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So I just got a gift of Planetary Empire tiles. How do you use them?

I have a full set with Hive Cities and a set of Mighty Empires, which is fully compatible.

I am afraid I have not used them for anything yet. I bought them on impulse when they were launched, intending to play campaigns. I found the campaign rules included are a sad travesty, so I wrote some of my own.

However I soon realised that though the tiles look awesome when set up, they are rather impractical as a means of running a campaign because you have to leave them set up, filling a table, for the whole of the campaign's life.

One way around this would be to mount them vertically in a wall mount, or a large tray of some kind. Before I figured that out I had to move house, and they went into the attic of the new house where they remain 18 months later with most of my stuff.

I still nurture a long term ambition to do something with them. One idea is to take digital photos to be sent out as satellite or aerial reconnaissance information.

If you can manage a long term setup then I think they will be a lot of fun.

HI,

I am interested in the set if mighty empires (and the hive cities if you don't ask too much for them) How much do you want for th lot shipped to Spain?

The rules were made deliberately bad because gw wanted players to customise them so better experience, spend more money, but that can be hard.
So I suggest start a thread on dakka about it then dakka community could do an article on the dakka dakka map campaign rules.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I have a full set with Hive Cities and a set of Mighty Empires, which is fully compatible.

I am afraid I have not used them for anything yet. I bought them on impulse when they were launched, intending to play campaigns. I found the campaign rules included are a sad travesty, so I wrote some of my own.

However I soon realised that though the tiles look awesome when set up, they are rather impractical as a means of running a campaign because you have to leave them set up, filling a table, for the whole of the campaign's life.

One way around this would be to mount them vertically in a wall mount, or a large tray of some kind. Before I figured that out I had to move house, and they went into the attic of the new house where they remain 18 months later with most of my stuff.

I still nurture a long term ambition to do something with them. One idea is to take digital photos to be sent out as satellite or aerial reconnaissance information.

If you can manage a long term setup then I think they will be a lot of fun.

It is kinda scary how this is a 99.9999999% representation of my experience (I didn't move house ). Almost to a tee.

If nothing else, I want to use it as a sort of unofficial running-in-the-background "campaign" map in my group. No actual rules, but rather a representation of the status of the Jericho Sector (my groups little patch of space) that can inspire battles and challenges.

Out of curiosity, what makes the Planetary Empires rules unplayable?

SYKOJAK wrote:
Out of curiosity, what makes the Planetary Empires rules unplayable?

Who said the rules of Planetary Empires were unplayable?

Steelmage99 wrote:

SYKOJAK wrote:
Out of curiosity, what makes the Planetary Empires rules unplayable?

Who said the rules of Planetary Empires were unplayable?

OK, let me rephrase my question, What makes the Planetary Empires rules terrible?

They are very basic. VERY basic. A handful of pages (repeated in several languages).

Most gamers of moderate experience can come out with their OWN campaign rules that have more structure than these had.

I had a set sitting in my cupboard for 3 years before I sold it off.

The Planetary Empires rules amount to the following:

Play a game.
If you win, roll a die, subject to modifiers for nearby force fields and stuff.
If you get the required number, stick a flag in one of the tiles.
Repeat the above process until someone reaches the target number of flags.

Apart from the rule about the die roll modifiers, you could play the same system without the tiles, and keep tally on a scrap of paper.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Planetary Empires rules amount to the following:

Play a game.
If you win, roll a die, subject to modifiers for nearby force fields and stuff.
If you get the required number, stick a flag in one of the tiles.
Repeat the above process until someone reaches the target number of flags.

Apart from the rule about the die roll modifiers, you could play the same system without the tiles, and keep tally on a scrap of paper.

!wow, that is bad! They might as well suggested that you play Tic-Tac-Toe for your campaign map.