Skip to Content
 

Game #13 Unification Wars

16 replies [Last post]
Anonymous

Hi All.

I am having a last minute crisis with the ftp system. So I have uploaded the document for 'Unification Wars' via the GDW download page, and pestered the administrators accordingly.

I hope you find something interesting in this game. The images in the document are all in black and white (to save you printer ink); really they should have bright coloured lines on dark starfields.

This is a simple multiplayer beer and pretzels war game, it has been played a few times with groups of friends with good results.

Please let me know if you think it is worth working on, or if any flaws leap out at you, or it is impossible to understand the rules, etc.

all yours.

phpbbadmin
Offline
Joined: 04/23/2013
The File

Folks,

Here is the file for Unification Wars:

http://www.bgdf.com/files/7/0/Unification%20War_Export.doc

So let's get reviewing!

-Darke

phpbbadmin
Offline
Joined: 04/23/2013
No Images

Max,

I just briefly skimmed the document, but I could not find any images. Also I don't quite understand what Dyne-Tracks are. Is this a preexisting board game mechanic/system? Or is it represented in the missing images?

-Darke

SVan
Offline
Joined: 10/02/2008
Game #13 Unification Wars

A good game, simplistic, but detailed enough to make it enjoyable. There doesn't seem to be anything too unique in the game, but altogether it does have a unique feel to it.

After reading and rereading the rules, most of the rules are very clear. The theme is kept throughout the rules.

There are 4 nagging things that stick out to me.

1. Ship Removal. The ships that are removed during the peace dividend phase; which ones are removed? And why are they removed?

2. Combat. It seems like "I've played that before" (I know this is suppose to be a beer and pretzels game.) I think that some unique way of resolving combat with possibly including the rules you already have would make it an even better game. Also I don't like the fact that you have to hurt the settlement on bombing raids. I would like an option that would increase the likeliness of the settlement surrendering instead of doing damage to it. (You would have to be careful with this, because players will never choose to destroy it if the odds are very good that they can capture it instead.)

3. The Two or more capitols rule. I think that it is good that a capitol will allow a player to stay in a game if he or she loses theirs. But the rules seem pretty vague about how to do it (it does show the example for 2 players.) There should be a general random way to do this for any amount of players. Also the more capitols you have, the more numbers you could roll that you could lose your capitol (i.e. If you have 3 capitols, if you roll a 5 or 6, you lose that capitol; for 4 capitols it would be 4-6, etc.)

4. Colonization. The rules are vague about that also. All players can colonize? What if all 4 players want to colonize the last planet available?

These are minor gripes, because the basics of this game is terrific. I like the theme, and like the way the game can play out.

-Steve

jwarrend
Offline
Joined: 08/03/2008
Game #13 Unification Wars

Some general impressions:

The game sounds like a lot of fun! There's a superficially similar game called "Throne World" that I have enjoyed playing in the past, but which lasts 8 hours. A similar game that could be played in 2-3 hours would be great! You should keep your eyes open for a new Plenary game called "Dark Light" that may also have some similar elements...

I really like the "each base produces a unit whose value equals the value of the base". I love simple, clean rules like that.

I also really like the travel system, it seems like it could lead to some interesting decisions based on committing your troops at the right time, particularly if you're trying to coordinate a big attack. Cool! Why use "dyne" rather than "wormhole"? I'm not a sci fi buff but the latter term seems more common, whereas I've never heard the former...

The combat system is awful. Sorry to be blunt, but it stinks. You need to try to think of something more interesting. Even just "roll one die for each point of units, and count the 6's" or something would be better. A beer and pretzels game needs lots of die-rolling, not just to make it fun, but to somewhat even out luck statistically. Your battles will either be super-duper luck heavy, or will be totally anticlimactic (because you'll only fight if you've got a mathematical sure thing).

I don't like the "defecting capitols" rule. I like the "beauracracy" effect whereby having too many capitols forces you to risk losing one, but it should just become neutral. Although, it is a nice "catch the leader" mechanic, but it may be too powerful...

I don't think I like the planetary bombardment rules, but I am not ready to propose a replacement at this time.

All in all, this game sounds like it has a lot of potential -- it's very simple and clean, yet it has some cool mechanics and decision points. I disagree with SVan -- I think you do break some original ground here with the timing mechanism for combat, and a couple of other things. But I think you need to think of a more interesting way to resolve combat. I like it that it's so clean, though -- resist the urge to add power-ups and special effect cards and such. You really don't need them, I don't think.

