not just the players, its the setting itself that works against honorable combat.  Sure, two players who have made the choice to play honorable Clanners can find common ground, but a player who chouses to play a dishonorable Clanner is hardly out of cherictor.

As for the Adder end game... I think it just got to the point where it wasn't fun, truely.  Not, not fun because we were losing, which many people accused us of.  I was very hurt by thouse accusations, directed at the guy who presided over some of the worst defeats in the game in the FWL and Mandrills, and directed at my friend, who is a very honorable guy and deserves better than that.  No, what wasn't fun was the constant trials, the constant war, and the constant call down bids.  It wasn't really a competitive game on a tactical level, or on an RP level.  Sure, strategicly, we could probably have made a game out of it, but stratigy is not my strong point, or my colligue's strong suit; Dis mostly handled it for the Adders when we had three. 

We saw a lot of promice in that game to spell out what our ploygot faction had become.  Cobras, Mandrills, Adders, Burrocks, all under the same roof!  It was a wealth of RP possibilities.  We'd managed to find a way to keep Amy Lynn on, and Stan N'Buta, and other long time cherictors, and we were really exicted to explore that through diplomacy, through RP, though the odd trial or raid, or even a small scale bourder war.  Being forced into a full scale war, and one that had so much going on that it demanded our full attention, totaly side tracked everything we wanted to accomplish in the game.  We had no real oppertunity to get what we wanted from it, in as much as we didn't have the time or oppertunity to RP or do anything but just track down combat threads.  And, for the sake of completness, I will admit that there were some personality conflicts, and some clashes in that area, that were factors.

I'm sad that that had to be the end of the game.  I'd have liked to explore that era, having pushed long and hard for a time jump reset for years prior to its actual occurance.  Worst of all, its still not clear even to me what the Adders had really become, because we never really got to finish that bit of work, and its not fully clear what many other factions became, because RP was inconsistant from faction to faction.  How the Falcons absorbed the Lyrans and Wolves in Exile is a bit of a mistery to me, for example, though its possible that it came out after I stopped paying attention.  I'm also a bit curious what became of some of my FWL cherictors, and I'd have liked to be able to revist some of them (Kimmy Cha would have been about 60, which isn't too old by BT standards). 

[DisGruntled]

As for the Adder end game... I think it just got to the point where it wasn't fun, truely.  Not, not fun because we were losing, which many people accused us of.  I was very hurt by thouse accusations, directed at the guy who presided over some of the worst defeats in the game in the FWL and Mandrills, and directed at my friend, who is a very honorable guy and deserves better than that.  No, what wasn't fun was the constant trials, the constant war, and the constant call down bids.  It wasn't really a competitive game on a tactical level, or on an RP level.  Sure, strategicly, we could probably have made a game out of it, but stratigy is not my strong point, or my colligue's strong suit; Dis mostly handled it for the Adders when we had three. 

I've never been happy with the situation you guys were stuck in when I left that game.  I'm even more so now that I see you guys and especially Grae got flak while he was trying to learn how to do the paperwork / fiddly bits.  We'd managed to extract most of the fleet and all the ground forces from Coventry (still not sure how all those blockades around it got ignored) and were getting ready to take back Albion.  I just had too much going on irl and needed a break from what was becoming a second job and the added stress. 

The Adders got hit hard by all of the faction turnover losing 2 or 3 close allies right as we were attacked by IS powers.  I'm still not sure what the reasoning behind the Diamond Shark actions in the HWs, but if the society started showing up that could explain it in hindsight.  I'm also not sure how the DCMS built up is super flotillas or where the Lyrans got their rebuilding.  The CPS super power was a rude surprise that I wouldn't mind seeing the progression of that ruined a lot of our time / planning (though we still had a galaxy and a few factories down that way).  We weren't the aggressor most of the time,  but I feel we did a good job responding to everyone's attacks and counterattacking.  I did enjoy seeing our IS holdings grow and the faction adapt into what it had become by the end.

As for order sheets, I've got all the Adder ones from turn 6 or so until just after Coventry as well as a post Somerset Lyran one via intel ops.  If anyone cares to see them just let me know.

[Lord Harlock]

Sigh, I honestly always feel bad thinking about my exit from 3062. That's not to say that I disliked what Fatebringer and Daemonknight did with the Suns, but let's face it they were overloaded at that point in the game's life. No, the bigger problem was I left to do something that I really didn't want to do, but a certain CBT GM/Writer is incredibly persuasive.

So let's say that I was a lousy Head GM who was obsessed with his "El Dorado", the automated excel sheet. And it would have worked too if everyone had a working copy of Microsoft Excel.  Apple's iWork will forever be on my hate list because of that. Except for a couple of moments, 3010 was a not pleasant experience for me.

