Warhammer 40,000 NES: The Khwaraz Campaign

[Fulton]

I am now accepting orders. Orders are due Sunday Sept. 5th

I am glad to see that many players are taking advantage of this lull in the action to produce stories.

Ruling on the Movement Issue:
After carefully considering the proposals and ideas, I have made the following ruling:
Units may move up to double their movement in friendly territory. This includes moving out of friendly territory and into contested/enemy territory (for example, forces in Luoyang with a movement of 2 could move into the Vale of Tears using extra movement, but units in Eastern Wu with the same movement value could only move into the Vale of Tears.

However, if you encounter enemy forces in any province except your destination region, you will suffer a penalty in battle, as you are focusing on speed rather than defense.

In future games in this series, the number of regions will be cut in half.


Ruling on the Chaos Gate Issue:
I made a mistake in Bahalia. In my original orders, I missed Seon’s ITF entirely. Originally, chaos took the entire region, which allowed them to open a chaos gate (see below). After I re-read Seon’s orders later did I notice the ITF there, changed the moderation, and ruled the region contested. There never should have been a gate there, as it was not held by chaos. However, it is there now, and so it will stand until closed. In future, no chaos gates will be opened in contested territory.

I am henceforth limiting the number of gates in the game. There is a maximum limit of 2 daemon gates and 10 gates total open at a time. It now costs cults 2 SP to open a gate.

Also, the “close gate” strategy is not working as I had originally intended, it is a holdover from previous rule overhaul. The text will be changed to read:
One selected unit within movement range (including orbital insertion and teleport attack) attempts to close down an enemy gate or daemon gate. If the region remains in enemy hands and fail, they will be completely destroyed. Even if they are successful, they will be destroyed unless they are able to extract via the Fleet Action: Extraction or Teleport Attack strategies. If the region is contested at the end of the turn, then the unit in a similar situation as able will take extra damage rather than be destroyed. If the region is in friendly hands at the end of the turn, the gate will be automatically closed.


Apology/Reminder for Supreme Commanders/New information required in orders

I apologize for missing many things over the course of the last two turns. Mainly I have missed the locations of hidden untis. In future, I need all players to include full OOBs including the locations of all hidden units and their destinations. For example:
Inquisitor Jaq Draco: Stalinvast underhive-> Stalinvast Upper Spire (hidden)

Most players already include OOBs, and I thank them for it. However, the players whose units I tend to miss, don’t. With this inclusion, I will hopefully make fewer mistakes.

Additionally, supreme commanders, I remind you of this:
The Supreme Commander’s order should include a rough outline of the operations to be conducted by their side during this turn and the players involved in each operation. This will make things easier for the mod and ensure that he does not miss any important operations.

It helps me a lot to have all of a team’s actions in one location. To a degree I get this from the social groups, and I know it is impossible to get everything down as it mainly depends on players giving you the information in the first place. Even something as simple as:

Attack on Quebec: Seon, labrat13, Shadowbound
Attack on Ontario: Seon, a_propagandist
Defence of British Columbia: a_propagandist, Vertinari
Raid on Calgary: labrat13


Info for the new turn:
Ok, with that out of the way, we’ve had a lot of players drop out. We currently have 4 active chaos players and 7 Imperial + HunterG24 who has no army. I have heard that Shadowbound in interested in switching sides, but due to his having privileged knowledge, I will not allow that 4 Imperial players plus HunterG24 agree. There are also 2 chaos NPCs.

The orders for the NPCs will be done by Iggy or someone approved by him (currently Strategos).

Labrat13, Seon, HunterG24, Moosewarrior, a_propagandist, and Vertinari receive 100 Requisiton. Shadowbound receives 140 and Milarqui receives 180. Seon and labrat13 receive 4 SP, HunterG24 receives 5 and all others receive 3.

Strategos receives 130 Requisition. Both NPCs receive 120 Requisition, Lord Iggy receives 100+130 requisition. Alex994 and das receive 220 each.

Lord Iggy receives 5+4 SP, all other chaos forces receive 4, except for the Death Guard, which get 3. That gives each team 28 SP.

