Subject: Stellar Conquest Date: 22 Apr 92 11:24:05 GMT Sender: torbenm@freke.diku.dk [I've just removed some typos, with my changes put in brackets in case someone wants to disagree with my interpretation -Markus] Here are some suggestions for Stellar Conquest, courtesy of my brother. The play-by-mail rules with limited information has been tested using normal mail (snail mail), and work fine. If you use email, you might want to plot fewer turns at a time, since you can expect a faster response time. I mentioned also a 6-player variant. There is nothing deep about this: you just design a hexagonal board and distribute stars and dust clouds as you please, trying to keep the same density and stars/player as on the original board. You will need extra sets of counters, but if you play by mail this is unnecessary as each player just use his own counters. You can even use the board for a 7-player variant, by letting one player start in the middle hex. Torben Mogensen (torbenm@diku.dk) STELLAR CONQUEST Contents: A: Some suggested general rule changes. B: Some variant scenarios. C: Play-by-mail. A: Some suggested general rule changes. 1): Fighter ships and Advanced Missile Bases are given a 1-3 (rather than 1-2) chance to destroy a Corvette or Missile Base. Why: Statistical calculations show that a combat between fleets of Corvettes and Fighters of the same total cost is heavily in favor of the Corvettes. This is especially true when the ships have Improved Ship Weaponry. 2): Planet Shields are changed so that don't give full protection for a planet, but merely have the combat abilities of a Death Star with Improved Ship Weaponry, except that the two attacks may be split up to attack two ships. You can buy as many Planet Shields as you want on any planet. The cost of research is only 100 if you have Advanced Missile Base. Why: Planet Shields as they are make extended play scenarios impossible. I also dislike the idea of perfect defenses, but that is a personal opinion. 3): Robotic Industry is changed so it doesn't allow unlimited numbers of factories, but has a limit of 4 per million population. Why: If there is no limit to the number of factories on one planet, there is no reason to have more than one industrial world, and the small mineral rich planets become uninteresting. With the standard versions of Robotic Industry and Planets Shields you can have a steadily growing, totally unstoppable Death Star factory. If a player can find the one Minimal Terran 40 Mineral Rich planet in the game early on, he is certain to win if he puts all his colonists down on it. 4): The emigration population bonus should be disregarded. Instead, roll a die every production turn. The result is added to the population of all inhabited planets on the board for purposes of calculating population increase only. Why: The original bonus rule is inavariably misunderstood by new players, and led to a lot of moving colonists back and fourth between already established colonies. The die roll makes small colonies grow relatively faster than large ones, which gives a reason for colonizing new worlds before your old ones are full. The roll also prevents moving small numbers of colonists around to make sure all planets have populations that are exact multiples of 5. 5): Unlimited Ship Range should be replaced by Ship Range 12 Hexes, with cost etc. otherwise the same. Why: So Scouts and Command Posts don't leave play. It also allows for some tactical tricks, like destroying an enemy fleet by conquering the world with the Command Post they use. B: Some variant scenarios. 1): The Draconis War. The system Draconis have two planets, one a Terran 80, the other a Minimal Terran 40 Mineral Rich. The object of the game is to have control of both these planets at the end of turn 44. 2): Slow Tech. All second level technologies have originally double costs, all third level have originally triple costs. Every turn after you finish a first level research, the cost of all second level recearch in the same group will go 20 down until they reach the listed cost. Similarly, third level research go down 30 every turn after you finish a second level research in the same group. Play is extended to 60 turns. Note: the costs with predecessor are not doubled, you just get the same reduction in cost, e.g. 15 for buying Death Star if you have Fighters. 3): Home Planet. All players start with a fully populated Terran 40 planet just outside their entry hex. But these planets are dying and will go one level down in habitability every production turn: From Terran 40 to Subterran 30 to Minimal Terran 20 to Barren 10 to Un[in]habitable. 4): Fourth Level Research. Each of the categories have two new fourth level research possibilities. Best with extended play. Ship Speed: Stargate. Allows a planet to build a Stargate (cost 50). Movement between two Stargates cost 1 movement point, regardless of distance. You can only move between your own gates; if you conquer a planet, its gate becomes yours. Normal cost 110, 90 with Unlimited Ship Communication. Ship Speed: Dust Shield. Allows movement in dust clouds, at a cost of two movement points to enter a dust cloud hex. Cost 100. Weapons: Doomsday Device. This combat unit (cost 60) has the defense capabilities of a Death Star. It cannot attack ships or missile bases, but if it attacks a planet and isn't shot down in the first round of missile base fire, it will destroy the planet, making it totally [un]inhabitable for the rest of the game. Cost 150. Weapons: Anti Missile Lasers: With this, all ships and bases have a 50% chance (1-3) to survive an otherwise destructive attack. Normal cost 150, 130 with Planet Shield. Techno: Terraforming. Allows a non-Terran planet to become one step more inhabitable, and increases the population limit by 20. The cost of terraforming is 75, and is paid like doing research. Terraforming requires a population of at least 10 million on the planet in question. Cost: 130. Techno: Subspace Radar: Allows ships to "see" enemy ships in adjacent non-cloud hexes and initiate combat with them, even in non-star hexes. Combat takes place on the border between the hexes; no ships actually change position. Normal cost 150, 125 with Unlimited Ship Communication. C: Play-by-mail. This requires simultaneous movement, which is handled in the following way: All players plot the task force movements by noting the destination stars. Unless noted otherwise, it is assumed that task forces will move around Dust Clouds. Four turns are plotted at a time, starting with a production phase. The game master calculates the production and population increase, the players just specify what they want to do with it. The game master notes the hex identification (e.g. H11) for the hex each task force is in at the end of the four turns, along with the current destination. The game master may wish to limit players to just 15 task forces and no free ships, except those on sentry duty above colonies (noted on the colony record). Each task force can be given 3 conditions on movement and actions (e.g. "make colony if Terran planet found, otherwise move on to ..."). Task forces meet if they end their turn on the same star hex, or if a moving task force passes a star hex containing a stationary task force. Task Forces belonging to different players wil always fight (as per the rules) until only one ramains in the hex. If three or four players' task forces meet, the weakest will gang up on the strongest (this could change several times during combat), unless some of the players have made an attack priority. For purposes of calculating Task Force strengths, use strengths of 1, 2 and 5 for Corvette, Fighter and Death Star, multiplying by 1.5 if one has Improved Ship Weaponry. Forces containing Death Stars will always be considered stronger than forces without Fighters or Death Stars. Combat is handled by the game master as he or she thinks is reasonable. Unless retreat conditions are given, a task force will fight until it or the enemy is destroyed. Players can have up to 5 general combat conditions (e.g. "Retreat all Colony Transports and Scouts immediately"), and can give task forces special retreat conditions as one of the 3 movement conditions. An attack priority list counts as one condition. Information can be limited more than usual in play-by-mail games. Players cannot see movements of enemy task forces unless these pass a star hex with a friendly colony or task force. Players can only see enemy command posts if they are within range (Ship Range 12 (see above) increases ship sensitivity, not command post emission). Enemy task forces will be described as being "blue" or "red" or some such, rather than identifying the enemy player or entry corner. If you really want to make players paranoid, don't give information about battles if the player's task force was entirely wiped out, except "you have lost contact with...". Similarly, if somebody conquers a planet and no ships get away to tell the tale, "contact is lost". As the game enters the last stages, you may wish to let the players plot just 2 (or even 1) turns at a time. But remember that this will prolong play. I think this is all the information you need to do a play-by-mail game.