My take on the initiative situation.

[raverrn]

I've been browsing these boards for a while, and the initiative situation has to be the most talked about flaw in the game rules. What I haven't seen is the following solution-

During each player's initiative step he must move ships equal to or above the priority level of the game being played- If playing a 5-point raid game, each player must move at least one raid point of ships. There are a few downsides, most notably that bigger ships are penalized more than little ones, and purchased fighters are heavily gimped. On the plus side it impacts squadrons just as much as a normal ship.

There are some variations on the idea, like letting the players choose what level to move each initiative step, or averaging thier fleets to pick a middle ground.

Another idea is to give each player a bonus to initiative equal to the highest priority ship in thier fleet - patrol being worth 0 and Armageddon being worth 5.

 

[CratZ]

Is a possibility I have been thinking alot myself too. I also think someone has had this idea on these forums before but not sure. I was thinking more like move ½ of the games priority pt.

We actually use this as a house rule in deployment in our games. Both deploy 1pt of game priority on their turn.

This system of course throws the meaning of squads out of the window. But then again it would simplify the game and make it faster

 

[sidewinder]

What if you just fired a ship after moving it?

 

[EDFDarkAngel1]

Or everyone moves their ships, then fires. Then the other side moves all their ships and fires.

Dark Angel

 

[mrambassador1]

I must say from the outset that I like initiative as is so take the rest with a grain of salt if you don't agree. I think moving PL points worth of ships will lengthen and complicate the game, not simplify it, you would have to calculate how many ships to move all the time rather than just move one. Also the idea of moving all your ships then firing followed by the enemy moving all his ships etc is the norm for a lot of games and is simple. However it takes away the aspects of near simultaneous movement the current system gives, and opens the door to the problem many games that use the "I move and attack, you move and attack" have, namely a ship can be in range when I fire, then out of range when you do (as you have moved away). The other problem is that whoever attacks first can often launch a brutal attack destroying half a fleet before the other guy can retaliate.

The current system works pretty well (brilliantly in my opinion, but even less generous gamers would probably concede its pretty good or at least ok) and is a good balance between simultaneous movement and simplicity, any change to make it more realistic usually makes it more complicated, and any move to make it faster or simpler usually makes it less realistic.

If you disagree then please ignore the ramblings of a crazy man, but please remember to wear sunscreen.

 

[CZuschlag]

I'm thinking right now about the granted, cumbersome, but extant initiative mechanic that the Confrontation system had/has.

Disclaimer: I've never played it, but it's intriguing.

If you've never played the game, here's what it is to an outside observer. For every figure or squad of figures on the board, you have a card. Those cards are shuffled, and players then move their figures when they draw the appropriate card. Initiative determines who draws first. You can reserve a certain number of cards in a sideboard to move when you best feel fit.

I don't know the mechanics of these reserved cards, but different races might get the ability to reserve extra cards (Pure Drazi, to help out boresight, and Shadows to make up for their normally totally-being-outsinked-ness sound like good choices)

No, I don't know how you handle squadrons in this mechanic. Maybe if you draw a card of a ship in the squad, you have to reserve all the cards in the squad, or you have to move the whole squad?

And, of course, we don't have cards.

And, of course, I don't know all the ups and downs of the system from personal experience.

But I would be interested to hear.

 

[Burger]

Randomness negates strategy.

I'm fine with initiative how it is. Only thing that needs changing is getting rid of those pesky twofers (they are TOO GOOD as initiative sinks) and returning the FAP splits to those in Armageddon.

 

[darknight]

im with burger on this, dont see much of a problem, than what he stated,
in confrontation, you have to first roll for ini, then the winner can keep up to 2 cards in reserve, the loser one, barring any special effects,

 

[Silvereye]

If you've never played the game, here's what it is to an outside observer. For every figure or squad of figures on the board, you have a card. Those cards are shuffled, and players then move their figures when they draw the appropriate card. Initiative determines who draws first. You can reserve a certain number of cards in a sideboard to move when you best feel fit.

I don't know the mechanics of these reserved cards, but different races might get the ability to reserve extra cards (Pure Drazi, to help out boresight, and Shadows to make up for their normally totally-being-outsinked-ness sound like good choices)

No, I don't know how you handle squadrons in this mechanic. Maybe if you draw a card of a ship in the squad, you have to reserve all the cards in the squad, or you have to move the whole squad?

And, of course, we don't have cards.

And, of course, I don't know all the ups and downs of the system from personal experience.

But I would be interested to hear.

I play confrontation. The initiative system is pretty good, though you really need to play it to understand it. You did get some of your description correct. (though the new edition does make some crazy initiative things happen - like shuffling)

Importantly a card can represent between 1 and 3 units (depends on unit cost).

