thread: 2006-02-21 : Adding Objectives to Mechaton
On 2006-02-23, Ninja Monkey J wrote:
Re: Victory points for Mechaton: Advancer Phalanx
There are two reasons to gain a piece of ground: benefit now (Tactical) or benefit later (Strategic).
Tactical: high ground, cover, current resources (ammo, weapons).
-These are represented by a finite number of colored dice at that point. They can only be used while within, I dunno, one hex of the goal (which can be any size, I suppose, so you can have "inside this building" be a goal) and on the same side of a wall.
Strategic: VPs used to gain points for future games.
- These represent the total number of points you have to spend on future battles.
Victory is not won with a single battle. It's won by whoever has the most VPs either when the losing side surrenders or is out of points.
You start with the same number of VPs, as Sydney suggests. When you're completely out of VPs and mecha, you're done. You can also surrender when the outcome is inevitable.
So, let's say we each start with 20 dice. These are our preparations. You decide to build 15 dice of mecha with them. I decide to build 10 dice of mecha with them. (So far, I'm "winning" without even fighting because I have more unspent dice than you, but you've invested in getting more, hedging your bets a little for the next battle by leaving 5 dice behind, in case this battle totally sucks for you and you won't have anything to fight with next time)
So we fight it out. I lose a bunch of dice because you're kickin' my butt with your larger numbers, but I manage to capture some Strategic territory for later, thanks to getting lucky with some Tactical goals early on.
At the end, your mecha have, I dunno, let's say 8 dice left. You capture let's say 12 dice of Strategic goals. I capture 15 points of Strategic goals but am down to 3 dice of mecha.
Between this game and the next, I can put those dice back on my mecha, fixin' em up, or make new ones. Or, most importantly, I can save them for later: it's only the unspent dice that count toward victory.
This makes NinJ go "On Capturing Strategic Territory"
Capturing Strategic and Tactical goals is done like this:
Imagine that each mecha has a unit of infantry walking around with them. You can put the little guys on your mecha sheet or on the table near your mecha, but no one can shoot at them until they've taken territory.
You take territory by putting your mecha inside any Goal area. When you arrive at a vacant one, you can spend your White dice to install that many guys, up to 12.
If you install fewer, that's cool; you can leave them here, and they'll do what they can, or you can stick around another turn and put down more. You don't have to put down as many as the dice say; you can save some for another goal. You can also pick up friendly guys and ferry them around.
To capture territory that your opponent already ownz0rs, you bring in your mecha and roll your white dice. If the number of defending dudes is larger, that many guys from both sides get eliminated. If the number you roll is greater than the number of defenders, you eliminate the defenders and the same number of guys from your side as the defender had. Then install your guys.
This makes VB go "I was just gonna..."
I was just gonna have the mech(s) make an attack roll vs some arbitrary number. Less bookkeeping!
This makes NinJ go "They attack a goal?"
I'd think that attacking a goal would destroy it, which it totally fine, but not the same thing.
You know how in Star Wars Battlefront you prevent your opposition from taking the CP by "building it up" beforehand to make it yours? That's what I was thinkin' about.
But you could totally do it so that you have Dude dice and those are good for setting the target number on the Goal or attacking it.
This makes VB go "imaginary dudes..."
The mech attacks the imaginary dudes at the goal, replacing them with its own imaginary dudes. All imaginary dudes are equal.
This makes NinJ go "Oh, yeah. Same thing."
So... do Dudes get their own dice? That seems ridiculous. Red, Blue, White, Yellow, Green....
It's overly complex now... unless a dudeShooter is a kind of "weapon" and you use Reds to drop them off.
This makes VB go "dudes DEFINITELY don't get dice."
The mech shoots the dudes! Budda budda budda kaboom! The mech shoots the dudes by rolling an attack against a 2 [arbitrary] and scoring at least one hit. That kills all the dudes and now my side owns the objective. Then your mech comes along and kills all my imaginary dudes with shooting, by rolling an attack against the same arbitrary 2.
