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If you want a strat-level ACW game, and you don't want to abstract it like Blue vs Grey, I don't think you can go too wrong with FtP. The pros for it is that it's not too chromy unless you want to add optional rules, the combat is easy to resolve and more or less makes sense, and most of the times you are going to be using cards for Ops (FtP is a very old-fashioned CDG so most of the times you won't be running cards for events, and unlike TS, cards with opponent events don't fire off when you play them for Ops). Overall the most difficult aspect of the game is army organisation, and once you understand how that works, it's relatively smooth sailing. I think it's relatively worth it and not too complex if you have played stuff like TS or especially We the People.
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Apr 19, 2020 09:19
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Tekopo posted:If you want a strat-level ACW game, and you don't want to abstract it like Blue vs Grey, I don't think you can go too wrong with FtP. What are the CS win conditions? How are politics modeled? That's my biggest complaint about Simonich's TUSCW, politics are almost entirely ignored so the CS win condition is just "don't get your rear end kicked as quickly as it happened historically".
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Apr 19, 2020 11:12
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CaptainRightful posted:What are the CS win conditions? How are politics modeled? That's my biggest complaint about Simonich's TUSCW, politics are almost entirely ignored so the CS win condition is just "don't get your rear end kicked as quickly as it happened historically". The game keeps track of Strategic Will for both sides and the Confederates are heavily rewarded for being aggressive in the North. The way victory works is: If the CSA has more than 2x the US Strategic Will value at the end of any turn, they win. If the US SW value is less than 50 at the end of the 1864 turn, they win. If the CSA SW value ever goes to zero, the US wins If the CSA ever loses all resource spaces and all blockade runner ports, the US wins At the end of the game in Spring 1865, if the US player controls 10 Confederate or Border states, where every 25-point differential in SW also counts as a state controlled, they win. Otherwise, CSA wins. So, you kinda do have the possibility of running down the clock, but there are tons of ways for an aggressive CSA player to ding US strategic will. Politics mostly has to do with strategic will penalties for shitcanning certain army commanders(everyone you pass up who's not in an army costs you 2 SW, you also lose a bunch of SW for canning certain generals based on their political value). For what it's worth, I think Simonitch's US Civil War is kind of a lame version of the Victory Games take, whereas For the People feels like a genuine evolution. US Civil War is this awkward in between thing.
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Apr 19, 2020 11:35
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CaptainRightful posted:What are the CS win conditions? How are politics modeled? That's my biggest complaint about Simonich's TUSCW, politics are almost entirely ignored so the CS win condition is just "don't get your rear end kicked as quickly as it happened historically". The CSA can win if either they have double the SW of the USA, or if the USA has less than 50 SW during the re-election year. USA wins by capturing enough Confederate states or according to how much SW the confederates have (I can't quite remember the exact condition). Politics are modelled through the use of a political stat for all generals (and generals get pissed off if they get skipped for promotion, for example), and through some card play, but card play is a bit weird since For The People has a huge deck which you are only going to go through once per game, so most of the times cards are played for ops and not for the political event.
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Apr 19, 2020 11:37
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Tekopo posted:Most of the victory conditions are tied to the Strategic Will, which is basically the political will of either side to continue the war. You both start with 100 strategic will, and you can gain/lose it for different reasons. Shared SW losses include: losing major battles, getting rid of army commanders, with the loss tied to how much political clout the generals have (although if you lose a major battle, it's cheaper to replace them), losing/gaining border states or confederate states, some card play, the extent of the blockade (for the CSA), if you have cut the Mississippi or not (for the USA), losing an entire army etc etc. There are reshuffles, and the Union gets dinged 5 SW a turn for every original Union state in which the Confederates control 3 spaces.
