The Glorious Stars Playtest

[mwaschak]

Done!

[OneMadOgre]

Sorry, I had missed it. I have a facility for renaming them right on the website that I haven't shown Jay how to get to yet, so hopefully he picked the same ones to rename that I did. If he didn't it's trivial for me to rename them again.

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[virtutis.umbra]

Awesome, thanks guys! You hadn't missed anything, John, I just had the realization this morning on my way to work

[mavikfelna]

Can you rename Vega to Zion for House Far Stars?

[diddimus]

Ok, lets give this a go....

House Wolf
Head of State: Councilor Hoffmann
Autonomous

• Originally a colony formed by bold explorers and visionaries who dared to go to the far reaches of the galaxy. House Wolf soon realized they had become separated from the galactic centre and struggled to develop. However the separation led to them becoming extremely self-sufficient. They didn’t participate in most of the Terran Hegemony politics, instead choosing their own path. Over the centuries the galaxy became effectively smaller, with technological improvements and closer neighbors. However House Wolf remains reluctant to change it’s ways. They rely little on the aid from others and trade infrequently. Conversely they have become insular and are seen as aloof by their neighbours.

Careful

• House Wolf’s attitude towards outsiders hasn’t made them impetuous. Others may see them as arrogant but House Wolf are proud of what they have achieved and want to protect their culture. They have had to make certain sacrifices to ensure that they are secure in the galaxy at large. House Wolf sends ambassadors to NEE assembly, but rarely gets involved. Preferring to abstain from votes unless it has a direct impact on their House.

Appointed

• House Wolf are governed by a council, which is made up of elected peers. Although considered a democracy, House Wolf are very restrictive on who can be part of the council, and also who can vote for each senator. Voters and electees are from specific backgrounds and expertise. To outsiders it’s a ridiculously complicated method of electing their leaders and few understand it, but to House Wolf it’s the way they ensure the continued efficiency of their world.

[gstano]

Hello Jay,

For the Minor House forces, would I have access to all of the listed designs to build in the future even if my starting force does not include a design? Thanks!

Geoffrey

[Tyrel Lohr]

For the Minor House forces, would I have access to all of the listed designs to build in the future even if my starting force does not include a design? Thanks!

Geoffrey, I can confirm that the minor houses will have all of the available minor house designs available to build even if they don't appear in your selection of starting forces. So if you take a force mix that doesn't include any carriers, you'll still be able to start building them on the first turn of the game.

The unit design lists that I can created for each of the house-levels (independent, minor, and great) have a decent balance of units for players to work with. They are lower tech than the great houses (TL 3 v. TL 5) but they're more advanced than the non-aligned worlds that are on the map (TL 0). To put that into better perspective, TL 0 is base, TL 3 is +15%, and TL 5 is +25%. The difference in points for our carriers and cruisers is about 2 points of stats. A noticeable difference, especially in volume, but not so great as to put the minor houses at more than a modest disadvantage.

For the record, your home systems have a system income of 24 economic points per turn. If we assume you'll be paying about 10 economic points per turn to maintain your armed forces, that still means 14 points per turn to spend however you want. That would allow you to build a new light cruiser or light carrier every turn, or really push out smaller ships.

[gstano]

Tyrel, thanks for all of the good information here. It is much appreciated!

[TangoTarheel]

Is there anything you need from House Thoth at the moment?

[mwaschak]

Is there anything you need from House Thoth at the moment?

Definitely. I need your email address (I posted about this a few pages ago) so we can get you set up.

[nimrodd]

Okay, I have been out of town and am just getting caught up on all the NEE council meetings and such.

I know that the houses are going to be allowed to make their own treaties, but as background info on how the NEE currently works, I would like to know how movement is allowed into or through the non-aligned worlds?

Also, I noticed that most of the unaligned systems run at a loss for food. How is this being handled? Or is this something that needs to be brought up in the Council?

Baron Lucus Trask
House Trask
Lacerta

aka
Jimmy Simpson

[mwaschak]

Okay, I have been out of town and am just getting caught up on all the NEE council meetings and such.

Welcome back!

I know that the houses are going to be allowed to make their own treaties, but as background info on how the NEE currently works, I would like to know how movement is allowed into or through the non-aligned worlds?

The Non-Aligned worlds are basically treated like any neutral planet in the rules. You can trade there and conquer them. The Imperial House really only polices the Prosperity Zone since we consider the others to have to be rogue Hegemony clients. You can make your own treaties as long as the standard VBAM rules apply.

