This was my first campaign and overall I thought it was pretty good. The only disappointing thing was the lack of any real CA threat. I was really hoping that this existential threat would throw a wrench into everyone's plans. Sadly, this was not to be. In an effort to counter this in the next campaign, I would like to mention something some friends brought up that they had seen proposed. Give the CA 15 points per win, but make them have to have more points than all human factions to capture an area. Thoughts on this?
interesting idea and from a lore perspective makes very good sense :) it's tricky just throwing a points bonus into the mix though and perhaps a little 'brute force' :) it would be interesting to explore options though on how individual factions can have a threat modeled so that players get the feel of it. perhaps certain factions reaching certain goals unlock a 'points flood' they can assign to a theatre for example. Great topic and very worth exploring :) :)
It really depends on whether you want CA to be that x factor/wrench or the Big Bad. What you could do, actually, is give CA a zone like the JSA exclusive Kurage zone, but then either throw all the other factions' wins into an allied pool or give every non-CA faction a significant points boost.
The JSA/Kurage zone was sensible. Compare that to Wotan, where the way Raxora was handled felt really bizarre. For example, you'd think Haqq vs. PanO Raxora faceoff would mean that any survivors are easy pickings for the local CA forces, not that it's helpful to the humans. I'd also suggest the special campaign mission for a zone should be worth extra points. It would stop a lot of shenanigans about people choosing their location after the fight. It also cuts down on the impact of one dude posting tons of random batreps in a single zone. Maybe a baseline of something like: Win vs. scenario owner faction: 4 points / Win vs. random faction: 2 points Win on matching scenario: +2 points
I liked how they handled the Combined's incursion on Flamia in the campaign a 2 years ago. Combinded landed with a number of points in the larger factions newly revealed territories and gave them a head start to focus on one of those areas, and created a sense of urgency in repelling them.
The sense of urgency is good, however as all the humans stop what they're doing and flood the locations CA has no chance of actually holding them. The Wotan method of one location to hold with a decent start was better, however it still couldn't be held for the amount of time the phase went on for (shorter phases is a much better idea). I stand by the suggestion I made to bostria last year if if you want CA to be the big bad threat, double their points per game and give them a victory criteria of holding multiple zones. With the reduced player base this year we didn't even manage to get into the top three 'most points scored per day' once in phase 2 which every other faction managed at least twice (or 11 times in 14 if you were Ariadna).
Something to be said about the home team advantage Graviton XD. But I really like the massive points boost but they have to beat the combined score of all other factions in the area. I think they wouldn't have alot of trouble taking any one zone. (As long as it's not already a major war zone.) And they may even be able to put the screws into two zones. Probably much like phase 2 in kurage they will be much scarier in the second half when the player base slims and they still have that big point boost.
I personally think a ticking point increase on certain areas where over time, Combined army just gains static points every tick on top of their normal games would make them much more frightening. Have the ticking gain begin when X points are reached on a location. Very insidious.
Combined Army could be a points deductor? Their games don't directly score points but the points are instead taken off every other faction.
I like this idea as an overall point, it doesn't matter who is doing it. As for Combined... I really don't know. Combined is my favorite faction but they need a push if they're supposed to be some big bad alien menace. Even if it's something ridiculous like 'Combined starts with 100 points in every location' I still think they'd get beaten off in the end. They just don't feel threatening. But I think the problem isn't how the points are handled, but the fact there aren't that many Combined Army players, and from that small pool a lot played different factions in this campaign. Combined needs more players first.
The points advantage is a good enough method. Look how Aleph and Tohaa managed to fight Nomads+Haqq and Ariadna respectively. A higher score per victory and a base with conditions similar to the Kurage JSA exclusive zone should be enough to get players invested.
No, that's a terrible idea. The "Kurage exclusive zone" might as well not have existed, the points structure was set up so that it could not be taken from JSA/NA2, I guess to have a justification for why all the efforts of Yu Jing and Ariadna couldn't dislodge the glorious, honorable, perfect JSA, who slaughtered the pathetic enemies of Dai-Nippon in droves and took their resources for the glory of the empire.
You got a point there. The condition of JSA being the opponent to actually score was indeed brutal (especially in places where we had no JSA players to participate). I got the biase of having 2 CA players in my group, but forgot that we couldn't do anything concerning the JSA exclusive zone due to not having a JSA player.
It wouldn't even matter if everyone had a JSA opponent to play against. Let's say that 1 out of every 11 players was part of the JSA faction, and the other 10 were each of 1 other faction. For every 10 games played, there will be 1 of each other faction against JSA. JSA will win about half of them, granting them 5 wins, and each other faction will win about half of theirs, granting each 1/2 a win on average. So JSA will have 10 times the score of any other faction there. One of two things are true - they didn't do the math enough to understand their own scoring system, or they intended for JSA to have an unassailable location.
Then what was the function of it in the campaign? Free points for JSA? To show everyone how awesome JSA was and how bad every other faction was? It's a botch either way.
I frankly think that if CA Playerbase is too small to matter in these campaign, they simply shouldn't be the "Big Bad" of the Campaign. This is not 40k or some other "Death is coming for you" setting yet anyways, yes we know CA is coming and might one day crush us all (maybe during the dreaded 2019 event mentioned), but for now they aren't that big of a player in the Human Sphere yet. If CA is small in playerbase like Tohaa and Aleph (though that might change) at the moment....let them be that way! Make something else the problem of the campaign, or make everyone equally "the problem" like the setting would suggest, after all this is covert operations , which is a good thing, because CA were to launch a full scale assault with what little forces they have in the Human Sphere at the moment, they'd simply lose I reckon. Remember, their full invasion hasn't begun yet. If you REALLY want a Big Bad Wolf, make it PanO in next campaign, or Ariadna? Or a combination of them or whatever. Let PanO be the unreasonable aggressor on Svalarheima, let it be them that do atrocious murder and whatnot, and then give them a bigger points boost and set them up for some real tough fights, they have the manpower to do so unlike CA. If there's one thing that Kurage Crisis did right it was not focusing on CA being the threat in my eyes. (Sorry if I rambled a little.)
The function of the 1 base being unobtainable? Simple. Fluff. It has been mentioned in JSA Fluff that in order for JSA to survive into the future, they need a space fleet. And for that they need resources. Kurage Station provides this resources. So by guaranteeing that JSA would keep at least a little bit of control of the station, they could guarantee that it would continue to have a fluff reason to exist, and maybe even grow stronger.
Like @Yasashii Fuyu said, Fluff is the main reason. Not to paint JSA as superior necesarily, but as a safety to avoid the de-railing of the established story. Then again, the question remains, why even risk it if the story required it to survive?