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Apr 19, 2020 11:49
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New question: Have anyone tried to use [url="https://rattrap-productions.com/products/contemptible-little-armies-3rd-ed-pdf-version"]Contemptible Little Armies[/url to simulate a batallion-size WW1 battle?]. I really want to do it here on SA for kicks, but it seems like it might be a little hard to do without having a table set up, and I can't make it work with VASSAL. SavageMessiah posted:MBT is pretty playable - the firing procedure is pretty elaborate but it gets reasonably fast as you get used to it. I enjoy it. Is this the new GMT version or the old one? Avalon Hill '89 baby  blackmongoose posted:WSIM is great, but learning it at first can be pretty complex. It's best if you can play through one of the 1 on 1 scenarios with someone else who is also learning and just look up each step as you do it. You'll both flail around like drunken idiots but it should still be entertaining and by the time someone's ship finally explodes you should have the rules pretty well internalized. Having leafed through the rules, yeah, I think the BASIC rules (there is another section for advanced rules, and then yet another one for extra rules  ) look managable and fun to just learn by doing in a two ship battle.
Tias fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Apr 19, 2020 |
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Apr 19, 2020 12:00
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Also, one of the more interesting aspects of FTP is that players can build superteams of generals but they are ultimately self-defeating because high battle modifiers increase general casualties quite a bit. It can still be worth the trouble, as a Lee-Jackson-Longstreet-Stuart army is insanely powerful and can basically beat any Union defense but it will get worn down in officers pretty quickly. Also the fact that I find the decisions in the old-school CDGs more interesting when events are seldom played leads me to be even more hype for Imperial Struggle's way of doing things. I think Gupta might've found the best part of CDGs. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Apr 19, 2020 |
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Apr 19, 2020 17:08
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Panzeh posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZmxZThb084
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Apr 21, 2020 23:23
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Tekopo posted:Spoilers: it did not turn out great for this soldier. No, but the cause of Union remains strong.  Situation at the end of Summer 1862. Confederates came close to doubling me up in SW but Kentucky helps a lot.
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Apr 22, 2020 01:20
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So me and two other milhist goons are testing new systems to wargame WW1 with - if you want in our test battles of Contemptible Little Armies (3. ed), let me know in pm and I'll invite you to the discord.
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Apr 23, 2020 12:33
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Tias posted:So me and two other milhist goons are testing new systems to wargame WW1 with - if you want in our test battles of Contemptible Little Armies (3. ed), let me know in pm and I'll invite you to the discord.
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Apr 23, 2020 14:43
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 After another disastrous season for Pope's ambitious attacks, he settles in as one of Grant's subordinates who shows him what real aggression looks like. The Mississippi is almost mine. I'm still way behind schedule.
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Apr 24, 2020 20:17
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Panzeh posted:
I have come to increasingly appreciate games that treat the historical result as the "default" option and try to balance around that; comparing your results to what was achieved historically rather than some arbitrary "you can never win this" victory conditions a la Ardennes '44.
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Apr 24, 2020 20:53
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Panzeh posted:After another disastrous season for Pope's ambitious attacks, he settles in as one of Grant's subordinates who shows him what real aggression looks like. Yep. That sounds like Pope.
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Apr 24, 2020 20:57
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tomdidiot posted:I have come to increasingly appreciate games that treat the historical result as the "default" option and try to balance around that; comparing your results to what was achieved historically rather than some arbitrary "you can never win this" victory conditions a la Ardennes '44. One thing i'll say for the VCs in For the People- they're all hittable. Tek could have won with an assault on Washington but it wouldve been a +5 vs +4 battle.
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Apr 24, 2020 21:44
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tomdidiot posted:I have come to increasingly appreciate games that treat the historical result as the "default" option and try to balance around that; comparing your results to what was achieved historically rather than some arbitrary "you can never win this" victory conditions a la Ardennes '44. I feel like this is really the only way you can actually hit the balance between historical simulation and game playability for most of the conflicts that wargames are about. Unless you just want to use a smaller scale in which case, no big deal.
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Apr 25, 2020 10:00
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZOgV9rcZMk More desert wankering. More fun!
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Apr 25, 2020 21:59
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Ithle01 posted:I feel like this is really the only way you can actually hit the balance between historical simulation and game playability for most of the conflicts that wargames are about. Unless you just want to use a smaller scale in which case, no big deal. It's the only way to keep up the tension in games about, say, Bagration or Normandy where it's clear the Germans are going to lose (TM) but it's a question of if they completely collapse or pull back in a phased and prepared way. tomdidiot fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Apr 25, 2020 |
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Apr 25, 2020 22:00
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Also, i'd be willing to teach anybody FtP on Vassal, it has a really good module made by Brian Reynolds.