Great job!

-Jeff

Anonymous
Game #13 Unification Wars

Thank-you for all the excellent comments so far.

Darke: The images seem to take a little longer to load but they are there at the end of the document. Thank-you very much for expeditous upload.

Svan: Ship removal is all ships and represents the fact that the peace period is long compared to the war period; the old ships are obsolete and must be replaced. New colonies all start as neutral, they must be subdued.
more on your other points soon. thanks.

Jwarrend: Yah, these are some good points. The combat system is basically 'scary' in that once you commit you haven't got much say in the wide range of outcomes. Nonetheless it stops the war quickly swinging to the stronger, since the strong player is always unsure about committing his premium units to combat and losing the lead. Over the course of the campaign the advantage does go to the player who seeks out combat where he has an advantage. The Dyne system is also about the risks of commitment, since if you launch a fleet on the attack from a long way the other players have more time to react and plan accordingly. The Capitols rule does mitigate the runaway leader, it also shifts the strategic map around a bit between wars.

The Dyne is the engine that makes ships go FTL. Its taken from M. John Harrisons 'The centauri device' (nice book!) . Fighters don't have one so they can't dyne travel.

jwarrend
Offline
Joined: 08/03/2008
Game #13 Unification Wars

A couple of observations about implementation. It's not exactly clear from the components which types of settlement give rise to which ship class, which will result in a lot of lookups.

Also, I don't like the dyne tracks, because again, it's too much back and forth looking to see what is going to go where, and a lot of "gotcha!" moments where someone didn't properly evaluate where something was on the dyne track. I'd probably rather see the board with the dyne tracks printed on it, maybe as lines that connect the systems but with spots representing "stop points" that a fleet moves between. This will give some implementation problems, to be sure, but I think since you have a small number of components anyway, having that kind of info on the board will give a better sense of what might be coming down the pike at them. You'll need to play around with it to figure something out, but it isn't really a gameplay issue so much as a components issue.

Anonymous
Game #13 Unification Wars

just a few more points.

Neutral worlds are more likely to surrender to larger fleets, so it is relatively easy to sieze new colonies.

I see that the last rule about exitting players is not quite consistent with the rest of the rules. It should be considered optional and is there to prevent players having to head home early in a huff.

Thanks JWarrend. Yes I never printed the value on the counters. oops.

The dynetrack is the tricky part of the game, once you play; getting your timing right and trying to get the head around the 3D geometry of it is the
challenge.

DarkDream
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
Looks like a fun game with Great Potential!

I'm at work here so I can't spend too much time.

My overall impression is that this seems like a really fun game with a lot of potential.

I read through the rules, and I have some questions and clarifications:

You quote, "An inhabited system has a settlement marker." I believe you can have no more than one settlement per planetary system. If so, it would be nice to explicitly state this.

Under the game set-up you state: ". . . determine a placement order randomly." It would be nice to just say something like, "The oldest player places a Capitol first following in a clockwise order the other players."

Also in this section, there is no mention of the neutral Capitols. Something like, "There are no neutral capitals placed at this junction in time."

You state under the "Turn Sequence" that, "Note, that all Players play each phase simultaneously." I don't think the word, "simultaneously", quite gets at what you are trying to say. "Simultaneously," at least in my mind is doing something at exactly the same time. I would explain this a bit more by saying that players can concurrently do actions within a phase at the same time.

In the "Encounter Phase" you explain how a combat occurs between players. It would be nice to explain how neutral space-fleets resolve their attacks. Do they automatically attack any unit that enters the Control Orbit? If not, who rolls for the neutral fleets if the fleet is attacked.

The section on "Capitols" may need some revision. The bit about, "...dice randomly to determine its fate," needs to be further clarified and more definite rules provided.

On the "Victoy Conditions" section, you have a "Consensual Victory" whereby you state, "A Player has more Capitols than all other Players and Neutrals combined. A victory may be conceded here, but need not be."

I am not following here. Does every one of the players have to agree that the Player that meets the victory condition is the winner? I'm a bit confused with this one.

Besides the rules, here are some of my thoughts:

I am not so clear about the colonization part, but it seems to me you should have a special ship called a colonizer, that can be sent out in war time to try to find a distant unihabited planet to colonize. It should have no weapons and thus an attack of zero. While during war, you can not get a planet marker you can put the colonizer in to close orbit or the empty system. All colonizers in a close orbit at the end of the war transform into a settlement.

