Campaigns

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SynchingShip
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Re: Campaigns

Post by SynchingShip » Thu Aug 02, 2018 7:56 pm

Interesting...

Questions:

6. Can Stockpile ever go up? Can there be "stockpile Harvesting Locations" (i.e. gold mines, banks, stock exchanges)?

7. Are Secret Locations/Recon still gonna be a thing?

8. If Glory/Sacrifice seems to be a zero-sum game (Red-team Bob stabs Blue-team Joe, Red Team gains Glory for the Kill, Blue team gains Sacrifice for the Casualty), what happens if Bob instead own-the-libs himself & takes Joe w/ him using a suicide-vest, thus being responsible for his own death also?

9. How does this interface w/ the Commander unit? Can a Commander call in Bombardment/Reinforcements to Locations they are aware of, but where they are not physically present?

10. Do all resources have to be specific? Sure, one could say a catapult is mostly wood or a castle is mostly stone, but modern (let alone futuristic) military machines are highly complex things made out of multiple materials interacting in complicated ways. Can players, for instance, agree to simplify resource harvesting to something like "ore"?

11. Can allies (or even enemies) trade resources (i.e. the classic "wood for sheep" or "I'll give you a shipment of energy crystals if you attack that guy over there for the next 2 turns instead of me")?

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Re: Campaigns

Post by stubby » Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:33 pm

SynchingShip wrote:6. Can Stockpile ever go up? Can there be "stockpile Harvesting Locations" (i.e. gold mines, banks, stock exchanges)?
Ideally, no. The Budget is the game clock and I always want it to wind down, except when new factions enter and reset the clock.

The Budget can be increased by sending a Hero on a treasure hunt Escapade. But all the other factions will hear about it and send their own Heroes to try and grab it first. I haven't balanced it out yet, but my goal will be to have it so the units lost between all players should be greater than the U" gained by any one player, so the total U" in game still decreases.
SynchingShip wrote:7. Are Secret Locations/Recon still gonna be a thing?
Not at first. I'm holding back stealth and secret stuff from the base rules because right now they slow down the game flow in a way I don't like.
SynchingShip wrote:8. If Glory/Sacrifice seems to be a zero-sum game (Red-team Bob stabs Blue-team Joe, Red Team gains Glory for the Kill, Blue team gains Sacrifice for the Casualty), what happens if Bob instead own-the-libs himself & takes Joe w/ him using a suicide-vest, thus being responsible for his own death also?
Bob and Joe both receive one Sacrifice for losing a unit. Both of them must give one Glory to an enemy of their choice. Tracking individual kill counts slows down the game, so Glory isn't tied to specific kills.
SynchingShip wrote:9. How does this interface w/ the Commander unit? Can a Commander call in Bombardment/Reinforcements to Locations they are aware of, but where they are not physically present?
A Commander uses his abilities as an action on his own turn. If he's not taking part in a battle at a location, he doesn't have any actions or turns.
SynchingShip wrote:10. Do all resources have to be specific? Sure, one could say a catapult is mostly wood or a castle is mostly stone, but modern (let alone futuristic) military machines are highly complex things made out of multiple materials interacting in complicated ways. Can players, for instance, agree to simplify resource harvesting to something like "ore"?
Material Resources are just for the structural part. Machines are complex, but their housing structures usually aren't. Your computer is full of silicon boards and microchips but the casing is just Resource: Plastic. I'm also a fan of Resource: Metal and Resource: Machinery.
SynchingShip wrote:11. Can allies (or even enemies) trade resources (i.e. the classic "wood for sheep" or "I'll give you a shipment of energy crystals if you attack that guy over there for the next 2 turns instead of me")?
I haven't nailed down the mechanics of this yet. I'd want it to lead to more battle opportunities, like:

A sends B a single or ongoing resource shipment. A does not have access to that resource while it's in transit.

C can stage an Escapade to attack the shipment and steal the resource.

