Topic: So a war is coming. Whataya gonna do?

[GDA-S'Cipio]

Hi, all:

I had to unexpectedly leave town to deal with the death of my grandmother (87 years old; survived by a brother (93), two children, four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren; and lived exactly the way she wanted to her entire life) so I haven't had a chance to reply to this post.  I didn't even call Chuut and Agave to explain what was going on, like I should have.

But, back on topic:  I love the idea of trying to run raids and blame it on another empire.  As every school child knows, there is only one excuse better than, "It was broken when I came in!", and that excuse is, "He did it!".  I'll definitely try to work something like that in.

The backstory will need some filling in and I'm still working all that out as I try to develop the story of the server.  There are any number of reasons why your empire wouldn't yet be ready for war.  The one that set me off was reading about the Romulans at the outbreak of the General War.  They couldn't openly support the Klingons during the first few years of the war because their fleet was outdated and they were in the midst of completely retooling it.  However, they did send several ships across the Federation border for raids and--when confronted--claimed that these ships were privateers acting without their government's permision.

For now assume that your empire (peace-oving federation; whatever) simply doesn't feel like it has the economy or hardware to successfully wage a war of conquest.  The crown (president; whatever) *IS* working on it, but in the meantime he relies on you to keep the enemy from getting ready as fast as your side can.

I'd love to see you guys tell me more aobut what you'd do in the situation described.  The more goals I know that you'd go after if you were really there, the more roleplaying victory conditions I can design for the campaign.  (Like the sort of things I tried to do for Eco War, only better)

-S'Cipio

[Hexx]

Condolences on your loss Scippy, no worries about not posting, everyone knows family has to come way before anything like this.

The server planning on using pirate ships (boo!hiss!) or Warships (YAY! STL's All Round!) ?

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

Sorry to hear about your grandmother Scippy, I know how dear she was to your entire family.  But you are correct in your assessment of her having had a wonderful life I think.

P.S.  I recieved the picture of your lovely daughter the other day, keep me posted on how the new experiences of aby raising are going.

[Ternado]

too many rules,too much sfb rules thingy,too many,too many.Play the game,as it was intended to play.Big map.  1 ship. geeesss

[CaptJosh]

Ternado, what are babbling about? They haven't even started on rules. This is brainstorming for a scenario.

[GDA-S'Cipio]

Valcarve!!!  How ya doing, bro?

Throw cows at them!

OK, that gives me ideas....... <snicker>

Or how about adding some Q ships to catch those sneaky privateers.

Additional chance of meeting AI Q ships does sound logical.  As would the chance of flying them, if people wanted.

-S'Cipio

[GDA-S'Cipio]

Condolences on your loss Scippy, no worries about not posting, everyone knows family has to come way before anything like this.

The server planning on using pirate ships (boo!hiss!) or Warships (YAY! STL's All Round!) ?

Thanks, Hexx.  Probably some of both available, but this time around I think the server definitely calls for some warships.

-S'Cipio

[GDA-S'Cipio]

<snip>

Big ideas that require some thought, but some good ones.  I think I can work with some of this in some form.

So, if you were a captain in the galaxy you describe, what would be your first act?

LATE EDIT:  Feel free to make stuff up.  For example, "The minor planet Omicron is near the border and has historically had trouble with pirates.  I want to increase 'piracy' around them to the level that they can't live with.  Hopefully they'll give up on their current government and ask mine for protection."


-S'Cipio

[GDA-S'Cipio]

too many rules,too much sfb rules thingy,too many,too many.Play the game,as it was intended to play.Big map.  1 ship. geeesss

Not to worry about rules.  I want to run this sort the way I did Eco War.  It had tons of rules, but you didn't have to know any of them.  They gave you extra opportunities; they did not place extra restrictions on you.  You may have logged on one day to find that your cartel had merged with another; but your ship was still your ship, your space was still your space, and the ships you had been wanting to buy were still in the yards.

If all you want to do is log onto a big map with one ship, fly whatever you can buy in the yard, and attack whatever you can reach, that will be perfectly legal and *will* help your team.  If you want to read the rules, they will outline other roleplay type things you can do to win more points for your team.  But you don't have to read any of them and you will never break any rules simply by logging on and playing.

-S'Cipio

[GDA-S'Cipio]

Sorry to hear about your grandmother Scippy, I know how dear she was to your entire family.  But you are correct in your assessment of her having had a wonderful life I think.

P.S.  I recieved the picture of your lovely daughter the other day, keep me posted on how the new experiences of aby raising are going.

Thanks, Brother Chuut.  It was a big loss for me.  She was truly the family matriarch in my youth and at the center of every holiday and special time.  You are right to remind me of my daughter, though.  It's best to concentrate on the new lives we've gained rather than dwell on the well-lived lives that have left us behind.

So you liked the picture of Kaitlyn did you?  You know, <enter father mode> I've got more.   

-S'Cipio

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

To Nimrod:

The infiltration by Romulan agents on the planet greater than expected, we can no longer realistically expect the monachy there to hold power, rebellion is growing at a franctic rate and the kings forces will likely not be able to maintain power till the end of the year.  Although our contacts report that there is still a great deal of widespread support for the dundimentally benevolent Constitutional monachy, the increased funding of the opposed rebel groups by the Romulans via their pirate proxies seems to indicate that further direct assistance is futile.  Even now these pirates control the space surrounding the planet and we just managed to slip out through their patrols without being boarded, thanks to the quick thinking Orion mercenary who is sharing this command with me. 

