ACTA Tournaments - Ditch 5pt Raid and try something new...

[Hash]

Why I think tourneys should be 1 point Armageddon (or War)

Ok, before you denounce me as a crazy loon hear me out...

I don’t like 5pt Raid as the standard bout for every round in a tournament.

It means that tourneys will tend to favour those races who have their "best" ships at Raid and Skirmish while disadvantaging the others. The prevalence of Centauri (excellent Raid ships) and Narn (superb skirmish ships) fleets as well as their relative success rates at the recent Mongoose tourney Into the Fire II, reinforces this point.

Don't get me wrong, I actually love the PL system and the fact that different races have "better" ships that others at different PLs and some races seem to be "better" fighting at certain PLs is great...but not when you *always* fight at the same PL with the same FAP. In anycase I don't want to discuss the PL system, I want to suggest alternatives to 5pt Raid for tournament events.

One potential solution, as Matthew suggested earlier in another thread, is that tourneys could be spread over two days with the option of having larger battles as well as the raid ones…well this could work, in fact I'm sure it could but I think there is another way this can be done in a single day with bouts not much longer (and posssibly shorter) than we have now.

Solution: ONE POINT - Armageddon PL Fleets for tournaments.

Think I'm crazy? Well here are my assumptions and thoughts that lead me to this conclusion:

1. I have assumed a "value" that I have attributed to each PL of ship based on the very simple assumption that 1 PL above equals twice the value of the previous PL, i.e. something like:

Note 1 Armageddon Point therefore has an "ACTA ship value" of 32.

2. The new splitting options allow you to make the following fleet selections:

I have added a value row to illustrate the points value of each selection compared to a base value of 32 for 1 Armageddon point.

What do I think is good about this?

a. A fairly diverse fleet selection is possible given the way fleets can be split...also the split tends to produce *balanced* fleet selections.

b. To those asking what's the difference between this and say 8pt Raid? It discourages JUST selecting Raid and Skirmish ships. You can still spam a skirmish or raid level fleet selection as before HOWEVER you take a bit of a penalty for doing so according to the sum of the values assigned to ship PL levels at the start. You get less bang for your buck going for the 12 Sag fleet!

c. You can use any of your ships from Armageddon through to Patrol if you want to and therefore have a wider tactical selection.

d. This point is important...some fleets work better at certain PLs..i.e. their Raid ships are between Raid and Battle when compared to other races etc. This system allows you to select a mix that best favours your specific race, do you do well at Skirmish? Well pick a split that gives you Skirmish ships etc. HOWEVER - the swarm mentality is given a little nerf in favour of balanced selections (i.e. taking a bit from each PL level) - this means that individual unbalances ships (like say the Sag at skirmish or Prefect at Raid) no longer have the same unbalancing effect when taken at the standard 5pt Raid.

This sells the idea as far as I'm concerned but to be objective there are some flaws (and I'm sure more will be pointed out!)

The main drawbacks as I see it are:

a. Those fleets that lack options at every PL level lose out a little, still I think that's why they merit at least one choice per PL!

b. Allies at 1 FAP for some races can be tricky - I suggest a simple rule such that, from the splits above you may make:

1 Raid
2 Skirmish
1 Skirmish and 2 Patrol
Or 3 Patrol choices as an ally and you will reflect the current balance as is.

c. The selection is roughly 8pt Raid (though not exactly as I explained before) so if 5pt Raid takes 90mins on average I figure 1pt Armageddon bouts would take, on average, 144 mins or just over 2 1/2 hours.

This drawback can be countered by adopting the same idea but at war level instead - this gives you less options:

but this reduces bouts to approx 4pt Raid, meaning they are even shorter than normal!

...
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So, what do you think? Crazy or worth a shot?[/url]

 

[blackphoenix]

6pt Skirmish?

Changes it up a big, still can have a battle ship, or a war, but makes players have to think a little different from the 5pt norm.

 

[Hash]

6pt Skirmish?

Changes it up a big, still can have a battle ship, or a war, but makes players have to think a little different from the 5pt norm.

Definately worth a try as well but am afraid that it might end up much the same after the intial novelty as I said I think you can avoid the problem by fighting different PLs e.g. skirmish, raid and battle within the same tourney...I just think that will take a long time.

I still think the higher PL and lower FAP method is the way to go though!

 

[Triggy]

Hash - I love it! With the new Armageddon PL splits making this possible, a one day tourney with four games at 1 War FAP or a two day event with five or six games at 1 Armageddon FAP would be awesome.

It may not give the "best" sized game for a tourney but it's pretty close and certainly worth a try, even if only as a trial

 

[mthomason]

Put me down as a big fan of 1 Point Armageddon already!

 

[Pauly_D]

i personally would like to see 5 point battle (so almost 1 point Armageddeon)

 

[Hash]

Hey thanks Triggy and Matt for the positive response! Was a little afraid everyone would hate this idea...

i personally would like to see 5 point battle (so almost 1 point Armageddeon)

The fear I have with 5pt Battle (or indeed any selection that involves a high number of FAP) is that, inevitably, the optimal selection becomes taking two ships at 1PL down.

In 5 point Raid the tourney "winner" is 10 Sags
In 5 point Battle I'm guessing its going to be 10 Prefects.

