My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

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virtutis.umbra
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My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by virtutis.umbra »

Prologue I
Cinnraith lifted his ponderous head, membranes sliding into place to shield his eyes from the harsh glare raining down from above: the fusion torches of all seven hands of Vespra's stellar navy lighting off at once. It was said among the Old Ones that the force of Heaven itself moved the Vesper ships through the void. It was also said that this day was destined eventually to come to pass, and that when it did no great salvation would come from even the mightiest engines of fire and destruction.

Nonetheless, the People were going to war.

In time, the light of his people's defenders ebbed from a second dawn to a cluster of too-bright comets; with the hallmark speed and precision of his race, the old Skywatcher calculated that they had moved beyond the orbit of Vespra's second moon by now, and were streaking off toward the approaching nemesis with growing speed. There would be no deceleration burn, no attempt to retain reaction mass for a homecoming flight.

There would be no point.

He stared outward with his glittering, multifaceted eyes and flexed his eight fingers in silent, mournful anguish for a few more moments until the lights of the Vesper armada were indistinguishable from the other lights in the sky. Then he turned and looked downward, from his observatory's upper balcony, to survey the scene of pandemonium and exodus engulfing Vespra's great City. Lines of trundling People marched off through the twisting streets to the far-off horizon, where the snub-nosed cones of the arkships waited to carry them into the heavens, to some vain and vanishing chance of outrunning what was coming. Cinnraith's wide jaw flexed and his thin lips formed a quiet, low, trilling whistle - the Vesper equivalent of a sad, rueful smile. He and the other astronomers had shared the news when the Void Wolves entered the system - had seen the black space between the stars bear forth these even blacker shapes, and they had known from the first moment that, as foretold, there would be no hope, no succour in battle or in flight for the Vespers. Not from this enemy.

So at last, turning from his balcony and entered the observatory room, settling his thick and sinuous frame before a glowing pool of faint, silvery light/fluid, Cinnraith sadly turned his thoughts away from the now-sealed fate of his own people. As the energy of the pool flowed through his arms and into his elongated cranium, the old astronomer's consciousness expanded and stretched outward; he felt himself as if suspended above the slowly-spinning spiral of the galaxy, looking down and seeing his old dear friends traced out in faint blue light against the vacuum: the funny, clever little primates of Ablet, the proud and feathered warriors of B'torh, and all the rest, slowly shaking off the shackles of gravity and reaching, childlike, into the endlessness of their own tiny systems...

They had no idea of the conflagration they were about to enter. No defense, not even so much as the old legends that had guided the Vespers, against the peril and threat that lurked, like the hard cold certainty of vacuum itself, beyond the comfortable bounds of their little suns.

It would destroy them as well, in time. It had always been so.

And yet.

Cinnraith shifted his mind. The energies flowing through him and through the great machine he guided shifted in response. His great Skywatching engines ceased merely to watch those distant lights...
And began to sing to them.
Last edited by virtutis.umbra on Sun Aug 07, 2011 3:50 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by virtutis.umbra »

Prologue II
We received the Vespers' message, and their warning, on May 27, 2125.

In point of fact, we received it on May 1, but it took four weeks for the reality to sink in - it was finally a young radioastronomy postdoc from Copenhagen University who stood before the Union Council and declared the truth: the noisome static and interference coming from Sol, fouling our lunar and asteroid mining vessels and disrupting satellite broadcasting, was too low-gamma, too steady, too lacking in coronal perturbation or sunspot activity, to be natural. The electromagnetic waves from this new event were confined almost entirely to our preferred communications spectrum.

There was a Message coming down, and it was awe-inspiring and terrible.

We're not sure how the Vespers did it - the trick of making a star into a relay station, converting their faster-than-light communications into radio waves and beaming them at us - but effectively they bequeathed us their entire technological and historical archives in one enormous blast of energy. Every radio telescope on Terra recorded furiously as thousands of exabytes of data poured down.