I am now accepting orders. Orders are due Sunday Sept. 5th

 

[The Strategos]

I made a mistake in Bahalia. In my original orders, I missed Seon’s ITF entirely. Originally, chaos took the entire region, which allowed them to open a chaos gate (see below). After I re-read Seon’s orders later did I notice the ITF there, changed the moderation, and ruled the region contested. There never should have been a gate there, as it was not held by chaos. However, it is there now, and so it will stand until closed. In future, no chaos gates will be opened in contested territory.

1) The previous rules allowed a gate to be opened in a contested or even enemy territory (at a greater percentage of failing), so I could still open a gate.

2) The ITF should have been destroyed/heavily damaged by my "Kill Loyalist" strategy anyway (and if it wasn't, it should have fought at reduced effectiveness due to being attacked while hidden), so in my view the Imperials have no room to complain at the outcome of pretty much decimating three of my units in exchange for me gaining...pretty much nothing.

3) The Nurgle cult should still have its demons, you keep wanting to drop them.

 

[labrat13]

With all do respect Strategos, My understanding of Kill Loyalists assumes that you have a force superiority with respect to the units that you're flushing out. For example, should there be three infiltrated ITF's in a sector and an infiltrated Cult, and the infiltrated cult throws down a "Kill Loyalists" strategy, the ITf's give the cultist unit a strange look and then beat the snot out of it. As for Bahali, there was one ITF that was looking for cultists. Three cultists show up, start murdering the ruling council, open a chaos gate and sprout a third arm (unless they arrived already mutated), all while an ITF was looking for cultist activity. Not only did you contest the city, not only did you open the gate, but next round if you move fast enough, said gate can start spitting out chaos marines and there's very little the imperials can do about it. I suppose we have differing values for "pretty much nothing"

 

[The Strategos]

With all do respect Strategos, My understanding of Kill Loyalists assumes that you have a force superiority with respect to the units that you're flushing out.

2 mutants + 1 cult > 1 ITF?

I suppose we have differing values for "pretty much nothing"

Perhaps, my value is what will help you win the game. Using that measure, my actions did pretty much nothing. Whether the city holds out or falls, it doesn't matter the least in determining the winner.

Spoiler Rant on Winning :

So I already told Fulton this, but he shocked me by saying that there are certain people who believe that it is impossible for the Imperium to win. Actually it is the exact opposite, it is impossible for Chaos to win. I have plenty of reasons for this, but lets start with the simple one. What is the measure of "victory" in the game?

There has been no victory condition set, so one must assume that to achieve victory you must destroy the opposing forces on the moon. Now for the Imperials to do this, they must close down all the chaos gates, which will prevent Chaos from reinforcing, allowing the Imperials to eventually win. Added to this they must destroy all cult units and deathworld infantry, as they can open chaos gates.

Near impossible of course, but better than Chaos' position. First, they must take and simultaneously hold all spaceports. But even then the Imperials (if they wish) can use orbital insertion to insert 11+ units anywhere on the map they wish every turn. So every turn there is the potential to have at least 11 Imperial units on the map. So essentially, it is impossible for Chaos to completely eradicate the Imperials from the moon as the Imperials can maintain a perpetual presence using orbital insertion. Of course, it is highly unlikely that Chaos will ever fulfill even the first condition, taking and holding all spaceports. Long story short, the more Chaos units group together the better it is for the Imperials as they have up to 16 unblockable orbital bombardments they can use to decimate any Chaos grouping.

So you have a near impossible victory condition for Imperials and a impossible victory condition for Chaos, so no matter what, Imperials are more likely to win (of course the more likely thing by far is that the NES will end in a draw). If you need more arguments, I guess I can only post what I PMed Fulton:

Spoiler :

I haven’t been on in a while, so I just now saw the discussion over rule changes. Even though you have already made a decision in the matter, I wanted to bring these things to your attention.

1) Chaos gates: I have no problem with capping the number, however, the other changes are unneeded for the simple reason that the gates are needed to counter-balance the built-in game mechanic of giving Imperials better fleet strategies. Right now, if both the Imperials and Chaos devoted everything to fleet strategies, the Imperials could counter every single Chaos strategy using space superiority and still be able to insert 11+ units anywhere on the map they wish using orbital insertion. As I mentioned in the chaos group, with such an ability, the Imperials don’t even really need spaceports. Of course, if they chose instead they could simply use over 16 orbital bombardments per turn, a more effective and cheaper bombardment strategy then any corresponding ability of Chaos (the closest chaos ability, Psychic Storm costs 4 sp (2 for alex) to the bombardments 1 or 2 points and can only be done where a conduit unit is whereas bombardment can occur anywhere). Since the game is dependent upon units (see below) orbital bombardment is the best cost/benefit strategy in the game.