You can opt to either create a colonizer or a space-fleet.

With a colonizer, you can effectively help keep a player in the game if he has no capitols.

It appears that only neutral planets can colonize. Regular Players should get the opportunity to.

I like the ideas of capitols seceding. This appears to be a neat idea of keeping the game even. I am not so sure about the idea of it becoming a capitol of a player that does not have a settlement. Better to use the colonizer idea.

Maybe if you have ships in orbit of the planet you own, it can make it less easy to secede.

The whole idea of re-admitting a player, I don't think is a good one. Such a player should get a colonizer.

These are just things off the top of my head.

DarkDream

IngredientX
IngredientX's picture
Offline
Joined: 07/26/2008
Game #13 Unification Wars

This is a very cool-sounding game. I like the Dyne system a lot. For the record, I didn't have a problem picking it up from the rules alone, but that's just me. :)

Here are my major thoughts...

1) The Dyne system is ultra-cool. This will be a big draw to the game. I like how this makes the game "boardless," because the order the planets are placed on the board is ultimately irrelevant.

2) Simultaneous play. I'm going to have to play Doubting Thomas here, but do you think this system will work? I know you said you had a few successful playtests. Was the simultaneous play a central feature of the game? Or was it something that people had to "play around?"

There's a game I wrote about a few months ago called Time Control that is also a strategy-based game with a simultaneous play mechanism (this is as opposed to a "real-time card game" like Light Speed or Brawl, which is an entirely different animal). When I played this, the mechanism completely baffled me. I had no reason to do anything, because I knew someone would immediately counter it. Why should I move my agents from my board to someone else's, when I know that someone else can counter-attack my weakened board?

It turns out that the game was very poorly received, and reviews seized upon the simultaneous play mechanism as a reason to avoid the game (of course, an abysmally-written manual didn't help). It's a shame; there was obviously a lot of time, money, and love poured into the game. But whatever happened during playtesting, the simultaneous-movement mechanic stayed in the game, to its detriment (IMVHO).

Your simultaneous-play mechanism might not be that bad by itself. In fact, it may work perfectly in your game; I haven't actually played it, so I don't know. I merely raise a warning flag, because I've had a bad experience playing a game with this system, and I don't know of any games with a similar system that are well-received (again, Brawl, Light Speed, Fightball, et al. are exceptions, because they aren't strategy board games with a simultaneous-turn mechanism, but card games with the real-time mechanic as the main feature of the game). If anyone knows of successful strategy board games with a simultaneous turn mechanism, don't hesitate to set me straight.

My point is, when you playtest this game with strangers, be sure to get their thoughts about playing without turns. Does it support the game? Do your testers like it? Do they love it? Will it make them come back? Or do they feel that it's "meh... all right.."

Keep your eyes open for this last possibility. You may have a great theme and a cool Dyne system, but if simultaneous play keeps people from getting into the game, don't hesitate to ditch it.

3) Player elimination. This is a tricky question. The elimination of players during a long strategy game is extremely out-of-vogue these days; however, if your only alternative is to introduce kingmaker situations in your game, then perhaps it is the way to go. Allowing eliminated players to take over neutral systems may not be a bad solution, but will there be a situation where a player may intentionally tank his game to take over a neutral system that's in a better situation to win? Alternatively, if the neutral systems available are very week, will this only prolong the game (and the losing player's misery)?

There are plenty of beloved games out there with player elimination, so I wouldn't ditch it just to be fashionable. Just something to look out for, I suppose.

That's about it. I hope you'll note that I'm not suggesting removing anything from your game, because it may play completely different than how I see it from the rules. All I ask is that you consider my points. :)

Good luck!

Anonymous
Game #13 Unification Wars

Darkdream; concerning the consensual victory, that is right everybody has to agree, sometimes at that point it is obvious how the game is going, but not always. I tried various colonisation schemes, such as leaving fleets over worlds that the players wanted to colonise, but mostly they gave too big an advantage to the player that avoided combat and kept his fleets alive, which means that player is not contributing to the main part of the game and prolongs the war phases unnecessarily. Thanks for your contribution I will consider it at length (maybe test it one day)

IngredientX; mostly the simultaneous system works well. The kind of player that is very indecisive, and tends to drag in his affirmations that he does in fact want to indeed do nothing once again can slow the play, however it allows the decisive player to affect the deliberations of the other players making for a siezing of the initative effect. As long as everyone is concentrating on the game it move along just fine. The main decision that delays play is: "Am I going to depart my fleet into dyne..."