If the shipment arrives successfully, B has access to that resource now, either for one turn, or until A cuts off shipments, or until C manages to successfully disrupt shipping.
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Re: Campaigns

Post by stubby » Fri Aug 03, 2018 8:46 pm

I've updated the campaigns chapter a bit - rearranged stuff, glossaried stuff, tried to make everything smoother and more clear. I simplified the resource gathering a bit, so now your maximum material strengths are based on the simple number of facilities (and industrial machines!) for that material rather than establishing some kind of complicated material processing chain. And finally the section on Fortifications is now done.

http://brikwars.com/rules/draft/12.htm

The combat and development sections are still in progress.
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Re: Campaigns

Post by SynchingShip » Sat Aug 04, 2018 1:33 am

Alert Levels should be color coded. Once you run out of primary colors & have to decalre Mauve-Alert or Terror-level Chartreuse, you know you are well & trully fucked (and the battle is progressing as it should be).

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Re: Campaigns

Post by ImeantToDoThat » Tue Aug 07, 2018 3:45 pm

SynchingShip wrote:Alert Levels should be color coded. Once you run out of primary colors & have to decalre Mauve-Alert or Terror-level Chartreuse, you know you are well & trully fucked (and the battle is progressing as it should be).
seems a tad complicated, you need some way to keep a score, because how many unit inches can i deploy when i'm on alert level Midnight blue?

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Re: Campaigns

Post by SynchingShip » Tue Aug 14, 2018 2:39 pm

A few moar questions:

6. how would multifaction warfare affect things like stockpile & alert level? Say Red & Blue are really aware of each other & all entrenched against each other's attacks b/c they've been slugging it out for a while. Meanwhile, for w/e reasons, almost nobody is aware that Purple even exists - doesn't Purple faction still have to contend w/ Blue's & Red's base defenses, even though they weren't set up exclusively to deal w/ Purple?

A castle wall built by humans doesn't care if it's keeping out orcs or skelly's or both - it's a castle wall.

6a). Say canonically, 2 faction have a long & bloody history of war w/ each other - does it still make sense for them to start out at Alert 1?

7. How do you re-mobilize/gain new workers if all the workers at a location are eliminated?

8. How "easily stealable" do the crates of loot have to be?

9. Does triage & mechanic repair have a U" cost, or is that only repair between strategic rounds?

10. "The harder a Faction fights, the more Glory and Sacrifice it will receive, but the faster its Budget will be depleted."

:???: Can you explain this?

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Re: Campaigns

Post by stubby » Tue Aug 14, 2018 3:49 pm

SynchingShip wrote:6. how would multifaction warfare affect things like stockpile & alert level? Say Red & Blue are really aware of each other & all entrenched against each other's attacks b/c they've been slugging it out for a while. Meanwhile, for w/e reasons, almost nobody is aware that Purple even exists - doesn't Purple faction still have to contend w/ Blue's & Red's base defenses, even though they weren't set up exclusively to deal w/ Purple?
Multifaction warfare doesn't affect any of these things. A faction keeps the same stockpile, alert level, and defenses regardless of whether it has one longtime enemy or twenty who just showed up. Even if you could keep track of separate stats for every different foe, there's no reason anyone would want to.
SynchingShip wrote:6a). Say canonically, 2 faction have a long & bloody history of war w/ each other - does it still make sense for them to start out at Alert 1?
The alert level is for the campaign. The two factions may be in the middle of a long and bloody war everywhere else, but this specific campaign is new. If anything, the urgency of all the fighting elsewhere would make dedicating some of that focus to this new campaign even more difficult, not less.

That being said, there's no reason not to start in the middle of a campaign if you feel like it.
SynchingShip wrote:7. How do you re-mobilize/gain new workers if all the workers at a location are eliminated?
Same way you got the original workers - spend Glory to motivate new minifigs to take up the cause.
SynchingShip wrote:8. How "easily stealable" do the crates of loot have to be?
Loose, the size of a 2x4 brick, and lying around somewhere within the defensive perimeter but otherwise not behind locked doors.
SynchingShip wrote:9. Does triage & mechanic repair have a U" cost, or is that only repair between strategic rounds?
Only between rounds. Anything you gain during battle, whether by repairs or theft or other means, is considered spoils.
SynchingShip wrote:10. "The harder a Faction fights, the more Glory and Sacrifice it will receive, but the faster its Budget will be depleted."