Also, I noticed that most of the unaligned systems run at a loss for food. How is this being handled? Or is this something that needs to be brought up in the Council?

Good eye. This will be a council issue, but for now I was going to just pay that out of the Prosperity Zone's excess.

-Jay

[Tyrel Lohr]

I know that the houses are going to be allowed to make their own treaties, but as background info on how the NEE currently works, I would like to know how movement is allowed into or through the non-aligned worlds?

As Jay mentioned, the non-aligned worlds are essentially inhabited neutral systems. You can can establish trade routes to these systems or attack them without worrying about treaties or declarations. They are just sitting there on the map as an additional source of income or as a ripe target for invasion.

Also, I noticed that most of the unaligned systems run at a loss for food. How is this being handled? Or is this something that needs to be brought up in the Council?

I pointed that out to Jay, too, and based on the scenario I think the safest assumption right now is that the non-aligned worlds are importing the rest of our leftover food at the moment. We have enough food generation from the great and minor houses to cover the food cost of these Census. However, long term, we'll have to figure out who is delivering food to these worlds. Or just conquer them and call it even.

[gstano]

Thank-you for the feedback on these neutral systems.

Also, I have a quick question on system stats. For example, I am looking at Epsilon Indi.

Minor, CAP=9, RAW=2, BIO=0, CEN=5, MOR=5, PRD=3

I am trying to best understand the value of this system and want to make sure I am interpreting things correctly. First, Epsilon Indi could have up to 9 CEN, correct? Also, economically, it will only generate 6 EPs (3-PRD x 2-RAW).

Where this system could become valuable is that its PRD could be increased to 9, correct? (This would be very expensive to get there. Until the PRD is increased to 4 or 5, the extra two CEN essentially cannot do anything.

Lastly, the big drawback to Epsilon Indi is its complete lack of BIO. Already it requires 10 food for the 5 CEN and all of that food must be imported. Unless you have a huge food surplus, this is going to be a tough system to develop.

Thanks for your feedback!
Geoffrey

[Tyrel Lohr]

Epsilon Indi is one of those systems that is truly a double-edged sword for the empire that controls it. As you pointed out, the system has a very high Carrying Capacity values (9 CAP) but only has average resources (2 RAW) and no biosphere (0 BIO). You are correct that, with its current Utilized Productivity value of 3, the system would produce 2 RAW x 3 PRD = 6 economic points per turn, and it's food production is a big goose egg.

If the system was developed to its maximum value (9 Census, 9 Productivity), it's total income would increase to 2 RAW x 9 PRD = 18 economic points per turn, however its food requirement would skyrocket to 18 food per turn. This would require a player to import quite a bit of food into the system, relying on another system to grow all of the food that the people in Epsilon Indi eat.

So, why would anyone want to develop this system to that level? There are a couple potential reasons:

Industrial. The system has an industrial capacity that is also equal to its RAW x Utilized Productivity. This is the maximum number of economic points that a player can spend on unit purchases in the system each turn. At 18 IC, Epsilon Eridani would be able to build two light cruisers per turn (16 EP, with 2 EP leftover to spend on other projects), based on the costs from our game. Or it could build six frigates per turn. The system only has 2 RAW, which makes it less appealing for this purpose, but it still could become a modest production world.

Commercial. The maximum number of trade routes that a player can connect to one of his system's is equal to its Utilized Productivity. Building up Epsilon Indi all the way to 9 Productivity would let it connect 9 trade routes to it. That can be useful if the system is in a location that is easier to police, as shorter trade routes are better as they have less of a chance of being disrupted by enemy attacks.

Strategic Location. There's a chance that the system might be located along a strategic intersection of jump lanes that makes it an extremely valuable system because whoever owns it can control traffic through the region.

Population Growth. Systems that have higher Carrying Capacity values can support larger populations, and larger colonies receive population increases more frequently. A player could use Epsilon Indi as a place to "farm Census" that could then be moved to other, more important systems.

These are a few of the benefits that popped out of my head right away. If the system only had 1 RAW you'd probably really need some convincing to decide that it would be worth colonizing. Given the location of the system on our campaign map, with two unexplored systems connecting to it, I think it's going to be a pretty major system for the two houses that are adjacent to it. While the food situation is a concern, if either of those houses successfully conquered it they would probably end up coming out ahead in the long run.