A point that someone raised; Neutral fleets never nominate to attack. They only defend the orbit of their homeworld, preventing attacks on the settlement while they exist.

Torrent
Torrent's picture
Offline
Joined: 08/03/2008
Game #13 Unification Wars

I agree with most of the rest, this is a really neat idea.

Questions, thoughts, whatevers...

Quote:
1) War Preparation:
Neutral Capitols produce a neutral Battle Fleet.

Does this intend to say that ONLY Capitols produce fleets, or something like Neutral Settlements (of an size) produce the proper fleet.

If I understand things right, the Neutral's aren't a large group of the Neutral Empire (Muwahaaha), but just little independant worlds.. right?

I like the Dyne system and the name.

Some of the mechanics such as 'until all players agree to...' seem to me like you are saying, play until you get bored and everyone decides to not play anymore.

I don't have a problem with the Simultaneos Play thing, just because I don't see where it occurs. The Encounters and Planetary Bombardment stuff has to go in some sort of order. The upgrading, building, and colonizing can easy happen simultaneously since there is really no interaction and has a definite endpoint (when all actions have been finsihed).

'Nominate' sounds funny. 'Declare' I think is the more usual Wargame term. Anyone else know more about Wargames?

Encounter/Bombardment Phase- These are seperate right? So if I win through a system's defenses I can immediately (this turn) attack the planet before another Dyne Phase occurs?

I think someone else mentioned this, but I will question it as well. The only way for players to gain new colonies is to take over Neutral ones? If this is so, think about the following. How about if, before the fleets are scrapped in the Peace Phase, the planets are colonized. If a player has the only fleets in an unsettleed system, they get the planet marker instead of the Neutrals. This way the players have some control over what planets they want, but still would have to defend their fledgling colony.

I wonder if there isn't a way to streamline the successions. If you rolled all the capitols together. (1-# of capitols in dice). Any that came up 6 would indicate that the player would have to sacrifce one capitol of choice. Makes things faster and more strategic than one dice per capitol.

Any thoughts on Pre-War Posisitioning. In the run-up to a war, would all the planets have thier fleets at home? An idea would be to let a player move each fleet to another of their own systems within X number of dyne points before the war. You would have to watch in PLaytest and see if the opening moves of the War phase is this anyway.

The last thing I see missing is something about the advantage to having multiple fleets. If I pull 2 carrier groups into a planet, I expect to be able to use them together rather than two seperate equal entities.

I agree as above that the combat system is about the same as Risk. I think you will get the same sorts of issues from it. A fighter squadron taking down three carrier groups due to lucky-dies. Also, I understand the reason to wipe all the fleets, but it still feels wierd. it almost feels like having to start over every turn.

There is really nothing else in the game to help with the theme. IN that I mean every turn will 'feel' the same. I really need to go find the direct link to the article, but there was a neat article about regulated rewards or something like that. Basically to keep humans happy you need to reward them small things every so often. Since they get bored of the small things, there needs to be either variablity in the small rewards or medium/large rewards to work toward. I don't really see any differences in the rewards here. In that I run a turn and get to recapture the planet that I just had, but at a lower settlement level. Woohoo, then someone takes it from me and I get to run the same thing next turn. I don't know what I would suggest, but my favorite mechanisms are cards. So maybe something like a hand of event cards. Minor things, but interesting. Hyperspace current- move one ship ahead or behind one space onthe dyne track. That sort of thing.

These are really just impressions from READING the rules, it may play fairly different.
I really think it is a neat concept. The Dyne idea is pretty cool, the combat and reward structure just needs some tweaks. Lots of potential though.

Andy

Anonymous
Game #13 Unification Wars

Thank-you for your comments.

The neutrals are intended to be independent worlds; they haven't been 'unified'. They are actually rather passive and peaceful. Only the neutral capitols build, and in their first war only a fighter wing.

You are correct about the timing of the bombardment phase.

The current secession mechanism allows the player to retain one his capitols, without knowing ahead which one will be kept.

