Return of the XP

A 1 AP combat will remove 1/3th of the pieces of that battle. Regardles of size of the army. 36 riflemen, 6 tanks. Or in the public version, 6 riflemen, 2 tanks.

The players roll for hits. Then remove the health and pieces.

Duration of a game:
- Full campaign; 1 to 2 weeks (4 days of max 6 hours).
- Forwarded base; 1 to 6 hours.
- Only an army; 20 to 120 minutes.

The XP would be for the forwarded base and the full campaign games. Moving back to base would be on a side note. However, new units too can get the same XP. The XP is a separate resource in my game. Often an entire army returns home, seeing as how all of them are going to get upgrades. That was done in the old version 2 years ago.

So the reinforcements could be an upgraded version.

Army sizes:
- Full campaign; 7 to 21 squads.
- Forwarded base; 3 to 9 squads.
- Only an army; 1 to 3 squads.

I was thinking that the upgraded unit would be like 3 to 5 times stronger? The XP needed somewhere along the lines of 9 to 25 times???

IDK, I am more worried about the XP needed compared to the upgrade the unit receives.

I am not planning to have multipe levels. Since players would micro the hero's. So, one upgrade is all they get.
Although, if there are several paths for an unit to take, that would be an option. I will give you guys an example:

Rifleman; costs 1, health 5, damage 1, accuracy 5, range 2, speed 2
The rifleman is a basic unit that is well balanced in armor and damage.

Upgraded variants:
Rifleman with excellent markmanship; costs 3 (but you pay 1 and XP), health 10, damage 4, accuracy 4, range 3, speed 2
The markmanship rifleman is a supportive type.

Rifleman with heavy armor and a second rifle; costs 3, health 25, damage 2, accuracy 5, range 2, speed 1
The heavy rifleman is a meatshield type.

Rifleman trained for faster movement and close combat; costs 3, health 10, damage 1, accuracy 6, range 2, speed 4, has a melee for secondary weapon, a vibration knife; damage 4, accuracy 5, range 0
The close combat rifleman is a well balanced version with a strong melee weapon. Great for hit and run tactics.

***

I hope you guys can see the fun that XP can bring.

This is what my guys do:
They send the army to be trained, back home. Or build a new one. They spend the XP on either the meat/support combination. Or they get that hit and run squad for covert ops.

Now, if the costs equals the XP.
How much XP do you think should be added??

It does snowball at a certain scale. So, if I do this, whatever factor I choose. It should be less than the average RPS factor. Which is 3. And thus the upgraded version should be factor 2.

What if I don't track how much units a player kills. But actually, how many units a player looses?
That way, addapted units can enter the field after.
And the snowball goes like a ping pong ball now.

Example:
Player A has a lot of rocket soldiers.
Player B has a lot of combat tanks.

The rocket soldiers outrange the combat tanks. And the combat tanks are also a bit to slow to come close enough for return fire.

Now, these combat tanks die. But the losses will count as XP, that can be used on any unit.

A choice could be a combat tank that is very fast and able to crush infantry more effectively.
Or a choice that the combat tank is slightly faster but a lot more range.
Or a choice is that the combat tank will have heavier armor and more health plus an anti infantry gun.

This would also get players to:
- A. Not attack their enemies, because the enemy might be able to adapt. This might cause an impasse.
- B. Attack their own in order to get XP to get that satisfying adaptation anyway.

Going to test a factor of 2. Since that is an easy factor to work with.
The end result would be 10 for a 1 on 1 game.
But RPS will simply overpower this 2.
Also, the 10 would be more of a 4.
So the table in the previous post isn't that good. It misses a reduction factor. The end result factor there is only for the first battle tbh.

So:
Factor 2.
XP factor 5, meaning you need indirectly a total of 6 times the costs.

If a rifleman costs 1. You need to loose 5. To get one that is twice as strong in some regard.

Oopsies! Forgot to mention that in this case, both sides fire. And it still costs AP too.

