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Talon Tuesday Issue #14: Space Empires Crossover

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“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays.  It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

Issue #14: Space Empires Crossover

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Jim Krohn and GMT Games have another game called Space Empires: 4x. It’s a 4x (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) board war game in the vein of old PC games like Masters of Orion and its namesake – Space Empires. It’s a strategic level game, where you are mostly concerned with the development of your empire, research and area control on the board.  Combat is handled through a very slick system that still gives players interesting tactical choices – however, it is abstracted.  The ships are not on a map, moving around, they instead take turns firing.

From the outset, Talon was always meant to be its own thing. Talon was never meant to be an expansion for Space Empires. It exists in its own flavorful universe while Space Empires has only mild seasoning for flavor.  We realized shortly after Talon was announced that there was a big demand from our Space Empires fan base for there to be a Talon tie-in for Space Empires.  Fans wanted a way to play out their Space Empires tactical battles in the Talon system – letting them zoom in and control the nitty gritty details of the ships they’ve built.  We wanted to satisfy our fans, but at the same time, Space Empires needed to bend to the rules of Talon, not the other way around.

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Next War: India-Pakistan Design Notes – Air Forces, Part 2

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In this article, Doug continues the air force orders of battle discussion by focusing on the air forces for the secondary or intervention nations and discusses the why of some of the decisions which were made. This is part two of a two part series. – Mitchell Land

The Air Forces of NWIP, Part 2

In Part 1 of “The Air Forces of NWIP” we covered the two main protagonists, the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). Here we cover the outside nations that we assume may intervene in the air war: the PRC People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), the United States Air Force (USAF), the Russian Air Force, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the French Air Force.

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Talon Tuesday Issue #13: Empire War

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“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays.  It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

Issue #13: Empire War

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I loved to play tactical space combat games as a teenager.  One off scenarios were fun, but I almost always ended up designing a campaign game which would allow me to string scenarios together.  So, when I was designing my own game, some kind of campaign game was definitely going to happen.  It works even better with Talon because the individual battles play so quickly.  It is possible to get multiple games in during a session, especially if you are conscious of trying to preserve your flee.  With that mindset you will more often than not avoid fighting to the (bitter) end.  When to jump to FTL to save your ships becomes a very important decision that also tends to make games go even quicker.

Actually, the scenarios we provide are interesting enough that there is plenty to keep you busy without the Empire War – invading planets, base assaults, convoy protection, lots of interesting terrain – but since some of these elements have found a home in the Empire War, it also makes the Empire War even more interesting.

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Sharpening the Bayonet: Silver Bayonet 25th Anniversary Ed. Update

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In Gene’s last article, he said:

“We’re now using Charlie’s most recent map version to create a Vassal Module so we can test the scenarios on the new map. We’ll tell you more about that process, as well as about a couple of new scenarios we’re adding, in our next InsideGMT post about the project.”

The most recent article discussed the scenarios, so now, not only am I going to give you an update on the status of the game, but I’ll also describe the changes to the game which we’re making to enhance gameplay, i.e., sharpening the bayonet.

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Talon Tuesday Issue #12: The Rulebook

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“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays.  It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

Issue #12: The Rulebook

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This isn’t my first board game project but it is my first time as a developer. Composing a rulebook is a real challenge. They serve two diametrically opposed purposes: 1) Quickly introduce you to the game and 2) Act as a reference when rules questions occur. The challenge is to get players into your game without overloading them with rules they may not need: rules for things that may occur at the fringe of gameplay.  Working on a rulebook can be tough. It’s this (figuratively) huge, living document. A slight change to one rule can ripple out and lead to changes in other rules. You really need to understand your game in order to express it to a total newbie. Fortunately, I earned a ton of valuable experience working under Oliver Upshaw on Space Empires: Close Encounters.  He was definitely a big positive influence on me as a developer.

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Talon Tuesday Issue #11: Needing Bigger Guns

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“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays.  It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

Issue #11: Needing Bigger Guns

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There are three weapon types for each race in Talon. This symmetry of design seemed appropriate when we first started, but as we began defining fleet doctrine and ship design for each of the races, the three weapons became less and less symmetrical. In the beginning, we started with Phasers and Torpedoes on the Terran ships, and Disruptors and Missiles on the Talon ships. This idea, that each ship had a beam weapon and a projectile weapon, was a typical trope of most space combat games, but we felt that by ensuring the weapons felt different enough we could create something dynamic there. The third weapon for each race was a powerful cannon that did devastating damage to a target, but with restricted range brackets and powerful recharge times.

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Silver Bayonet: The Game as History

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SilverBayonet25-ban1(RBM)Here’s a look at the scenarios in Silver Bayonet, and some of the history behind them.

There are two kinds of scenarios in the game: Standard and Campaign. The Standard scenarios are smaller and, for the most part, cover some portion of the action which occurred during the campaign. The Campaign scenarios are larger and more involved, although they are also divided into two categories. There are three smaller campaign scenarios, each of which deals with a particular brigade’s operations during the campaign, and there are two Grand Campaign scenarios covering the entire campaign.

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Talon Tuesday Issue #10: Empire War Report

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“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays.  It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

Issue #10

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Empire War is a strategic game mode in Talon that does not use the written scenarios. It’s going to get its own Talon Tues in the coming weeks but I’ve got this really interesting play test report from one of our MVP playtesters, Michael that I really want to share first. I’ll explain the game mode briefly here.

In Empire War, each player has a fleet of ships that he assigns to different sectors on a strategic map. The game has 4 sectors – Antares, Badlands, Maelstrom, and Orion and each sector is broken into a number of “Conflict Zones” where battles take place. Ship buying and assignment take place over strategic turns, and then battles are fought in each sector.  As one faction wins, the “front line” in that sector advances towards the enemy home world. The game ends when a player loses a battle over his home world.  It’s a big game and it offers players a way to run a “campaign” over multiple sessions in addition to playing the written scenarios.

As you gain territory you increase your income and decrease your opponent’s. Furthermore, there are planets in some sectors, typically guarded by bases that are worth additional income and are easier to defend since they must be invaded by the enemy to be captured.

The most important thing in an Empire War is keeping your ships alive and destroying those of the enemy. If one side gets a large fleet size advantage, they are going to be able to very easily take territory. Knowing when to retreat is an important key to victory. Empire War is honestly my favorite way to play the game in the long term.

There are ship assignment minimums that mandate a certain quantity of ships be assigned to each sector. This prevents a side from just blitzing through one sector with his entire fleet strength. Tracking ship assignments is pretty easy on the tracking sheet that comes with the game, but to make things easier, I’m working on a player aid app that will hopefully be ready shortly after the game’s release.

Michael was one of our most prolific play testers. Not only did he put in the time, he consistently wrote very detailed and insightful reports. He also tested every written scenario and wrote some of his own. He was a developer’s dream as far as play testers go. One of his last play tests was an Empire War game that he soloed. In the second strategic round of play, one of the largest battles in Talon history took place over the planet Orion.  Here’s his report:

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Illustrated Example of Play #1: Anti-Tank Ditch Crossings and More

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Historical Situation, Yom Kippur War – At 2 PM on October 6th 1973, the Syrian army and air force launched a massive assault on the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. Three Syrian infantry divisions, bolstered with an armored brigade, assembled close to the border. In the rear, two powerful armored divisions were ready to exploit any breakthrough made during the initial assault. Their goal was to retake the Golan which they lost to the Israelis during the Six Day War of 1967. The attack, which was coordinated with the Egyptian assault across the Suez Canal in the Sinai Peninsula, took the Israelis by surprise and they had only two armored brigades defending the Golan border. Along the length of the Purple Line (1967 Ceasefire Line) the Israeli army dug an anti-tank ditch and built seventeen strongpoints to serve as a major obstacle to a possible Syrian attack.

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Next War: India-Pakistan Design Notes – Air Forces, Part 1

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In this article, Doug continues the orders of battle discussion by focusing on the air forces for the primary opponents and discusses the why of some of the decisions which were made. This is part one which details the air forces of the two protagonists, India and Pakistan. – Mitchell Land

The Air Forces of NWIP, Part 1

The advanced air system in the Next War series consists of individual aircraft units of approximately squadron size. So, generating a baseline order of battle simply requires knowing approximately how many of a given type of aircraft a country has in its inventory. However, most militaries only consider about 70% of any given type of aircraft in their inventory as “combat coded” and fully capable for combat, with the other 30% being used for training, backup inventory, or testing activities.