The Message was amazing, revelatory. It spawned three major religions and inalterably changed the others. The Message was "you are not alone in the universe. We are here. This is what we know." Huge technological and theoretical innovations followed. But the Message paled to insignificance beside the Warning, which was wrapped up and tied ingeniously within the Message’s substrate, a repeating refrain winding throughout all the rest of the data:

We are glad to know you.
But we will not be here for long.
The Wolves are at our gate.
They will have seen us crying out to you.
When they have finished with us, they will come for you.
It is all they do. They never stop.
But they may be faltering.
We will hold them as long as we can.
Take what we have given you, and run or fight as you will.
Remember us.
You play a sentient race that has just awakened from a smug and self-centered view of the universe to a broad and frightening reality: the reason the galaxy is seemingly empty of other intelligence is because there is a force at work that actively seeks and destroys them. These Wolves roam through local space snuffing out budding civilizations when it detects FTL signatures. The Vespers are their most recent victims, and they are thousands of years more advanced than anyone now remaining in this part of the galaxy.

But the Vespers did something new - they shared the full extent of their knowledge in one desperate last-minute missive to eight other civilizations whom they deemed likely to attract the Wolves on their own sooner or later. This gives the young races of the Centauri sector a welcome boost - but at great cost. The Wolves will have detected the transmissions, and they will be coming for the young races.

To survive, you will need to decode the technological legacy of the Vespers, bootstrap the industrial and military infrastructure of your homeworld, and mount a defense against the first wave of the Wolves.

Then there will be another wave. And another.
Until you are dead.
Or until you find some way to evade their tireless hunt.
Or until they are somehow stopped.
Last edited by virtutis.umbra on Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by virtutis.umbra »

Setup and Objectives
Scenario: The Wolves (an inversion of VBAM-CG Scenario 7:Barbarians at the Gates, with a hat tip to Carl Sagan’s Contact and Alastair Reynolds’ Revelation Trilogy.)

Size: up to 10 players

Overview: Several start-from-scratch empires spring up simultaneously due to the benevolence of the Vespers, an empire that has just fallen prey to the Wolves - an enigmatic, advanced, but scattered, enemy seeking to wipe out all spacefaring races. This benevolence is two-edged, however, as the information transfer also alerts the Wolves to the new races’ existence. With the Vespers eliminated, the Wolves have new targets...

Map Setup: Use the Nearby Stars map. All Jump Lanes are considered Major. The New Races roll 2d6, high roll chooses homeworld first. Rather than starting on the outer ring, all races must choose a home system 2-3 jumps from Alpha Centauri, and 2 or more jumps from a system on the outer ring. (Sol, if the Human Republic or other Terran power is in play, is exempt from the 2-jump minimum from Alpha C.)

Starting Date: ???? for the Wolves, 3000 for small empires.

Player Setup:
  • The Wolves - ??? points of units.
  • The New Races - 240 points of units.
  • All the New Races start in contact and Normal Relations with one another due to the universality of the FTL communications technology gifted from the Vespers.
  • Wolf Aggression begins at 5.
  • Wolf Immunity begins at 0 for all empires.
End Conditions: The game continues until one of two events occur:
  • The Wolves’ forces in the sector are destroyed and their reinforcement routes secured; or
  • Half the New Races’ homeworlds are held and/or eliminated by the Wolves (conquest by another race does not count; if a race conquers another race’s homeworld and subsequently loses it to the wolves, that does count). It is possible to reclaim worlds from the Wolves, but there is a time limit.
Victory Conditions: After either End Condition is reached, complete the current turn and execute the next turn’s Income Phase (only). Each player checks against the following conditions.
Each New Race gains a victory if they meet any 2 of the following conditions:
  • Developed Empire: Control at least 3 systems in Good Order with at least 3 Census each.
  • Economic Hub: Empire gross income (TDP + Commerce + Misc) above 120.
  • Trade Nexus: Trade Fleets operating at the homeworld or capitol systems of 2 alien races.
  • Client State: Engaged in a binding Alliance treaty with at least 2 other empires who have achieved at least 1 non-Diplomatic victory condition each.
  • Peace Broker:Non-Aggression Treaty active with all surviving empires.
  • Military Superpower: Sum of all active Starship and Flight units’ C$ is 20% greater than each other empire.
  • Guardian: Victorious in every Defensive Scenario (minimum 1) involving owned systems.
  • Part of the Solution: Participate in a successful operation to diminish Wolf Aggression. How this can be done must be discovered during play.
  • Held the Line: No owned Census eliminated by the wolves.
  • Technological Haven: Achieve Tech Year 3010. (See Technology).
  • Legacy of the Ancients: recover and research at least one Vesper Relic.
  • Out of Danger: Achieve complete Wolf Immunity. How this can be done must be discovered during play.
Any player who does not meet two of these conditions has lost. It is possible for more than one player to achieve a victory.
Last edited by virtutis.umbra on Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:20 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by virtutis.umbra »

