The Strategic Layer

[Cyrus Tregessar]

This is building off the thread by [member="Camellia Swift"] here.

Say one large system with 10 planets (or a sector with 10 systems, or whatever it doesn't matter). Each side (presumably Republic v. Sith) manages to get a foothold on opposite ends of the system, and the goal is to either a) conquer the rest of it or wipe out the other's effective military force. Alternatively you could have the system be totally controlled in even halves to begin with and not have to worry about some pointless third party.

Each side starts with a fixed Order of Battle (both Naval and Ground) and a limited reinforcement pool (not fixed, rather ships and military units are given a points value and can be purchased.

Rules would have to be written governing movement between systems, to give logistics and such a purpose, and of course the key factor would be that taking over a system would be a multi-part affair, involving establishing space superiority (or alternatively staging an opposed landing) before you conduct bombardment and invasion operations. I would also love to see supply lines matter, as well as intelligence being kept secret, with the opportunity for PvP threads to effect operations, planning, supply disruptions, intel gathering, and so on. Where individual characters are would actually matter as well.

Now obviously there'd have to be a great deal of trust and cooperation on both sides, but the way I see it if you're talking about an uncontrolled system then nobody is losing anything (though one side is potentially gaining something).

[member="Valiens Nantaris"] | [member="Captain Larraq"] | [member="Fatty"] | [member="Hans Vaiden"] | [member="Veino Garn"] | [member="Gir Quee"] (who needs to post in Terminus) | [member="Ali Hadrix"]

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

[member="Cyrus Tregessar"]
I see it as a logical outgrowth of my Chaeronea campaign style where the two sides receive income depending on the planets owned and upgrades made.

For NPC systems you could have an auto-resolve where you might or might not win, or you could RP it like a Dominion with length depending on the planet’s value.

For battles with the other side some mechanism would be needed naturally.

 

[Ali Hadrix]

This is a clearly complex and intense endeavor, but I'm very confident we can pull it off. All the basics are there, and we could use this as an opportunity to test out certain theories and ideas that people have been positing around the boards, like Camellia.

Perhaps we could select a pair of people to help run certain aspects of things? A pair to run logistics, ground combat, spatial combat, etc. I say a pair in case one is unavailable for a period of time. That way we could have GM's testing out certain gameplay dynamics that have been suggested, and through AAR's (After Action Reviews) we could fine tune these ideas and make proper alterations.

The one thing I want to impress is that while the character development of RP should be written from the heart, combat can be more mechanic-based, and we shouldn't be afraid of that.

 

[Gir Quee]

I'd be up for writing one of the fleet parts, if we are to attempt it. I think [member="Ali Hadrix"]'s idea of having a pair of people run each part of is a solid suggestion. I'd be up for writing one of the "fleeter" parts as in one of those pairs.

The one caveat to that is that right now, I believe I am the only Republic fleeter.

So I'd suggest we run it as something like the Terminus campaign, with allied forces of equal strength on each side. Perhaps Mandalorian/Republic verses Team Darkside or something of that nature.

The one thing I want to impress is that while the character development of RP should be written from the heart, combat can be more mechanic-based, and we shouldn't be afraid of that.

I'd like to "like" that part several times.

Gir Quee (who needs to post in Terminus)

You are far too excited to whip a "novice" I think.




But I'll get a post up tomorrow. I somehow didn't get Larraq's notification that he posted.

 

[Cyrus Tregessar]

The more I think about it the more I believe we should cut third-party NPC's out of the equation altogether. Divvy the system up between Sith and Republic (or whomever) and make it more about utilizing limited resources and actual strategy rather than who can bum-rush the neutrals the fastest.

So right now I'm picturing a sector with 30 systems. Two are 'capitals,' high-value high-population industrialized systems. The overall goal is to take this system from the enemy. 6 others are mid-sized systems that are valuable but not critically so. 8 more are low-value systems that can act as outposts, and the remaining 14 are empty/worthless, but take up space/time to travel through.

Supply would be a key element, and supply is only generated by the Capitals and Mid-value systems. Outposts would provide supply for themselves but can't extend it. Similarly, reinforcements can only be brought in at the capital and mid-value systems, so they become the key focal points of the campaign (but the outposts would be essential for supply-line raiding and such, because you don't need support there).

Now, tracking things on a map gets tricky. You can't have something like EaW in a forum RP (though frankly the strategic view needed to be turn based anyway). So actually maybe you could, IF you wanted to break things down to 'turns.'

The beauty of the whole thing (to me) is that in spite of the focus on large-scale quasi-realistic warfare, the role of standard PvP rp interactions basically writes itself. Want intelligence on the defensive force around System X? Have a few operatives sneak there in a stealth ship and steal the information. Things like that are natural developments and are a place for any sort of player to get involved, rather than just the more military minded ones (you could also, say, disrupt reinforcements heading to the theater, smuggle supplies to a beleaguered force, sabotage a Torpedo Sphere, whatever.