While many players have said these particular ships are "broken", many people don't have a problem with one or two of them in a selection which implies there is something more subtle at work here than merely "fixing" the ships. Even if you do "fix" those ships the principle is still the same, game design slightly favours two ships over one and the more FAP you have then this bias is multiplied. Besides, I'm sure another Raid or Skirmish ship will be then uncovered as "broken" (Rohrics and Ka'Tans come to mind as possible candidates)

Now I don't want to go down the route of saying you must take x many of this and x many of that type ship (although the Battlecards idea mthomason floated a while back was great) so instead of that lowering FAP and increasing PL is my suggestion.

1 FAP is much harder to abuse and Mongoose's own game design works to balance selection - the reason I went for Armageddon level as it allows for the largest scope of options for fleet selection while still nerfing the "swarm" fleets without making them unplayable. (12 Sags or 6 Prefects would still be formidable!)

 

[Reborn]

1 'geddon point suits me. Just seems to make sense with the new release.

 

[lastbesthope]

Pauly, you are missing some options of 1 FAP Armagedon breakdown for instance 1 FAP=3 BAttle=2 Battle + (A variety of options).

LBH

 

[ubertechie]

This does seem to make a lot of sense MGP are obviously aiming to mkae later date fleets higher PL fleets (makes a lot of sense - things get bigger and more powerfull in a arms race) - maybe adding a in service date restriction to this would help as well
e.g.
X1 - X2 (early years ) 5 Point Raid
Y1 - Y2 (Middle time ) 5 Point Battle
Z1 - Z2(Crusade Era) 1 Point Armageddon

this means that more ships would be used more often and when they where would be matched against similar aged ships ( think char de bis vs PzKfw 2 and then Sherman Firefly vs Panther) - this should balance the game a lot more but would possibly require some slight re-jigging of fleets to enable all races to compete in all eras

 

[Reaverman]

interesting

 

[Hash]

Pauly, you are missing some options of 1 FAP Armagedon breakdown for instance 1 FAP=3 BAttle=2 Battle + (A variety of options).LBH

LBH, I'm assuming you meant to direct that comment at me rather than Pauly as I don't think Pauly was commenting on Armageddon splits.

Now I may have misunderstood the point splitting rule on P7 of Armageddon however it seems to clearly state that the steps for splitting are...

i "Each Priority Level buys 2 ships of the Priority Level below"

ii "if you split a Fleet Allocation Point into two, you may only split one of those down further"

That seems to imply what you are suggesting (taking the split to 3 Battle and then splitting 1 of the Battle points) is not possible.

So you could use 1FAP to get 3 Battle Points OR use the splitting technique to get:

1 Armageddon (split into 2 War points)
2 War Points (then split 1 War) ---->
1 War Point + 2 Battle (then split 1 Battle) ---->
1 War Point + 1 Battle + 2 Raid (then split 1 Raid) ---->
1 War Point + 1 Battle + 1 Raid + 2 Skirmish (then split 1 Skirmish) ---->
1 War Point + 1 Battle + 1 Raid + 1 Skirmish + 2 Patrol

Now the way I read P7 splitting rules, that is the only way you can split...if I'm wrong and your method is correct (still only 1 split FAP may broken down further) then that would add;

1 Armageddon (split into 3 Battle points)
3 Battle Points (then split 1 Battle) --->
2 Battle Points + 2 Raid (then split 1 Raid) --->
2 Battle Points + 1 Raid + 2 Skirmish (then split 1 Skirmish) ---->
2 Battle Points + 1 Raid + 1 Skirmish + 2 Patrol

OR

1 Armageddon (split into 6 Raid points)
6 Raid Points (then split 1 Raid) ---->
5 Raid Points + 2 Skirmish (then split 1 Skirmish) ---->
5 Raid Points + 1 Skirmish + 2 Patrol

OR

1 Armageddon (split into 12 Skirmish points)
12 Skirmish Points (then split 1 Skirmish) ---->
11 Skirmish Points + 2 Patrol

As I said I don't think it works like that but if it did...well it would be an even better option I think!

 

[Burger]

/signed for 1 geddon point.
Games would need to be 2 hours though since 1 geddon is a bit stronger than 5 raid.

 

[Reaverman]

/signed for 1 geddon point.
Games would need to be 2 hours though since 1 geddon is a bit stronger than 5 raid.

I dd not sign for anything

 

[Tank]

I try not to sign for anything if I can help it, then they cant pin the blame on me :lol:

 

[Hash]

Reaverman, Tank - Do you have an opinion on the above? Please share...

I really don't mind if you disagree with my reasoning, just want to know what you think.

 

[Burger]

I don't see why you shouldn't split the points into 3, then further split one. When it said 1 point can be further split, I took it to mean by any means on the FAP table.

Eg.
1 Armageddon (split into 3 Battle points)
3 Battle Points (then split 1 Battle) --->
2 Battle Points + 3 Skirmish

 

[Reaverman]

Reaverman, Tank - Do you have an opinion on the above? Please share...

I really don't mind if you disagree with my reasoning, just want to know what you think.

Non plussed really...interesting analysis and comments. But I am neither swayed in any directions....that's not to say I am in disagreement

 

[mthomason]

I try not to sign for anything if I can help it, then they cant pin the blame on me :lol:

Don't worry, someone will just forge your signature

 

[Tank]

I think the 1 Armaggeddon FAP would bring a greater variety of fleets to the table and certainly in my opinion would make playing with a higher powered fleet more tempting (EA crusade, more Minbari etc)

Unfortunately due to my dire performances I am relatively not fussed 5 Raid, 1 Armaggeddon, all the same to me, just crushing defeats to bigger ships :lol:

Oh the breakdown of points would have to be fully understood and clarified by all participants.

My two pennys worth :lol: