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View Full Version : Simple Faction System Idea - Thoughts?



Seidh
2014-10-18, 11:36 AM
For the fantasy equivalent, its converting Systems -> Hexes, refluffing Jump Nexus to Ancient Portal, and changing a few other fluff names like that.

Faction Creation
Leader/Hero
Operative - +3 Espionage Mod, 1 action assigned/turn.
Diplomat - +3 Politics Mod, 1 action assigned/turn.
Naval - +3 Naval Mod, 1 action assigned/turn.
Engineer - +1 Construct Mod [+1 per Die], 2 action assigned/turn.
Politician - +1 Cultural Mod [+1 per Die], 2 action assigned/turn.
Technomage - +1 Technological Mod [+1 per Die], 2 action assigned/turn.

House Specialization
Whispers - +3 Espionage Mod
Diplomacy - +3 Politics Mod
War - +3 Naval Mod
Labor - +1 Construct Mod [+1 per Die]
Culture - +1 Cultural Mod [+1 per Die]
Education - +1 Technological Mod [+1 per Die]

House Edge
You will be allowed to pick your strategic resource(s). If you have multiple resources, you cannot pick the same type twice.

Jump Nexus - +$20,000/Turn [vulnerable to piracy, like trade]
Abundant Resources - +5 to the local strategic resource.
Many Resources - A second and third strategic resource (3x/turn of each).
Vast Territories - A second system (but you have twice as much territory to defend) and start with 3/10 Unrest. This increases your income by +$20,000/Turn but is less vulnerable than a Jump Nexus [which can be hit by piracy operations].

Defeat
You can be defeated by having all of your systems captured.
You can be defeated by reaching a 10 Unrest [you start at 0/10]. Unrest is gained by refusing political pressure. Unrest can never be reduced but it is not gained automatically .


Economics

[u]Taxation
Each civilized system generates $20,000.

Captured System take 6 Turns to Civilize.
Colonized System take 6 Turns to Civilize.

Each planet generates 5x of 1 strategic resource which may be consumed, sold to the public market, or exchanged. [ Value +5 ]

Rare systems will contain jump nexus instead of a strategic resource. A jump nexus provides instant transport to 2 other systems and each of those systems yield an extra $20,000/turn [like a Trade Route, piracy actions can be taken against a jump nexus which ‘destroys’ the trade income for 10 turns]. [ Value +2 Dice (avg value +4) ]

Strategic Resources
Strategic resources provide a +1 to a Standard Action. [e.g. Spending 10x Rum = +10 on a Political Action. If you spend 2 dice, its 2d3+10]

Trade Routes
You may establish trade agreements with other players to generate wealth. Trade Routes may be destroyed via Piracy or Naval actions which would yield 5x the normal revenue.

Trade Routes require both parties to use a Political and a Construct action to create. Limit 1 Route per pair of parties. [e.g. You can’t establish 10 routes between 2 nations]. Each Route generates $20,000/turn.

Public Market
Basically, you declare a ‘max bid/min sale’ price. The resources are reserved for a turn, the bids are publicly listed, etc. NPCs might also engage in the ‘public market’. You can exchange assets, wealth, strategic resources, and even planets.

Standard Actions
1d3 (avg. 2) = BP Generated
Overflow is lost.

Pricing
+1 Action = $10,000 Wealth
Wealth is generated each turn via taxes. It can also be produced via trade routes or the public market.

+1 Die Size
Caps at +3 from R&D [which is +75% productivity]
=FLOOR((4+G8)^2)

BP Cost
5 BP to perform a normal standard action. +Die Size, +Mod, Create Asset have different prices.

Types
Cultural [Create Political Assets, Political Actions, Treaties, +AssetMods]
Construct [Create Naval Assets, Naval Actions, Create Infrastructure, +StandardMods]
Technological [ Create Espionage Assets, Espionage Actions, +AllMods! ]


Contested Actions
1d20+Mod vs. 1d20+Mod
Ties go to defender.
Roll once per asset until one side wins.
Losing a contest causes an asset to gain the ‘damaged’ tag. Damaged assets must be ‘repaired’ for 2 turns (no fee but uses a build slot). If damaged assets are used in combat and lose a contest they are destroyed permanently.

Differences
Asset Coverage Areas:
Naval Coverage Areas: Antipiracy [defends all trade routes & Jump nexus (if applicable)], System Fleet(s) [one per system, defends against invasion]

Espionage Coverage Areas: Naval [ONI], Domestic [Domestic Information]

Political Coverage Areas: Court Politics [replace with UN, Imperial Court, whatever is relevant to the setting]

In addition, whenever you stage an offensive action [e.g. Construct (Attack Player B)] you must move assets from the defensive pool to the offensive pool for that action. You don’t get to double count.

Distance
For Espionage and Politics, distance doesn’t matter. Everyone has spies watching everyone else. Politics is only in one location anyway.

For Naval actions, distance/position matters. You cannot send a fleet of warships through space ‘invisibly’ after all. You may only engage in naval actions within a range of 3 from a system controlled by you or an ally who has granted you basing rights. Space is big, ships are slow. No one wants their navy gone for months at a time.

Asset Applications:
Naval is the ‘attack/defend’ asset [e.g. Capture planets, capture trade revenue, defend these].

Espionage is the ‘create advantage’ asset [e.g. Find out who performed covert action X with a % based level of certainty. Discover naval intelligence about player X to get a temp +mod to your next naval action against them. Discover blackmail material on player Y’s diplomats to ‘damage’ his dice in a surprise round. It is also the way to get a player’s profile/status (e.g. anything that isn’t an asset quantity is ‘hidden’ by default)]

Political assets are the ‘lobbying’ asset. As such, they can have potentially fatal consequences if you ‘lose’ enough political battles as it will result in you being executed/coup. However, it creates pressure to choose a certain way only. It does not put a gun to the player’s head until Unrest has gotten unacceptably high. [e.g. Apply political pressure to force a peace/trade agreement...the player can ignore it but only by increasing unrest by 1, possibly 2 (eventually fatal). The amount of unrest failure to comply is hidden (it is always 1 or 2, 2 only occurs if you got crushingly defeated)]

Pricing
+1 Dice = 5 BP
Naval = Carrier Strike Group [1 Command Carrier, 5 Frigates]
Espionage = Operations Unit
Politics = Politician

Naval Tactics = Drone Carrier deploys a fighter screen for the SotL which exchanges LRM barrages with enemy SotL. Frigates are basically massive EW decoys for the Capital ships, recon, picket, anti-piracy, messengers, etc.

+1 Mod
=FLOOR((3+G6)^2)
Special = x2.7, TotalMods/3 [10% discount for global]

Open Contests
Takes 1 turn, require an action each turn, to perform.

Naval - A contest between 2 or more warships.
Espionage - A contest between 2 or more spy agencies.
Political - A contest between 2 or more groups over a political contest.

Concealed Contests
Takes 2 turns, require an action each turn, to perform.

Piracy [Naval] - -3 to Mod, Identity Concealed if victorious. [May only target Trade Routes or Jump Nexus]
Criminal [Espionage] - -1 to Mod, Identity Concealed if victorious.
Smear [Political] - -3 to Mod, Identity Concealed if victorious.

Concealed contests alternatively be ‘probably’ discovered via Espionage. Failure provides the wrong information.

[e.g. Political Action -> Use X Assets in a Smear Campaign!]

Asset Quality [+Mod]
Defaults
+0 Training (Untrained)
+0 Agility (Crude)
+0 Equipment (Crude)
+0 Defenses (Crude)
+0 Offense (Crude)
+0 Leadership (Incompetent)
+0 Logistics (Disorganized)
+0 Special (Magic, Psionics, etc. Applies to all contested action types rather than just a single type.)

Culture, Tech Tree & Construction
‘Tech Tree’
The tech tree is made up and consists of whatever you’d like. Each ‘tech’ allows you to improve an asset modifier by +1 or a standard action die size by +1. (Up to 1d6, which raises the average from 2 to 3.5)

For instance you could research ‘Warp Drive Mk I’ to gain +1 Agility.

The one neat thing I’m allowing with techs is every so often I’m going to create a ‘special’ technology for players [I’m thinking once every 10 techs, I may change that] which is ‘more powerful’ than the normal +1 mod. [e.g. It is +1 mod & some kind of special effect. (e.g. Ignore penalty for piracy actions)]

Construction
Construction can be used like Technological to generate additional standard action die sizes by building up your infrastructure. However, there are a couple of important ‘structures’ that are vital to your polity:

Shipyard Slips
This limits the number of Naval assets you can produce/repair per turn.
I may tie maintenance costs for Assets to this as well as wealth upkeep for these.

Espionage Stations
This limits the number of Espionage assets you can produce/repair per turn.
I may tie maintenance costs for Assets to this as well as wealth upkeep for these.

Political Offices
This limits the number of Political assets you can produce/repair per turn.
I may tie maintenance costs for Assets to this as well as wealth upkeep for these.