Perhaps we could select a pair of people to help run certain aspects of things? A pair to run logistics, ground combat, spatial combat, etc. I say a pair in case one is unavailable for a period of time. That way we could have GM's testing out certain gameplay dynamics that have been suggested, and through AAR's (After Action Reviews) we could fine tune these ideas and make proper alterations.

This is a great idea, but i'd be concerned with even getting enough people to participate, much less help run things. Ideally this could be done by the various participants and reviewed by all.

You are far too excited to whip a "novice" I think.

Haha, sorry about that, Cyrus is an nerf herder. Surprise him, nothing he respects/enjoys more than someone punching above their weight or proving competence in the face of adversity.

 

[Ali Hadrix]

I'll have more later, but for now, know that I have a solid mapping solution. I'll link later with an example. It's offsite, but genius.

 

[Camellia Swift]

Not sure who to ping on what.

I like the idea of supply lines, but trying to do individualistic income levels is just too hard. I imagine a planet/hex fixed income with a bonus for capitals and company HQs would be best if you were going to try and sell it site wide. Otherwise people freak out about too much work.

For supply lines you can have it be that there are limited windows for extended compaigns. Unless you own a planet right next to your target, IE not trying to cloud break by invading 3 or 6 planets in, you would have to maybe rp a chain of forces ferreting ammunition or equipment to the front lines.

Although the BIG problem with that is that a lot of ships Clone Wars Era and Beyond typically came equipped to handle extended deployments. An ISD could handle years of active duty at full capacity, and they had plenty of ground troops to spare on one of those. Though typically a single ISD was believed to be able to police an entire system by itself.

By making their fleets and ground forces limited though, I feel like we do get into this deep level of play. If the ISD is damaged or destroyed, without deploying all ground forces, then that force is both reduced and cut off from their supplies, meaning that faction might need to rp rescuing those troops or sending them supplies to bunker down and keep up the fight, maybe even winning ground side and holding out against enemy reinforcements until a replacement fleet can drive the opposition from orbit.

I think anyone playing a stormtrooper, NFU Soldier, or FLeeter, would love this system. It makes things a lot more fairer and impactful. Even more fluid. NFU Soldiers can be in squads and actually rp an invasion, knowing that their fellow soldiers storming the beaches matter so that they will write them and write themselves standing above them as PCs, as hero units. THe Republic would especially love this because they keep trying to form battle groups but battle groups mean nothing when Invasions aren't limited and the head honcho or best fleeter/general would take over for their group even.

So now I especially think this would make the wars more fun because then you actually start getting battle groups made and distinguished!

Oh the Galactic Republic First Battlegroup led by Admiral Quee has pushed the Sith from Coruscant at the cost of their carrier and frontline frigate Albion. Master Karr supporting the ground forces as the Jedi attachment stood out as he rallied the Vanguard (Or whatever a Republic Ground Force squad has been called before) and destroyed the generator holding back the infantry advance that won the day. After the battle if the finances are available the Albion is replaced and repairs are made, recruits fill in the ranks of the infantry and crew members dead, and what changes? objectives were the same and rps didn't change.

Except I'd change one thing

And by this I mean, its only Gir Quee, Only the First Battlegroup. Invasions get limited to battlegroups. I know we'v done limited invasions before and a rule like this would make the Battlegroup concept stronger. Get a group, rp together, get good at rping together, become stronger.

The Second Battlegroup patrolling Onderon for example would defend/attack there. So say the Sith send their own battlegroup, its them. Maybe some are weaker, they get pulled back, reinforced, reorganized with staff/members (maybe from more successful battlegroups), then get sent back to the fight. That way too threads aren't huge clusterkarks with a million people fighting each other at once, its groups who are supposed to be in the area or who were available and specifically sent to a region.

It'd be cool to hear chats then how the Republic 1st or the Sith Marauders are championing the attack, or on standby while they await repairs and others carry on the fight. Battlegroups can make stories of themselves, make reputations! Instead of just hearing how a Jedi/Sith duel turned out again after they've fought each other time and time in the same grudge matches?

Plus it sounds like an interesting way to reduce the spam/clutter tactics in posts, or the ansgt about how one faction throws all their masters into every thread that pops up.

Battlegroups are contained, they take turns as they replace damaged ships and dead troops, and they handle different regions which also keeps the same people from being the focus all the time.

 

[Cyrus Tregessar]

Yup, that's basically it. And going off your idea from before, I'd like to test it all out in a canon situation in a made up system/cluster whatever. I'm happy to make a cluster specifically so it can be the site of a campaign to test/play with/experiment with all these sorts of ideas.

