Warfleets FTL/Grimdark Future Mega Campaign

While it might seem like this was an abandoned idea, I can assure it was not. I just have been busy in life and I haven’t had time to think through more of this.



This game will function using the campaign mechanics from both GF and GF:FTL for the army control, creation, and battles. What needs to be created is the larger campaign mechanics and then maybe add some extra things that make it really feel like you are playing one big game instead of just playing GF and GF:FTL with a little bit of influence from one to the other.



Paragraphs that have “–” are areas I am not as sure about and would love to hear some input on. Of course I am happy to get input on everything but “–” indicates I am less settled on the idea.



Map:

The game will have a hex based map system that uses several basic tiles the players randomly place, like starting a game of Settlers of Catan. This way there is a randomness to the galaxy creation making each game unique. There will be several different tiles which all will have their own effects. A ratio will be given for the tiles so that players can increase or decrease the total number of tiles they want in order to change the size of the campaign map. After the map has been set up players can move where tiles are in case too many of one kind are placed too closely together creating a skewed map.



Types of tiles will include: space, planet, asteroid, nebula, space station, black hole, and star. Each tile will have its own effects and how the player can/must interact with it.



You would largely have “Space” tiles as these are just empty space. They would have no effect but would also help create empty areas on the map between the important bits.



“Planet” and “Space Station” would be where ground battles will be fought as well as where income and army/fleet creation will take place. Because of this these tiles will be the main deciding factor for tile ratios and sizes when generating the map. I will talk more about these in “Planetary Management” section.



“Asteroid”, “Nebula”, “Black Hole”, and “Star” tiles will be special terrain tiles. While these are not objectives, nor do they create any sort of income, they do help decide where fleets can move and how space battles are fought. Fighting or moving within these tiles will lead to special effects on the fleets within them. These tiles are really there to break up the monotony of planets and the void.



“Asteroid” tiles will cause space battles to be fought in them to be covered in dangerous terrain simulating the fleets engaging in the middle of a massive asteroid field. Thus players might want to avoid moving through asteroid tiles if an enemy fleet is nearby and might engage.

“Nebula” tiles will cause space battles to be fought in massive nebulas, leading to line of sight blocking and difficult terrain rules to be abundant.

Both “Asteroid” and “Nebula” tiles will slow fleets down to one move for the campaign turn while moving. This will be explained later in the “Campaign Turns” section.



–“Black Hole” and “Star” tiles will be impassable or maybe cause the whole fleet to take a dangerous terrain test. The test could be taken on a ship to ship basis instead of wounds on a ship to help scale it up better for campaign map level.



I don’t think there will be a need for space lanes or lines of movement due to the hexagonal shape of the tiles and also there being impassable tiles created by things such as the stars and black holes.



–The ratio of tiles needs to be figured out and I’ll probably just pick something that looks alright and trial run creating maps a few times on Tabletop Simulator.



Tiles should all be numbered or given some sort of marking for the purposes of movement. This will be explained further in the “Campaign Turns” section.



Campaign Turns:

I am going to stick with some of the same phases as before that will be played out on the campaign map. These phases will be carried out in a specific order by all players at the same time.



1 Income: players calculate army, navy, and planetary income based off of planets/space stations controlled. This should be written and kept in a place that all players can access and view.



2 Planning: players will secretly write down any actions they plan on taking over the next phases. These actions will include:



Invasion, if a fleet with an army embarked in them is over an enemy controlled planet and has control over the space they can invade.



Movement, fleets can move from one hex to another. Fleets can move a total of 2 tiles unless they move into or out of a “Asteroid” or “Nebula” tile. In this case they can only move 1 tile. When writing down where the fleets are moving players will write down which tile the fleet is moving into. In the case of moving 2 tiles the player will write down both tiles that the fleet will enter. (Example: Leviathan fleet, Move to tile B3, B4)



Army embarkation, if an army is on a controlled planet, a friendly fleet is over the planet with the friendly army at the start of the turn, and the space is not contested they can embark into the fleet for transport.



Planetary Construction, players can decide to upgrade planets to the next level of development which will increase their income for the next turn. This will be done by spending planetary resources.



Recruitment, players can increase the size of their armies or navies if they are on/in orbit over a controlled planet. Military forces that are recruiting cannot have moved that turn.



Upgrade/Retrofit, players can purchase upgrades for their armies or change what modules their ships in the fleet have when they are on/in orbit over a controlled planet. Again military forces that are upgrading/retrofitting cannot have moved that turn.



3 Action: players will reveal their written down actions and these actions will take place simultaneously for all players. Fleet movement will take place first. Fleet battles will take place second. If fleets collide head on then a die will be rolled to determine which of the two tiles the battle will take place in. Army Embarkation/Invasion will take place second. This is then when any ground battles will be fought. Lastly, recruitment, upgrade/retrofits, and planetary improvement will be completed.



4 Records Updates: players will update any army, fleet, and planetary papers they have to properly reflect changes caused by recruitment or battle.