With that elephant out of the way, I miss FGC 3062 Federated Suns Team. There was Welshman (And yes, I know there are people who don't like him) our leader who seemed to be able to find some way of keeping us in line. FltAdm, the mind behind our naval forces and most of their victories, had an odd fascination for straight shout out naming of admirals after Gundam Seed characters which I joked about with my character, Ray Lee Creseut. Billy Boy cast a great shadow over everything as Paul Ryan-Bowman in the Terran Corridor. Arivanna did great RP too. And there were others like Primus and Generalstoner, and then there was me.

I was the one who was looking over odd angles to explore. In the Tikonov War, I explored it by creating a aerospace pilot  attached to the FSS Brest who was originally suppose to die in combat in the space over Tikonov. Ray Lee Creseut survived mostly because other units got ravaged instead of the Brest such as the Lucien Davion or "Lucy D" as Flt nicknamed it and most of the attached aerospace of units on world.  Welsh named the Lucy D's skipper I think which is why it was captained by Adam West.

Welsh sometimes forgot to clear up some of his vague ideas or some of his odder plans with the rest of us like the Rabid Fox were all suppose to use color coded names. (The biggest one of his schemes that none of us knew about that he attempted till it happened was the time that the Rabid Foxes tried to get Phelan Kell's kid from the Exiles.) As for the colors, I just thought that he liked referencing "Reservoir Dogs", so when I codenamed characters for the Rabid Fox team that I ordered to protect Khan Cameron Kabriniski when Welshman left me in charge for one of his vacations, I used Transformer names. So Hot Rod and Arcee were there when Apollyon went on his merry little slaughter trying to keep Cameron out of harm's way. When Cameron was extracted to the Suns by the Foxes, Welsh highlighted that by having Lockdown joke about usually going by Mr. Pink.

In all honesty, that is something that I miss more than anything just the group working on ideas together.

When the AFFS had its High Command secret forum where we discussed things(It died along with the website that hosted it: today it's a Japanese Author's website.), we had plans and discussion for a lot of things. We never did prepare for a 25 Warship and 4 Galaxy force arriving in our Periphery Boarder. We prepared for a 10 warship fleet at the most with maybe two galaxies of troops. However hindsight is one of those things that annoys everyone.

One of the things that Billy and I wanted to do after the end of the Second Star League was that we'd get Victor and maybe the 1st Royal Battlemech Regiment to come back to the Suns. I was all prepared for taking over Victor which is something that I never got to do at any period that I was in a FGC. And then the Star League Defense Force became independent for awhile. That forced me to find another Davion to use for running the Crucis March which is why I pulled Conrad Davion out of the Davion Handbook.

My greatest triumph honestly was the Tikonov Ball. God, it was such a silly concept, but at the same time, it made so much sense. Nobles have balls, and Yvonne was unmarried with few people to get additional heirs from from the Hanse line of Davions. Thus the Suns needed to at some point get the First Prince pregnant and not in her battlearmor trying to be a Warrior Princess.

Then again, the ball also allowed me to start to explore other things like Corporate Heads of FedSuns companies and older characters like Quintus Allard. Ah, my joke about the Hellspawn will probably never get old for me at the least. It was because of FGC 3062 and my role in the Fed Suns that I have an almost insane amount knowledge about the business sector of the Federated Suns such as the Crimson Sun Permanent Assurance Company, the only named Insurance Company in Battletech. It was one of my goals now to get a story published about a CSPA rep trying to investigate health insurance fraud with a Mercenary Unit. It will probably go over as well as my attempt to get a musical scene into a Battlecorp story.



However as much good as there was, I have to eventually go back to the place where I left in Turn 39. And as much as I'd like to avoid it, I have to talk about the Dark. Honestly, the Dark annoys me.

The initial idea from Turn 3 in FGC 3062 was fine. Former Jaguars raiding the Suns boarder and proclaiming that they would burn Avalon even though they got squat. That was fine because it eventually lead to an end to that storyline where the Dark found two warships. One became the FSS Havok, our first Congress Class Frigate, and the other who knows happened to it. It also lead to the conquest of the Tortuga Domains by the Suns because we thought that the pirates knew where the Dark was. We found nothing of course.

And then the Jaguars came back as a distraction for the Suns away from the Clans. Let's face it the AFFS sent about six warships and six RCTs to find the Dark after they reappeared and pillaged the Tortuga Territories. They never did find the raiders.

Eventually, they did reappear, and it was curb stomp basically wherever they appeared. The real reason is it takes forever to really move troops around the Suns. It can take four to five turns to get one group of troops to another boarder. Fatebringer can attest to it as well. You can spend you entire MP plus the emergency fund just doing common troop transfer.

