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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

ABOUT STAR FLEET ADMIRALS

In case you've been wondering, the game Star Fleet Admirals is an interstellar wargame simulating the 2nd Rimward Frontier War between the Federation and the Imperium as well as minor allies of both in the region.
The game map represents about 10,000 light years of space from side to side and 15,000 light years from top to bottom with all the major star systems, planets, nebula and other assorted stellar terrain and objects such as the Dyson Sphere, the Crab nebula and two connected wormholes, etc.
The region is the frontier where the Imperium and Federation meet and have fought a couple of smaller wars in the past. alongside these two huge empires lie smaller realms belonging to minor races who also participate in the war. The region is known for massive gaseous nebula, spacial rifts and an enormous white hole as well as other difficult "terrain", making any combat operations more difficult.
The war has a basic back-story fully written and the complete war game scenario will usually follow the path of the "historical" war, however, players will draw cards that will initiate events such as bringing in allies, political instability affecting supply, troop recruitment, insurgents and uprisings, other fronts opening up and drawing away men, ships and equipment, technological developments, etc.
This is not intended to be a light abstract strategy game but a true wargame. However, in an effort to open the game up to non-wargamers who might be interested in playing,while the game is "deep" and rich in detail the general rules will be easily accessible and relatively non-complex. The mechanics and concepts will be streamlined so a s not to add much clutter. Players can even trim down the rules by eliminating all troops and planetary invasions and stick to a ship-only game if they so choose. So consider it a huge low-to-medium complexity game.
Both players will have to make difficult choices involving attack and defense while maintaining supply lines to colonies, troops and fleets. Admirals are to be assigned to create fleets, assault bases coordinate large multi-turn planetary invasions, new technologies will aid in gaining an edge and the Imperium (the attacker) has a limited time to exploit the federation's weakness and unpreparedness before the Federation can bring on more resources to drive the Imperium back to their own space. At some point the Federation player will have the option of invading the Imperium and taking the entire region for itself. Such a political decision, and the potential harmful ramifications with allies and domestic support for the war are also represented in the game.
While many wargames are not necessarily "balanced", we are trying to balance this game while giving either player a unique experience when playing an opposing side. The ebb and flow of a major campaign should give both players a feeling of a being in a dynamic and unpredictable situation that only some luck and good strategy can lead to victory.
The game can last from a single hour (for a tutorial scenario) to a multi-session war (for the full game). with a series of scenarios depicting segments of time of the war, players have a wide variety of experiences to select from.

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