 

[Camellia Swift]

[member="Cyrus Tregessar"]

That sounds great.

The problem is the lack of fleeters to put into other factions battlegroups.

Since the event the Republic lost a lot of its officers. Myself and Stahlmann included.

If I were organizing a Battlegroup it'd be about 10-15 members for each. A fleeter or 2, a ground general, 4-6 Jedi/Sith, 6-8 NFU soldiers. ANymore than that is a bonus, but would probably be best filling up the next battlegroup.

The other problem is the system we make up has to be between Republic/Sith space and invasions only consider entire hexes not systems/sectors.

We'd have to keep track of the systems and planets here and in the end a faction might only really get 1 or 2 hexes out of it because we're certainly not gonna be able to do 10 or so battle with the little space there is there now.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

I actually did a sector map sometime ago.

 

[Ali Hadrix]

Totally forgot to get back to this, I'm such a silly butt.

Btw, here's a link to an example map I made for ground combat. Valium probably saw it when I posted it in another thread: http://scrum.maptactic.com/700397437042077305

It allows you to make quick tactical maps, even from uploaded images. A grid system can be easily applied. I like the hex overlay, however, so I'm thinking I could volunteer to take Hex based maps and upload them to the maptactic site to update during RP. That way everyone knows what's up, and I've got a super easy way to edit the map. The map can be saved and reloaded later, allowing you to change any aspect of it without photoshopping a bunch of crapola.

A quick suggestion: I would recommend we shrink the scale down a bit. This is going to require a lot of writers, and with every writer comes an RL schedule and obligations that could muddy our efforts.
We need the OOC factors of this to be smooth or it will negatively impact the experiment itself and distract from any progress.

Camellia touched on something I've been trying to make more important for ages: Fleet sizes.

Let's say we max out at 10 writers per side. Why do we need dozens of armies and heaping amounts of starships? Does everyone need one of their own, is that it? We have child-characters running about as Kings, and Rebellions engaging in open-full scale combat.
We have left the realm of SW, folks, and I think we should shrink things down a bit. Force writers to win by the detail they apply to their posts, rather than the numbers supporting them.

Camellia makes a great point: One ISD was supposed to subjugate an entire star system. Instead of slogging through another "And then the Captain ordered his fleet of NINE (9) Star Destroyer to fire all its turbolasers, torpedoes and ion cannons at the enemy vessel!"'s, we could rely on a single ISD where writers have to utilize ALL THAT OTHER STUFF on board a star destroyer!

I'll have more later, but it's 2am and I'm going crazy.

 

[Gir Quee]

Everyone's brought up good points so far, and there's not much I would disagree with, but I'd like to highlight this:

A quick suggestion: I would recommend we shrink the scale down a bit. This is going to require a lot of writers, and with every writer comes an RL schedule and obligations that could muddy our efforts.
We need the OOC factors of this to be smooth or it will negatively impact the experiment itself and distract from any progress.

I think that if anything kills this experiment, it won't be user opposition, I think that it will be the long-term commitment.

For example, the Terminus campaign is relatively small, but it's taking a while to complete (at least in space). People get busy with faction duties, real life, and a whole bunch of things. I think this could very easily fall by the wayside if we're not careful.

[member="Ali Hadrix"] already mentioned scaling it down, which I think is a good suggestion.

If we are going to use a big map or a lot of worlds, I think another alternative would be to come up with a way to speed up less important battles and claim less important worlds. As much as it pains me, I'd almost suggest something like a Risk mechanic for that.

 

[Camellia Swift]

[member="Ali Hadrix"] [member="Gir Quee"] [member="Valiens Nantaris"]

That map is amazing Val, also Ali I can't see a map when I go to your link?

Then maybe we test this out with one battle group from each faction? 10 members from each faction, a fleeter, a general, 2-3 jedi, 4-6 NFU soldiers. And they have to build their fleet and we'll have them use the production and income system to replace their damaged or lost vessel and to recruit more soldiers as their lossed.

We can expand to a second battlegroup per faction if they feel committed to it.

And while I did make the point of a single ISD subjugating a whole system, it still was hardly left by itself. They still had other, smaller, ships that engaged in patrols and support while an ISD acted as the flagship and response ship whenever trouble did appear. Smaller ships of the Imperial navy were typcially Strike Cruisers, Lancers, or Carracks, with Victories making key appearances too.

So essentially we should see a battlegroup consist of 10-18 ships on average. A sector the size we're looking at really could handle 2-3 battlegroups if we did get enough interest and commitment from the factions memberbases.

*Always discount the 3rd and 6th movies where hundreds of ships were present since those were a lot of the navies pooled and not single dedicated fleets.

