Strategic Brikwars

[Kirillyos]

So has anyone had any experience with playing Brikwars on a grand, strategic scale? Something where it's not just a one-off skirmish, but a series of battles where you take, hold, lose, and retake key territory and resources, move troops over vast operation theaters, and where the consequences of victory and defeat carry over into subsequent engagements?

If you have, can you regale us with some stories of both successes and pitfalls using this play style?

If not, would you like to?

[Kirillyos]

Anybody? Any ideas on how this style of Brikwars might be accomplished?

[Apollyon]

The idea has been floating around before. Some people have played/are playing campaigns. Bragallot and Zahru come to mind.

I think it mainly comes down to having enough bricks. Besides time, space and patience of course.
One could for example create some sorts of map, from like two baseplates. Strategic play could occur there with players moving forces from location to location. When they engage an opponent's force tactical combat=forum battles ensues. You could even have ressources or troop raising. You would of course have to build all the possible location or build them adhoc and if players build larger armies than your Lego bins contain you're screwed. It might work best on a small level with only a small number of troops overall.

Also, i am sure there are solutions for incorporating tactical combat into a larger strategic campain for WH, WH40k and lots of other systems. Should be easy to apply them.

tldr:

[IVhorseman]

Rev. Sylvanus totally does these with his buddies. Each battle has a certain CP limit, and some objective. Winner's side holds their position on the opponent's end of the battlefield, so that baseplate gets used for the next match while new ones are constructed for the rest of the terrain. Units that didn't die are required to stay on, plus however many units are needed to meet the CP budget limit. Or something like that.

[Wingnut]

I have not, but I expect an overworld map would be helpful for the strategic level and save on pieces. Making it modular would save time whenever you had to move it or build a new map.

Something like this perhaps?

[Kirillyos]

I think it mainly comes down to having enough bricks. Besides time, space and patience of course.
...
and if players build larger armies than your Lego bins contain you're screwed. It might work best on a small level with only a small number of troops overall.

Of course running out of briks isn't a problem if one uses a LEGO CAD program, and just plops troops and vehicles into a battlefield from other files. Running out of memory to render an epic-scale battle on the other hand...

Also, i am sure there are solutions for incorporating tactical combat into a larger strategic campain for WH, WH40k and lots of other systems. Should be easy to apply them.

Yes, I also had an idea to plunder other strategic-type wargames (like the old favorite Birthright, where you get to play as a King Duke) for their rulesets. Or at least look at how other games accomplish strategic maneuvers and use it as a reference point to kit-bash something coherent into Brikwars.

[Kirillyos]

Rev. Sylvanus totally does these with his buddies. Each battle has a certain CP limit, and some objective. Winner's side holds their position on the opponent's end of the battlefield, so that baseplate gets used for the next match while new ones are constructed for the rest of the terrain. Units that didn't die are required to stay on, plus however many units are needed to meet the CP budget limit. Or something like that.

I may have to go ask him about the specifics of how they make it work...

[Kirillyos]

I have not, but I expect an overworld map would be helpful for the strategic level and save on pieces.

Sounds like a good idea - and an overworld map could double as an actual battlefield for mini/micro/nano-scale battles.

Making it modular would save time whenever you had to move it or build a new map.

Something like this perhaps?

Another good idea - reminds me of BrickQuest dungeon tiles. One could have modular plates representing various terrain types - grassland, desert, forest, water, urban, Tiberium field, etc., and maybe some of them hold strategic resources like airfields for landing troops, munitions factories laden with explosives, or tavern districts for a little R&R.

[SnakeMittens]

Rev. Sylvanus totally does these with his buddies. Each battle has a certain CP limit, and some objective. Winner's side holds their position on the opponent's end of the battlefield, so that baseplate gets used for the next match while new ones are constructed for the rest of the terrain. Units that didn't die are required to stay on, plus however many units are needed to meet the CP budget limit. Or something like that.

I may have to go ask him about the specifics of how they make it work...

Why not just come up with your own specifics? That's what Brikwars is all about, after all.

[Zupponn]

He's unable to come up with anything outside of the rules.

[Rev. Sylvanus]

A good way to go about it is light representative terrain on individual base plates that move around. We tried a campaign series that would push the map based on the victor, but this can lead to many battles never actually changing terrain if the battles simply go back and forth. I think the better way would be to designate x number of battles per campaign, set special rules and objectives for each battle, and provide some sort of advantage for the winner of the previous battle.

[Scratch]

What you described there is basically how I'm structuring my forum battle arc. The first battle made it so an entire army wouldn't appear in the next battle.

[Kirillyos]

provide some sort of advantage for the winner of the previous battle.

Something like support powers? I'm working on coming up with a way of doing something like the Generals abilities from C&C Generals. Like for completing X number of objectives, you can call down an orbital strike or paratrooper reinforcements from off the battlefield. Or maybe a "radar sweep" that reveals stealthed units in a specific radius for 1d4 turns. If your troops capture a certain magic stone circle, they might all get a blessing of extra damage for the next battle. Loot the mead hall in one area of the map and the troops that did it get a morale boost. Stuff like that.

[Kirillyos]

Why not just come up with your own specifics? That's what Brikwars is all about, after all.

And this topic is about sharing ideas on how to make strategic brikwar games work. If I wanted to come up with something from scratch like I've done for countless homebrew RPGs, I wouldn't have bothered asking. But I figured since I'm kinda new to this specific game, I'd get some discussion going in the community.

He's unable to come up with anything outside of the rules.

And to those with a pathological urge to troll - no one obligated you to post anything here. In fact, if you don't care for the topic, then you should stop wasting your time, kindly show yourself out, and go back to 4chan to frolic with others of your species in your natural environment.

[stubby]

He's unable to come up with anything outside of the rules.

And to those with a pathological urge to troll - no one obligated you to post anything here. In fact, if you don't care for the topic, then you should stop wasting your time, kindly show yourself out, and go back to 4chan to frolic with others of your species in your natural environment.

Bad news: BrikWars is trolls' natural environment, anyone who thinks otherwise is going to have a bad time.


If your topic is too weak to handle trolling then it deserves its fate!

Historically speaking, most of BrikWars' best ideas have come from trolling. Trolling is both a good indicator of which subjects are interesting enough to be worth trolling in the first place, and an engine for generating the kind of satiric torque that gives regular boring wargaming ideas that special BrikWars twist. There are other forums where trolling isn't valued; this isn't one of them.

    

Have I really not posted in this thread yet? I thought I had.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to strategic BrikWars; one is the kind you're talking about, with strategic maps and resource collection and unit generation and all that.  I explored this avenue for years, but nothing really ever got over that "interesting enough to be worth the extra complexity" hump.  It's kind of funny to note that although those systems were mostly a failure, that's where we got BW2010's rules for Stealth and Field Construction from - from the hidden army movement and unit construction rules respectively.

What I think has more potential for BrikWars flavored strategy is a more story-focused game, where you hold battles and say "this is the effect the battle will have on the overarching plot" rather than strict resource accounting around "if you lose five units in this battle then you have five fewer units in the next battle." So I'm looking at story-driven games right now, although not really finding what I'm looking for yet. If I go this route, it'll be tricky to make it properly construction-brick-themed.

Ideally I'd either like a system that gives the losing player the chance to pay a story price to bring his forces back up to parity for competitive battles, or I'd like a system that means a player could play a badly outgunned force in a losing battle and still have fun (probably because he knows it allowed his larger force to go off and do something more important).