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Apr 25, 2020 22:01
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tomdidiot posted:It's the only way to keep up the tension in games about, say, Bagration or Normandy where it's clear the Germans are going to lose (TM) but it's a question of if they completely collapse or pull back in a phased and prepared war. I would say there's an exception for games about a historical event where some side screwed up in a really obvious way or where surprise was a major factor, where you might have to balance the victory conditions around something less than historical because no one playing the game is going to be that dumb/unprepared. Examples: any case yellow game where the French are allowed to cancel Dyle and move their good units towards the Ardennes, the Battle of Tannenberg, Austerlitz, etc.
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Apr 25, 2020 22:31
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Yeah Rachel had to figure out a very specific way to handle austerlitz surprise reinforcements in nt, and that took up a large part of the development effort.
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Apr 25, 2020 22:34
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I like victory conditions with a lot of options- different ways to score VPs, a menu of militarily significant things that let you do an operation or war your way.
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Apr 25, 2020 22:49
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blackmongoose posted:I would say there's an exception for games about a historical event where some side screwed up in a really obvious way or where surprise was a major factor, where you might have to balance the victory conditions around something less than historical because no one playing the game is going to be that dumb/unprepared. Examples: any case yellow game where the French are allowed to cancel Dyle and move their good units towards the Ardennes, the Battle of Tannenberg, Austerlitz, etc.
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Apr 26, 2020 00:38
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So an Operational Level WW2 pacific game just hit p500 and I am in heaven
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Apr 26, 2020 00:53
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Phi230 posted:So an Operational Level WW2 pacific game just hit p500 and I am in heaven It didn't just hit p500, it smashed the poo poo out of it.
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Apr 26, 2020 01:31
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It’s an oldie but a good one and people have been waiting for a reprint.
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Apr 26, 2020 01:36
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irc is hosed up
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Apr 26, 2020 04:18
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So with the whole isolation thing going on I’ve been trying to think of boardgames to play with my family group. I have a brother, brother in law and a few nephews who don’t mind coming round for some games. Mostly lighter stuff but a couple are fine with Twilight Struggle and BSG for instance. They’re no war gamers by any stretch but we work with what we have. I’m currently running them through three simultaneous games of Silent Victory, running the games in vassal and sending them updates in Discord and having them send me orders to process. After this they’re keen to try a more complex game but either playing together against me or against each other, I’m only going with games I have physical copies of and so far we’ve earmarked Unconditional Surrender, Conflict of Heroes and a small scenario standard game of one of the Next War games. Can the collective thread call out any other introductory war games, that don’t require any hidden information, that could be run in a sort of Let’s Play format? I’ll need to teach them about stacking limits and so on, but plan is to run them like an RPG where they say what they want to do and I’ll DM the rules .
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Apr 26, 2020 05:06
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Is Talon/Talon 1000 any good. Do all its pieces fit in the box?
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Apr 26, 2020 05:18
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:irc is hosed up correct: the best misapplication would be far future conflicts, viz. a COIN Dune game. The Padishah Emperor has the most powerful shock troops, but they are extremely expensive and limited in deployment and they must rely on negotiation using his largesse a la the Syndicate in Cuba Libre, except instead of Cash, they spend Spice which they would otherwise add to their victory track. Spice/Support for VP. The Harkonnen ofc are the ARVN style govt who must conduct the bulk of police action. Control/Patronage for VP. Patronage ofc represents diverting spice and therefore drains the Emperor. The boring faction a la DR is the House Atreides. Here's where it gets funky--having Atreides and the Fremen as one faction would be super OP, like making the NVA and VC NLF one faction in FitL would be. So Atreides gets lovely cubes, but their cylinders represent assistance from the Bene Gesserit/Spacing Guild/CHOAM who want a stable flow of spice under control of a House less corrupt than Harkonnen and ofc don't want the Emperor to consolidate power. This relies on an involvement track. Consider even calling this faction "Landsraad" or something instead of Atreides. Give them very powerful special ops. Control/Spice for VP. This will be tough to get right but could be cool. Ah, the Fremen. The reason for the game. Traditional guerillas. Oppose/Water for VP. They can accumulate spice and barter with it but do not spend it as a resource--their resource is the water which ofc moves them down in VP to spend it. The map will be such that the population out in the sietches will never be nearly enough to reach victory without getting inside the shield wall, and they'll need to Subvert Atreides cubes to take on the Harkonnen/Sardaukar. I think having the Fremen rely on a resource that nobody else uses will also make an interesting three-way dynamic among the other factions of "whose turn is it to waste time going out to the desert and loving up the Fremen's water supply for little concrete gain?" eSports Chaebol fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Apr 26, 2020 |