Income:

–The amount of income needs to be determined. I’m thinking this number can be decided by the players and really just depend on if they want a massive game or smaller game. However, the ratio does need to be fair between army/navy/planetary resources. GF-FTL has really cheap units compared with GF so you will probably gain more army resource points, or the navy cost will have to be increased somehow. It might be a multiplication of 10 or 20 on everything. Finally I am thinking that construction resources can be put at a hundred level value to do the math and keep track of things easily. (i.e. first level development costs 200, second level costs 400, etc.) Each level of development will increase your income by 100 and a base level planet will start with producing 100. Each level of development also increases how much army/navy resources you get at the start of a campaign turn. Again the values of these are still something that needs to be decided.



–Something I am not sure about is if a planet taken by a player that has previously been built up by the first owner will retain any development upgrades or if it goes down a level or even all the way down to level 1.



Recruitment, Upgrade/Retrofit:

This will function like it normally does in GF and GF-FTL campaign rules. However, like stated in the “Campaign Turns” section armies and fleets must be in a controlled planetary tile and not have moved the turn that they perform this action.



–The only adjustment that might be made will be to increase the cost value of GF-FTL ships by 10x or 20x so that the numbers players are using feel more like having to pay for a really expensive ship when comparing costs of GF units.



Planetary Battles:

Planetary battles will be fought with GF rules for the most part.



If the attacking player wins they gain control of the planet and this will be updated on the campaign map. If the defending player wins they retain control of the planet and the attacking army returns to the fleet in orbit. Much like in GF campaign rules units can get destroyed if they have taken enough damage or lost half their unit or more.



If a battle is fought over a “Planet” vs “Space Station” the terrain and story set-up can be different but these don’t have any other effect on the battle.



–Will these battles be objective focused or unit destruction focused?

–Will the defending army get a chance to safely withdraw their surviving forces if they lose or is the army destroyed since the enemy controls the space above?

–Will the defender get special bonuses or a special deployment since they are defending a planetary invasion?

–Will all planets have an automatic garrison based on the development size or do you need to leave units behind to defend?

–Will there be a deployment limit, limiting how many units/point value can be placed on a battlefield at a time?



Orbital/Space Battles:

Space battles will be fought using GF-FT: rules for the most part.



These battles will not be fought with objectives, instead they will be fought for the purpose of destroying enemy ships. The battle will continue for as many rounds as the players wish to fight. At any point at the start of a battle round a player may declare a withdrawal of their fleet. This ends the battle.



The winning fleet gets to continue their predetermined movement on the campaign map and the losing player must move their surviving fleet on the campaign map away from the enemy fleet. The losing fleet will not move into another enemy fleet or impassable terrain. Instead their course will be altered to an available tile in the direction most directly away from the fleet they just lost to. If this cannot be accomplished then the fleet is instantly destroyed.



Planetary Management:
Planets and Space Stations are where management takes place. These provide income as stated before and are also the locations of where land battles take place. There isn’t really a difference between the two other than having a little flavor to the map.



Players will each start with a capital world that will have an agreed upon development level. This can be higher or lower depending on what players want. Other planets that are uncontrolled at the start of the game can either start at a level 1 development or higher depending on what the players want.



–I am thinking there should be a development limit so that one planet cannot just keep growing more and more. This limit can be set pretty high in case of campaigns with few planets but could also be set low to really force players to spread out.

–Different planets could possibly have different development level caps. This could also be what separates the “Planet” tiles from the “Space Station” tiles.



Final Objective and Victory:

The final objective of the campaign can include several things:



Development victory, develop a planet to the highest level and reach economic/cultural victory for your people!



Conquest victory, take over all planets in the galaxy!



Assassination victory, conquer all enemy capitals!



Artifact victory, control a special planet and complete a special action for several campaign turns without losing control!

Other Considerations:

As before this is just a bunch of unanswered questions.



–Will fleets have a transportation capacity? I am thinking they will and it will be based on the number of upgrade slots in the fleet. Each upgrade slot can hold one army unit.

–If a ship transporting units is destroyed does the army units get destroyed? I am thinking that players will decide before a battle is fought which units are in which ships. After a battle is fought any army units that were on a destroyed ship will roll a dangerous terrain test. If they succeed they were able to make it to escape pods. If they failed then they were caught up in the ship's destruction.

–I am not sure yet how the outcome of a fleet battle will affect escape pods. If a fleet loses the battle and army units have to escape will they die due to the withdrawing fleet or will they escape as well? How will transportation work in that case?

–Will neutral planets at the start of the game have locals that need to be conquered or will they just be empty planets?

–What is considered control for the income phase? A player must control the planet but if the orbit is controlled by an enemy fleet the resources cannot be transported off world and will just accumulate on the planet. Army and Planet resources can be spent on that planet but Navy resources just accumulate.

–Players who lose their last army or fleet automatically can create a new one on their capital planet for free in order to help give them something to prevent steamrolling or complete loss. How large this army/navy will be is up to the players and the challenge they want?

–How to prevent steamrolling

–Keeping the game simple (OnePageRules)

–Balancing





So that is my update to this idea. As you can see there have been some changes but some things have stayed the same. Hopefully I will have more time to flesh things out and think over the questions posed. If you have any ideas feel free to reach out and comment! Also feel free to share this post around so that others can see it!





Thank you!