General Questions

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BLHarrison
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General Questions

Post by BLHarrison »

Is there any way to forcibly decrease an enemy powers tech level(s)? I am running a solo campaign to provide more detail for a gaming/writing world I've created. One of the planned events in the defeat of an enemy power. Many of the remnants of same power are/will be just plain dangerous and the winning power just does not believe in genocide. So it was/will be decided that the defeated enemy will be placed on their homeworld and the enemy will have their tech base reduced so they are denied even interplanetary capability.

In the diplomatic action segment of the 2.0 rules, will there be anything like what I call a plunder raid (AKA a Water raid for those of you who are familiar with the Battletech universe) or will this be a form of state sponsored piracy (from the new Trade and Piracy chapter you mentioned on the 01Jan2010 blog entry)

All the files have mentioned the various phases of the campaign turn order, when are we going to see the complete sequence?

When 2.0 comes out will it be available both in Hardcopy and PDF formats? Or will the PDF version come out a month or two later?
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Tyrel Lohr
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Re: General Questions

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

BLHarrison wrote:Is there any way to forcibly decrease an enemy powers tech level(s)? I am running a solo campaign to provide more detail for a gaming/writing world I've created. One of the planned events in the defeat of an enemy power. Many of the remnants of same power are/will be just plain dangerous and the winning power just does not believe in genocide. So it was/will be decided that the defeated enemy will be placed on their homeworld and the enemy will have their tech base reduced so they are denied even interplanetary capability.
I don't currently have any rules written for actively reducing an empire's tech levels, but that is an excellent idea for an optional rule for the Companion. My gut reaction is for the empire to have to make a campaign check whenever its Tech infrastructure is destroyed to see if the loss actually resulted in it having its tech levels reduced by the event. It would have to be scaled effect, so that there would only be a slight chance for minor Tech losses, but if an empire loses 5 Tech from the same colony all at once it could obliterate enough knowledge to act as a major setback.

This all could dovetail fairly well into a "tech maintenance" concept where an empire must expend a certain number of tech points each campaign turn in order to maintain their current level of technology. If the empire's Tech Pool ever goes negative, then the player would have to reduce a technology's tech level by 1 for every 10 points in the hole his empire's Tech Pool is. So if you end up with -12 TP during the Tech Phase, you would receive a -2 tech level penalty. Destroy enough of the enemy's Tech infrastructure, and you could quickly force them into a downward spiral which would eliminate years of research.

As for 1E and achieving the same effect, just destroy all of their Productivity. Without that they can't produce economic points, and thus can't build anything. You could also reduce their Tech Year by 1 for each campaign turn in which they have an empire-wide Productivity total of 0.

In the diplomatic action segment of the 2.0 rules, will there be anything like what I call a plunder raid (AKA a Water raid for those of you who are familiar with the Battletech universe) or will this be a form of state sponsored piracy (from the new Trade and Piracy chapter you mentioned on the 01Jan2010 blog entry)
If I am understanding the question correctly, the ability to conduct commerce raids against the enemy is possible, but it isn't tied to the diplomacy rules, per se. Players can move their military forces into an enemy system and, so long as any of them survive to the end of the turn, the system will be Contested, which will cause the trade links in the system to go inactive and not produce any commerce income that turn. Additionally, any "upstream" trade links (those that can only trace a contiguous chain of jump lanes back to a supply node via that Contested system) will also become inactive -- so raiding can have some serious economic effects on the enemy. The raiding player doesn't get anything out of the deal (pirates do, just nation states don't), but it does have the potential of denying income to your enemy.

Another avenue is to use Sabotage intel missions to increase the Piracy value in an enemy's system. The higher the system's Piracy value, the greater the chance that a new pirate force will be generated in the system. This pirate force will then act as a hostile force that can move a system into a Contested state and cutoff trade links as described above.

In summary, if you wanted to be a complete jerk to other players in game you could build out a high-Intel empire and just sit there increasing piracy in their territories and watch them get inundated by pirate forces. They won't have any legitimate complaint against you so long as you don't get caught conducting the intel missions.

