|
Yeah, I prefer the "add 4 to the Defcon total after CAC" version. It keeps some variance in how often they come along, and the "cyclon ship overflow" to and back from the CFB seems like it would make up for "wasted" CACs that occur close to jumping. Alternatively, push the jump track back by 1 if a CAC comes up on a blue space?
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2014 23:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 22:45 |
|
|
Some Numbers posted:This has always been the case, because you don't draw that many CACs. DEFCON didn't add that problem, it just didn't fix a pre-existing one. It didn't add the problem, true, but because CACs are more evenly spread across jump cycles, the effect is a bit stronger, is all.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2014 23:13
|
|
|
John Dough posted:It just occurs to me that maybe Defcon can be used in addition with the old fashioned Crisis draw. What if Defcon is only used to force a CAC when one hasn't been drawn in a long time? Say it starts at some number and counts down every turn, like it does now. Except CACs are still part of the regular Crisis deck (and as such can be scouted, Roslin'd, etc.). Every turn a regular crisis is drawn, Defcon goes down as usual, but only when it reaches a pretty low number (say, 4) you force a CAC through Defcon and reset to 11 (or some other number). This keeps the more unpredictable element from stock BSG, but does ensure that you can't have several jump cycles with no CAC at all. Thoughts? Welcome to the classic problem of popping a CAC at -1 and the humans not having to give a drat. If you don't mind increasing the odds of cruise ship galactica then go ahead. I can't stand those games, personally. Again, there's really good reason why the DEFCON CAC system wound up tweaked into the odd structure it currently occupies. e: For the record, this is the first suggestion I've seen that we haven't previously tried and discarded, so I could see trying a modified version. Crackbone posted:Yeah, I prefer the "add 4 to the Defcon total after CAC" version. It keeps some variance in how often they come along, and the "cyclon ship overflow" to and back from the CFB seems like it would make up for "wasted" CACs that occur close to jumping. Alternatively, push the jump track back by 1 if a CAC comes up on a blue space? We started with this system. CACs clumped up too often, which arbitrarily killed the humans. Yes, DEFCON is vastly more predictable than the base game, but that's because the base game unpredictably generates poo poo experiences. You don't get unpredictability and balance in the same ruleset - at least not without more knobs to tweak than we have available. If this was a computer game where misfortune in one game system caused an easing off in another, then it could definitely be made to work. Corbeau fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Oct 22, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2014 23:18
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:Alternatively, push the jump track back by 1 if a CAC comes up on a blue space?  I understand all your concerns. Your opinions are noted. Here's the problem. We're trying to balance space. We don't space to not matter, because that leads to Cruise Ship Galactica. We don't want all CACs, because then the human turns become "XO the CAG" and the humans STILL get buried by Raiders. Maxing DEFCON is the closest middle ground we've found so far. CACs still happen and they're still a pain in the rear end, but hitting Command a few times clears it up and there's still time to deal with Morale and unrevealed Cylons. I realize that you guys don't like the "predictability" or you want the chance of drawing the second Cylon Attack, but 8 months ago, that's what we were trying to avoid. We didn't want giant lulls with no space and we didn't want stacks and stacks of CACs. If the SA groupthink has changed and we actually do want to draw three CACs when we have no Jump Prep, then actually say that and we can find a patch to make that work. What do you guys want? Do you want to never ever know if you're getting a CAC? That's what Core and Pegasus were like and no one liked those.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2014 23:21
|
|
|
My criticism comes from a place of liking DEFCON. I think it's fundamentally sounder than random CACs or CFB or what have you. That said, most of the games I've played with it have tended to end up on the cruise ship galactica side of the continuum. I dunno, I guess it depends which of the other components you're using and how much you want to shoot for a 50:50 expected victory split. My personal preference is for the base game odds, where Cylons would win more often than not, hence why I like a slightly edgier DEFCON.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2014 23:33
|
|
|
Cylons had like a 60-40 advantage of winning in the base game. Pegasus and Exodus screwed this up to varying degrees. I don't think the game was designed to be an even 50-50 split in terms of absolute fairness.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2014 23:39
|
|
|
Some Numbers posted:What do you guys want? Do you want to never ever know if you're getting a CAC? That's what Core and Pegasus were like and no one liked those. That's a serious strawman and you know it. The issue is the peanut gallery just thinks you've swung too far to the predictable, not that we want Core redux.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2014 23:51
|
|
|
What were the rules for the +4 version?
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2014 23:57
|
|
|
Well, you can always tweak the maximum to your liking. You could make it 10 or even 9 if you want the game to be a lot harder.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:04
|
|
|
Draw a CAC every four turns, it's the only solution
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:08
|
|
|
Brony Hunter posted:Draw a CAC every four turns, it's the only solution Not FFG enough.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:12
|
|
|
Cocks Cable posted:What were the rules for the +4 version? Instead of resetting the Jump track to 11 after every CAC, you just took the current Defcon total and added 4. So if you got all the way down to Defcon 2, for example, you'd move Defcon to 6 after drawing the CAC.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:13
|
|
|
When a Cylon Attack happens, add X to the Defcon, where X is 1 plus the number of jump prep icons needed to reach auto-jump. Allows Cylon Attacks to still happen in the blue zone but makes them feel like less of a waste, since an attack at Blue-1 only "costs" +2 Defcon. And is very FFG.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:16
|
|
|
Some Numbers posted:Not FFG enough. Every 4 turns the current player may choose to play one of the top two cards of the CAC deck or the play the top card of the crisis deck if it is a CAC card (if able)
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:18
|
|
|
Online-only possibility: DEFCON value is hidden and only known by the moderator. When a CAC is pulled, add a random number between 3 and 6 to the DEFCON value. Also, but offline too: When DEFCON happens, CAG draws 2 CACs and chooses which one to resolve. Are we already doing this?
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:21
|
|
|
Broken Loose posted:Also, but offline too: What we're doing is close to this--if the crisis was coming from a Caprica activation, the activating player chooses instead.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:23
|
|
|
I'm pretty sure hidden DEFCON and adding a random value makes DEFCON less predictable while still spacing them out randomly (but not so random as to reliably allow consecutive CACs).
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:25
|
|
|
My favourite Defcon setup so far is the +4 one with the CFB and CAG bits. Why not just reduce the amount you increase the Defcon track when it triggers on a blue space, if that's a concern? There's even convenient numbers printed on the board to do it by, which my gut says feel kind of balanced.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:41
|
|
|
Lottery of Babylon posted:When a Cylon Attack happens, add X to the Defcon, where X is 1 plus the number of jump prep icons needed to reach auto-jump. Allows Cylon Attacks to still happen in the blue zone but makes them feel like less of a waste, since an attack at Blue-1 only "costs" +2 Defcon. And is very FFG. Tenebrais posted:Why not just reduce the amount you increase the Defcon track when it triggers on a blue space, if that's a concern? There's even convenient numbers printed on the board to do it by, which my gut says feel kind of balanced. These are both reasonable and worth testing. There was also an idea in some game (Homeward Bound?) which was "when the fleet jumps, reduce DEFCON by X for each Basestar, Y for each Heavy and Z for each Raider still on the board."
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:49
|
|
|
Tenebrais posted:My favourite Defcon setup so far is the +4 one with the CFB and CAG bits. I'd give it a try, but I suspect you'd have to put the number substantially higher than +4 simply because the DEFCON board makes each attack more punishing than in core.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:52
|
|
|
Some Numbers posted:There was also an idea in some game (Homeward Bound?) which was "when the fleet jumps, reduce DEFCON by X for each Basestar, Y for each Heavy and Z for each Raider still on the board." You're probably thinking of: Max Peck posted:I was actually pondering switching it around a bit: still roll in the blue section, but when jumping, reduce DEFCON level by 4 for each undamaged basestar, 2 for each basestar with 1 damage (or Scar), and 1 for each basestar with 2 damage. If there were no basestars (or Scar), instead increase it by some amount. Jumping immediately after a CAC is no longer a panacea, and there's a lot more reason to actually attack basestars. but it would probably need a bit of tweaking to get it right.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:53
|
|
|
Is anyone putting up a new game? I'd love to play again.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:53
|
|
|
Max Peck posted:You're probably thinking of: Yep, that's it and that makes more sense, since now Basestars matter a lot more.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 00:59
|
|
|
Tenebrais posted:My favourite Defcon setup so far is the +4 one with the CFB and CAG bits. What is the purpose of the CFB part? If you're getting fresh CACs and potentially 2 of them in a jump cycle, do you need to bother with a few left over raiders from before?
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 01:07
|
|
|
If you don't have the DEFCON board to demand combat rather than running, pilots go back to not mattering.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 01:21
|
|
|
Mills posted:Is anyone putting up a new game? I'd love to play again. So you're saying you remember how to play? 
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 01:50
|
|
|
Some Numbers posted:What do you guys want? Do you want to never ever know if you're getting a CAC? That's what Core and Pegasus were like and no one liked those. I feel like you should playtest a '+5 after cac' version; starting and capping defcon at 11(this felt like a good number in general), and enforcing at least 1-turn gap between CACS - a flippy piece of cardboard ought to work for this, or even something taped to the starting player token. I feel like CACs on blue-jump are still important because they never have jump icons. I think you should still roll defcon in the blue-jump-zone - with the stakes being 'no jump this turn on the regular crisis' instead of 'a cac happens'. Also, I think there's room to play around with defcon when the fleet jumps. Cylons are notorious for hounding the colonial fleet, and jumping in after their asses very quickly. You want a little bit of breathing room that jumping away brings you before the cylons find you again - either raising, or rolling for defcon when the fleet jumps is worth considering. Another possibility is using CACs alongside regular crisis cards - you could replace just the fleet activation icon with the cac's deployment instead of the entire crisis. You could also make the humans able to earn breathing room by making the cylons back off through damaging their basestars. Nukes in particular could be made more relevant with this - and if the cac happens anyway, it makes even more sense because they want revenge instead of backing off to regroup. Basically defcon is supposed to debug the RNG and bad shufflying in the following ways: a) Space out CACs so you don't get 3 in a row and instalose. b) make sure they do come up every now and again so its not a pleasure cruise. From this, you can pretty easily infer the range you want. At least 1-2 turns between CACs, but no more than an entire round or so of turns between them - which is (# of players), so 5-7 turns and maybe a fudge of 1 due to the dice element. Most games are around six players, so I think that's a decent number You spoke out earlier about cac's every other turn -so we can assume that's undesirable. Analyzing that, you want cacs in a range of... what? 3-6 turns, with a possibility of 2-7?. It should be fairly easy to tweak numbers until you get that range. Don't be afraid of hardcaps, floors, or ceilings. You may also want to change the dice involved - d10 maybe, maybe d6. Basically you just need to numbercrunch the desirable range you want for cacs, and then figure out which defcon range paired with what dice odds is most likely to get the outcome you want. My gut says that the d8 is a 'we happen to have it on hand' kludge - for something as crucial and game-making/breaking as CACS spreads, i think it would be worth the hastle to have a more accurate system over one that's more convenient, as long as you could discern what the best fit is. My takeaway from Homeward Bound I've mixed feelings about the 'defcon 11' thing. On one hand, 10 turns between cacs - twice - is really nice. It felt kind of cakewalkey, but we still ended up losing - and might have done so to raiders if it wasn't food. I think some of it comes down to the % +spread of jump preps on regular icons. Defcon hitting 1 just needs to trigger a CAC automatically. Blue jump safezone is kinda dumb. You hit it and instantly go 'phew, things aren't a threat, we're fairly safe'. CACs as you're about to jump do a few crucial things that need to be replicated: Guaranteed no jump, automatic civships that create action tax later, and a chance of raiders in all the wrong places if its the second CAC that cycle. A cac @ -3 is still kind of a threat because and activate raiders the next turn can pop civs. The special-attack-rules are kind of contributing to the 'only pilots are relevant' problem, with things like 'you can't deploy comms or command' and 'deploy EXTRA amounts of raiders you have to deal with lately' or 'instant free shots at galactica'. How bad would it be to disregard the special-rules like Jammed Assault and just use the deployment setup from the card? The CAG needs to arrange the viper deployment/defenses, not the current player - its just smoother, and its just kind of dumb that one player is deciding on which attack configuration and launching vipers, and another is determining if they're mk2, mk7, or raptors - the CAG should just decide all of that in one go. We ended up playing like that, but you should make it official. There needs to be some way to reduce action tax for the other roles in general, or make the other title cards more relevant in a freebie-like-the-cag way. Here's a balance question: Has anyone tried gaming the 'no cac on blue zone' system with a political leader on the engine room? 2-3 activations ensures blue jump zone. 3 activations synergizes nicely with defcon 11 counting down to 8, and with consolidate power doesn't break the card bank either. With good timing and not rolling an 8, you just trivialize a CAC for an entire cycle. And next cycle you get 1 cac pretty much guaranteed - but then it goes up to 11 again. TheParadigm fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Oct 23, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 02:43
|
|
|
mp5 posted:So you're saying you remember how to play? 
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 02:53
|
|
|
Corbeau posted:If you don't have the DEFCON board to demand combat rather than running, pilots go back to not mattering. How many additional ships does this really result in carrying over though? After you take your fill from the CFB, you halve the remainder. Maybe I am missing something, but if you keep doing that, nothing really builds up over time. Launch Raiders is a very rare (like only 10% of the crisis cards). It seems like it would only matter when there is a greater disparity between the setups of 2 back to back CACs (and in that, only when it was high to low). Here are some stats. With only 1 CAC a cycle, you are very unlikey to ever face 2 basestars at a time. The average raider setup is 4 to 5. pre:BS R H C V BSG -- Ambush 1 8 0 3 2 BSG -- Besieged 1 4 1 3 2 BSG -- Raiding Party 1 5 2 3 2 BSG -- Thirty-Three 1 0 0 4 2 BSG -- Surrounded 1 7 1 3 2 BSG -- Heavy Assault 2 0 0 3 1 BSG -- Cylon Swarm 1 5 1 3 2 BSG -- Tactical Strike 1 5 1 3 2 BSG -- Boarding Parties 1 4 4 3 0 BSG -- Jammed Assault 1 4 2 4 2 AVERAGE (CORE) 1.10 4.20 1.20 3.20 1.70 
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 03:12
|
|
|
I'm convinced, you're all set.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 03:23
|
|
|
Cocks Cable posted:How many additional ships does this really result in carrying over though? After you take your fill from the CFB, you halve the remainder. Maybe I am missing something, but if you keep doing that, nothing really builds up over time. Launch Raiders is a very rare (like only 10% of the crisis cards). It seems like it would only matter when there is a greater disparity between the setups of 2 back to back CACs (and in that, only when it was high to low). You halve rounding up for each section, with the end result of generally getting a lot more than 50% of the ships. Also Treachery cards are a significant source of raiders.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 03:34
|
|
|
Cocks Cable posted:How many additional ships does this really result in carrying over though? After you take your fill from the CFB, you halve the remainder. Maybe I am missing something, but if you keep doing that, nothing really builds up over time. Launch Raiders is a very rare (like only 10% of the crisis cards). It seems like it would only matter when there is a greater disparity between the setups of 2 back to back CACs (and in that, only when it was high to low). I've posted all this before, in more detail, but that was like a month ago so I'll say it again. The fleet board is not meant to bring more than a few new raiders in if the players are actively keeping on top of space combat. If people are on the ball, which means a burden on their action economy, then it shouldn't be a huge deal. If the players try to use the classic method of jumping away in order to "destroy" cylon ships though, or if cylon reveals gum up their action economy too much, then the board will build up and annihilate the humans towards the end of the game. This dynamic isn't speculation: it's the most heavily playtested part of the whole system. If you can spend the actions, you're fine (though you're not spending those actions quorum-grinding or similar). If you don't spend the actions, well, I hope you're going to win the game in the next jump cycle or so. Raw numbers aren't the whole picture though. Even one or two raiders can completely change attack math, depending on positioning. Most attack cards are designed so as to give you multiple