The throne realizes well this situation and has inquired about the possibility of Federation supported forces evacuating the imperial family and court as well as command elements of the imperial forces, to set up a government in exile on neighboring system Falnak III which is controled by another member of the family, and could act as a staging area for a future assault to reclaim Cadcar IV. 

I have attatched the imperial proposal along with my assessemnt of the required reasources and chance of sucess.  While the rebel warships are only able to make warp 1,  the pirate ships are well armed and of modern design in the sector so I would like to emhasize that the requsted freighers all be able to make warp 3 and preferably warp 4. If such are not available the chances of sucess dwindle considerably but there is still a signifigant chance of sucesss as the move will be unexpected.

Horace Denton, former captain USS. Warspite, (retired)

----------------

Scenario as described above, captain must lead in a force of freighters and beam out multiple targets from planet dodging limited planetary defenses and pirate patrols, his ships might include freighters of differing speeds forcing him to make a hard descision whether to run off with the fast ones leaving the smaller ones prey to the incoming pirates aand rebel forces, or to stay and fight knowing that if the fight takes too long the slower rebel forces might actually be able to participate in the battle. 

A sucessful raid would dimish the enemy control over the planet (and their VCs from it) as those forces still loyal to the throne would have a government in exile to place their hopes upon and use as a rallying cry.

Perhaps the rebels have captured the royal family already and are holding them on an orbiting station awaiting execution and you will have to rescue them from there, or at least blow up the station  and claim that you rescued  at least some of the royal family.  It may not be necessary to actually save any of them as your agents can create convincing audio and video fakes that are good enough to dupe the populance of the planet.

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

Another thought, have certain VC hexes spread over the map that represent certain resources. If you controll all these areas you have cornered the market on these resources and can reap greater reward.  Think Risk here, or monopoly.  I could see several such sets and each one of different value.  Maybe the smallest requiring only 2 or 3 hexes and the largest perhaps 7 with rewards in proportion.  The hexes of any one of these groupings should be spread out a bit (although with larger ones a couple hexes could be placed close together.

The rationale is, you can't go to war yet, but you can start hoarding resources via the markets of the minor independent states.  After major war does brek out of course whoever owns the territiory can bleed it of its resources, but until then controlling the market to ensure your industries get what they need in preparation for war is important as well.

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

Additional thought.  If you can deepstrike certain predetermined targets and flip them to your color during a period in the campaign and provide a screenshot, then at the beginning of the next period the GM will place a 50 DV hex of neutral territory there at the beginning of the next game period, and the former controlling power will not recieve VCs for that area until they flip it back as the insurgency has disrupted production.    I would suggest colony planets or asteroid hexes as possible targets.  Perhaps with starting values of about 25.  There would be no real reason for the deepstriker to boost after flipping the hex as there work would have been done already.

[Kroma BaSyl]

I'm looking for thoughts.  The wilder the better, but have it make sense in context of the scenario.

Well I am going to stock up on cabin boys and BF my way to glory.

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

I'm looking for thoughts.  The wilder the better, but have it make sense in context of the scenario.

Well I am going to stock up on cabin boys and BF my way to glory.

Good to see ya still around Kroma, he asked for wild I think you just gave it to him 

+1 to you, although clicking the "Engage" button did make me hesitate a second.   

[GDA-S'Cipio]

I'm looking for thoughts.  The wilder the better, but have it make sense in context of the scenario.

Well I am going to stock up on cabin boys and BF my way to glory.

Good to see ya still around Kroma, he asked for wild I think you just gave it to him 

+1 to you, although clicking the "Engage" button did make me hesitate a second.   

I'm not going anywhere *near* Kroma's "engage" button.

-S'Cipio the scared

[KBF MalaK]

Communications officer: Send this message to High Command,

To Nimrod:

The infiltration by Romulan agents on the planet greater than expected, we can no longer realistically expect the monachy there to hold power, rebellion is growing at a franctic rate and the kings forces will likely not be able to maintain power till the end of the year.  Although our contacts report that there is still a great deal of widespread support for the dundimentally benevolent Constitutional monachy, the increased funding of the opposed rebel groups by the Romulans via their pirate proxies seems to indicate that further direct assistance is futile.  Even now these pirates control the space surrounding the planet and we just managed to slip out through their patrols without being boarded, thanks to the quick thinking Orion mercenary who is sharing this command with me. 

The throne realizes well this situation and has inquired about the possibility of Federation supported forces evacuating the imperial family and court as well as command elements of the imperial forces, to set up a government in exile on neighboring system Falnak III which is controled by another member of the family, and could act as a staging area for a future assault to reclaim Cadcar IV. 

I have attatched the imperial proposal along with my assessemnt of the required reasources and chance of sucess.  While the rebel warships are only able to make warp 1,  the pirate ships are well armed and of modern design in the sector so I would like to emhasize that the requsted freighers all be able to make warp 3 and preferably warp 4. If such are not available the chances of sucess dwindle considerably but there is still a signifigant chance of sucesss as the move will be unexpected.

Horace Denton, former captain USS. Warspite, (retired)

Chancellor,
  Luckily our agents haven't been discovered aiding the Romulans and all is proceeding as planned. We have managed to slip a homing beacon aboard one of their freighters hoping it will lead us to the merc base thats been the staging area for the recent raids in this sector. With a bit of luck we'll have the location of their storehouses soon but I fear the recent capture of the sabatuer aboard my ship may hamper our efforts. Attached is an intercepted communicque outlining possible Federation involvment and with my diminishing supplies and cloak instability I respectfully request immidiate reinforcements once the mercenary base has been located. Please inform Admiral kreug I suspect the merc base can be used as a resupply point for our fleet to repel the imminent fereration invasion.

Respectfully,
Capt. K'Malak