Mega Campaign

[tschuma]

Our local group is currently playing a Mega Campaign and have run across a few issues. For reference the link is to our webpage

http://www.zalefamily.org/acta2/index.html Thanks to Fuzzilogic for hosting the site and keeping the pages updated.

There is a group that is running a campaign in Iowa I think that has a great website. I must admit I took some ideas from that site for the format of our system. I do not know who it is on the forum, but who ever you are Thank You, you have a great site and I always check it out to see how your camapign is going.

Has anyone tried to run a Mega Campaign where there are multiple systems with multiple strategic targets?

With multiple strategic targets, the RR points can increase rather rapidly. On turn 6 the Narn player has 202 points and has only been involved in 3 on table battles. I am playing Brakiri and currently have 30 poitns but have been involed in several on table games and bought multiple ships.

We started out with 10 points of War level, which is based on the Mega Campaign in the 1e rule book, but have found out that this number was too high and we should have stuck with 10 Battle points.

The current point breakdown swings battles way too much towards a swarm fleet, EA Early and Narn in our campaign. I know that this has been discussed and we are thinlking about going back to the Armageddon Point Break down. I know that this has been discessed at lenght here on the forum, I just want to know if anyone has scrapped the current system and gone back ot the old one.

With the current point breakdown at a 5 point battle or higher level game, it takes too long to finish a game. We had a 5 point Battle. the Minbari did not take a very good fleet, but the EA Early age had 30+ ships on the table, lots of 2-fers. They played about 5 hours and only got in 4 turns. How long do games of similar size take place do others take?

We use the system in the rule book for determining the random level and points, but has anyone considered limiting the size of a game so it can be completed in an evening? With swarm fleets and a large game, it basically takes too long to finish a game. One of the things that we njoy about the system is originally how fast you could get a game in. It now seems that with the swarm fleets and the current points breakdown there are too many ships on the table and it really slows the game down.

With Swarm fleets, the current points breakdown, and the lucky critical hit from a patrol level ship on a battle level or higher ship, the critical hits table is still harsh. I had a Corumai get a 1-6 critical from a Hermes. I think, if it wasn't the Corumai it was my Cidikar! I would hope that Mongoose is at least looking at some sort of redundency for Critical Hits based on the size of the ship. I know that this has been discussed on the forum but it would be nice to hear Mongoose's position based on the play testing.

On the plus side, I have played 2 games, I am playing Brakiri, against EA 3rd Age at 7 point Raid and 5 point War and they have been the most enjoyable games I have been in. the other person, Travis, is a great player to play against and will make for a fun game. the 5 point war last 5+hours and we only got in about 4 turns, but it really was decided at that time. the 7 point Raid lasted about 4 hours and lasted about 10 turns and went back and forth 3 times before the we decided the outcome.

Any responses will be appreciated.

Regards

Tom

 

[CaptBavo]

Your site looks good, but no Dilgar player? J/k

Our group is talking about starting a Mini-mega (2 systems) in our next campaign, probably in the next couple weeks.

I'm not sure if its our groups website that you are referring to, but I cant take credit for it( I'm not very computer savvy). Pennybags, who occasionally posts on the boards, is the sole creator and maintains it. The only thing I contribute is the coffee, some of the fluff, and the place to play(I have a descent size playing room).

After our next campaign with two systems, we have discussed starting a Mega. We are pretty sure it will last close to a year (if not longer), so we are making sure everyone is happy with what race they are playing before we jump into it. (We joked about using the galaxy map in the front of the 2nd Edition Fleet book for our campaign map).

I have had a couple of games(4 and 5 pt war) kill them all scenarios against the Centauri (Pennybags) which lasted 6 or 7 hours. Most of the time though our battles are not usually that big, but I could see that changing in a Mega campaign because of a super abundance of RR.

As far as swarm fleets, we are trying to figure out something here too We are kicking around ideas (even playtesting) with redundancy. It would be
fun to be able to buy up a priority level instead of always buying down. I wasn't a real big fan of the new breakdown compared to 1st Edition, but we haven't house ruled the old system as of yet.

Good luck to you in your campaign,

kyle

 

[Ripple]

Our group has talked seriously about changing the breakdowns, either to the old levels (still a few swarm points) or changing even more.

One suggestion was to change the buy down to
1 level below gets you 2 ships
2 levels below gets you 3 ships
3 levels below gets you 4 ships
4 levels below gets you 5 ships
5 levels below gets you 6 ships

issue here is you can still do the breakdown that buys you (from battle) a raid, skirmish and 2 patrol. One thought for limiting that was that you could not generate more ships than the number of the original breakdown plus one. So if you broke the battle point down you would end up with only the raid and two skirmish or raid skirmish and 1 patrol as the second one would put you over the limit.

The idea was it encouraged buying at the level of the fight unless your race was really dependent on a specific level. It was only a suggestion so far, not tested, and we're really afraid that it screws the swarm dependent fleets like drazi too much. But thought we'd throw it out there for folks who'd like to try it.

Ripple

 

[tschuma]

CaptBavo

Yes that is the site! We don't have anyone playing Dilgar yet but there was talk Friday night about them. Can you have Pennybags PM me? I would like to find out what software he is using to setup your site.

I have had several e-mails from the group about having a round robin type of tournament. This will allow all of the group to at least get a few games in and give us time to work out the campaign issues.

Thanks

Tschuma

Your site looks good, but no Dilgar player? J/k

Our group is talking about starting a Mini-mega (2 systems) in our next campaign, probably in the next couple weeks.

I'm not sure if its our groups website that you are referring to, but I cant take credit for it( I'm not very computer savvy). Pennybags, who occasionally posts on the boards, is the sole creator and maintains it. The only thing I contribute is the coffee, some of the fluff, and the place to play(I have a descent size playing room).

After our next campaign with two systems, we have discussed starting a Mega. We are pretty sure it will last close to a year (if not longer), so we are making sure everyone is happy with what race they are playing before we jump into it. (We joked about using the galaxy map in the front of the 2nd Edition Fleet book for our campaign map).

I have had a couple of games(4 and 5 pt war) kill them all scenarios against the Centauri (Pennybags) which lasted 6 or 7 hours. Most of the time though our battles are not usually that big, but I could see that changing in a Mega campaign because of a super abundance of RR.

As far as swarm fleets, we are trying to figure out something here too We are kicking around ideas (even playtesting) with redundancy. It would be
fun to be able to buy up a priority level instead of always buying down. I wasn't a real big fan of the new breakdown compared to 1st Edition, but we haven't house ruled the old system as of yet.

Good luck to you in your campaign,

kyle

 

[tschuma]

Ripple

I just received an e-mail from someone in the group about this type of system. He must have read you post!

Tschuma

 

[Fiztbane_65]

pennybags doesnt use a "program" so to speak. he is a computer programmer and programs it all using HTML.

i like your site. its got to be insane with that big of a campaign with that many players. it takes a few hours for us to even update one turn in a regular campaign.

 

[Pennybags]

As Fizt said the website is coded in pure html. I use notepadd++ for an editor. Currently the website is a very simple codebase that honestly requires way more manual intervention to update then I would like. But I am limited to what I can use by my internet provider as it is a free webspace.

I'm looking at purchasing some webspace and rewriting the website in ASP.net and a MySQL database. Something a little easier to maintain and update on a weekly basis. I haven't gotten anywhere on it yet but I will probably start coding sometime this week and get it up and rolling in a month or so.

 

[tschuma]

Pennybags

Thanks for the info. We are basically using excel and converting to html. We have each player keep track of their own fleet list, although some in the group are not quite up to spped on keeping them updated! I keep trak of the turn page and the RR page, which isn't too bad. I finally have some foumulas to automatically fill in some of the cells.

The map was the hardest part and I am still not happy with it. I did it in Powerpoint. I know there are better ways, but that was what I had to use.

Maybe Mongoose could come up with a standard software for running campaigns!

Regards

tschuma