A game I'm thinking of running this summer after I get back from Sudan in early June. It might be too complex for a play-by-thread game, though, so I want opinions from anyone interested:

There would be room for four players: A Fleet Admiral and three Squadron Commanders.

The Earth is being invaded by the evil Reptilians from Dimension X. The Reptilians want to wipe out humanity, because they disapprove of endothermic sentient species.

The war must be fought on three fronts. A squadron must defend the Solar System. Another must attempt to bottle up the wormhole entrance to Dimension X and slow the flow of Reptilian reinforcements. A third squadron must defend the Earth colony on Alpha Centauri.

The Reptilians (Reps) have one type of ship: The Rep Attack ship is worth 4 points--meaning it has 4 combat points and can take 4 points of damage before being destroyed. Their ships are divided into three fleets: One attacking Earth; one attaching Alpha Centauri and one stationed at the Wormhole entrance. Each turn, these fleets fight the appropriate Earth fleets.

Humanity has three types of ships: Dreadnaughts (9 points); Destroyers (3 points); and Gunboats (1 point)

Combat: When a Rep Fleet and an Earth fleet meet in battle, the combat points of each fleet is totaled. The Earth squadron commander in charge decides how many of his available Resource Points he adds to his total. Then a d12 is rolled for each fleet and added to this total. The player with the highest total does damage to the enemy fleet equal to the difference in the totals. For instance, if the Earth fleet gets a 23 and the Rep fleet gets a 17, then the Rep fleet takes 6 points of damage, allotted randomly to its ships.

The winning fleet takes 1 point of damage, allotted randomly to one of his ships.

If the result is a tie, both fleets take 2 points of damage.

FLEET ADMIRAL: At the beginning of the turn, the Fleet Admiral alots available ships and Resource Points to the three Squadron commanders. He may take suggestions from them, but he makes the final decision.

Each turn, he decides what sort of ship is being built at the shipyard:

Gunboats are built in 1 turn
Destroyers are built in 2 turns
Dreadnoughts are built in 4 turns.

He also receives 4 Resource Points each turn. He allots new ships and available Resource Points to the squadron commanders in any way he wants.

He may detach ships assigned to one squadron and give them to other squadrons.

RESOURCE POINTS: Squadron commanders decide how to spend their Resource Points. They may spend as many as they have available each turn or save them up.

He may add Resource Points to his combat result. (BUT, if his d12 roll for combat that turn is a 1 or 2, then the Resource Points spent that turn are lost without adding to the result.)

He may spend Resource Points to repair damaged ships--1 RP fixes 1 point of damage to a Dreadnought or Destroyer.


ALPHA CENTAURI:

The Squadron Commander at Alpha Centauri defends that colony. He may fight the Reps each turn normally or opt to "Counter-Attack." If he Counter Attacks, the Rep fleet gets a +10 on their combat total for that turn, but if the Earth fleet wins or ties, the Rep fleet must retreat for one turn. This gives the Earth fleet time to receive more reinforcements and/or Resource Points (assuming the Fleet Admiral decides to send him any) before the fighting resumes. Otherwise, the two fleets fight each turn.

If the Earth fleet is wiped out during the game, then Alpha Centauri is wiped out and 20 million innocent colonists are killed. The Rep fleet then reinforces the one attacking Earth.

The Squadron Commander may opt to retreat and merge his fleet with one of the other fleets. This ends the game for him, though, and it means the all the colonists at Alpha Centauri are killed. This might be necessary, though, to reinforce one of the other fleets and save the rest of humanity.

WORMHOLE FLEET:

The Squadron Commander defending the Wormhole fights the Rep Fleet there. The Rep Fleet receives one new Attack Ship per turn during the game. The two fleets must fight each turn.

Any turn in which the Rep fleet gets the higher combat total, they are able to break one ship away from their fleet and send it to reinforce one of the other Rep fleets. There is a 60% chance of joining the fleet attacking Earth and a 40% chance of joining the fleet attacking Alpha Centauri.

