Re: Battlefleet Mars

Donald Hosford wrote:
> 
> Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:
> 
> > Excellent game, the only 3-D boardgame that I've played that really
> > works. 
> Sounds really cool!  I am gonna haveta keep my eyes open for that one!
> 
> Say didn't they make two sequel games?

Not as such: The SF games that SPI made were:
Stand-alones:
BattleFleet Mars : Newtonian 3D tactical, and 2-D strategic (within
Solar System) space combat.

Freedom in the Galaxy : Diplomatic game, similar in concept to Sorceror,
Empires of the Middle Ages etc.

StarForce series:
* StarForce Alpha Centauri: 3-D tactical and 3-D Strategic game covering
a volume up to about 20 LY from Sol. Used hexes + altitude, a poor
compromise, but it worked. Combat between humans, and later L'Chal-Dar
and Rame is relatively bloodless, with non-lethal weaponry employed.
Then the Xenophobes come in and start Novaing systems.... 
* StarSoldier: Basically, Psi-Immune Starship Troopers in Powered Armour
in the StarForce genre. Hex-based game, one soldier would rather
dominate an area the size of Rhode Island. The main limitations on his
powers were not to cause too much collateral damage with the
TotalConversion warheads, he was expected to hold ground, not Vape it.
Of course Xenophobes have no such restrictions.

I use "he" literally: the psi-immune gene is linked with the X
chromasome, just as all the (human and L'Chal-Dar) starship telesthetics
in SF:AC are female. Rame are a hive mind and operate in Killer Swarms,
and Xenophobes are very Serbian (with apologies to the sane majority of
Serbs).

* Outreach: A Very, very VERY strategic game. 2-D, because at this
scale, the Galaxy is 2-D. Covers this spiral arm, and a few others. Very
abstract combat, with "Prisoners Dillemma" situations, and combat often
being religious/philosophical conversion (or even a massive advertising
campaign) rather than Novaing starsystems.

Universe series;
* Universe RPG. Not a bad system, but a tadge complex for the time.
Contained its own tactical combat system, which was published seperately
as:
* Delta Vee - a Newtonian boardgame of tactical space combat, set in the
Universe mythos. This may be what you're thinking of as a sequel to BFM.

Have a look at http://www.crossover.com/costik/spicom/index.html
Greg Costikyan's excellent SPI index.
  
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