Re: FW: Capital Ships in Campeign Games

James Butler writes (edited for brevity):

@:)   There were two Star Fleet Battles campaigns that collapsed
@:) because of early defeats to one side. In one tactical tournament
@:) campaign, a player surrendered his ship to me....  When they
@:) tallied up points it was revealed that that player no longer had a
@:) chance to win the tournament campaign and he quit on the spot....
@:) 
@:)	    A second campaign collapsed when we circumvented enemy
@:) (Kzinti) forces ... to attack an undefended Kzinti starbase from
@:) behind. We took out the starbase and our forces on the front were
@:) able to hold a gap in the line long enough for us to link up with
@:) them and fall back to Lyran space. We had suffered very few
@:) casualties and gutted the Kzinti's defenses. They (the entire
@:) side) immediately quit.
@:) 
@:)	    Has anyone else experienced this? It seems to be the way a
@:) lot of our old board games went as well--one big battle involving
@:) most of both sides' forces and whoever lost quit.

  We have certainly experienced this and we have tried various methods
for avoiding it.  It is probably worth noting that this kind of
campaign is an accurate simulation of most wars, especially naval
wars, throughout most of history.  What it doesn't simulate is the
"good wars" like WWII where the opponents pounded on each other for
years and no one would ever give up.  But I think your typical smaller
scale war usually ends when one side's capitol or major industrial
center is taken, more along the lines of France and Poland in WWII
than the Eastern front.

  So as far as your second example is concerned, not only do I think
your Kzinti player did the right thing by giving up, but I think your
side did an excellent job of winning the campaign at the strategic
level.	Bravo!	Campaigns shouldn't be won just at the tactical combat
level - if they are then you might as well just have a tactical combat
tournament.  If you can manouver your forces so that it is impossible
for them to lose the battle, you should obviously win.	If it looks
like you can do this repeatedly, your opponent should give up.

  The tournament thing is trickier.  In the wormhole campaign that
I've mentioned earlier we started with five players.  After three or
four turns, two of the players had been eliminated (one was truly
destroyed and one was hopelessly crippled).  Some time later a third
player was badly injured.  Meanwhile I was in second place, so I
worked out a deal with the little guy and together we managed to fend
off the winning player.  I was quite pleased to see that a damaged
fleet could still play a major role in the campaign, and I think
that's probably the best way to go in these abstract situations - when
one player gets too small to be able to win, combine the forces of the
two smallest players and continue.  At least everyone keeps playing
that way.

-joachim