The colonisation mechanism is philosophically related to the secession and neutrality. The players aren't the whole populations of these worlds, they are a cadre of politicians and military officers. Humanity settles the empty worlds during the years of peace, colonists might arrive from any of the planets. Inevitably, with 'supervision' impossible the world becomes independent. The player can only exert control by moving a battle-fleet over the top and demanding control, this could be the initial act of war. If this is reasonable then pre-positioning too could be the initial movements of the war. Secession is the tossing out of the controlling players cadre during peace.

My idea with the fleets is that they are logarithmic in capability.

A Cruiser is reduced to a system defence flotilla if damaged.
A Carrier loses its fighter carrying capability becoming a cruiser group.
A Battle group loses its main-line firepower dreadnought, leaving the escorts (the carrier).

For example, if you add two carrier groups you still don't get the big firepower capability of the dreadnought in the Battle-Fleet.

This is why it is forbidden to split or combine fleets. Note also that 4 fighter wings get destroyed quite easily by a Battle Fleet, it may be damaged by a level or so if the fighter wings get lucky, but it will win.

I'll bear the other comments in mind...

Torrent
Torrent's picture
Offline
Joined: 08/03/2008
Game #13 Unification Wars

I was bored in class this afternoon and did some statistics.

The rule is Roll 1d6+ Fleet Strength on both sides and compare.
Assuming the lower number loses draws. (I know this is more complicated in your rules, but I wasn't looking at them at the time)
Numbers are the fleet strengths.
For (1 vs 4) there is a 1/12 chance for 1 to win.
For (2 vs 4) and (1 vs 3) there is a 1/6 for the lower one to win.
For (any two sequential numbers) there is a 10/36 chance to win, which is just below 1/3.

This was done in the margins of my notes, but I think the stats are right. This isn't meant as a criticism just as info.

The other thing I was thinking about, there is no way for a system to produce more than one fleet. Which means that if a capitol wants to protect itself it has to either import a fleet from another system or keep it's nice big battle fleet at home. I understand the restrictions for combining, but what if a larger planet could produce several smaller units rather than a big unit. This might add the ability to defend and attack, but at reduced efficiency for both.

And when fleets are removed at the end of the war phase, there isn't a way to get more than 1 fighter wing in a system. Was your example in the last post about several systems?

zaiga
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
Game #13 Unification Wars

Max_torq,

Just out of curiosity and to be able to put things in the right perspective, what is your goal for this game? Do you want to get it published? Or do you just want to play it with your friends?

Also, what games do you own? What kind of games do you normally play?

- Rene Wiersma

Anonymous
Game #13 Unification Wars

Torrent thanks for those numbers. That is a useful approximation. I think that shows why splitting into smaller fleets is not a good idea; the ability to affect colonies is also considerably reduced. The example is theoretical, from when I was testing these ideas, and shows the same thing.

hi zaiga, thanks for the interest.

I guess I am using this forum to gauge whether the game will have merit beyond the circle of friends. I have designed a few games that have reached this level. The comments on this thread sure have honed in on the points of the game that will cause problems and a little more work maybe needed in a few places, however, I think there is enough positive comment to encourage the effort.

Personally, the games that I own and like to play include Brittania, Amoeba Wars, Illuminati, Ogre/GEV, Federation and Empire, Junta, Tank Leader (trilogy), Middle Sea, War at Sea, Kingmaker... I like multi-player war games!

Also play some Full Thrust space-ship miniatures you can see from my home page;

http://www.netspeed.com.au/max_torque

I have also designed Decaying Orbits which has been submitted to the Doomed Civ competition.

- Andrew Kelman

emxibus
Offline
Joined: 10/24/2008
Game #13 Unification Wars

Cool game.

One comment on the components. jwarrend, suggested putting the dyne tracks on the boards. How about having 12 smaller boards, one of each system with the dyne track built in. Make one more orbit with the different departures on it. The ships will spiral down to the sytem. This way you know for certain what's coming and when. Having a board for each system would allow you to spread out the boards and add to the vast space feel. hopefully I'm not repeating something previously posted, if so sorry and I agree with them.

Question on the Simultaneous Dyne-Flight phase. What if everyone wants to participate (depart) in this phase but noone is willing to go first? I'm a defensive player, and I see myself waiting for others to make their move before I go. Is there an advantage for taking the initiative during this phase?

Any future plans to publish this game?

Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut