Space Empires RISK® (Pictures added)

[TurinTurambar]

BETA, PHASE-1: TESTING (The embedded hyperlinks are pictures)

So, on Sunday morning we started making a test board. We went over to the drugstore across the street and bought a piece of poster-board, and spent the better part of 3 hours meticulously drawing a 1-1/2” hex GRID on it. We used different colored RISK pieces to lay out the locations of planets, asteroids, suns, warp points and empty spaces. Then we removed them one at a time and DREW in the objects with colored pencils we stole from Mike’s 2-year old little girl. She got mad. Mike drew in the WARP LINES and when it was finished we had THIS .

We dealt out the cards for a 3-person GAME . At this juncture we decided to forego the Homeworld factor and the racial traits and just test the mechanics of the game and see how it played out on the test board.
(NOTE: The finished board is going to be 24x36 black-lacquered 3/16 masonite and be hand-painted with designs taken directly from SEIV.)

Right away there were some unusual results. Empty space was one of them. In RISK, you have to take a territory some time in your turn to be able to draw a new card. This is difficult when there are empty spaces and warp points between planets. You have to plan ahead quite a bit. Also, space combat is brutal for the defender. Defending with only 1 or 2 dice against 3 attack dice, and there’s no “tie goes to the defender” rule you get hammered fast. So if you’re going to camp on a wormhole, you’d better have a fleet twice the size of the one coming at you. It’s better to sit on the space next to the wormhole, and when he comes through you pounce on him when his move is used up. Defending Bizzet IV against an attack from space or a neighboring planet seemed no different than defending North Africa from Western Europe.

So yeah, “twice the size of the one coming at you” brings up the biggest difference: You can see stuff coming. Since movement is only one or two, you have time to react to stuff unlike in regular RISK. If you ever watched somebody turn in for 30+ armies and just come sweeping through you, while all you could do was watch, then you know what I’m talking about. There’s time to react in this game, which is a huge difference.

Anyway, as you can tell, I’m rather excitedly long-winded about this right now. I’ll stop here until we have some finalized designs and stuff to show.

[TurinTurambar]

Couldn't resist....

[Black_Knyght]

Very Clever !!!

[Atrocities]

Clever indeed.

[atari_eric]

TurinTurambar said: We went over to the drugstore across the street and bought a piece of poster-board, and spent the better part of 3 hours meticulously drawing a 1-1/2” hex GRID on it.

Wow - poor guy, he should have merely downloaded them...

Also, an idea:

Risk 2210 has "commanders" which allow a player to roll a d8 instead of one d6 for combat... I was thinking about different ship classes and came up with this:

Frigate: d6
Cruiser: d8
Dreadnaught: d12

...and maybe even...

Fighter squadron: 2d6

... which may be tricky, but would help against dreadnaughts, and really do well against smaller ships. To counter their average 7 roll, fighters would need...

Carrier: d4

in the sector, without which the fighters are destroyed. Of course, if there are larger ships, they must be destroyed first (I'm assuming dice will be chosen highest to lowest)

You could even have...

Space Station: d20

You can only support one station per "continent", and you only gain them after you conquer an entire "continent", and they must be placed inside their "continent" and stay in the sector they are placed. They are not *lost* if you lose full control of a continent, only if they are destroyed in combat, which would be with all 3 ships (all three dice) at once (it's a big station!)

Well, I thought it was an idea to put out there to review and refine...

[TurinTurambar]

Hmmm... not familiar with Risk® 2210. I'll google it and see if I can find a rule-set. Sounds like fun stuff to incorporate!

Thx,
T