Squadron Strike: The Two Empires Campaign
Jonas and I decided to start a campaign game of SS late last week - something i never anticipated when purchasing the game. However the campaign rules are built around a very compelling back-and-forth set-up process using the ship-builder - picture MOO2's technology-based ship & weapon design system, but all done before the start of the game. Combined with the ProdCap allowances, which let you purchase what amounts to a whole empire - colonies, fleets, technologies, and all - to start the game with, and the card-mediated War/Peace system, it really lets the game skip past the mostly tedious first few steps of empire building and put the fleet operations at the forefront of play, while still keeping the 4X recipe of colonization & technological arms race functional. Also, i'd say the campaign rules are better than VBAM's in putting the tactical combats first and foremost, and keeping them to a playable scale. It really helps to have a campaign engine designed specifically to work with the tactical combat engine!
We used the campaign set-up process to create our rival empires in three steps - setting up the empire's colonies & general technologies, then choosing specific technologies & designing weapons, and then finally designing & purchasing our ships. Each step is done secretly, then revealed before moving on to the next step. I really like how this whole process works, and i feel like an idiot (once again) for not having thought of something similar in all these years. ;)
As a capstone, the game preserves some of the MOO2 feel by allowing new technologies & ship designs to be developed during play - although, unlike the 4X games, any such research is a major project, probably best performed during peacetime (depending on your empire's govermental type.)
I created the Hegemonia Helenoi, a bureaucracy with ship designs modeled after those of my favourite period of naval military history - the pre-Dreadnought era - emphasizing a strong role differentiation between line-of-battle-ships and commerce raiding & escorting cruisers. My ships carry a combination of heavy armour (at least on the heavy vessels) and heavy torpedoes. (Our first battles have shown that, like my Victorian inspirations, my torpedoes are much more effective on paper than in action!)
Jonas created the Legion of Souls / Ghost Council, a militaristic feudal civilization that none-the-less excells at technological development (at least according to his die rolls & card draws!). His fleet consists of relatively weakly-constructed craft protected by heavy, quickly-recharging shields, which are delpoyed into light battleship / light carrier pairs with destroyer escorts. However, the centerpiece of the Ghostie fleet is the Spectre SDN - a massive battleship modelled after the protagonist's vessel in Starship Operators.
So far we've only had minor engagements to begin the first war, but that will change - and soon!
I made a really nice map / game-board for the campaign, too - it's lovingly traditional: a print-out hexmap thumbtacked to my big cork-board, with coloured & labeled pins demarking each squadron, facility, & colony in the two empires.
We used the campaign set-up process to create our rival empires in three steps - setting up the empire's colonies & general technologies, then choosing specific technologies & designing weapons, and then finally designing & purchasing our ships. Each step is done secretly, then revealed before moving on to the next step. I really like how this whole process works, and i feel like an idiot (once again) for not having thought of something similar in all these years. ;)
As a capstone, the game preserves some of the MOO2 feel by allowing new technologies & ship designs to be developed during play - although, unlike the 4X games, any such research is a major project, probably best performed during peacetime (depending on your empire's govermental type.)
I created the Hegemonia Helenoi, a bureaucracy with ship designs modeled after those of my favourite period of naval military history - the pre-Dreadnought era - emphasizing a strong role differentiation between line-of-battle-ships and commerce raiding & escorting cruisers. My ships carry a combination of heavy armour (at least on the heavy vessels) and heavy torpedoes. (Our first battles have shown that, like my Victorian inspirations, my torpedoes are much more effective on paper than in action!)
Jonas created the Legion of Souls / Ghost Council, a militaristic feudal civilization that none-the-less excells at technological development (at least according to his die rolls & card draws!). His fleet consists of relatively weakly-constructed craft protected by heavy, quickly-recharging shields, which are delpoyed into light battleship / light carrier pairs with destroyer escorts. However, the centerpiece of the Ghostie fleet is the Spectre SDN - a massive battleship modelled after the protagonist's vessel in Starship Operators.
So far we've only had minor engagements to begin the first war, but that will change - and soon!
I made a really nice map / game-board for the campaign, too - it's lovingly traditional: a print-out hexmap thumbtacked to my big cork-board, with coloured & labeled pins demarking each squadron, facility, & colony in the two empires.