All the files have mentioned the various phases of the campaign turn order, when are we going to see the complete sequence?
I have been doing some rearranging on it, along with the chapter orders, so have been keeping it pretty close to the vest up to this point. However, here is a rundown of what should be close to the final sequence of play for 2E:

Turn Orders Phase
Diplomacy Phase
Intel Phase
Movement Phase
Piracy Phase
Space Combat Phase
Bombardment Phase
Ground Combat Phase
Tech Phase
Construction Phase
Colony Phase
Supply Phase
Income Phase
Update Phase

The major changes of note are:

* The Income Phase is now backloaded into the campaign turn. While it is essentially in the same order as before, I felt it was best to put it at the end of the campaign turn because having it at the start was confusing to some players, as they would confuse which turn they earned income on or which turn they were writing orders for.

* The Tech Phase now occurs after bombardment but before colony infrastructure purchases are performed. That way you don't get tech points on the same turn as when you build new Tech infrastructure, and any Tech that is disrupted or destroyed earlier on the turn does not provide any benefits.

* The Supply Phase now occurs at the end of the turn, not right before combat.

* The Piracy Phase is new. It is during this phase that you roll empire and system piracy checks and resolve their effects. Pirate forces generated during this phase will then be able to be attacked during the Space Combat Phase.

* It is now called the Bombardment Phase and not Orbital Bombardment Phase, as ground combat units can perform bombardment missions in the same way that space combat units can. This means that you can build actual ground-based artillery to shell enemies with prior to engaging in ground combat.

* Empire and system morale checks are performed during the Colony Phase, along with all infrastructure purchases. In the case of the morale checks, this allows these checks to reflect any events that took place during the preceding campaign phases.

When 2.0 comes out will it be available both in Hardcopy and PDF formats? Or will the PDF version come out a month or two later?
Right now, the PDF is probably going to be released first followed by a hard copy version. We have plans to have the book printed and perhaps even distributed via Amarillo Design Bureau, but regardless we will have a hard copy version available.

I personally prefer to release an electronic copy first (with a print preorder option) so that any niggling editing mistakes that carry over to the first release can be fixed prior to the release of the print edition. I am not sure how realistic that will be with 2E, but we shall see.

-Tyrel
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BLHarrison
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Re: General Questions

Post by BLHarrison »

In the diplomatic action segment of the 2.0 rules, will there be anything like what I call a plunder raid (AKA a Water raid for those of you who are familiar with the Battletech universe) or will this be a form of state sponsored piracy (from the new Trade and Piracy chapter you mentioned on the 01Jan2010 blog entry)
If I am understanding the question correctly, the ability to conduct commerce raids against the enemy is possible, but it isn't tied to the diplomacy rules, per se. Players can move their military forces into an enemy system and, so long as any of them survive to the end of the turn, the system will be Contested, which will cause the trade links in the system to go inactive and not produce any commerce income that turn. Additionally, any "upstream" trade links (those that can only trace a contiguous chain of jump lanes back to a supply node via that Contested system) will also become inactive -- so raiding can have some serious economic effects on the enemy. The raiding player doesn't get anything out of the deal (pirates do, just nation states don't), but it does have the potential of denying income to your enemy.
What I ment by Plunder/Water raids is something akin to when the Norse went "A Vikine" i.e. A group of raiders appears, takes what they want that isn't nailed down (and they'll check if it is loose) maybe some slaves and then leave. The targeted power would suffer the normal economic effects, but the raiding power would gain some or all of the value lost (thus state sponsored piracy)

BTW I really like the suggested way to reduce the enemies tech base.
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Tyrel Lohr
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Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Okay, yes, the pirate forces will be able to steal the resources from a trade link or colony using the standard rules, but we would need some optional rules to allow national powers to do the same. The reason for this is that there would have to be some sort of trade off or limitation that would not make an empire not want to do commerce or colony raiding at every opportunity. But it is definitely an idea that should be investigated so that you could have "barbarian hordes" that could run around raiding enemy sites to steal their income.

-Tyrel
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BLHarrison
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Post by BLHarrison »

Tyrel Lohr wrote:Okay, yes, the pirate forces will be able to steal the resources from a trade link or colony using the standard rules, but we would need some optional rules to allow national powers to do the same. The reason for this is that there would have to be some sort of trade off or limitation that would not make an empire not want to do commerce or colony raiding at every opportunity. But it is definitely an idea that should be investigated so that you could have "barbarian hordes" that could run around raiding enemy sites to steal their income.

-Tyrel
Exactly what I meant, in fact the specific power that inspired me to ask would have the Barbarian Horde mentality (at least in part) to do such raids. The other reason would be population pressure; in V1 Menagerie terms they have the fast growing population modifier (x1), which I guess would translate to need only 90 population points to generate a census in V2
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