2) Land means nothing: Ports are unneeded by the Imperials, as their unblockable orbital insertion ability gives them the same effects (though as it is cheaper it is a nice perk). As Chaos lacks the orbital insertion, it is more valuable to them but not so valuable that it makes it worth the cost needed to effectively protect the ports from the Imperials (with Imperial ability to insert 11 units anywhere, you would need at least a chaos gate at every port for reinforcement and a couple units in the port to protect it from a direct insertion on the city). For the same reason of 11+ orbital insertion ability, spaceports are okay, but not worth the higher cost of taking them. Even if you take it, you have to garrison it with 11 units (or keep that number in reserve to be able to go through the chaos gate if needed). Hives are similar, a free unit is nice, but when you have to garrison them with more than one unit it loses its benefit. Capitals are useless, the initial 20 bonus has yet to be collected by anyone, and even if it is, that will at most cover the cost of repairing the damaged units lost in the assault, not giving you any benefit. Damage to PDF effectiveness might be nice if it were not for the fact that the only use I have seen in the game for them to this point is defending the capitals themselves. The other land is useful on as far as moving through them to get to another destination, no need to try and hold it after you pass.

Because of this, the only viable strategy is to attempt to kill as many of the enemy as possible. Defense is unneeded, attacking vulnerable targets (such as I did the last two turns) are useless, only serving to weaken you. The only useful strategy is massing as many units as possible and attacking the enemy wherever you see it. You can see, if damaging and destroying units is the only useful thing to do in the game, why orbital bombardments, which the Imperials can, with a little planning guarantee will always hit, are so overpowered, even if one might not do much, they can, if they wanted to ensure 16 hit every turn. Even assuming diminishing returns, 16 orbital bombardments per turn pretty much ensures that any chaos troop concentration will consist of only highly damaged units. As Chaos cannot do anything comparable to such a large degree (we can pull off maybe half that number with planning, and only then against concentrations that we have a conduit unit by), the Imperials have a huge advantage in this area.

Of course, making the situation worse is the fact that Chaos lost out on 180 requisition last turn because of a no-show, giving the Imperials a 180 req. jump on Chaos in building units. Since having more units is vital to winning the game, this hurts Chaos pretty badly. Chaos is already laboring under higher unit prices for similar units (i.e. traitor guard) for no benefit. These costs will only add up if the Imperials don’t immediately win, with every turn that passes increasing the unit gap between Imperials and Chaos unless Chaos is incredibly good or lucky, making Chaos mid-game scenario bleak. Eventually, it would seem to even out as players start hitting the unit cap, however, because there are more Imperial players, they have a higher unit cap then Chaos, meaning Imperials will always have more units in the field.


So basically, Chaos is perpetually handicapped, early, mid, and late game. Not saying that it will be impossible to win as Chaos, but it will require either luck or incompetence by the Imperials, which, judging from the early turns I don’t think will happen. Or a rule overhaul to minimize the Imperial advantages.

 

[labrat13]

In reference to the "rants" above

Spoiler :

Now this strikes me as being an interesting topic of conversation, as although I understand the viewpoint that you've taken up Strategos, I can't help but disagree with it. If you wish, we can continue this conversation over Pm so we don't bog the forum down with it, however I'll be more then happy to explain should you want to hear it.

As for the math,

2 mutants + 1 cult > 1 ITF?

More or less Yes (correct me if I'm wrong, Fulton.) An ITF is designed specifically to be able to take on cultists. Sure, mutants are more dangerous in a toe to toe fight, but their mutation actually makes the Inquisitor's job easier. Now, against any other conventional force of equal weight (requisition cost, like a Traitor Guard Mechanized Infantry battalion, or potentially even a Traitor Guard Infantry Battalion) the ITF looses out, as although its a group of elite soldiers with top of the line equipment, the ITF is outnumbered anywhere between 2-4 to one, depending on equipment and so on.

Now the ITF that we're talking about, the one in Bahali, was already infiltrated, in the capital, and actively searching for heretic activity. Low and Behold, some cultists and their genetically varried friends arrive. This would prompt the ITF (who is already there) with their "keeping an eye out for trouble" strategy up, to have a high chance of spotting your cultists, especially when they start going on a "lets kill imperials!" spree. If the ITF was not attempting to detect heretics, and was blindsided by the attack by your initiation of the spree, I'd be inclined to agree that the ITF should, at least, be severely mauled. Since that was not the case, since we're talking about a Capital City (Technically The Capital, given that the current planetary governor lived there), that the ITF was already in and well established, and since nothing prior (to my knowledge) was done to beat up the PDF in the city, Yes, I think that an ITF should be more then comparable to two units of Mutants and a unit of cultists.

 

[labrat13]

Alright, Fulton has asked me to keep the Chaos is awesome vs Imperials is Unbeatable debate out in the open. However I like Strategos's idea of putting them in Spoiler Brackets, so that's what I'll do.

Chaos Gates:

Spoiler :

We already know my rant on Chaos Gates, you can put them anywhere, you can use them the next turn, and they cost 1 SP. This has all been fixed by the new rules update, and unless this ends up crippling Chaos somehow (which I hope it doesn't) it's no longer really an issue.

Cults:

Spoiler :

Yes, that's right, Cults. The short form of this argument goes something like this. It takes (Maybe) 2 cultists to take an unoccupied city. With the new Price Scheme, that's (I think) 40 requisition. So about the same cost as a space marine company or an ITF(it used to cost half as much, which is the buying price the cultist players used to start the game). But here's where things get tricky: The upper limit of cultist units per Cultist player is functionally unlimited, and requires only the cost of the cult leadership unit and 100 requisition per grouping of cultists. This means, as time approaches infinity, if unchecked the number of cultists available to the forces of chaos continues to climb, whereas every other force in the game will hit a troop cap of roughly anywhere between 10 and 13 units. Incidentally, they also get one Demon Host per Cult, again for a not inconsiderable amount of requisition, so while they continue to buy cults they can increase the numbers of demonic units, to a functionally unlimited population cap. Lets not forget that Demonic hordes are the most powerful unit available to any faction in the game (including grey knights whom are only really good at fighting Demons.)

Lets contrast this with the Inquisition. The inquisition, per player, can have a grand total of 9 infiltrated units, 6 of which can operate in hostile territory. Now, why does this matter? Didn't I just say above that an ITF can beat silly its weight in cultists? It's true, but for what Cultists can do with their SP. They can build gates, they can infiltrate, and they have a discount on "Defect" strategies. This along with things like causing plagues, magical fire storms and such like, means that the inquisitor player needs to somehow manage total coverage on all strategic locations, including mobile stacks, just to make sure his forces don't loose ground, when the inevitable cultist monkey business begins to occur. Sending out units to take territory is all fine and good so long as they don't suddenly loose their supply lines because the two units guarding the city were infiltrated and turned traitor.

This coupled with the Inquisitor's functional population cap of 9 means that should the cult player hold off for as much as 2 rounds or so he'll already have more then double the Inquisitor's number of infiltratable units (this is including starting forces, mind you.) Given the Cult Unit Spawn mechanic (which if I'm not mistaken, allows a cult unit to spawn another cult unit, regardless of location), we could be seeing linear growth of the cultist's unit population, all of whom can be waiting where the Inquisitors are not. You could in a few updates cause the take over of an entire country, through use of the Delay Strategy and taking the time to get your units infiltrated, and there would be very little that an Inquisitor player could do to stop you, unless he gets lucky and stumbles on your infiltrated units. Even then, through weight of numbers, the ITF would get dragged down and killed.

More after my meal.