Comment on Technology:
'Research' in this scenario basically consists of frantically skimming the Vesper transmission for technologies that can be adapted to your empire's existing understanding, and then using that technology to mount a desperate defense against the Wolves. Therefore we're going to take the concept of 'Tech Years' as described in the core rules pretty literally.

At start of play, any glaring differences in technological advancement between the races have been pretty much blown away to insignificance by the enormous impact of the Vespers' advanced technology. All races have decoded and implemented their way to Tech Year 3000, and your racial Force Lists describe what kind of ships you can field when you've generated any given number of years' worth of progress on the Vesper Archives from there.

Note that progressing through the Tech Years (by investing Research Points being basically converted 1 for 1 from Economic Points and spent against a target number determined by your empire's Total Domestic Product) represents not just deciphering some new technologies and developing new applications, but also modernizing your whole economy and infrastructure to make use of it; this is why larger economies have to spend more to achieve the same advancement. (It's also why different empires get different Force Lists from decoding the same source technology guidance; each empire's own predilections, existing advances, and strategic or industrial advancements heavily influence the way in which they apply the Vespers' information.)

Advances in basic science, medicine, industry, physics - all of it is reverse-engineering and cross-pollinating from the Vespers, and all of it is geared toward defense and counterattack because there is simply no time for anything else. The Wolves are coming. A year of tech advancement means you can build and field better warships to stop their attacks. And that's all that matters.
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by virtutis.umbra »

CM Note: This is a campaign I just started up with some existing gaming colleagues. I've been pleased to receive expressions of interest in participating from members of this forum, I'm not currently soliciting new players. However I may very well want to launch new scenarios (in this same universe or otherwise) in the future, so I'll make sure to post a request for interest on this forum if that comes to pass.
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by virtutis.umbra »

I'd like to solicit a critique of my scenario design, and particularly some suggestions for additional or altered victory condition(s)... any advice? :)
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

I really like the scenario, and I think it is a really great introductory scenario that plays to the strengths and weaknesses of the VBAM 1E system. Specifically, the way that you are incorporating the tech years into the narrative is very clever and looks like it should work great.

As for victory conditions, I have been thinking about what kinds of diplomatic victory options you could add, but I am coming up with limited options. One would be to sign Non-Aggression treaties with all of the other players, representing that you have secured peace with all of your neighbors. Another economic victory condition could be having trade fleets at X alien homeworlds (maybe 3?).
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by virtutis.umbra »

Stealing both of those ideas, thanks :)
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by virtutis.umbra »

Population Growth
We'll be using Gareth's proposed alternate population growth rules to speed up Census expansion:
At the end of a year, instead of the normal growth die rolls, divide your Empires total population by a "Growth Ratio" (We will use 10 for all empires). The result (rounding down) is the number of extra census gained across your empire this year. Each new Census point gets immediately assigned by random roll to an owned system with Census < Carrying Capacity. Any remainder (from the calculation) is added onto your census next year when figuring your growth.

e.g.:
I have three planets with populations, using Growth Ratio 10:
Planet A: 8 Census
Planet B: 4 census
Planet C: 3 census
At the year end I have 15 total census, so my growth is 15/10 = 1 census, which gets added to planet A (as it has the highest current census). I also have a remainder of 5 points to carry over to next year.
At the end of the next year (assuming no other changes) I have 16 total census, and 5 remainder for a total of 21. 21/10 = 2 new census (assigned to planets A and B), and a remainder of 1 for the next year.
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by Brennall »

I like what your looking to do ... For allocating the new census points I would include the Aggression from the AIX rating as a factor. Aggressive races are in the main expansionist (sweeping statement I know but realistic I think). While non-aggressive races are a lot less likely to head out into the stars for a frontier life, being more content to live in cramped spaces with their peers.

So roll under the Aggressiveness of your race and the population is placed on the "emptiest" worlds first. If the roll is above the aggressiveness of your race place the expansion on the world with the highest population and least capacity first.

d100 <= aggressiveness census goes to the planet with the highest spare capacity.
d100 > aggressiveness census goes to the planet with the highest census value with spare capacity.

If multiple planets have the same values, the one with the best climate is chosen. If still tied, flip a coin.

With the law of averages your above average aggressiveness race will expand to the colonies quicker ... but the core worlds will not fill up. While a peaceful race will fill their homeworlds / major colonies first and you will be forced to "send" them to get them onto other worlds.

If you want the climate to play a more prominent roll in apportioning new census ... then the following formula will produce a "modified" spare capacity taking into account climate variation. Basically bad climate worlds will look a lot less attractive.

Climate modified spare Capacity = (Capacity - Census) * (100 - climate variance%).

The resulting value can be used to decide the most attractive colony world after the d100 roll.

wow .. sorry that turned into a diatribe, I hope it was at least interesting and possibly useful.
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by virtutis.umbra »

Brennall - thanks for the suggestion, that sounds like a great additional variant to the rule. At the moment we're playing as 'vanilla' as possible, so no use of AIX or system climate statistics or anything like that, but if we do introduce those kinds of rules in a later scenario I think that using race stats and system climate to weight the decision about where growth collects makes perfect sense.

We've just finished getting everybody's starting construction completed; I'm going to solicit Turn Orders soon and will be posting the resolution here.

We're taking the unusual step of having everybody post their turn orders publicly, since this scenario is a learning experience for all of us and we want to be able to generate/answer questions and catch/fix mistakes quickly; but I'm thinking of making an exception for Intel and Diplomacy stuff so that we can keep things interesting in those areas...
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

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Travel

All Jump Lanes listed on the map are considered Major Lanes. Other jump lanes can be created via special research projects. Additional details of jump lane physics, and possible new options, will be revealed as you advance your Tech Level.

A standard jumpdrive is roughly the size of a Volkswagen and requires no inputs except (an enormous amount of) power; it generates no exhaust except in the form of warped gravity and space/time; and it effectively jumps vessels across vast interstellar distances instantaneously. And not just from a subjective frame of reference: the advent of FTL communications illustrates that the transition to a target system is instantaneous from the origin point as well -- no time dilation occurs.
Clarke's Third Law wrote: Eat it, Einstein.
The technology relies on extremely precise astrogation calculations centering around known lines of gravitational and hyperspatial force; these focus into particular nodes and ‘ley lines’ within systems that exist almost entirely on the plane of the ecliptic near the edges of the systems. Other jump point configurations are theoretically possible, either within a system or between as-yet-unconnected systems; but exhaustive studies would have to be undertaken to identify and properly map these out for reliable travel.
Some theories of what this technology could be made to do run into extremes of wild grandiosity - gravity bubbles as projectile weapons, stable physical portals, zero-point energy systems... but at the moment it’s all the New Races can do to build the templated FTL drives fast enough to keep up with military and civilian production.

Communications + Intel

All races start in diplomatic Contact; Espionage missions are fair game sector-wide, if you’re willing to pay the range cost; physical Intel Missions (Sabotage, Iinsurgency) require Contact with the target world through the canonical rules’ definition (must be able to trace a line of controlled and/or allied systems to the target).

