5th frontier war board game revival?

The future planning is the whole point of the game, it is to model the comms lag in the setting. Fleet Admirals do not have a god level view of what is going on. The player has a god level view so the future plotting mechanic means you can't respond to what happens on a turn, I can't think of another way to model this without even more complexity.

Simplifying the combat resolution should be doable.
Well, I would not say that future planning is the whole point of the game, but rather one of its rule glitches. Unfortunately GDW used those cumbersome preplanning rules to portray the comms lag typical for the traveller universe. This contributed decisively to limited popularity of the game in those days and today.
I am quite sure a well versed board game designer (eg. Mark Simonitch or Jim Krohn from GMT) could easily design a system which perfectly simulates the comms lag of traveller without the current preplanning rules
 
Last edited:
I really don't see how. You can only send ships out with orders, you can't change those orders without sending a courier backwards and forward.
When you arrive at the destination system any intelligence you have about it is at least a fortnight out of date, probably longer.
 
I agree with Sigtrygg

Our society has become accustomed to instantaneous communications. This is very natural for humans, it allows for control and understanding. Every child clamors for 'now'. Every parent is happy they can reach out to their child anywhere, anytime.
We spent a lot of time and resources getting to that stage.

Its not something we want to willingly give up.

Most video and board games give us an omniscient view of the game. We control fleets in real time on opposite sides of the galaxy, with full knowledge of what is happening to each fleet. We control multiple individuals, and choose their reactions with full knowledge of what we are going to choose for the other one. Cheats that turn off fog of war are some of the most popular cheats in video games.

The time lag that jump rules force upon a Traveller goes against all that we've worked for, and grown accustomed to. Its not popular, for very good reason.

If we want it to be accurate, its going to be uncomfortable, and unpleasant. By definition. Trying to make it comfortable, or smooth, is literally going against the point of the jump rules. It would definitely be more popular, but it wouldnt be accurate.

Given that, i fail to see how we could have a set of rules that doesnt feel uncomfortable and annoying, without giving up one of the core assumptions of the setting.
 
I've played a number of historical wargames with messenger based communications, but the best ones involved a referee. It's pretty nerve wracking committing your army to battle with the foe without knowing for sure your orders to the other players on your team were actually followed in the way you meant and they were coming to join you in a timely fashion. Especially without knowing for sure where the rest of your opponents' team was. A lot of fun, but nerve wracking.
 
Imagine a game of FFW with three game boards and a referee.

You know what your fleets have been ordered to do, the referee is the only reveals what happens after a few turns of comm lag.

A sector admiralty actually has no control beyond sending assets to certain subsectors and then allowing local commanders to make their own decisions.
 
Imagine a game of FFW with three game boards and a referee.

You know what your fleets have been ordered to do, the referee is the only reveals what happens after a few turns of comm lag.

A sector admiralty actually has no control beyond sending assets to certain subsectors and then allowing local commanders to make their own decisions.
A play-by-mail version of this is something I've long dreamt of getting off the ground, but that most annoying of things, real life, keeps getting on the way.

A small Subsector Fleet-scale wargame, with each Squadron being commanded by a player, so there's around five players a side and the referee administering the scenario. Obviously not doable as a board game, but perfect for Play-by-Mail.
 
Never seen that game but it does have radio communication?

So ships and aircraft can communicate "instantly", gather intelligence and report it "instantly", send reserves to an ongoing battle etc.
 
Never seen that game but it does have radio communication?

So ships and aircraft can communicate "instantly", gather intelligence and report it "instantly", send reserves to an ongoing battle etc.
Sort of. Meaning your taskforce movement, plane assignments, etc are plotted and given to the referee. The referee manages what is reported by search planes and shadowed task forces and then you can modify for your next move, launch an attack, etc. The double-blind approach was nice because only the referee knew what was real, what was fake, and knew how accurate the reports were. Until combat was entered. Then all hell broke loose ;)

Not really the same scale of battle as FFW. These were smaller engagements and not the entire pacific war.
 
So it is modelling a comms delay of a few hours, not a month or two.

The players have too much god level info even in the current version of FFW.
 
images
 
From what I understood, due to this com delay commanders have more autonomy than in our current armies.
There will be pre-made plans for the fleet/squadrons commanders, but since a plan never survive 1st contact with the enemy most of the initiative will be up to the local commanders.

You can probably represent this with the current version of the game by writing your orders and 'sending' them to the fleets (and having standard operating procedures available before the start of the war).
The StarFire wargame serie has that kind of mechanics. Orders takes time to reach a fleet depending on the distance. Maybe we can poach an idea or two. But this game has a lot of choke points that Traveller won't have (Maps looks more like a subway map than a Traveller Map and you can't skip a stop).
 
Nelson was appointed commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet and given the first-rate HMS Victory as his flagship. He joined her at Portsmouth, where he received orders to sail to Malta and take command of a squadron there, before joining the blockade of Toulon.[224] Nelson arrived off Toulon in July 1803, and spent the next year and a half enforcing the blockade. He was promoted to Vice-Admiral of the White while still at sea, on 23 April 1804.[225] In January 1805, the French fleet, under the command of Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, escaped Toulon and eluded the blockading British. Nelson set off in pursuit, but after searching the eastern Mediterranean, learnt the French had been blown back into Toulon.[226] Villeneuve managed to break out a second time in April, and this time, succeeded in passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, and into the Atlantic—bound for the West Indies.[226]

Nelson gave chase, but after arriving in the Caribbean, spent June in a fruitless search for the fleet. Villeneuve had briefly cruised around the islands, before heading back to Europe, in contravention of Napoleon's orders.[227] The returning French fleet was intercepted by a British fleet, under Sir Robert Calder, and engaged in the Battle of Cape Finisterre, but managed to reach Ferrol with only minor losses.[228] Nelson returned to Gibraltar at the end of July, and travelled from there to England, dismayed at his failure to bring the French to battle and expecting to be censured.[229]
 
I wonder about looking into modern operational/strategic Age of Sail boardgames (after all, this is what Traveller naval combat, communications assumptions derives from) for mechanics they use to simulate comms lag in a more elegant fashion than the written orders some here seem to be reacting against.
For example, "1805: Sea of Glory" from GMT Games (designer Phil Fry) (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23685/1805-sea-of-glory)
Or "When Lions Sailed" from Decision Games (designer Joe Miranda) (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/73363/when-lions-sailed)
 
Back
Top