Trade Route
To setup a trade route, you must construct supporting infrastructure.

Wonders
I may allow the players to build a single wonder that represents the greatest physical achievement of your species. [e.g. The Artificial Wormhole junction of Seti 6. The Unseen University.] This will allow you to ‘build’ something that generates revenue, some kind of special effect [like a ‘special’ tech], or the equivalent of a racial modifier [e.g. A mod that doesn’t raise R&D costs for the next +1]

Wonder costs will be equivalent to R&D costs and wonders will be hardcapped.

Limit 1 per player [Capturable by other players, if captured, you cannot build a new one. You must take it back.]

Culture
Culture can be used like ‘R&D’ to get +Mods that make sense thematically. [e.g. A program of public education to encourage discipline and leadership skills might add a +1 to both of those across all assets … and cost the equivalent of +1 to all those mods x3].

In other words, if you want to do R&D...you can do actual R&D or you can do Culture+Construction. [e.g. Culture can be used for +AssetMods, Construction for +StandardMods]

As +AssetMods are priced based on the total mod for that asset [e.g. +10 to +11 is the same whether you are researching a +0 to a +1 or a +9 to +10], Politics lets you completely handle the +AssetMods w/o touching R&D if you’d prefer that. This is mainly to make the standard action types Politics/Construction/R&D more even. [e.g. Spies+R&D everything OR R&D standard+build infra/naval OR R&D assetmods +political/treaties]

Trade Route
To setup a trade route, you must write a treaty with the other party.

Treaties
You can use politics to create any kind of legal/treaty framework you’d like. Its only limited by your imagination.

This is also how you Declare War or Make Peace.

DoomHat
2014-10-18, 12:41 PM
The first thing that strikes me;
Maybe I missed it, but what does money do? You have a bunch of ways to generate it, but what can you spend it on?

Seidh
2014-10-18, 02:38 PM
The first thing that strikes me;
Maybe I missed it, but what does money do? You have a bunch of ways to generate it, but what can you spend it on?



Pricing
+1 Action = $10,000 Wealth
Wealth is generated each turn via taxes. It can also be produced via trade routes or the public market.


Sorry, that wasn't clear. Each turn, for every dice you roll on standard actions, you are spending $10,000 wealth.

I'm debating about asset upkeep to limit the maximum # of dice but I decided against it for now because of the way the Tech v. Asset curve works, if assets have maintenance those that are behind in tech but have larger asset pools will be at a major disadvantage [having to pay more in maint for roughly the same firepower].

Seidh
2014-10-19, 12:05 PM
Part of me is tempted to make the econ more complicated...not sure if it is a good idea, however, as it is harder to balance correctly/more complicated to process:

Resources System

Tier 3 Goods (Strategic Resources)
Requires: 35 BP [$175,000 aprox. ROI 5.7%/turn]

Research Computers - +2 to a Technology Action (consumes 2 Electronics)
Construction Robots - +2 to a Construct Action (consumes 2 AIs) [bought value: $10,000 / sold value: $8,000]
Media Propaganda - +2 to a Cultural Action (consumes 2 Art) [bought value: $10,000 / sold value: $8,000]

[b]Tier 2 Goods (Asset Resources)
Requires: 15 BP [$75,000, ROI 0%/turn]

Electronics - Consumed to produce new Espionage assets. (consumes 2 Silicon)
AIs - Consumed to produce new Naval assets. (consumes 1 Silicon + 1 Knowledge)
Art - Consumed to produce new Political assets. (consumes 2 Knowledge)

Tier 1 Goods (Base Resources)
Requires: 5 BP [$25,000]

Silicon - A resource only useful to produce more advanced resources.
Knowledge - A resource only useful to produce more advanced resources.
Food - A resource that promotes planetary growth. (Each extra Food increases GDP by +6% from base. [+$8,400 v. Strategic Resource @ $10,000])

Rare Resources (replaces the 'free' Strategic Resources @ Creation)
Rare resources can't be created, only discovered/used. Trade Route value is now determined by how 'different' two sets of rare resources are. Base value is now $10,000 for Trade Routes, and for each Unique Resource that is different...the value increases by $5,000 per Resource.

Rare resources can also be set to consumption to raise GDP.

Silicon Substitutes
Ancient Relics [4x]

Knowledge Substitutes
Unique Wines [4x]
Famed Education [4x]

etc.

I'm not sure if this just makes things too complicated. I can reflavor resource names based on settings...idk.