:???: Can you explain this?
The more losses you take in battle, the more Sacrifice you get, and the more enemies you kill, the more Glory you're likely to get. Replacing those losses depletes your budget.

You can sit out the battle or hide in a bunker, and you won't take as many losses or get as many kills, but you also won't have to spend as much to replace units afterwards. On the other hand, you can throw all your guys into the meat grinder, and get a whole bunch of sacrifice and (probably) glory, but you'll have to spend a bunch more budget to replace them.
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Re: Campaigns

Post by SynchingShip » Tue Aug 14, 2018 7:08 pm

stubby wrote:
SynchingShip wrote:8. How "easily stealable" do the crates of loot have to be?
Loose, the size of a 2x4 brick, and lying around somewhere within the defensive perimeter but otherwise not behind locked doors.
Basically, I was wondering if they can be booby-trapped, as per the tradition of treasure chests & such in pirates/castle/Adventurers/etc themes (so that even if active defenders aren't present, it's not a "gimme"), or if the potential of getting a spear in the 'nads would contradict the definition of "easily stealable"

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Re: Campaigns

Post by stubby » Tue Aug 14, 2018 8:23 pm

The loose easily stealable stuff is loose and easily stealable because the Location is in the middle of using it - producing it, refining it, shipping it, exchanging it, etc. It's either production resources at an active production site or cash resources at an active spending site.

Now if you want to go on a quest to raid treasure rooms or temples or ancient tombs or whatever, the kind of places where the resources you want to steal aren't in mid-use, that's where traps are more appropriate. Those are going to be covered under Heroic Escapades rather than under Assaults on Locations.

(Or, I guess you could include booby-trapped treasure rooms etc at your Headquarters, but those would be in addition to the easily-stealable treasures, not in place of them.)

I'm still working out the details, but my goal with the treasure-hunt escapades is that all teams have a chance at the same benefit. This is obvious for something like Indiana Jones and René Belloq hitting an archaeological site at the same time; they both are fighting for the same Artifakt.

It's not as obvious for something like Robin Hood hitting the royal tax wagon. That sets up an asymmetrical benefit; if Robin Hood wins, he gets money and the crown loses money; it's all benefit and no risk. If the crown wins, everything stays status quo - all risk and no benefit. I could try to balance it out by giving the crown extra forces or a bunch of bennies or something, but I don't want to saddle players with that kind of math. Instead, the royal tax wagon is full of unjust "extra" taxes extracted from the poor people of Nottingham. Whoever makes it off the map with the taxes gets to add those "extra" U" to their budget, so all players are fighting for the same potential gain.
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Re: Campaigns

Post by SynchingShip » Tue Aug 14, 2018 8:53 pm

Ok, maybe not traditional "booby traps" of the cobb-webby Indy-Jones variety, but what about the dangers of nabbing, say, a bundle of long, hard wood when you're an invading army unfamiliar w/ the exact timing of the giant spinning buzzsaws of unnecessary DOOM?
campaign chapter wrote:The most important consideration when developing Resource production isn't the value or realism of specific Resources involved, but how egregiously unsafe the working environment will be for either production or combat. A simple mine entrance in a blank cliffside is a wasted opportunity. A twisting mineshaft with minecart jump ramps, unexplained lava pits, and rickety ceiling supports that constantly threaten cave-ins is a workplace that justifies putting up with annoying managers and exploitative pay scales.

If a Faction tries to Mobilize a Location in a way that doesn't make it more fun as a battle site, the Mobilization is canceled. Minifigs have no attention span, and their workplace expectations are drawn entirely from reruns of mid-1900s Tom and Jerry cartoons set to Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse." Minifig Workers must be constantly surrounded by the kind of safety violations that guarantee frequent and fatal workplace accidents, and by devices and appliances that can be used to repel invaders just as easily as being turned against the Workers themselves.