raider activations worth of buffer time before they hit civilian ships. That's part of why they were so easy to ignore in core, especially with the occasional communications activation. However, even a single raider spawning on top of a civilian ship means that it's scramble time for the pilots. And god forbid that the fleet board is a bit busy and your CAG happens to be a Cylon... (Bonus: the DEFCON board makes the Scar crisis terrifying rather than laughable. I don't think we've written it down, incidentally, but we play Scar as his own ship type so he always rounds up to 1 and keeps coming back until you kill him.) It's true that basestars are unlikely to show up 2 at a time. It does happen though, and it's terrifying unless you're almost done with the game. Why? Because the DEFCON board is a snowball mechanism, much like Daybreak treachery, and a single 6-raider launch icon can tip the snowball beyond recall. I've nuked basestars just to avoid that specific risk. It's rare, yeah, but it can absolutely ruin you if you're not playing safe. (Side note: I think basestars have been totally neutered since Pegasus came out. Basestar attack icons used to be scary as hell in core, but Pegasus tanks like such a boss that it hardly even matters.) Slifter posted:You halve rounding up for each section, with the end result of generally getting a lot more than 50% of the ships. Also Treachery cards are a significant source of raiders. Also this; I hope you've been playing that correctly. It's quite common to see 1 or 2 raiders in a few sectors after the rounding, which then jump in... sometimes next to or even on top of civilian ships. Easy to kill? Yes, usually. But they drain actions.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 04:29
|
|
|
TheParadigm posted:The CAG needs to arrange the viper deployment/defenses, not the current player - its just smoother, and its just kind of dumb that one player is deciding on which attack configuration and launching vipers, and another is determining if they're mk2, mk7, or raptors - the CAG should just decide all of that in one go. We ended up playing like that, but you should make it official. I thought we had made it official? I mean, we've been playing that pretty much every decision about an attack card is made either by A) The CAG, or B) The Cylon who rolled a CAC via Caprica. The latter being the only exception to the former. I don't know of any master document though. Most of this is in our heads and the occasional rules post here (that is often somewhat out of date since we keep tweaking it).
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 04:38
|
|
|
It was linked a few pages ago, forget by whom, but I thought it was you or SN. Defcon Gdoc Should be here
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 04:47
|
|
|
Someone else compiled that for their group and posted it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 04:49
|
|
|
Part of me wants to run a PBF game now. Send help.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 04:50
|
|
|
Corbeau posted:(Side note: I think basestars have been totally neutered since Pegasus came out. Basestar attack icons used to be scary as hell in core, but Pegasus tanks like such a boss that it hardly even matters.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 05:06
|
|
|
Are there any other stipulations to that houserule? Like a character on peggy can't damage galactica? Or is it just 'ship needs to be manned to enable the option?' Also, there...... isn't any real penalty to losing pegases, is there? At the very least, getting the ship blown up should cost a morale or something.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 05:19
|
|
|
Just needs to have a person on it, doesn't care who they are, and doesn't affect galactica damage in any way except enables the option for the damage to go to Pegasus.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 05:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 22:45 |
|
|
Corbeau posted:(Bonus: the DEFCON board makes the Scar crisis terrifying rather than laughable. I don't think we've written it down, incidentally, but we play Scar as his own ship type so he always rounds up to 1 and keeps coming back until you kill him.) I like this and will be making it explicit in my games with DEFCON. Corbeau posted:Part of me wants to run a PBF game now. Send help. I'm guessing the help you are asking for is not applying Arkest's SA changes to the new version of the BGG spreadsheet. But I'll probably still get around to that in a day or two.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2014 05:22
|
|