22 replies to this topic

[Deadmeat313]

While I've been patiently awaiting CW, I've been running my own Inner Sphere grand campaign. I use the results of my battles - taking data such as the faction allegiances of the participants and other pertinent data - and recording the outcomes in a sort of war journal.

The battle results are then plotted onto a full-size multi-layered editable map of the Inner Sphere that I just happened to have painstakingly hand drawn for a previous project.

This way, when I hit LAUNCH, I know that my battles could have very real consequences in the ongoing 5th Succession War.

Unfortunately, while I've been at this for a while, I've only recently started keeping snapshot copies to allow me to look back at earlier phases in the war.

Now, if I can get this internet thingy working correctly I should hopefully be able to link the latest of my snapshots so you can see how the battle is progressing . . .



Does this work?

D313

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I take it you have not used the standard colours for the factions?

[Deadmeat313]

I have indeed used the correct colours. Perhaps not the exact shade?

House Steiner = blue
Free Rasalhague Republic = a lighter blue
House Kurita = red
House Davion = yellow
House Liao = green
House Marik = purple.


D313

[LauLiao]

Could just be me, but this looks more like a Post-3rd Succession War map, not a 3049-50 map.

[Deadmeat313]

The map does not look like 3050, partly because House Liao have regained much of their lost territory. Many other events have shaped the map.

At game start, the FedCom was a unified monster state, and the Capellan Confederation was just the Sian, Capellan and St Ives commonalities. Since then - over hundreds of games - there have been some pretty major events.

The FedCom launched a coordinated war against the Draconis Combine's Dieron Prefecture. House Kurita put up a valiant defense that caused the front lines to see-saw continuously for a very long time, but eventually weight of numbers were decisive, and Dieron was cut off and killed.

Later, the FedCom factions split apart and started warring on each other. Houses Marik and Liao used this opportunity to grab territory towards Terra.

The coreward worlds became a no-mans land. A large Chaos March formed near Terra, comprising much of the Sarna March and extending up into former Dieron Prefecture worlds.

While this was going on, the Free Rasalhague Republic took Tamar in the Lyran Commonwealth, throwing the whole Tamar March into disarray. Rasalhague also took advantage of the Dieron War to grab territory from the Draconis Combine.

House Liao's Rebirth is in full swing. Not only have they re-taken the Sarna Commonality, but they have partly reformed the Tikonov and Andurien Commonalities as well.

- - - - -

A note on the campaign. Please can I be clear on this: My campaign was never intended to be a fully balanced and accurate representation of the 5th Succession War. My rule-set has evolved during play. It has become more balanced as I've gone on, but still favours House Liao in certain circumstances.

A brief summary of the campaign rules:

All the factions have 16 battle groups spread over eight fronts on the map. This is obviously unrealistic - making the FRR militarily equal to House Davion etc.

Every battle I play in I record the number of FACTION players on my team and on the enemy team. (An obvious imbalance here is that while this gives a somewhat random spread, there will ALWAYS be a Liao on my team because I count myself.)
I cancel out faction players on both teams, so if Team A has 2 Kurita players and Team B has 1, that will count 1 Kurita on Team A for victory purposes.
Faction players on the winnig team get a 2 victory points bonus per player for that front. Losing players net -1 point regardless of the number of players on that faction.

The battle front is determined by the map played, ie it is random. I've divided the borderline of each faction into eight sectors (the Fronts), and assigned each one two battle groups. Within those fronts, both battlegroups are randomly assigned either an enemy border world to attack, or a defence mission on a friendly world that is under attack.

The way the Fronts are set up, a single battle can mean that multiple worlds change hands at different places across the Inner Sphere.

- - -
Basically, what all this amounts to is my own grandiose fantasy of Capellan Confederation resurgence against the old Davion and Marik foes. It is not all going our way, but it is fun to watch the map evolve as the battles take place.

D313

[Nathan Foxbane]

Not even close to 3050. CW has not started. The map will not start shifting until it does.

[Deadmeat313]

Correct-a-mundo.

This is not at all official. This has been a private project to give greater meaning to my games while I await CW.

[Deadmeat313]

Here's a close-up of the Davion Kurita front line. The Fed Suns typically outnumbers the Draconis Combine, so gradually they are pushing them back.

[Davers]

Glad to see SOMEONE is working on CW!

[Hellen Wheels]

We should all send you our battle results screen shots and really get this thing going. I've often wondered why PGI can't take something akin to your design (that is, collecting data from the games) and at least showing SOMETHING for us to dream about. Here, score some for the Davs:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Edited by Hellen Wheels, 27 November 2013 - 09:10 AM.

[Heffay]

Are planet shifts done after the result of one battle alone, or do you need a series of wins to flip a planet?

[Deadmeat313]

It normally takes several accumulated victories to win control of a planet. Factions are granted victory points for each player on the winning team (after subtracting players of that faction from the losing team) so a sufficiently large faction team can occasionally conquer a world in one battle. Its quite rare though.

I have been toying with the idea of running an open campaign whereby players send in their battle results and I keep the map updated. If I were to do so I would revamp the rules to make it much harder to conquer worlds. I would also make the rules much more rigorously fair.

The problem is that unless I find a way to largely automate the data gathering and processing part, I'd be spending all my time book-keeping and would have no time ot actually play! (And then how would the Capellan Confederation EVER succeed in restoring the Star League? )

One problem I have found in the campaign so far is that the factions are not evenly populated. In my TZ (EU) there is a clear bias towards Steiner and Davion. Rasalhague also is massively over-represented considering the strength of their military in the fluff. I don't mind that Liao is weak, because they are supposed to be. Kurita is relatively weak and is facing Davion, Steiner and FRR neighbours (ie all the three most popular factions).

Marik is the worst off though. They should be pretty strong, but they struggle to even match House Liao.


@Hellen Wheels : Thank you very much for posting the data, but I'm actually not sure whether to use it for my current campaign map. I'm having to think about this one. If they are PUG matches (which all of mine have been so far) then they represent those rare perfect storms where one faction really dominates a team. In those battles the fate of worlds really hangs in the balance (in this case the fate of New Mendham, which the Draconis Combine has been ably defending up to now). They are not the average PUG line up.

Alternatively, if they are pre-made teams then that unfortunately breaks my game too, because the random faction line-up in the opposing teams provides a major element of my "fortunes of war".

This goes back to my earlier statement that if I were to run an open campaign I'd make the rule-set more robust. It would have to be able to handle organised pre-made team input as well as PUGs.

[Deadmeat313]

While we're at it, here's the latest update:

(I really need to learn how to hide stuff in spoilers.)




D313

[Deadmeat313]

8 worlds changed hands by combat in the last phase:

FRR took Almunge from Kurita
Liao took Claybrooke from Marik
Davion re-took Northwind (Independent)
Marik took Capolla from Liao
Davion took Cassias from Kurita
Kurita re-took Setubal from FRR
Davion took New Aberdeen from Kurita
Steiner took Vantaa from FRR

D313

[Navy Sixes]

Hellen Wheels, on 27 November 2013 - 09:03 AM, said:

We should all send you our battle results screen shots and really get this thing going. I've often wondered why PGI can't take something akin to your design

Because what this amounts to is a big, fat tournament, with everything the same as it is now, except scores being applied in an abstract procedure to a map that has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on on the battlefield. A Davion would gain "victory points" by winning against Davion units on the opposing team in the PUG, for example. You can see how much of a mess this would be, and how it would lend itself to exploitation. That's not what we want.

We want to drop with our units and factions and fight enemy units and factions over specific worlds. And we want our wins and losses to make real impacts on the world we fight in (map changes and economics come to mind). We want mercenary contracts and bounties. We want to capture mech production facilities and jumpships.

Don't get me wrong, OT, this is pretty cool and a great idea for making your own battles matter while PGI gets it's act together. And Hellen Wheels, I know you were only suggesting it as a stop-gap measure. The problem is that around here stop-gap measures have a habit of becoming the norm, and then becoming the ultimate realization of vision. If PGI comes to us with something like this and says "Community Warfare... TA DA!" I will hang up my white knight mantle for good and take the black.

[Tekadept]

All I can say is interesting concept but

[Deadmeat313]

Tycho von Gagern, on 27 November 2013 - 04:49 PM, said:

Because what this amounts to is a big, fat tournament, with everything the same as it is now, except scores being applied in an abstract procedure to a map that has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on on the battlefield. A Davion would gain "victory points" by winning against Davion units on the opposing team in the PUG, for example. You can see how much of a mess this would be, and how it would lend itself to exploitation. That's not what we want.

We want to drop with our units and factions and fight enemy units and factions over specific worlds. And we want our wins and losses to make real impacts on the world we fight in (map changes and economics come to mind). We want mercenary contracts and bounties. We want to capture mech production facilities and jumpships.

Don't get me wrong, OT, this is pretty cool and a great idea for making your own battles matter while PGI gets it's act together. And Hellen Wheels, I know you were only suggesting it as a stop-gap measure. The problem is that around here stop-gap measures have a habit of becoming the norm, and then becoming the ultimate realization of vision. If PGI comes to us with something like this and says "Community Warfare... TA DA!" I will hang up my white knight mantle for good and take the black.

Exactly Tycho. I wouldn't want to see CW implemented like this. If I were running a public game then each individual pilots actions would count, as they would be assumed to be part of a company of Mechs. The random Faction element would be removed.

My current system allows me to blast stuff in MWO as a House Liao MechWarrior - but still to watch the fierce battles going on between Steiner and Rasalhague, or Davion and Steiner.

PGI have already announced that CW will feature faction-centric teams (padded out with Lone Wolves). Also, battle modes will be more Attack/Defence oriented.

It must be difficult to take worlds, so each battle for a planet should have a small, but measureable, effect. It would be annoying to wake up and find the whole Inner Sphere map has changed overnight.

I've been toying with the idea of having the different battle modes (all two of them!) have a different meaning in the strategic game. Still early days yet, but something along the lines of Assault battles have a random chance of some cool grand military success occuring - otherwise a win merely counts as a local success. Conquest battles represent patrolling or flanking maneuvers. Success in these battles increase the likelihood of an Assault battle being a decisive one.

Obviously, this would work better if we actually had Assault, Flank and Patrol game modes! A benefit of this system is that light-medium Mech pilots could choose to mainly fight as flankers etc where mobility counts more. Mediums might be useful!

Oops! Got to go to work.
D313

[Sabazial]

Didn't PGI say we were only going to be allowed to fight over periphery worlds and that we won't be able to change the ownership of core planets? I'm sure i read that somewhere... Other than that this is a pretty good idea

[StalaggtIKE]

This is pretty cool. You've made your games into something like a single player campaign! Something to curb your appetite until the real deal. +1.

[Alex Warden]

Deadmeat313, on 27 November 2013 - 02:22 PM, said:

It would have to be able to handle organised pre-made team input as well as PUGs.

there i have something for you to think about...

IF you´d take 12v12 premade battles into account... how´d you determine which factions will be affected if 2 mercenary units fight each other?

just by affiliation of some of the members? many of the mercenaries consist of mixed affiliations...

there i think it would be better to only take random matches into account for that kind of "progress tracking"

Edited by Alex Warden, 28 November 2013 - 08:28 AM.