Nobody cares if the Lumber Mill needs that many giant constantly-running circular table saws, or if all those conveyor belts and robot welding arms in the Tank Factory serve any useful purpose, or if brakeless minecarts are really the best way to transport live bundles of mining explosives, or why the malfunctioning Insurance Office copier is set to eject printouts at machine-gun velocity. The important thing is that their presence in battle makes hilarious deaths that much more frequent.
I figured the "Flagrant OSHA violations" would count as "traps", especially to outsiders.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, another question:
campaign chapter wrote:Regardless of the size or power of a Faction overall, the units that it's able to assign to any specific campaign always tend to be roughly equivalent to the threats they're opposing. By Koincidence, other assets in a larger military are inevitably deployed elsewhere and committed to unrelated agendas.
Speaking of the above, how would asymmetrical warfare figure into this? I know in a regular battle, the size difference is made up by awarding bonus ABs to the smallest side... so what about in a campaign?

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Re: Campaigns

Post by Falk » Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:06 pm

Yeah, you gotta be careful when grabbing long hard wood.
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Re: Campaigns

Post by SynchingShip » Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:14 pm

Falk wrote:Yeah, you gotta be careful when grabbing long hard wood.
It's all fun & games until someone gets it in the eye... :warhead:

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Re: Campaigns

Post by stubby » Tue Aug 14, 2018 10:34 pm

SynchingShip wrote:Ok, maybe not traditional "booby traps" of the cobb-webby Indy-Jones variety, but what about the dangers of nabbing, say, a bundle of long, hard wood when you're an invading army unfamiliar w/ the exact timing of the giant spinning buzzsaws of unnecessary DOOM?
Oh yeah, that's fine then. It's just lying around in whatever the normal battle area is. If the battle area happens to have giant buzzsaws in it, that's not the loot's fault.
SynchingShip wrote:
campaign chapter wrote:Regardless of the size or power of a Faction overall, the units that it's able to assign to any specific campaign always tend to be roughly equivalent to the threats they're opposing. By Koincidence, other assets in a larger military are inevitably deployed elsewhere and committed to unrelated agendas.
Speaking of the above, how would asymmetrical warfare figure into this? I know in a regular battle, the size difference is made up by awarding bonus ABs to the smallest side... so what about in a campaign?
Same. All factions start with the same basic ability to assign units to the campaign - same starting production capacity, same budget, etc - but the number of their campaign units they send to any one battle is up to them. At the battle level, you're still balancing the scales with bennies.
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Re: Campaigns

Post by Kommander Ken » Tue Aug 14, 2018 11:38 pm

Hehe. Someone said boobys.


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Re: Campaigns

Post by SynchingShip » Fri Aug 17, 2018 11:33 am

A few more questions to clear things up...

6. How exactly would "locations attacking locations w/ siege-level weaponry" work?
Campaign Chapter wrote:If players instist on creating a map, they can point out the Locations' relative positioning, but this isn't necessary for campaign play. A Police Station can be a block away from City Hall, or it could be on the other side of town; the travel distance between them doesn't make any difference to the rioting proletariat attacking both Locations.
The whole chapter seems (to me anyway) to strongly imply that each location is it's own little self-contained microcosm bubble, like when you pop into a "level" of a video game.

This may be fine for far-flung & abstract locations, such as star systems (but still you have Death Stars & Terranova cannons & such), but let's take the street battle scenario, for example:

So we have the Power-Armor K-nnnigits vs the Uber Mutants. The PAK are holed up in Bunker X, while the Muties control buildings (locations) Y & Z, along a blasted, post-apocalyptic streetscape, like this: [X] [Y] [Z].

The PAK have a siege-level lazor-cannon they want to fire at the muties (size whatever big gun). Now sure, in a regular battle, they could hit Building Y from their Bunker X no problem, but not Building Z, b/c they have no line of sight to it (at least not until they level, or at minimum punch a hole in Building Y)

7. How would "mobile" locations work? Floating fortresses, starbases, etc that are large enough to be battlefields by themselves

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