We had this Action in an older version. That would have been.... a year or 2 back. I took it for granted.

Either way, you put down heavily damaged units or unwanted ones. But they certainly will shoot back and have a will on their own. Another player may even control them like walking away or make it harder to do with Event Cards.

So, mostly some players only do target practise on walls or defence buildings.

3 common uses for XP gaining on your own stuff.

- Walls. You know... no harm done, right?
- Buildings that provide more benefit by being destroyed instead of being sold
- No retreat, shooting friendlies in their back when they are weak. The enemy will not get the XP

It is that third one that worked pretty well in the old days.
But is no more...

***

What if both players get XP?

Equal?
Or should the loosing side still get more XP from it?

A third player that doesn't fight might be left behind due to inactivity.

Remember, if 2 players fight. Both will loose units and gain XP from their own sacrifices.

***

Soon we finally get together again... with a distance.
The first test would be something along the lines of a small base where only units can be trained. The base would eventually be sold of by parts to get more units. But in the past, one of our players did start shooting the buildings instead.

... he won that match too...

We already have a game. It is just that we try to add stuff back in that was once a big hassle. Same goes for the terrain. Which is being simplified enough to attempt another go at the 3D slash 2D board in that other topic.

The basics here are that we are mental.
The realism is long gone too. We got aliens versus knights versus sci-fi tanks versus mutated plants versus "a realistic army because it doesn't make sense at this point and fits in nicely that way".
:)
There isn't much fun in shooting walls though. But we might as well leave it out. The same goes for shooting your own units and buildings.

Giving each player XP points for other stuff they can do perhaps? More like getting XP from spending AP then?
Discarding 1 AP would give 0 XP.
Spending 1 AP for moving would give 1 XP.
Spending 1 AP for attacking would give 2 XP.
Somnething like that would really push players to do something?

I agree on this as well. And that is why I always wanted to have something along the lines of XP.
The old version was also cumulative. So if a player had like 15 XP and 5 units. Each would reach tier 3. Then the same XP on a player with 1 unit would only manage to get to tier 6.

Maybe we will have only 1 tier on top.
and it has to be based on a maximum of 14 XP per round I guess. At the end of each round, you get to spend XP as well.
Maybe even healing units with XP can come back.

Yes, the balance is now, once again, the tricky part.
XP on activity sounds much better. And I wonder why I didn't think of this before. I guess I played too much RTS.

Thanks, I get to work on this once I got some spare time :)

Sure they can attack for twice the ammount. But a player that only moves around also gets XP.

So everyone goes in circle's. Get their XP. Get their hero units. Then they attack. And get XP from that attack as well...

So, I need to fix the rules into combat mode.
Meaning that they follow the penalty principles.

For penalties, this is normal.
But for XP gain, it gets a bit too complex now.

It was an awesome idea. But it makes me sad that it doesn't work for my game.

There has been one more suggestion. Units gaining health if they succesfully attacked the enemy. But the details of this is also a mystery.

"Bravery" points...

***

First problem I see is that one unit becomes the tank...

And head back to the terrain work.

But here is my finishing touch on the hero's.

Only 1 hero design is allowed per unit design.
This in order to prevent creeping.
The hero design will follow rules in order to prevent me making more choices.

The factor will always be 3.
The XP factor cost will always be 10.

The body factor is 3.
The weapon factor is 3.

The speed factor option will start looking at 50% more speed, rounded downwards.
It starts at a speed of 2 becomming 3 if the health allows it.
Health is depending on armor values. I do not do halves. 1.5 times 4 is not allowed. 3 times 4 however is.

The range factor option will start looking at 100% more range.
This will mean that most units will become hero support units. Including the metagame units.
Only melee units might become more of a mobile wall.

The only thing that I might reconsider is the range factor. Instead of 100%, maybe only 50%.

Towards infinity with range and speed.
The health factor will never be as low as a factor of 2.
And the damage factor will never be as low as a factor 1.5.