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Really quick question:

In PC RTS games, it's quite common to have two or more types of resources. Minerals and Gas. Gold and Lumber. Supplies and Power. etc, etc. Often this is coupled with a Food/Population cap as well.

Has anyone come across a wargame that uses two or more types of resources? Where instead of defining an army limit as '1000 points', it might instead be 100 Gold and 50 lumber?

Infinity has its standard points, and then Special Weapons Cost (SWC).

So, for example, in a 300 point game (standard game size), you'd have 6 SWC. You use SWC to pay for some of the more specialized weapons in your force. So, for example, a Ghulam with the basic Rifle/Light Shotgun loadout would cost 13 points and 0 SWC, while a Ghulam with a heavy machine gun would cost 21 points and 1 SWC, while a Ghulam with a sniper rifle costs 18 points and 0.5 SWC.

Brushfire uses 3 'Resources' for army building: Food, Lumber, and Gold. Food purchases troops, while lumber/gold is used for equipment, siege weapons, and fortifications.

So a 100 Resource Game is 100 FD, 100 GD, and 100 LR.

Storm of Chaos kinda does. You have X amount for your army and Y for your SoC items or monsters.

The ideas of food, lumber, metal and money might work for a complex campaign though. The amount of work involved in setting that up is tremendous though.

Technically 40k does. Everything costs it's points and it's slot on the force org, bar the rare exception.

 Drk_Oblitr8r wrote:
Technically 40k does. Everything costs it's points and it's slot on the force org, bar the rare exception.

True. I hadn't considered that unit allowance is a kind of "cost."

Cool idea.

The part I like about Infinity's SWC system is that you hire officers
in order to get those points to spend on SWC.

 Drk_Oblitr8r wrote:
Technically 40k does. Everything costs it's points and it's slot on the force org, bar the rare exception.

That's sort of like a population cap, but a little more involved. Force Org slots are another resource to manage though, without a doubt.

 Brother SRM wrote:

 Drk_Oblitr8r wrote:
Technically 40k does. Everything costs it's points and it's slot on the force org, bar the rare exception.

That's sort of like a population cap, but a little more involved. Force Org slots are another resource to manage though, without a doubt.

WFB had that in previous editions, now we have % caps and reqs that require some juggling to obey.

Hmm.
In brushfire, does anything ever use both types of resources? Does it have a force org chart or equivalent as well?

Hi .
MOST wargames have '2 controls' on force composition.
Usualy an over all limit on army size, PV, Requisition Value, Gold Pieces, Intergalactic credits , tonnage,etc, to a set value.

And the other is to limit synergistic annomalies.
Order of Battle, Force organisation , the basic structure and composition restriction .

Battletec used overall tonnage to decide the size of force/army.
(Eg 100ton battle, could be made up of 1 1oo ton assult mech, two meduim 50 ton mech or light lance 2x30 ton mechs, and 1 40ton mech.)
Each mech had a limit on space, and heat capacity.

Balistic weapons generated low heat, but take up alot of space.
Energy weapons generate alot of heat but take up less space.
Armour improves survivability but reduces space.
Heat sinks improves heat efficiency but reduces space.

So this customisable mech load out it a mini resource managment in it own right...

Trasvi wrote:
Hmm.
In brushfire, does anything ever use both types of resources? Does it have a force org chart or equivalent as well?

Yes, several things will use two, or all three resources (usually more elite units), and no it does not have a force org other than having factions.

I find when I build a list in Brushfire, I first spend all my food because I want guys on the table: my basic army soldiers. Some already have lumber or gold cost, so that gets deducted as well.

That done, now I have a bunch of gold and lumber left over to spend. My last list, I took a named special character which only had lumber and gold cost, a trebuchet for him to operate, and also bought shields and weapons for my soldiers. You can also "buy" mercenaries for gold, which are selected troops, etc, from the factions. Also, some armies have special rules that allow you to exchange one resource for another, allowing completely different army build priorities.

Finally, Brushfire has a completely separate pool for the heroes. You will have an agreed upon "hero level" amount to spend as well. So, buying your general doesn't have any impact on what you spend for anything else. So, let's say we agree to 5 hero levels (hLVL) for our game. You could buy 5 level 1 heroes, or 1 level 5, or anything in between. Each level allotted a hero allows you to buy abilities from an advancement tree sort of deal.

It is a very unique system that makes me think completely differently about army building. It gives a lot of options and variety in what you can bring.

 Drk_Oblitr8r wrote:
Technically 40k does. Everything costs it's points and it's slot on the force org, bar the rare exception.

I was just about to say this. Any game with a 'Force organization chart' has this to some extent. 40k, Flames of War, Heavy Gear Blitz, etc.

Heavy Gear Blitz also has Support Points, which are a 'currency' that is spent on a selection of special stuff such as: putting units in reserves/airdrops; buying static defenses including bunkers and turrets; buying Command Points (for in-game re-rolls and out-of-sequence activations); air strikes and off-board artillery.

Mongoose's B5:ACTA had an interesting system that was technically one 'currency' but spent in an usual way. A battle would be at an agreed upon point value and size, so a 5 point skirmish or a 5 point battle. (I may not remember a few details) Both games would be 5 points, but the Battle game would be 5 points of Battle-clas ships, with rules to break a Bttle point into a Skirmish point.

Interesting rules. I may be wrong but I assume they were done to discourage extremes like a fighter horde vs. a few battleships, but it never worked great in practice for me. It felt a bit fiddly, and other system elements contributed to encouraging big fleets of smaller ships. Basically, the canon ships from the show that inspired the game were less powerful than hordes of small support ships. :(

Space wargames which have a build system often have tonnage or room and cost as the limitations of a single ship.

So did the Car Wars design system.

Most games that use resource management as a fundamental mechanic (RTS games) have a slowly escalating force and it's the resource management that controls that escalation. This escalation is ususally absent in tabletop miniature games.

I don't know how a game like Warhammer would use real resource management to expand a player's force while a game is under way. Even before you set up your models, you'd need to plan your army list and then plan out the best escalation path given your opponent's force and likely escalation. That's a LOT of work.

Yes, I think the best example is Brushfire.