quote:
Originally posted by God Emperor:
I must agree with the earlier comment that the game is a strategic level game with a tactical option to test your ships, similar to MOO2.
I quite disagree. Although less obvious in SE4 than in previous iterations of the series, the SE series of games is derived from the board game Starfire. Starfire began as a tactical game, designed by one of the guys behind Star Fleet Battles as a game in which battles between relatively large fleets could be resolved in a reasonable amount of time. Not until the third expansion module to the first edition rules did Starfire even include a strategic system (beyond a few suggestions about how the cost of retrofitting ships might be handled in a campaign). That initial strategic system was very simple, and also rather similar to the SE games. It was essentially intended primarily to provide a strategic context for the tactical battles. The next edition of the rules introduced an entirely new and much more complex stategic system, including multiple levels of play: movement between systems, double-blind movement within enormous & realistically scaled system maps, and "interception" level to cover what happens between when opposing fleets enter the same system map hex and when they are close enough for the tactical map, and the tactical level. The game is now in its 4th rules edition. The trend recently, after peaking in complexity with the first iteration of strategic rules for the 3rd edition, has been to reduce the strategic complexity to get rid of record keeping and refocus the game on fighting tactical battles (with enough strategic stuff to provide context). Even so, SE4 is still a lot simpler than the latest strategic system in Starfire.
MOO, on the other hand, is derived from Stellar Conquest. Stellar Conquest hardly even had a tactical system - if two fleets entered the same hex on the strategic map the players rolled dice for each ship to see if it killed its target until one side was eliminated or withdrew. The original MOO copied everything but combat almost exactly from Stellar Conquest, except it had more planet types & more techs. So, the tactical system in MOO is clearly an add-on to a strategic game.
Re: Simple, Reasonable Disengage/Retreat Rule
Threaded Mode