Hi guys,
Wanted to say a few things about Armageddon, prompted by this post;
True - it was never intended to be. The point of Armageddon was twofold - first, introduce the Armageddon level ships (and thus push the large Vorlon and Shadow ships above the power level of the iconic ships of other races) and 'trim' the rules to bring them more in line with what we wanted and what you chaps had asked for.
We _could_ have done a complete re-write, in effect a SFoS II, with all new fleet lists, but we did not believe the game was quite ready for that. Instead, we aimed to bring the game to 95% of what we intend it to be. It is the aim of second edition CTA to make that 100% - but the leap could not have been made this year. After all, there are still things we want your feedback from (not all of which are in Armageddon - expect some new ships and fleets over the coming months).
Overall, we believe Armageddon is a worthy addition to CTA, building the game up to a more complete and solid system. The tweaks to, for example, Energy Mines and Stealth traits serve to balance the game very finely, as do the revisions in the FAQ section. Contrary to the posts of a few of you, the EA fleet really did need splitting up - aside from encouraging the use of In Service dates and allowing us to explore other eras of the B5 universe (look out for more Dilgar related material), it also stopped what is the most popular fleet from becoming a sprawling mass.
We are considering all your comments on the Amrageddon ships themselves but believe, as a concept, the PL is solid. Some ships, such as the Adira and Shaodws/Vorlons, sit there very well. Our big question at the moment is how to handle them in tournaments without taking something away from the smaller ships (the latter was the reason we changed the PL point splits - and that seems to have worked).
The Ancients themselves are for 'special' games - we expect players to pretty much take them or leave them. But try them out at least once, as you can have some truly high-powered games, without covering the table with ships.
Last, you have the scenarios - and I believe these are some of the best we have done for the game, my particular favourites being Border Dispute and Hunting the Hunters.
In summary, we knew Armageddon would not be the silver bullet that would make the game perfect, with no discernable flaws. But it would take the game 95% of the way there, allowing us to collate your responses and produce something. . . quite wonderful next year. . .
In the meantime, however, you can expect to see a range of new ships over the next few months, starting with the Tiger Starfuries. We have specced up pretty much everything in Ships of the Galaxy (yes, even alien civilian ships!) and now we are working through exactly what to release. The main cause of contention that Armageddon brings seems to be the Sagittarius (there was a reason for it, I swear!). Given the general overwhleming mass of opinion on this ship, we will be releasing a new set of stats for it in next month's S&P.
We always listen to all your comments
Wanted to say a few things about Armageddon, prompted by this post;
Apachex said:It is definately not on par with SFOS.
True - it was never intended to be. The point of Armageddon was twofold - first, introduce the Armageddon level ships (and thus push the large Vorlon and Shadow ships above the power level of the iconic ships of other races) and 'trim' the rules to bring them more in line with what we wanted and what you chaps had asked for.
We _could_ have done a complete re-write, in effect a SFoS II, with all new fleet lists, but we did not believe the game was quite ready for that. Instead, we aimed to bring the game to 95% of what we intend it to be. It is the aim of second edition CTA to make that 100% - but the leap could not have been made this year. After all, there are still things we want your feedback from (not all of which are in Armageddon - expect some new ships and fleets over the coming months).
Overall, we believe Armageddon is a worthy addition to CTA, building the game up to a more complete and solid system. The tweaks to, for example, Energy Mines and Stealth traits serve to balance the game very finely, as do the revisions in the FAQ section. Contrary to the posts of a few of you, the EA fleet really did need splitting up - aside from encouraging the use of In Service dates and allowing us to explore other eras of the B5 universe (look out for more Dilgar related material), it also stopped what is the most popular fleet from becoming a sprawling mass.
We are considering all your comments on the Amrageddon ships themselves but believe, as a concept, the PL is solid. Some ships, such as the Adira and Shaodws/Vorlons, sit there very well. Our big question at the moment is how to handle them in tournaments without taking something away from the smaller ships (the latter was the reason we changed the PL point splits - and that seems to have worked).
The Ancients themselves are for 'special' games - we expect players to pretty much take them or leave them. But try them out at least once, as you can have some truly high-powered games, without covering the table with ships.
Last, you have the scenarios - and I believe these are some of the best we have done for the game, my particular favourites being Border Dispute and Hunting the Hunters.
In summary, we knew Armageddon would not be the silver bullet that would make the game perfect, with no discernable flaws. But it would take the game 95% of the way there, allowing us to collate your responses and produce something. . . quite wonderful next year. . .
In the meantime, however, you can expect to see a range of new ships over the next few months, starting with the Tiger Starfuries. We have specced up pretty much everything in Ships of the Galaxy (yes, even alien civilian ships!) and now we are working through exactly what to release. The main cause of contention that Armageddon brings seems to be the Sagittarius (there was a reason for it, I swear!). Given the general overwhleming mass of opinion on this ship, we will be releasing a new set of stats for it in next month's S&P.
We always listen to all your comments