"Imperium Corps"

[Molve]

Okay, so it's time for me to post my first design draft for a Panzer Corps mod I've been thinking about ever since discussing the old Space General a while ago.

My idea is to implement "Imperium Corps".

That is, a game in the panzer series but set in space, just like Space General. But instead of reusing its (flawed) fleet composition, I'm inspired by the venerable Imperium board game, which already features an assymetrical fleet composition for Imperials and Terrans (much like how Panzer General offers different equipment for Germans and British and Soviets).

This won't be a close recreation of the board game, obviously. Rather I'll be using that game's units as inspiration for a new "panzer corps in space" game that hopefully will be superior to the old Space General experience.

To begin, let's create a bit of ambience by exploring a few of the game's units we want to be able to play with!


The upper blue row contains Terran units while the Imperial fleet is in red. The three main statistics used are:
Beam Attack rating - Missile Attack rating - Defense rating
Read more about Imperium the board game at BoardGameGeek:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3661

I have chosen a row of Terran units displaying their most common unit types. They, and their hull classification symbols, are:
1) Destroyers (DD)
2) Scouts (SC)
3) Light Cruisers (CL)
4) Strike Cruisers (CS)
5) Regular Cruisers (CR)
6) Missile Boats (MB), and
7) Heavy Battleships (BB)
The theme of the Terran Navy is to emphasize beam attacks and overall quality. This might not be apparent in this picture, but I can tell you Strike Cruisers are somewhat of a special-purpose ship (mostly used to bombard planetary defenses) and that Missile Boats are unique to the Terran Fleet (to shore up their weak missile capabilities).

The last three units in the lower row of Imperial ships aren't counterparts to the Terrans above, but new units:
1) Destroyers (DD)
2) Scouts (SC)
3) Light Cruisers (CL)
4) Strike Cruisers (CS)
5) Medium-Light Battleships (B2)
6) Fighter Squadrons* (F)
7) more Fighter Squadrons (F)
*) the black fighter isn't a misprint, but a tongue-in-cheek inclusion of Darth Vader's fighter... Imperium otherwise differentiates between interstellar ships (black silhouettes) and ships not capable of making warp jumps (white silhouettes), something I am not trying to reproduce.
Imperial ships favor missiles and are generally a bit weaker than their Terran counterparts.

As you can see, the core of the naming scheme is a hull classification system inspired by (but not identical to) early 20th century naval ships. This I consider a vital part of my nostalgia towards this game!

There are more kinds of units in the game (and we will obviously have fun creating even more!).

[Molve]

Now then, some design goals:
* The Imperium board game was almost completely a strategic game. This game will obviously focus on individual battles and be much more tactical.
* since PC features land combat first, and naval combat only a distant second, I will primarily investigate using land hexes as space. This will allow me to retain a varied terrain with its possibilities for "close combat" (planets, gas nebulas, asteroid fields etc).
* this should also help avoid the mistake of Space General, a game which lost the core gameplay experience central to Panzer games: the rock-paper-scissors interaction between different unit classes. Naval combat is much plainer (at least in PC) and offers little depth other than building the most and biggest units.
* unit statistics should follow the arc used by WWII units, meaning that I will double or triple the ratings. (Panzer attack strength varied from perhaps 6-24 instead of the 3-12 or even 1-10 range exhibited by the units you see above). This is the scale the PC engine was designed to to handle, and I plan to stick to it (so that initiative, hero and mass attack bonuses work as intended).
* Increasing the range in rating values additionally allows greater individuality, allowing "upgrades" within each unit family (as already supported by PC). Put simply, I can have a late-war Destroyer have better stats than an early-war Destroyer (or the inferior Destroyers of a small ally) without having to give it identical stats to the next higher unit class (Cruiser). Yes, I plan on keeping the date of a scenario to allow different equipment ("Star dates" will coincidentally lie between 1939 and 1946 )
* investigate if I can retain the original game's distiction between beam and missile attacks without sacrificing the simplicity and fun of the Panzer Corps gameplay.

[Molve]

Let's start with that last point first.

Imperium units have two attack values and one defense value. The attack values are missile and beam attacks; both work the same and target the same defense, the difference is that random chance decided if each round of combat was at "long" or "short" range. At long range, missiles worked normally while beams didn't. At short range, beams could be brought to bear, while missiles were ineffectual (half strength).

In this game, we have a detailed hex map, so whether you'll be using missile or beam attacks is up to you and your superior positioning skills rather than an abstract die roll.

Beam attacks are easy; I'll be using the regular "panzer attack" (the hard attack rating at range zero) for these.

As for missiles, my inquires tell me the game cannot support a direct analogy. The issues are as follows:
1) the game can't support two attack values attacking the same defense. In PC, each attack value is used after looking at what kind of target is attacked: if it is soft, then use soft attack rating; if it is a naval target, then use naval attack rating etc.
What we would like to have is beams and missiles both targeting the exact same unit, where beams = "range zero hard attack" and missiles = "ranged hard attack". This is, as far as I understand, not possible. The soft, or naval, attack ratings are only used if the target is a soft or naval target (and if is it a naval target then beams won't be used against it...). You see?
2) the game can't support ranged killing fire, such as the hard attack. All ranged fire is the suppressing kind exhibited by artillery. Attacks by naval units are an exception, however.

So it seems to get the best of both worlds you would need to make your units into naval units, but with land movement.

To implement the duality of beam/missile combat, one approach would be to use switchable units, for example:
In "beam" mode, an Imperial CL would have ratings 4-[8]-6 and a range of zero.
In "missile" mode, the same Imperial CL would have [4]-8-6 and a range of perhaps three.
However, unit in beam mode would be unable to return missile fire, since its range would not be enough. This isn't insurmountable, since beam attacks would be given more "punch" overall (because you need an incentive to close the distance to the enemy).
A bigger problem is that the AI is currently incapable of switching units, and since hope to play this a lot as a single-player game, this kills the switchable idea. Besides, it would be a pain to have to switch most your units every turn or two.



I am still looking for an answer that avoids having to have separate missile and beam units...

[massi]

I have this game!
very nice idea!

[warhammer]

Great idea !

Some SF arts (spaceships)
http://inspimo.com/2011/05/11/outstandi ... art-works/

SF board games and models:
http://www.star-ranger.com/Minis.htm#Chariot

[Eltare]

I think the following can be done Wookie Corps Mod

PS: But seriously, the AI ​​will not switch the type of unit (betwin beam/missile mode). Ie will initially play is defective.

[Molve]

PS: But seriously, the AI ​​will not switch the type of unit (betwin beam/missile mode). Ie will initially play is defective.

That is why I will not consider a unit design that relies heavily on switching.

Having the occasional switchable unit (that the AI never switches) is fine, but I'm not interested in designing fleets that the AI can't handle.

[TheGrayMouser]

ist off, bravo for attempting this, would love to see a Star General type mod.

Hmm, I have though of a couple things you could do to get the effect you want but there are certain limitaiations in them.

One thing to consider ,and test is whether unit classes like Naval or air can actually capture objective hexes if given differnt movement classes, or if there are editable parameters that can be changed. If not you might have some issues in AI behavior as basically the AI is objective oriented in terms of being active. No objectives and the AI will just have its units sit there...

One idea is to make the terran vessels an air unit class (contingent on changing the data files to not allow them to bypass zoc's, as well as if you can even give them the ability to fire on adjacent units) Imperial would use naval with several hex range and have non bracketed air attack values. This might simulate one navy favouring close in beam weapons vs the more long range missles and you have some additional values to play with ie naval attack, air attack, hard soft etc....