 

[labrat13]

On Spaceports:

Spoiler :

You mentioned Space ports in your previous post The Strategos, and I'd like to comment on that briefly. The only method of deployment that does not require expenditure of SP, is either deploy by a friendly space port. Inquisitors have special deployment rules, but they are not front line fighters as a rule. Now, its true, that if you want to entirely shut out an imperial player, you will need to take and hold 11 separate locations at once. This is, by no means an easy feat. However you know where all the space ports are. At this time, there is no method by which imperial players can create new space ports (although admittedly there is no way available to destroy them either), so once the Imperials are on the ground we can't just make a beach head wherever we want and get fresh troops close to the front. For the Imperials to take territory we need to expand further and further away from our reinforcement point, leaving us more and more exposed to being outflanked, ambushed, and so on. As you can imagine, this provides greater maneuverability for the forces of chaos.

In addition to this, The Stratigos pointed out that the Imperials can bypass the deployment problem through use of the Orbital Insertion Strategy. It's true. We can. So can Chaos. It's also true that Imperials get it for cheeper. To that, I will point out two things: One, orbital insertions can be intercepted by spending equal to or less SP then the orbital insertion ploy itself. Two, Chaos gets Gates, which, once the unit is in place (which is easier then it sounds, see cults above) can not be intercepted unless its in hostile territory.

On the 50% cost increase for Traitor Guard:

Spoiler :

Another point you brought up that I would like to address. Chaos players get to pay 50% more for all guard units they decide to bring to the party. On the face of it, this seems arbitrary and unfair, however after rereading their entry I noticed they were missing something: They didn't have to pay for formations, and they were free to take whatever guard units they wanted, irrespective of formation restrictions. You want to take 6 battalions of tanks? You get your tanks, and you can still get Traitor Marines. So lets do the math. An Imperial guard player wants 6 armored battalions, and so does the Chaos player.
Imperial Guard Player's Math:

Spoiler :

6x50 + 2x100 (does not get to use his free regiment on this formation as his first regiment must be non artillery/tank) = 500 requisition

The Chaos Player's Math:

Spoiler :

50*6 *1.5=450 requisition

Huh. For the same population, using the most expensive units there is, Chaos gets the same units for 50 requisition less. If we apply the same math to Infantry, something interesting happens:
Imperial

Spoiler :

20*6 + 100 (since he can now use his freebee)= 220

Chaos

Spoiler :

20*6*1.5=180

The gap, assuming the Imperial player only wants 6 Infantry, lessens by only 10 requistion to 40. Should he want to buy 6 infantry in addition to what he already has, the cost gap skyrockets to 140, in chaos's favor.

It should be noted here that only the Chaos players specifically have this price Advantage, and that the Stallinvast Grenadiers have the same cost scheme as an imperial guard player, but with an altered unit selection.

All Of Canada will Tremble Before me!

Spoiler :

Attack on Quebec: Seon, labrat13, Shadowbound
Attack on Ontario: Seon, a_propagandist
Defence of British Columbia: a_propagandist, Vertinari
Raid on Calgary: labrat13

Especially You Quebec! But Especially Calgary!

 

[The Strategos]

Spoiler :

Cults:

Your whole point is based on a misreading of the rules. There is a cap on the cult units, though it might be a tad high.

On Spaceports:
At this time, there is no method by which imperial players can create new space ports (although admittedly there is no way available to destroy them either), so once the Imperials are on the ground we can't just make a beach head wherever we want and get fresh troops close to the front.

But you can, over 9 units worth if you wish.

For the Imperials to take territory

And that's why the system is ultimately broken, there is no reason for Imperials to try to take territory because territory doesn't matter the least. And this position is completely IC, the Imperials have shown themselves more then willing to sacrifice the entire moon if it gives them the best shot at destroying the chaos forces. The optimized Imperial strategy is to make a feint to some place they think Chaos will try to protect (say Dio or Luoyang), wait for Chaos to mass to protect it, then hit them with an overwhelming number of orbital bombardments. Repeat until Chaos finally retreats to preserve their forces (because in this game units are more important than territory). Or do the flip, wait until Chaos masses to take an Imperial target and then hit them with an overwhelming number of orbital bombardments. In other words, use your unblockable orbital bombardments (I think you can do over fifteen unblockable orbital bombardments if you so choose) to near destroy any chaos force on the moon, then use your units to clean up the left overs.

In addition to this, The Strategos pointed out that the Imperials can bypass the deployment problem through use of the Orbital Insertion Strategy. It's true. We can. So can Chaos. To that, I will point out two things: One, orbital insertions can be intercepted by spending equal to or less SP then the orbital insertion ploy itself. Two, Chaos gets Gates, which, once the unit is in place (which is easier then it sounds, see cults above) can not be intercepted unless its in hostile territory.

It is impossible for Chaos to use orbital insertion unless the Imperials allow them. It is also impossible for Chaos to block Imperial use of orbital insertion unless Imperials allow them. Basically if Imperials assume that every single Chaos strategy point is used in space superiority and counter those with their own space superiority, they still will have enough sp to insert 9 units (before this turn it was 11) + whatever units the Inquisition chooses to insert (potentially up to 8 if they wanted).

On the 50% cost increase for Traitor Guard:

This is based on a misreading of the rules by me. For obvious reasons, I never really looked at Chaos Guard units, just Chaos Marines, so I mistakenly assumed that the Guards spent the same higher price as the Chaos Marines. Now that I know its only Marines, I think its fair, the Imperial Marines get more Marines (10 vs. 4) but Chaos can get some better units (2 demons) and some worse (4 expensive guards) so it evens out.



Edit: Anyway, my original point still stands, as the game stands now, the only two possible outcomes are a draw (overwhelmingly likely) or an Imperial victory (highly unlikely), a Chaos victory is fundamentally impossible because Imperials have an unblockable access to the moon.

 

[Fulton]

Ok, game is back on pause. I'll still accept orders, but the deadline is being extended indefinitely until we can sort things out, and you might not want to send them since things are in flux.

To be honest, I don't know what to do here.

This is a completely new ruleset, based entirely on my ideas. It's flawed, badly. It is unbalanced, but both sides are unbalanced. There are other fundamental flaws with the game. If I could do this over again I would halve the number of territories to make the game faster and seizing/holding territory more important.

It's hard enough to get one army list to be balanced (ala The Boundless World series on the Frontier, or most NESes here), but balancing six fundamentally different armies here is going to be a huge challenge.

I have been ignoring some facets of the rules due to the changing nature of the player base. With a disparity between the two teams already, and so many drop-outs from the chaos side, I've had to drop the idea of requisition fluctuating depending on player success and try to give forces somewhat equal requisition.

It's obvious that many players are unhappy. I want everyone to be happy with the game and have faith in the system and myself as moderator.

Plus, you guys should know HunterG24 told me privately he's dropping the game. He's under too much stress at work and the game just isn't fun for him.

What suggestions do you all have going forward? Is it worth trying to patch this game up now and keep pushing through? Or would you prefer I disappear and return with a new ruleset at a distant time in the future?

 

[Milarqui]

Ok, game is back on pause. I'll still accept orders, but the deadline is being extended indefinitely until we can sort things out, and you might not want to send them since things are in flux.

To be honest, I don't know what to do here.

This is a completely new ruleset, based entirely on my ideas. It's flawed, badly. It is unbalanced, but both sides are unbalanced. There are other fundamental flaws with the game. If I could do this over again I would halve the number of territories to make the game faster and seizing/holding territory more important.

It's hard enough to get one army list to be balanced (ala The Boundless World series on the Frontier, or most NESes here), but balancing six fundamentally different armies here is going to be a huge challenge.

I have been ignoring some facets of the rules due to the changing nature of the player base. With a disparity between the two teams already, and so many drop-outs from the chaos side, I've had to drop the idea of requisition fluctuating depending on player success and try to give forces somewhat equal requisition.

It's obvious that many players are unhappy. I want everyone to be happy with the game and have faith in the system and myself as moderator.

Plus, you guys should know HunterG24 told me privately he's dropping the game. He's under too much stress at work and the game just isn't fun for him.

What suggestions do you all have going forward? Is it worth trying to patch this game up now and keep pushing through? Or would you prefer I disappear and return with a new ruleset at a distant time in the future?

Well, I think that it would be better to create a new ruleset. Although it would be possible to continue with the current one, it is excessively complicated and could use a good makeover.

 

[das]

Personally I am willing to carry on with this the way it is, but obviously I haven't been paying close enough attention to the rules, so I suppose I'm in favour of the first option.