And the worst aspect is that the Planetary Defense Forces that Welshman created for bulwarks on invasion on our Periphery boarder (In fact, they are basically Light Combat Teams in prototype form: their failure in FGC 3062 has never filled me with joy for the concept.) did nothing to curb the onslaught. Then again, 7.5 RP versus about sometimes a Galaxy of a 100 FP was probably a losing situation anyway. (When the rest of the faction  initially asked Welshman what the PDFs were, we thought it was based on the Adder's earlier idea of Citizen Militias, and that might be true. We never got a straight answer. Billy and I were going to combine them into new Boarders units because of their dismal performance stopping the Dark though till he left.) Though the FSS Robinson did have one minor miracle, it took down a Farragut with only a near escort fleet for help. That little Fox was awesome.

On the other side of the Suns, I defused a war between the Suns and the Capellan Empire by giving up St. Ives for Warlock, Teng, and Texlos. Though I always wondered if our guest shipyard still made us money. Troops still were on the Capellan March boarder. Most of the spare units that I set up to go to the boarder came from the Draconis and Tikonov Marches, I intended to bring home the warships and units on the Clan front to get the boarders back to the national normal as well as reinforce New Avalon.

And the last real thing, I did was defuse tensions with the Taurians stirred by the Dark by giving them worlds that I couldn't defend at the time. Okay, I also lost the FSS Alexander Davion & FSS Fox to the Snow Ravens. And there was nothing that I could do about it because 1)I was reluctant to end one of Welshman's ideas at the time, & 2) HunterADA told me that he was sending some forces to harass the Clans at the Homeworlds as well. Well, I guess the Alexander Davion survived in the Rasalhague Dominion.

Darnit!

Anyway, I don't have all the sheets, but I have a couple. I'll release Turn 11 & 38 sheets.

As for Turn 38 AFFS:

      
   Ground      3062.50 FP-16 Regiments plus support, 43 RCTs, 29 March Militias, 16 Training Cadres, 10 Planetary Defense Forces
   Aerospace      434 FP
   Navy              622.75 FP- 26 Warships, 16 Near Escort Fleets, 4 Independent Fleets
   Mercenary     862.25 FP- 33 Regiments & A Warship
   Total              4981.50 FP

Top 5 Regrets-
1)Disappointing Welshman and losing touch with the rest of Team AFFS.
2)Never Posting "Tea With Apollyon".
3)Never figuring out a way to get back Quentin.
4)Disappointing people with 3010.
5)Never finishing my storyline with the New Avalon Catholic Church.

[Fatebringer]

As for the Adder end game... I think it just got to the point where it wasn't fun, truely.  Not, not fun because we were losing, which many people accused us of.  I was very hurt by thouse accusations, directed at the guy who presided over some of the worst defeats in the game in the FWL and Mandrills, and directed at my friend, who is a very honorable guy and deserves better than that.  No, what wasn't fun was the constant trials, the constant war, and the constant call down bids.  It wasn't really a competitive game on a tactical level, or on an RP level.  Sure, strategicly, we could probably have made a game out of it, but stratigy is not my strong point, or my colligue's strong suit; Dis mostly handled it for the Adders when we had three. 

I've never been happy with the situation you guys were stuck in when I left that game.  I'm even more so now that I see you guys and especially Grae got flak while he was trying to learn how to do the paperwork / fiddly bits.  We'd managed to extract most of the fleet and all the ground forces from Coventry (still not sure how all those blockades around it got ignored) and were getting ready to take back Albion.  I just had too much going on irl and needed a break from what was becoming a second job and the added stress. 

The Adders got hit hard by all of the faction turnover losing 2 or 3 close allies right as we were attacked by IS powers.  I'm still not sure what the reasoning behind the Diamond Shark actions in the HWs, but if the society started showing up that could explain it in hindsight.  I'm also not sure how the DCMS built up is super flotillas or where the Lyrans got their rebuilding.  The CPS super power was a rude surprise that I wouldn't mind seeing the progression of that ruined a lot of our time / planning (though we still had a galaxy and a few factories down that way).  We weren't the aggressor most of the time,  but I feel we did a good job responding to everyone's attacks and counterattacking.  I did enjoy seeing our IS holdings grow and the faction adapt into what it had become by the end.

As for order sheets, I've got all the Adder ones from turn 6 or so until just after Coventry as well as a post Somerset Lyran one via intel ops.  If anyone cares to see them just let me know.

Don't forget, your factions dissapearance also affected the Hellions who threw everything they had to assist you only to have the Falcons go,"Well, we don'thave to worry about the Adders attacking us now ... lets go annihilate the Hellions!"

While the New Dominion wouldn't have supported the Adders, we were supporting the Hellions. I always had the dream of the "Arctic Alliance" (FRR, CGB, CIH, CSR) being formed one day, but by the time the Hellions were quasi-interested, they didn't have the pull we were looking for anymore. I think the Hellions were one of the great success storied of the game. They had to do everything my Ravens had to do, but by themselves and even when they started facting the Faclons attempts to annhilate them, they fought back with everything they had and won a LOT of those fights while being at a serious disadvantage.