 

[Ali Hadrix]

[member="Camellia Swift"]: Sorry, forgot to mention, you have to click "Retrieve Briefing" at the right side, and it should pop up. I did it just now to make sure and it worked.

On fleets: Of course an ISD needs support vessels, I'm tracking that but neglected to mention it, my bad! I was targeting large ships in large numbers.

Camellia, when you say "And they have to build their fleet...", do you mean neither side starts with a full fleet of their own? If so, I was thinking these battle groups should be fully fleshed out from the get go, and the income/replacement system could be used only for resources lost. (If that's what you meant anyway, ignore me)

[member="Gir Quee"]: "If we are going to use a big map or a lot of worlds, I think another alternative would be to come up with a way to speed up less important battles and claim less important worlds. As much as it pains me, I'd almost suggest something like a Risk mechanic for that."

I could go for that. What we have to ensure comes first and foremost is the fluidity of it all. We can't deal with any messing about on minor bs. That's the reason I thought 30 planets/systems was a far cry from realistic for now. I believe we need a much smaller battlespace so we can focus on testing and adjusting the mechanics in a more succinct period of time rather than become lost in sea of different battles all tied to the same event.

I honestly would recommend no more than 4 systems included, with no more than 3 viable planets each. The most minor outposts could be included at a number not exceeding 2 per system.
That would make for a total of 20 battle areas. I'd suggest 8 major planets, 4 minor planets, and 8 outposts. Two of those systems could be major (base) systems. The rest would be support/minor.
I think that's far more manageable, and then we don't have to rely on a large number of writers to support an event that is, essentially, a test run of new mechanics.

 

[Gir Quee]

I honestly would recommend no more than 4 systems included, with no more than 3 viable planets each. The most minor outposts could be included at a number not exceeding 2 per system.
That would make for a total of 20 battle areas. I'd suggest 8 major planets, 4 minor planets, and 8 outposts. Two of those systems could be major (base) systems. The rest would be support/minor.
I think that's far more manageable, and then we don't have to rely on a large number of writers to support an event that is, essentially, a test run of new mechanics.

Seconded. Or something similar to that. I might suggest having the same number of planets as above, but arguably spreading them out somewhat more so we can test the whole logistics aspect of moving units around in "strategic turns".

[member="Camellia Swift"], I think the battle group you're discussing would be ideal, but I'm skeptical that we'll get those types of numbers right now, at least from the Republic side. I think that people are pretty busy right, so that unless they're unusually interested in the strategic concepts (and probably a Warmonger member then), I'd be surprised if they're interested. I don't think that many of our jedi are, and aside from [member="Ali Hadrix"], I don't know of any other Republic NFUs who have voiced interest in this.

I think it'd be realistic to say that going with Team Darkside and Team Lightside, that we would get 3 - 4 people working pretty consistently on each side. A lack of people might even be better because we'll be able to move turns faster, rather than having to wait on several slower people to post.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Valium probably saw it

<_<

 

[Cyrus Tregessar]

The main reason I went for 30 system was to provide for more room for maneuvering and to make supply lines and logistics more relevant. There are other ways to do this, of course.

I also absolutely agree with [member="Gir Quee"] that getting sizeable numbers would be tricky, at least for the more in-depth stuff. Another way to do it would be to have each side with a 'command' group of only 3-4 people (all we're likely to get) but open things up like in an event for the individual invasions/battles/operations.

After all if one is only RPing a Jedi and a company of NPC soldiers you hardly need to know the bigger picture, you just focus on your mission.

I would say that a smaller sector/cluster map with a limited ability to bring in reinforcements best gets to where we want to go. Say, 25k of ships per side to start (with some regulation on the number of star destroyers, emphasis should be given to smaller escorts playing a big role) and an equivlent 'size' of ground forces.

Ships would be persistant and track damage and such (shouldnt be hard to abstract in a simple form) as would ground forces. All the standard teleportation that goes on would be changed, so you have to have ships to move troops and so on.

Is all this giving a good vibe, or am I losing anyone here?

[member="Valiens Nantaris"]
You had Stahlmann leave the Republic? But we never got to have our battle yet!

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

[member="Cyrus Tregessar"]
He had issues with them giving ships to the Rebels.

 

[Gir Quee]

[member="Cyrus Tregessar"], like I said, I'd keep the scale probably a bit smaller than that, but I definitely like base concepts you laid out.

Perhaps one way we could try to have it where a battle over a more major world also takes with it surrounding minor/important systems, or something like that.

Valium probably saw it when I posted it in another thread:

<_<

Couldn't resist.

But seriously Valiens, you seem to have the worst luck of people getting your name right.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Even more so because people keep forgetting the character hates being called Valiens! He must prefers his last name to be used.