 

[Shadowbound]

The current ruleset works. The point of 40k isn't to win: it's to do a lot of collateral damage trying.

*looks at Wei, licks lips*

 

[Seon]

*Looks at innocents and smacks lips*

 

[Vertinari118]

I'm all for carrying on but now we are in a leadership crisis. All Imperial players to the group page NOW! Also spaceports can be destroyed just like a city can be. Think! Just because it doesn't say so in the rules you assume you can do nothing about them. I'm sure Fulton would let you blow them up with storms or conventional explosives if you asked.

 

[labrat13]

Cults

Spoiler :

The Cult player may have up to four cults

Huh, there it is. My bad. However that's how many cultist units per player? 20 cultists, 8 mutants, 4 leadership and 4 demons. That is an absurd amount of ground to cover.

I don't think a chaos victory is impossible as even the destruction of Louyang constitutes a win. As far as I know, victory conditions have not been exactly carved in stone.

I think the overall frame of the game works. The basic concept is a good one. The first change I would consider, it would be to get rid of the population caps for all factions. This should work out some of the outnumbering imbalances we may be seeing between Cults and ITF. I also suggest perhaps exploring making the formations similar to what you have in 40k force organization charts, to prevent someone from taking all tanks or nothing but demons and a cultist squad wandering around making gates that crap out chaos spawn.

The new movement rules I think could be solid, perhaps we could explore (to use a Civ term) zones of control to prevent unit bypass, making defensive lines irrelevant. The chaos gates have been given a fix, they present an investment risk, as it's cheaper to close them then to open them.

The biggest change I can suggest however, is to disclose numbers. Let us know the relative attack and defense strength of each unit. Let us know, in numrical terms, the effects of defenses, of terrain types on attack and defense. Hell, we could make a new stat called "Sneaky Crap!" to represent the unit's ability to ambush, sabotage, how sneaky it is, etc. If we can get a less abstract understanding of the unit mechanics we may be able to get a better handle on any serious imbalances that may be present.

Of course, the biggest problem with the disclosure thing is that it gives Fulton less free range to work with whatever insane battle plans the players come up with for the upcomming battles. So I'm not entirely sure it (or any of the above suggestions) are a good plan of action. These are just suggestions, and not sticking points with me.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Personally, I still find the rules unnecessarily confusing- for me, the real fun of this NES is in the storywriting.

For chaos players, I'm trying to work out a strategy as to where we go from our current position. I hope to post a plan in our group tonight- if you could provide your own ideas and plans so that we've got some time to work out a cohesive action, that would be great.

 

[labrat13]

I suppose my joy has always been the planing of battles. Seriously, the above suggestions aren't meant to suggest that the game needs any of them. They're just ideas, should an overhaul actually need to take place.

 

[labrat13]

I'll revise my earlier statements. I don't think we need to make any sweeping changes. All the unit strengths and abilities is set by the Moderator, and now that we've brought them to his attention he can whatever make balance changes he deems fit. the fact that we've gotten this far is due in part to the game's relative simplicity. I'd rather not loose sight of that.

 

[Fulton]

I have decided to end this game. A lack of interest by many players (with obvious exceptions), the crappy rules set, some questionable mod decisions on my part, and my general apathy with the game have influenced this decision.

I am not happy with the rules as they are. They need a massive overhaul. Several players have offered to help me with this and I thank them for it. I may take up their offer in the future.

Thank to all of my players for their hard work. This game could not have happened without you all. I am sorry that I can no longer continue this game for those of you who are still interested.

This game has been a success in some ways. das' wonderful stories of Wei were fantastic examples of what a player can do. The stories of the Strategos and other players also kept me entertained. Finally, I have made a game system that is easy to mod, not bogged down in calculating economic details.

I hope that you will join me for my next game, a return to the Varica setting. I have no eta on this game, as it still needs a rules overhaul. Thank you all for playing.

 

[labrat13]

Thank you Fulton for running the game. I enjoyed it, and think that, given what we've learned from it, we could if given time make the game even better. Thank you for letting me play, and good luck with your next endeavor.

To the rest of you, it was a good game, I think it would have been close in the end, and although I'm disappointed with the fact that we won't know, ultimately, who would have won, I do not regret the time spent on the game. Good game, and may we cross swords again.