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Apr 26, 2020 06:11
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unicr0n posted:So with the whole isolation thing going on I’ve been trying to think of boardgames to play with my family group. I have a brother, brother in law and a few nephews who don’t mind coming round for some games. Mostly lighter stuff but a couple are fine with Twilight Struggle and BSG for instance. Try the post germany collapse scenario in Unconditonal Surrender. The one where the aliies and the USSR are fighting over Germany. Its pretty fun for both sides. If you want three players any of the mid-war launch point scenarios are good too. Its just good. Next War is heavy. I love it but even the standard games SOP is pretty involved and if you want to use all the cool stuff available then it gets deep fast. Some form of Unconditional Surrender is probably the best bet. Its pretty and you can take nice progress pics. Unless you also own Space Empires 4x because I'm on my third game of this in isolation and loving it more each time.
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Apr 26, 2020 06:32
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Phi230 posted:Is Talon/Talon 1000 any good. Do all its pieces fit in the box? this but also how does it combine with SE4X?
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Apr 26, 2020 06:33
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eSports Chaebol posted:correct: the best misapplication would be far future conflicts, viz. a COIN Dune game. I would buy a 40k COIN in 20 seconds, I dont care if it's a bad idea, I'm just that dumb
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Apr 26, 2020 06:51
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Sleekly posted:Try the post germany collapse scenario in Unconditonal Surrender. The one where the aliies and the USSR are fighting over Germany. Its pretty fun for both sides. If you want three players any of the mid-war launch point scenarios are good too. Its just good. Definitely wouldn’t be attempting NW until we’ve had a few games of US:E done, I was thinking of doing the Poland, France intro scenarios or Case Blue. I’ll check out that scenario you mentioned also.
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Apr 26, 2020 06:56
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unicr0n posted:Definitely wouldn’t be attempting NW until we’ve had a few games of US:E done, I was thinking of doing the Poland, France intro scenarios or Case Blue. I’ll check out that scenario you mentioned also. It's called Soviet V Western 1945-1946. Just looked it up lol. 18 turns playing two pretty strong sides.
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Apr 26, 2020 07:57
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Sleekly posted:It's called Soviet V Western 1945-1946. Just looked it up lol. 18 turns playing two pretty strong sides. Ha, just pulled out the playbook to find it also. It’s the hypothetical scenario where they can nuke each other. They’ll glass the entire continent if they could.
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Apr 26, 2020 08:26
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Sleekly posted:this but also how does it combine with SE4X? I don't know if you're joking but the rules for this exist. I'm not sure I'd call them particularly playable though as a game of SE4X is going to have a lot of space battles in it and they are going to take a while to play out in talon verse
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Apr 26, 2020 09:09
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Phi230 posted:So an Operational Level WW2 pacific game just hit p500 and I am in heaven loving hell, that's an absolute classic. A masterpiece of game design, and more countersheets than you'll know what to do with. I'm in for a new edition.
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Apr 26, 2020 09:11
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:I don't know if you're joking but the rules for this exist. I'm not sure I'd call them particularly playable though as a game of SE4X is going to have a lot of space battles in it and they are going to take a while to play out in talon verse lol i have the time, was wondering if someone had done it  unicr0n posted:Ha, just pulled out the playbook to find it also. It’s the hypothetical scenario where they can nuke each other. They’ll glass the entire continent if they could. the soviets dont have it yet but if poo poo goes bad for the allies its nuke time! it pisses off europe no end. Sleekly fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Apr 26, 2020 |
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Apr 26, 2020 09:18
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Tekopo posted:It’s an oldie but a good one and people have been waiting for a reprint. Which one?
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Apr 26, 2020 09:59
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