Dudes can't fight or do anything, they're imaginary. It'd work exactly the same way if all the mechs carried around imaginary golf flags, and it takes an attack roll vs. a 2 to make it stand up.
This makes NinJ go "Golf flags are where this idea started."
The point of having the infantry there, to my mind, is to make it so that you can take a risk with defense: I'll leave these guys here knowing that they'll just delay an attacker, but that will buy me time to go deal with some other business for a turn or two.
Dudes definitely don't get dice. I was saying that the DudeShooter is a piece of equipment that the mecha carry around for the sole purpose of depositing dudes. You attack Goals with it.
The Dudes are just there to hold onto a Goal. They can't effectively fight back, but they can delay. So you can grind them down if you want, but it takes time. That's how you "hold" something: the more guys hold it, the more inconvenient it is to take it. That keeps the mecha in action.
This might be a difference between the way we want to see this game work.
This makes VB go "time to playtest."
I predict: getting to an objective will be hard enough that nobody'll want hassle once you get there.
This makes NinJ go "That's my feeling."
This makes NinJ go "That's my feeling."
I challenge you to a duel on Wednesday!
This makes BL go "Seems to me"
That the flags can change color if a mech ends a turn in the hex. No need to roll poop. If you want to keep other mechs out, leave your guy in the hex, dude.
yrs--
--Ben
This makes NinJ go "I don't quite follow, Ben."
Let's say I've left some guys at a goal. Then you want to take the goal. You mean that you show up and the guys all change sides? Then you might as well have just one flag. All you have to do is touch that spot. That's OK if you're not trying to hold a Tactical position, I suppose. Hm. That would mean that you would need mecha to defend Tactical goals but Strategic goals would be a matter of running around and tagging them then running on.
I think it's important that it take resources - at least time - to capture Strategic resources. That way, the endgame is a matter of deciding what's worth the effort to take when your guys are all beat up.
This makes SDL go "Most games..."
...use "flags" that belong to whomever is sitting on them, until the other player forces them off. So the flag is yours as long as you can keep the other side away from it, or have a defender there. You don't really need combined arms, it just makes it more "tactical".
(CPU games are more likely to call a contested point "unclaimed".)
This makes NinJ go "It depends what you want..."
If you want a game where you run around and tag the Goals, then run off for another one (which your opponent isn't guarding) that's fine. That's a lot of running around, and that might be what you want.
If you want a game where you have to invest in holding a Goal, that's another question.
You know, in the interest of keeping the "I get what I build" philosophy, maybe you get Strategic dice for installing guys on a Strategic Goal. That is, the Goal is just a place. The more Dudes you have surviving there at the end, the more dice you get for future games. The issue here is that players will be encouraged to build up the safest Goals full of guys and won't fight over the best ones. To retain that rule, I think you have to say that increasing the number of dudes at a goal increases its value but doesn't inherently increase the difficulty to capture it. Like, the guys in there are setting up equipment, or they're getting a factory working, or they're mining. Or something. This seems a little odd metaphorically, but OK in terms of game structure.
This makes BL go "Was talking about Mechaton"
Not Roroga.
This makes NinJ go "I'm talking about Mechaton, too."
Maybe "Advancer Phalanx"... dunno. Anyway, it just occurred to me that having few, single Goals is the same as having large ones. It just depends on where you want the action: around the Goals (as in the case of few, hard-to-take Goals) or out in the open (as is the case with many, dispersed Goals).
The only real question here is the campaign rules, which we haven't really discussed in detail.
This makes BL go "And I have been vindicated"
By playtest. Standing on a goal is enough to take it.
This makes NinJ go "Well, kinda."
When there are 9 guys on the field and six Goals, yeah. But if we had only, say, two or four, Goals, that would be a different matter. I can see you having fewer, bigger goals with infantry you have to squash before you get to take the Goal.
We have yet to play with Tactical Goals, by the way. Wednesday, maybe!
V., we should make more mecha so we have some to play with on Wednesday; at least get some little bodies set up that we can equip.
