A Scenario and a Setting

Playtesting & Rules Development
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countercheck
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A Scenario and a Setting

Post by countercheck »

Have you considered investigating the 2300AD setting? It meshes quite nicely with VBAM in a lot of ways.

And, relating to that, and the recent Colony draft document, I have a scenario suggestion. No Peace Beyond The Core. All the players represent different nations from the same homeworld. The homeworld is a very high Carrying Capacity, high RAW, high Biosphere world... but the Census is split evenly between the different nations. Each nation controls or shares one or two jumplines out of the home system, and into the rest of the galaxy. Tensions are high, and skirmishes in the outer-worlds are common, but the crown jewel is the Homeworld, which is such a powerful system that whoever controls it will almost certainly dominate. Players are always in contact with each other, and have to save their strength for the final confrontation back home. Somewhat analogous to the Age of Exploration, or the Race for Africa... sure colonial fleets make skirmish with each other, but the dreadnoughts and heavy divisions must stay home, else one of the other three might choose to make a move.
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Tyrel Lohr
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Re: A Scenario and a Setting

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

This is pretty popular scenario for settings where you are taking terrestrial political factions and transporting them into a sci-fi campaign environment. For the purposes of the scenario, I would probably make Sol (or whatever the home system's name is) a completely neutral system, with each empire drawing a base income from the system (split evenly between each of the players). No combat can occur in the system unless specific trigger events are achieved.

The scenario would probably work best with 6 players, as that would give each empire 1 jump lane that could technically be "theirs" -- though there is no reason why that has to be, and the factions could fight over who gets what. More likely they'll have to negotiate with the other powers for access if their jump lane ends up being a dead end. A home system with 12 Census and each other infrastructure at 12 would effectively give each empire 2 utilized infrastructure of each type. That only gives them 12 EP from Economy for primary income (commerce income would also be split from Sol, giving them a bit more but not much) and 12 industrial capacity. Can't build much at the home system, but that works to the scenario's advantage in the early game as it forces the factions to move off world to build their war projects "in secret". Population point production would be +6 PP per turn, which isn't much but it would still be enough to build up some new colonies pretty fast.

The end game trigger would probably have to be once one empire has a combined extra-solar income greater than that of the home system. Sol would remain invincible up until this trigger is met, but after that the empire with the matching income could choose to declare war on Sol and attempt to invade the system. I would say the empire would have to hold onto the Sol system for 10 turns to fulfill the military victory condition for the scenario. A diplomatic victory condition option would probably be directly linked to the military one, except with an alliance of powers establishing a unified human government. They would also have to capture and hold on to Sol for 10 turns to fulfill the victory condition.

Thinking some more, a third possible victory condition would be "Terra Nova" wherein one of the players establishes a colony in a system that has a Census of 10 or more with a sector capital and holds on to it for 10 turns. That would represent that the empire has established a new capital that is capable of rivaling Sol's influence. Being able to develop enough colonies to produce the necessary food would clearly demonstrate the empire's power and ability to go it alone.
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countercheck
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Re: A Scenario and a Setting

Post by countercheck »

Players could collaborate on larger projects on the home world until they get an offworld industrial base set up. I also think it might work well with three players. Each player gets their own private jump, and two jumps they share with others. You could also start it after the initial development period is done, so everyone starts with the homeworld, and the first colony.

I'm also not sure about Sol being invincible up to a trigger point. I rather like the idea that all the players need to continually invest resources in the terrestrial arms race. There could be treaties about the number of units that could be garrisoned on Sol, about the maximum size of warships permitted to enter Sol. Mutual defense treaties, where all the players gang up on the player who violates Sol neutrality. Personally, I'd prefer those things to be emergent rather than stipulated. If you THINK you can take the other players, or if you make an alliance with another strong power and think you can take sol together, I think you should be welcome to try. But the addition of UN manned defensive platforms might be advantageous too =)
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