Broadly speaking;

A player sorts his cards into the order he wishes to activate them.

Initiative is rolled and the high roller gets to activate first.

Players take it in turns to activate their units. It must be noted that any shooting happens during the activation.

Players may elect to keep a card in reserve to be activated at some point later during one of their phase of the turn.

There are some spells and abilities that can manipulate the activation decks.

There is a lot of strategic thinking needed when stacking your deck - do I activate early to get some effect off early, or activate late to react better to my opponent who may bring a better target into play.

 

[darknight]

only ranged attacks though, meley isnt done till the end

 

[mollari_uk]

Mmm, that does bring up a good idea. What moves first, fires first.

That way, inititive sinks as they stand would lose some of their strength. If you move your best ship last for good position, it has to fire last.

I don't think this will screw boresight either as they'd probably get to line up against some better targets.

It does however take away most of the strategy in what to fire as it's predetermined.

This would be interesting to test out.

 

[Burger]

I do like that idea actually - though keeping track of the order you move things in could be a pain.

 

[mollari_uk]

Aye.

I guess cards is a good idea (just place them down in a pile once moved, then you have them in the right order to fire).

They're a pain to make and you'd have to have 1 per miniature but you could combine this with stat cards so you have all their info on them. Could speed up some aspects of play perhaps once you've made them?

 

[darknight]

i think an easier game is warmachine / hordes its really easy, you move and do all your actions, fire etc, then your next unit moves etc, its more real life and so much easier,

 

[Silvereye]

It happens pretty much the same as Warmachine each unit activates Moves/Fires/magic. the difference is Melee, which is done after all the units have activated.

If you are considering this, you could try something different by revising the turn sequence.

Stack turn deck.
Roll for initiative.
Fighters move and fire.
Players take it in turns to move and fire ships in the same activation.
End phase.

One thing to note, is that if you are outnumbered by your opponent (he has x more cards then you), then you gain the ability to 'pass' an activation.

I can put together a more complete list of the way it works later tonight if people are interested in playing around?

 

[mollari_uk]

I think the move & fire idea has come up before (in fact I think I suggested it once after playing D&D mini's) but there are problems. The one I can think of is that if you move a ship last, then first in the next turn it's effectively had two full turns before anyone else gets a chance to do anything. This is far too powerful.

However keeping it as it is but "What moves first fires first", doesn't change the game that much (I think).

 

[Goldritter]

i think an easier game is warmachine / hordes its really easy, you move and do all your actions, fire etc, then your next unit moves etc, its more real life and so much easier,

Like the Silhouette System.
There one side move one unit (or Squad) and then the other side.
And you can use your attack (or any other action) before you move, after you move or anywhere between your move.
(Yes Pop-Up attacks were common .)

But the enemy has the right to use his attack action anytime you move 1". But only if the firing unit wasn´t activated yet.

 

[Chernobyl]

I've been browsing these boards for a while, and the initiative situation has to be the most talked about flaw in the game rules. What I haven't seen is the following solution-

During each player's initiative step he must move ships equal to or above the priority level of the game being played- If playing a 5-point raid game, each player must move at least one raid point of ships. There are a few downsides, most notably that bigger ships are penalized more than little ones, and purchased fighters are heavily gimped. On the plus side it impacts squadrons just as much as a normal ship.

There are some variations on the idea, like letting the players choose what level to move each initiative step, or averaging thier fleets to pick a middle ground.

Another idea is to give each player a bonus to initiative equal to the highest priority ship in thier fleet - patrol being worth 0 and Armageddon being worth 5.

KriticalFailure came up with a similiar idea about a year and a half ago

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=22795&highlight=initiative

Battletech's initiative system has seen praise also.

Myself I think the best system was the old epic "Space Marine" era order chits, where you placed orders upside down for all your ships and then revealed them all at once.

Car Wars had a good system also, vehicles were moved in order of Speed.

Chern

 

[wpngjstr]

The Carwars system simply had 5 "phases" per turn, depending on your speed you moved 1 " per phase that you were active for (based on a small chart.

The mechanic could be adapted very simply to ACTA; a set number of initiative phases (say 5) and fleets divied up evenly between phases.
e.g.
12 Ships; move 2,3,2,3,2
3 Ships move 1,0,1,0,1
6 Ships move 1,1,2,1,1
and so on

This way the winner of initiative always moves the last ship

This could easily be combined with the move first,shoot first suggestion (which I quite like)

 

[Chernobyl]

Car Wars was later adjusted to a 3 phase system from the 5 phase system. It helped speed up play.