Are Menagerie Force Lists balanced vs the Campaign Guide?

[virtutis.umbra]

Are the Jains and the Tawasi valid opponents or is one going to have a drastic advantage over the other?

I'm curious to know whether, generally speaking, the Force Lists from the Menagerie are expected to be usable alongside the ones from the core book in a campaign including races from both. Would I need to tweak anything to keep this fair between players?

It looks like the Menagerie tech lines extend to higher Tech Years, so that's something that would have to be addressed if a game ever got far enough... but barring that exception, were the Menagerie force lists rooted in the same math as the CG?

[zyffyr]

I can't speak to the base game lists, but the Menagerie lists aren't rooted in any math at all. The people who created them just picked values that looked suitable to them at the time.

[Tyrel Lohr]

There was some very tenuous math involved in the Menagerie lists when I drew them up, but since publication I think it has been demonstrated that there are a few of the powers that are just more powerful than others due to a combination of units and special abilities. I think most have construction costs equal to their total combat values divided by 3, with allowances for special abilities and command costs. Like I said, the math involved was very tenuous but the Menagerie forces were intended to be semi-balanced between each other.

I know the Ze'U'lok have been noted as the most broken of the Menagerie powers. I am not sure if the Tawasi have issues or not, too, but I think they are probably second or third on the list of most powerful in that book IIRC.

As to the original question of compatibility between the Menagerie lists and the ones from the Campaign Guide, I think they are *generally* compatible, but I think the Menagerie powers are a bit more efficient. It also looks like the CG empire's larger units would need a balance tweak so that they stay competitive. The Jain Super Dreadnought I is inferior to the Tawasi Machariodus Dreadnought, but that could be fixed by giving the Jain dreadnought a 3/2 maintenance cost, maybe a bit more DV, and reduce CC to 4. The Jain DN does cost 12 EP vs. the Tawasi DN costs 16 EP, so there is a cost difference that benefits the Jains.

[virtutis.umbra]

... I think they are *generally* compatible, but I think the Menagerie powers are a bit more efficient. It also looks like the CG empire's larger units would need a balance tweak so that they stay competitive.

Thanks, that's good enough for me. The Ze'U'Lok are not one of the empires under consideration in our current game. Good to know they're the 'broken' one.

As long as the powers' ship lists aren't "Whoa what are you THINKING" out of balance, that should be good enough for our purposes. This first scenario is a learning experience for all players, and there's a large NPE threat that's going to have more impact on who survives and prospers than small variances in force efficiency.

The Jain Super Dreadnought I is inferior to the Tawasi Machariodus Dreadnought, but that could be fixed by giving the Jain dreadnought a 3/2 maintenance cost, maybe a bit more DV, and reduce CC to 4. The Jain DN does cost 12 EP vs. the Tawasi DN costs 16 EP, so there is a cost difference that benefits the Jains.

Are you endorsing making the suggested maint/DV/CC adjustments to the Jain DN and ALSO keeping its cost at 12 instead of 16?

[Tyrel Lohr]

Are you endorsing making the suggested maint/DV/CC adjustments to the Jain DN and ALSO keeping its cost at 12 instead of 16?

I would definitely recommend the maintenance cost change, the rest are more personal decisions. The Jain DN's stats add up to 39, and 37 / 3 = 13, or pretty close to the current cost. I think the two options would be to either keep the construction cost the same but change maintenance to 3/2; or go to 3/2 maintenance, 13 construction cost, and lower command cost to 4. That should make it fairly compatible with the Tawasi dreadnought at a similar tech level.

[virtutis.umbra]

Cool - thanks as always for the guidance

[Tyrel Lohr]

Looking at things again, I do think the general formula for deriving the Menagerie unit costs was (DV+AS+AF+CR+BC) / 3 = construction cost, then assigning command and maintenance costs as appropriate for a unit of that "size". Fractional construction cost results were resolved by bumping one of the other costs one direction or another. For example, a frigate that cost 4.3 EP from the formula might end up with a cost of 4 EP but its maintenance increased to 1/5 instead of 1/6. It was all completely eyeballed, though, and nothing truly scientific backs up the costs or stats.

One of the biggest additions to 2E (and most time consuming from a development time perspective) is the introduction of actual unit design rules. I am still tweaking some aspects of them prior to the playtest release, but they at least allow a player to design their own units using a consistent system. Once the rules are nailed down, I'll put together an Excel sheet that players can use to design their own units, too, which should make it even easier to quickly stat out a new empire's units.