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Greetings designers,

I appreciated your input on the Range Band question. Thank you.

Based on that, I am now moving onto a new question for the same "ahistorical" Naval game. I want an Alternate Activation System with the following general game turn sequence:
1. Initiative- determine who has priority
2. Movement Phase- Moving, ramming, collisions, boarding etc.
3. Battle Phase- Shooting stuff!
4. End Phase- General clean-up and book keeping as needed

The games general design philosophy is focused around keeping both players engaged and making decisions through out the game, use a success based system, Naval skirmish, campaign elements, and maintain maneuver as a critical component.

So, here is the question. In each phase should I use:
1. Pure "Alternate Activation" where Player 1 moves Ship A, then Player 2 moves Ship B
or
2. "Alternate Phase" Player 1 moves one ship at a time for his entire fleet, then Player 2 moves one ship at a time for their entire fleet

In Option 1, I have seen used in Spartan Games lines and found it less than satisfactory as ships fail to act like a coordinated fleet and instead attack/move on targets of opportunity. However, I am concerned Option 2 will lead to times where the other Player is left sitting on their hands which goes against the Design Philosophy of the rules I was trying to capture.

Your thoughts?

If it is a naval game and not dealing with terrain, then I'd suggest something like X-Wing where movement is determined ahead of time in a blind movement fashion. Then resolved by initiative. If you don't want to assign different ships initiative you can roll a dice for each ship and have players assign initiative and go in the order of. Or some other method but keeping in line with template movement similar to X-Wing.

The other suggestion I would make is to take a look at Full Thrust. It is a classic in terms of miniatures games and although scifi ship battles, its system can be easily applied to a naval game.

My thought- Why not try something where players may choose to activate ships in a block? Say that I have a carrier and a couple escorts- I elect to activate the carrier group as one, and then everyone in the group takes their movement at the same time. You could try tying this into a command mechanic- you can only coordinate ships if you have an available senior officer, but you gain bonuses to coordinated movement.

How about having tiered initiative for each phase with the side of priority going first on ties for each phase?

It could mean ships with the same priority would move about the same time and ships with the same training (or under the same command?) fire about the same time.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
My thought- Why not try something where players may choose to activate ships in a block? Say that I have a carrier and a couple escorts- I elect to activate the carrier group as one, and then everyone in the group takes their movement at the same time. You could try tying this into a command mechanic- you can only coordinate ships if you have an available senior officer, but you gain bonuses to coordinated movement.

Sure, I do have a squadroning mechanic to allow you to do what you are saying. Does that mean you would want pure Alternating Activation for such a system?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
How about having tiered initiative for each phase with the side of priority going first on ties for each phase?

It could mean ships with the same priority would move about the same time and ships with the same training (or under the same command?) fire about the same time.

You mean each ship would have an initiative rating and move/shoot in that order?

A different one for each, but yes.

A great system I saw in Pulp Alley was to have one player have the Initiative, such that they could choose which player went next (Pulp Alley is for 2+ players). Then there were turn-over conditions by which a player could seize the initiative.

Wargods of (Aegyptus|Olympus|Hyperborea) has an interesting system. Each turn, you issue each of your units (up to your commander's command value) an order, then you roll for initiative. The winner gets to activate a number of units based on the margin of success (win the roll by up to 5, activate 1 unit. 6-10, 2, etc), then the players take turns activating units. The thing is, you can activate one of your opponent's units to activate. So, if you win the "edge", you can either move a couple of your units before the enemy can react, or try to interfere with the enemy's plan by activating a unit which may be out of position.

These are all great suggestions, but how do I keep the fleet acting like a fleet?

Perhaps some combination where each ship has an Initiative value, and they can squadron up with better initiative ships to move as a group. This helps them move as a fleet.

However, then only a certain number of units can be activated a turn ala Wargods which allows for an interrupt condition.

This method create a incentive to Squadron up so you can move more ships together without making it a rule. I like that.

Give limited activation per turn, but allow command ships (the squadron leader) to activate as many ships with him as his command, but at the pace of the slower ship for each step?

Sot he dilemma will be between a better individual performance or economy of activation.

Dropzone Commander groups multiple squads (of vehicles, aircraft and infantry) into Battlegroups. the turn sequence has players alternating activation of those Battlegroups. Something similar could work for squadroning ships together, but you'd need to work out how to group the ships (free choice by players, or enforced by the army lists?)

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Give limited activation per turn, but allow command ships (the squadron leader) to activate as many ships with him as his command, but at the pace of the slower ship for each step?

Sot he dilemma will be between a better individual performance or economy of activation.

This is a great suggestion.

