The Great Rebellion Campaign

[shawkhan2]

England is a small country.
One could get anywhere there within 3 weeks or so.
As moves are 6? months apart, movement restrictions on this basis do not make much sense to me.
Harold making it to Southern England for the Battle of Hastings, and Edward IV's pursuit of Queen Maud's forces being just a couple examples.

I would suggest a strategic ZOC, whereby long-range movement(more than one or two regions) is only allowed through neutral or friendly territory, thus giving added significance to all regions for movement purposes.

[Ironclad]

Although we haven't set it up that way, I tend to think of the commanders movement speed as that with an accompanying force or army and each two turns a year as representing campaign periods not the full calender year. When I wrote country I was actually thinking of England, Wales and Scotland so end to end = south-east or south west to Highlands.

[keyth]

I've made a couple of amendments to the basic campaign rules (one change, one clarification), please see the first post. In short, Fervent is now +/- 8-10 to allow for a little extra ferventness and I've clarified who issues the challenge in Neutral regions.

[keyth]

Although we haven't set it up that way, I tend to think of the commanders movement speed as that with an accompanying force or army and each two turns a year as representing campaign periods not the full calender year. When I wrote country I was actually thinking of England, Wales and Scotland so end to end = south-east or south west to Highlands.

When I first thought of a team P&S game I very much wanted to steer clear of too much simulation/boardgame cloning - it's just too much work for whoever runs the game. Tried it with FoG (happy to share the ruleset with anyone masochistic enough to want to try it ) and it didn't end well. Or even get off the ground in its final incarnation. The biggest issue was giving battles a strategic-geographic context; why invade Asia Minor instead of the Peloponnese if it's just a bunch of points (or not)? Then came movement points and supply, sea transport, fate cards, abstracted sieges, etc.

With the Great Rebellion, I've started simple and abstract (the campaign too ) and will build on this with all your help and agreement, though it's not entirely a democracy! Limiting how quickly players can be assigned to geograhically separate places seems to me to be a pretty good place to start; it gives some sense of supply lines without having to delve into the insanity of a 'supply point' layer. However as shawkhan pointed out England, and even Great Britain, isn't a huge place. This is where a bit of abstraction comes in coupled with the idea Ironclad states explicitly - I don't see a two-turn year as two sixth month impulses, more like two vaguely defined campaigning seasons.

Having regions provide bonus army points that are diluted with each 'step' away from them could also be interesting. I'll put something more concrete together in the coming days with a view to piloting it in 1643. As always, please keep the ideas coming and thank you for them.

[deadtorius]

Perhaps you could start by assigning players a home region. Aside form their start point its also where they are a local Lord. Winning in your home territory could gain you 1 extra point perhaps, the locals love a local hero or are more used to bowing down to the local Lord than some outsider.
Just a thought.

[Ironclad]

Neat idea. I was going to suggest using it also to give a slight boost to any bonus points raised in a players home area but then remembered that P&S seems limited to 100 point incremental adjustments.

[cavehobbit]

Some thoughts.
Playing tournaments and multiplayer campaign games in P&S is the best way to spend time playing this game, imo Guys like Keyth are heros who spend much time organizing these events. I know what it takes as I’ve organized some tournaments and campaigns in BA and FoG.

As it is now, this campaign is more of a tournament as it lacks a strategic layer, but there are some great ideas which would add strategy to the campaign. I like the idea of allowing Commanders to move no further than to a neighbouring region per campaign turn. Combining this with home regions that would give you some bonus, would make things even better.
Other ideas like having some sort of bonus for playing in a region with strong support is also a good idea. Not sure what bonuses should be like, maybe some extra units or the possibility to choose the battleground. To allow such bonuses I’m not sure it’s possible to use Skirmishes, but having to create multiplayer scenarios for each battle. Not much of a problem once we got maps ready as they could be reused. Using multiplayer scenarios would allow the possibility to add more interesting features like towns, fortified positions etc.

I think it’s great to keep the campaign simple when it comes to administrating the campaign. But in BA and FoG I’ve organised a couple of campaigns with a strategic map and the battles have been fought using the computer games. In these campaigns both sides had a limitied number of units and once a unit was lost they could not be used in the campaign again. I just mentioning these campaigns if someone would be interested in the future. For more info:
http://slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=98&t=43888
http://slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=38844

This said, I would be happy to see some sort of strategic layer to this campaign, but I’ll keep playing if we keep things as they are…

P-A

[keyth]

Some thoughts.
P-A

Snipped to save space Lots of good ideas, thanks for taking the time to share them. I don't envisage this campaign having army units that are moved around the map - it was deliberately designed so that conflict occurs in every region every turn, and this affects the mood of the people which ultimately dictates victory.

However, I really like the idea of a more realistic strategic layer with armies and some kind of basic resource management. As mentioned a few posts ago, I'm considering starting a TYW team campaign using elements of what we create here. Beyond those things, i'd like to include individual armies, refit costs, etc. The campaign scoring would have to be a bit different to what we have here but that is no bad thing

[keyth]

Late '42 challenges are up!

Check out the status post at the top of the thread.

[keyth]

North Wales and Highlands challenges up for RBS, password 'crown'.

[Blathergut]

he....weird...two the same

[rbodleyscott]

North Wales and Highlands challenges up for RBS, password 'crown'.

I have picked up your gauntlet(s) sir. (And very womanish they are too, as one might expect of a mincing minion of the King)

[keyth]

he....weird...two the same

I sense that there will be some empty kennels back at the spaniel barracks...

[Blathergut]

Challenge up for ids...password: poodlepie

[cavehobbit]

Challenges for Shawkhan2 and Ulysisgrunt.

Shawkhan2, pw = lowlands
Ulysisgrunt, pw = mideast

[keyth]

Strategic Map

strat_map.jpg (48.87 KiB) Viewed 4316 times

Here is the first draft of a strategic map for the Great Rebellion. Generals can be relocated in the following ways:

- one space orthogonally regardless of region ownership
- two spaces orthogonally if one or both regions are friendly
- one space diagonally if both regions are friendly

These are just first thoughts, also in my head is the ability to spend bonus points (when introduced) to increase movement. One idea literally just crossed my mind: how do people feel about being able to spend bonus points (and probably quite a few) to reassign two enemy commanders but only after all dispositions have been made?

[Ironclad]

I take it orthogonally is sideways or up or down. How does the arrow movement differ from diagonal movement between NWales and NWest?

[turenne]

challenge for deadtorious - password : turenne

[keyth]

I take it orthogonally is sideways or up or down. How does the arrow movement differ from diagonal movement between NWales and NWest?

I knew someone would be paying attention! You pass the test The arrow, as I perhaps should have explained initially, indicates an orthogonal (left, right, up, down) equivalent... it seems about right to me that you could get from NWest to NWales in the same way that Anglia abuts the SE and SWales the SW.

[Doyley50]

Challenge for Ulysisgrunt, password grokkel.
Challenge for Shawkhan, password Tyldesley.