The communications technology in the Vesper transmission is an extremely simple omnidirectional FTL ‘shout’ system. The physics behind it are poorly understood, but it all appears to take effect on a single ‘frequency’ with no way to shield or direct communications to a particular recipient - everybody hears everything, except insofar as a universal filtering standard can be worked out between the races.
The result is a somewhat curious situation: all the New Races start out in full communications contact with one another, and thus are able to enter into diplomatic communications right away (so long as they don’t mind everybody hearing the negotiations).

Any sort of covert activity - physical espionage, sabotage, etc. - that doesn’t rely on listening and analysis of other races’ transmissions isn’t terribly effective until alternate communications lines are set up, presumably involving ‘pony express’ FTL couriers to deliver operatives, materials, and/or encryption keys to recipients to enable secure transmissions between hitherto-unconnected systems.
Obviously traditional methods of encryption for transmissions in this medium will work just as well as for, say, radio or heliograph, but lacking a way of initially trading the necessary keys in a secure (read:physical) manner, no truly secret interstellar communications can be carried out over the FTLLine at game start. (Empires may have adaped their existing voice and data encryption protocols for their internal communications, so secure FTL military and intelligence transmissions within a species are possible from the get-go. On the other hand, the potential for low-fidelity signals analysis of this kind of communication is pretty high.)
-Patrick
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by Vandervecken »

I am looking forward to catching the highlights of "The Wolves" PBEM scenario as it unfolds.
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

Post by virtutis.umbra »

Thanks Vandervecken! We're getting the Turn 1 Income Phase submissions underway now. I'm playing the first turn SUPER-slowly and planning to correct, amend, and cite rules frequently so that everyone gets their feet under them with respect to the economics of the game. Future turns I'll probably just solicit Income + Turn Orders in one submission. Things should get interesting soon. In the meantime I think I'll post a quick list of the New Races and some high-level notes about their starting configurations.
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Re: My first PBEM Scenario: The Wolves

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The New Races - Initial dispositions. Home systems can be found on this map.
  • The Holy Tirelon Empire - Kruger 60 - Holy Tirelon is beginning with a fairly infrastructure-heavy asset mix - roughly half combat ships, no fixed defenses, and half shipyards and civilian fleets (incl. 2 colony fleets). Their maintenance is extremely low as a result.
  • The Loran Imperium - Barnard's Star - The Loran mindworms need new brood worlds! They've thrown half their resources into 3 colony fleets, with the remainder going in fairly balanced fashion between other priorities.
  • The Kili Republic - Lacaille 9352 - The cautious, xenophobic Kili have undertaken a significant military buildup to the exclusion of any starting colony capabilities.
  • The Brindaki Colossus - Kapteyn's Star - A balanced start with the hallmark versatility of the Brindaki.
  • The Terran Union - Sol - A mostly-balanced start, but the only race to deploy Diplomatic Couriers so far; the Terrans have already been agitating for high levels of cooperation between the Young Races against their common enemy. Embassy missions are being prepared for their four closest neighbors.
  • The Senorian Republic - Epsilon Eridani - The pragmatic Senorians have positioned themselves for strong logistical versatility and an early colonization push. Decent defensive investments as well.
  • The Jain Empire - Van Maanan's Star - Military buildup focus (including a formidable Star Fortress orbiting their homeworld) with a secondary focus on Trade Fleets. No starting colony capabilities.
  • The Nulos Trade Federation - Wolf 424 - The Nulos are set to maximize their starting trade income and have the logistical support for quickly establishing a second colony. Fielding their large Battlecruisers right from the start, it's clear the Nulos are taking no chances of disruption to their trade ambitions.
  • The Tawasi Empire - Eta Cassiopei - The Tawasi have skimped slightly on shipbuilding infrastructure in exchange for a sizable battle fleet, second only to the Kili - with an emphasis on small escort corvettes/destroyers for their civilian fleets (1 Transport, 1 Trade, 1 Colony[loaded]) and a couple of heavy maneuver squadrons - Light+Assault+Scout cruisers.
-Patrick
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