“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

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.

The Map –  As you can see, there are four Sectors along which the war takes place.  The current Conflict Zone in each Sector is marked with a counter.  This counter represents the front line for that sector and the front line shifts each Strategic Turn left or right down the lane until a Home World is reached. Each ship in your fleet is assigned to one of the Sectors or to your Fleet Reserve.  Being assigned to the Fleet Reserve keeps that ship out of combat that strategic turn, fully repairs that ship, and allows it to be assigned anywhere the next strategic turn.  Bases cannot be moved and must remain in the Conflict Zone that they were initially assigned to.  Note that some of the Conflict Zones contain terrain, and others have dice indicating they will have random terrain each time a battle is fought there.

After all the ships are assigned, both players reveal their dispositions and battles are fought in each Conflict Zone.  A win means that the Conflict Zone will usually advance to the next one in line and a loss means usually means you lose territory.  I say “usually” because Conflict Zones with Key Planets can only be advanced in your favor if you win the battle AND control the Key Planet.

As you advance the Conflict Zone, the amount of your income each turn goes up slowly, although the income of the player that is losing territory does not generally go down.  This can be thought of as an economic model where your most important resources are closer to your home planet.  Practically speaking, we decided to go in that direction because we wanted to reward the player that took territory, even if it was only a small reward, but we didn’t want the game to snow ball too quickly by harshly punishing the one losing ground.

Empire War Ship List – This sheet facilitates keeping track of your fleet.  Each Strategic Turn, both players will fill out the locations of their ships secretly and simultaneously.  Each ship is given a Logistics Point (LP) value, depending on its class.  All of the LPs of your fleet that are not in Fleet Reserve are added together.  This represents the total of your Active Fleet.  In addition to location restrictions, a certain percentage of your LPs must be assigned to each Sector.  This represents the responsibilities of maintaining a large empire as well as the logistics difficulties that come with it.  Again, practically speaking, this makes for more interesting decisions during ship assignment and more interesting combats to be played out.  LPs were created for this purpose instead of using ship points because this makes it much, much easier to do calculations and assign ships.  The LP of each class of ship and the minimum LP that must be assigned to each sector are printed right on the map for convenience. Our Developer, Bob, is working on a digital player aid app to make ship assignment even more fluid.

Buying Ships – Each turn both players get to spend the income collected by their empire on new ships.  You probably guessed that, but there are some restrictions.  First, a player must always purchase ships to try to maintain at least one of every class of ship in his fleet.  Second, a player cannot have more than five times as many of one ship class as he does of another.  This means that, before you can have more than 5 of one type of ship in your fleet, you have to have at least 2 of all the other types in your fleet.  Thematically, this simply represents limitations of ship yards in producing classes of ships as well as the needs of the different ship classes for other things besides combat.  Practically, it makes for much more interesting battles because of the variety of ships available.  Every battle won’t always be that of a player’s favorite ship and that is a good thing.

Home Sector – Victory in an Empire War is achieved by winning a battle in your opponents Home Sector.  However, that is not always as easy as it sounds.  Once you reach their Home Sector, things become more difficult because the minimum amount of LP that must be assigned to each Sector is decreased for the player that is backed up.   That allows them to assign a greater percentage of their ships to their Home Sector.  Of course they don’t have to, it could be a bluff.  You have to think if they are the sort of man to put the poison in their own goblet or that of their enemy…

The Empire War is a fun little way to play a campaign game.  If you like Talon, you will love having an Empire War going!  One critical piece of advice – you must keep a fleet in being.  If you take territory, but start losing too many ships, things can fall apart quickly.

Previous Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #12: The Rulebook

Next Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #14: Space Empires Crossover

Author: Jim Krohn