If you can't do simultaneous plotted movement a la X-Wing / Wings of Glory, and you really don't want Igo-Ugo, then consider to interleave activations with a deck of cards or something.

If you are doing a command activation, then you need to weight the cards in some way, or have some kind of command storage / exhaustion system.

How important is command / activation in your overall game design, when you rank your core game features?

Activation mechanics are always in my top 3. Thanks for that clarifying question. I put activation mechanics above fleet operating in a coordinated manner, so my activation method could trump that parameter.

I also like to limit the number of special accessories needed for my game, so if I go the Card route, I would want the entire game using card mechanics. I know, one of my peccadilloes.

@psychotic Storm- I really like that idea! The "flagship' would make a command test, and each success would be a number of activations that turn to be allocated. I think that would fit in well with my process as well.

However, do you still see it as traditional alternating activations, or alternating phases? I.e. when a ship/squadron is activated it does everythign from move, shoot, ram, etc. Or do you imagine the ship is activated and moves, once all activations and movements have occurred then you can go back and shoot, board, etc?

Also, what would you do to limit a player from just activating a single unit or group of units over and over again well the rest of the fleet just floats around at the board edge?

The ship/ squadrons gets activated and go on phases.

There can be a limit in activation for example a ship/ squadron may activated only once per turn or be activated as many times as its command/ training this can be combined with a fatigue mechanic, or a fatigue mechanic alone can be used to limit times a ship squadron gets activated.

 Easy E wrote:


So, here is the question. In each phase should I use:
1. Pure "Alternate Activation" where Player 1 moves Ship A, then Player 2 moves Ship B
or
2. "Alternate Phase" Player 1 moves one ship at a time for his entire fleet, then Player 2 moves one ship at a time for their entire fleet

Go with option 2, its the least fiddly, also with a naval game you have fewer units overall so the turn wait is shorter and you get the coordinated movement benefit.

Pre-written moves are a workable system used in many games but it requires a form of bookkeeping which is messy and an extra phase of play. Irt can really slow down play.

There are ways to have the benefits of alternate activation and pre-ordered moves without most of the side effects.

Have a fleet orders system. Make it card based for simplicity. These give fleet orders that can be obeyed, ignored but not directly disobeyed. So a 'fleet starboard turn' fleet order means the flagship must turn starboard, any ship may continue on its original heading or turn starboard, no vessel may turn port. This allows the kernel of pre-ordered moves to work. To make that work with a turn based system the order card is played at the beginning of the opponents turn.
You can use command points to override the fleet order individually ship by ship, total the number of command points available to a player to make this effective but costly enough not to be repeatedly affordable.

How this works. Naval maneuvers are planned ahead, and the opponent can see what you are doing. By placing the order at the beginning of the opponents turn (card face down) you have to anticipate the opponents play before it is made, and have some restrictions on mobility as a result. It also make the vessels play as slow and ponderous without having to gimp their maneuver speed. You could arrange that fleet escorts under a certain size are immune to the move restrictions.

You will need to ensure that the cards are balanced, with no obvious win button cards. The full set of cards should be available every turn to each player, they arent drawn randomly so the tactical choices are not restricted by the mechanics unless damage effects, or the wind if using an age if sail game, temporarily force a player to discard or not play certain cards.

If you're not intending to build your game as a card-based game, then you're probably looking at some sort of game in which you dice for activation / initiatitve, with some sort of modifier for combined action.

If I were doing it, I'd roll a Xd6 for each ship / commander to generate a "command pool" with a cost for orders, with the ability to create standing orders and slave linkages as part of an overall command thing. I think you need tokens for this.

This needs to be an explict game phase, separate from movement and shooting and boarding.
____

concept-wise, I'd be looking to replicate something a la EVE online...

 Easy E wrote:
These are all great suggestions, but how do I keep the fleet acting like a fleet?

Punish players for failing to keep their fleet together. Make even powerful ships very vulnerable when isolated.

What I'm saying is that to answer that question you can look past the activation mechanic, and in to other parts of game design. Make combat work so that ships caught without support from other ships very vulnerable, and include mechanics so that nearby ships can block enemy approaches, and lend supporting fire in shooting matches.

This will produce an interesting mechanic where individual activation will leave players with the temptation to move their current ship in to a perfect position to attack a nice, juicy target. But experienced players will have to balance that temptation against the need to keep the fleet operating as a whole, or risk bits of it being picked off by the enemy. And then from there even more experienced players will start to master strategies to interrupt enemy fleet movement, isolating individual ships.

Thanks for all of your help guys.

I am going back a reworking some of the core mechanics now.