Campaign Game

This is a Half-Baked Idea which I'm writing up largely so I
don't forget it, but if anyone wants to run with it, go ahead--I
have flu+narcotics right now so my ability to crunch numbers is
even more limited than usual.

In most campaign systems I've seen, your fleet goes in and
crushes his fleet; then the planet either immediately
surrenders, or it surrenders after you make one successful
marine assault.  However, most nations don't have the strategic
depth to be able to afford losing anything--the loss of one of
your three star systems would be catastrophic.	Further, Canon
history doesn't seem to be written that way, as there are ground
campaigns that drag on for months.

So let's say instead that each system has a certain number of
population units.  Let's say each unit has 1,000,000 people;
it's a convenient number and it's enough to run a major port
plus industries (Norfolk/Virginia Beach has about 2 million and
half of them are Navy).  Let's also have population centers,
which is a place where you have one or more pop units.

Planting the first pop unit would be the most expensive--new
life support and infrastructure--but also the most productive.
The second unit would be cheaper but less productive, the third
cheaper and less productive than the second, and so on such that
it wouldn't pay to put more than ten units in a center	(eg the
first unit is the mines, port and machine shops; the second one
is mostly the same but adds convenience stores, video shops, and
so forth, the tenth unit is almost all bars, porno shops and
lawyers--kind of like New York City).

This will allow players to attempt to capture the whole planet
at once, or one city at a time, and to mount relief actions and
sieges.  It will also provide a simple mechanism for players to
invest in their economies, if you're running a campaign with
that kind of time scale.

--Chris  DeBoe
Quixtar IBO#706882
http://www.quixtar.com