Once per turn, the Squadron Commander may send one of his ships (of any type) on a suicide run to detonate a hyperspace bomb in the wormhole entrance and close it up. If this is successful, then the Reps receive no more reinforcements for the rest of the game. There is only a 3% chance of success, though, and nothing can be done to improve the chances.

If the Earth Fleet at the wormhole is destroyed, then the Rep Fleet can send an unending stream of reinforcements to its other fleets.


SOLAR SYSTEM FLEET:

The squadron commander defending Earth itself begins by defending Pluto City (population 20,000). If he ever loses a fight one turn by a score of 5 or higher, then he must retreat to the Asteroid Belt. He may also choose to retreat voluntarily at the beginning of each turn. But if he ever retreats, the 20,000 innocent civilians at Pluto City are slaughtered.

For instance, the Rep fleet gets a 26 combat result after their die roll. The humans get a 20. The Reps win by 5 or higher, so the humans MUST retreat.

At the Asteroid Belt (population 500,000 asteroid miners), the Earth fleets gets a +2 bonus each turn on their attack score. They may retreat to the next line of defense (Mars) voluntarily at any time--or be forced to retreat by losing a fight by 5 or more. If the fleet retreats, the half-million asteroid miners are all killed.

The next line of defense is Mars (12 million colonists). The Earth fleet here gets a +4 bonus. Same conditions for retreating. Retreating means the 12 million colonists are all killed.

The last line of defense is Earth itself. The Earth fleet gets a +6 bonus here. There is no further retreat. If the Earth fleet is destroyed, then the shipyard building new ships is gone, there are no new resource points allotted and 20 billion humans are slaughtered by the Reptilians.

It is possible, though, for humanity to still win if the Reps are wiped out and the wormhole closed with Alpha Centauri still existing.

The Earth Fleet may Counter Attack (giving the Rep Fleet a +10 for that turn) to push them back one line of defense. This does not, though, save any innocent colonists who have already been killed by the Reptilians.

Sample Combat:

The Wormhole fleet has:

1 Dreadnought--9

3 Destroyers--3 each

1 Destroyer with 1 point of damage--2

4 Gunboats--1 each.

Total 24 points.

He also has 3 available Resource Points.

The Rep fleet has

6 Attack ships--4 each

1 Attack ship with 1 point of damage--3

Total: 27

The Squadron Commander opts to spend 1 RP to fix his damaged destroyer and add the other 2 RP to his combat roll. He then rolls an 6 on his d12. Total Combat Score is 33

The Rep fleet rolls a 2 on its d12. Total Combat score is 29.

The Earth fleet wins. It takes 1 point of damage, random assigned to a Gunboat, which is destroyed. The Rep Fleet takes 4 points of damage (33-29), which are randomly assigned to its Attack ships.

DAMAGE TO REP SHIPS IS NEVER REPAIRED. Though damage is assigned to ships randomly, they will eventually start losing ships.


That's basically it. If the wormhole is closed and the Reps destroyed, humanity is saved.

Opinions please? Does this game seem playable?

Only one way to find out, and I'd be more than happy to help you find out (Dibs on Fleet Admiral!)

Two ideas that come to mind - 1) The ability for ships to become more powerful if you keep them alive long enough (from gaining experience fighting the invaders) 2) the ability to get more or fewer resource points per turn depending on circumstances.

I like the idea of ships becoming more experienced, but it depends on whether I can come up with a simple bookkeeping method on my end as GM to keep track of it.

The Resource idea is a good one. Maybe one RP for Alpha Centauri and one for each line of defense in the Solar System that the humans control. If they lose one, they get one less RP each turn.

I'm in Sudan from May 18 to June 4. I think I'll give this game a try when I get back.

Anyone else interested in trying this out, with a start date of around June 10 or so?

I am interested

I'm ready to start running this game, with the one change being that it will cost 2 resource points to repair 1 point of damage to a ship. I'll start a new thread for the actual game.

Oxygen Potassium