Game rules

Updates for 1^st Mar 04

How it works:
When you join up with the campaign, you can choose a preferred faction/race to play. If it is an unbalanced force, the latest to sign up will be assigned a new race to play.

Each players sends in orders to the game-master through the orders form on this site. Here the same game basics as in the LSN game are applied. All sides make their plans at the same time, and then the game-master (me) puts it all together.

Membership
The campaign will be limited to 40 active players (10 per race). Players wishing to join may still do so and will be added to the queuing section of the Teams page awaiting deployment when space and resources become available.

Please notify me on this web site if you decide to leave the campaign, and don't just go AWOL.
Any player who's email address starts bouncing will be removed from the waiting list.  If you find this happens to you by mistake, contact me to discuss it.

The Teams
Each race is represented by a 'Team', each team will consist of one 'General' and up to nine 'Players'. Each member of the team has a number of duties and responsibilities.

• General
  
  • All player duties plus...
  • Coordinate overall strategy
  • Issue Special abilities
  • Moderate the races section of the forum


• Player
  • Discuss team strategy in the forum
  • Issue movement orders to Admin
  • Give priority to BfE games
  • Report game results to Admin

Special abilities
Each race has a unique ability which can only be used once per campaign turn, permission for a player to use the special ability must be authorised by the general, using the contact form.

Below are the description of the abilities along with the phase they are used in.

• Greys: Teleportation.

  Movement

  Can move any one unit between friendly factories.

   

• Machina: Scanners.

  Combat

  Can avoid battle with any one enemy unit per turn.

   

• Marines: Drop ships.

  Resource and Production

  Can deploy one new unit in any region under Marine control.

   

• Spawn: Spawning.

  Resource and Production

  Can deploy one new unit in any region that contains another Spawn unit.

   

First phase: Unit movement

Each player can move from the region that they are in to any region that touches it's borders, to do this orders must be submitted using the page on this website by the player wishing to move.

Orders are no longer collated and submitted by the general.

When the orders are sent in by all players on all four sides or the deadline has passed, and the game-master has done the merge of the orders, each active players will receive an e-mail with 'what' orders - this may range from "You must challenge [player1] on [map].", "You have been moved to [region]." These are just examples.

• Each unit can only move 1 region at a time.
• Only 2 units can move to the same region at the same game-turn.
• A region can hold as many units as required.

If more than two players from the same race attempt to move into the same region in the same movement phase then the units to move will be decided by the order in which orders were submitted

In the event that units from opposing forces attempt to move into each others region or a neutral region at the same time and across the same border, a fight will ensue at the border, with control of both territories up for grabs.  The player who is "defending" (which determines the maps used and who challenges) will be determined randomly.

When the battle has finished the result, (including game turn, if the battle was a multiple combat) must be submitted by both players, using the Results form on this website.

If a unit dies, it is removed from the battle, and placed at the bottom of the queuing list, which can bee seen on the Teams page.

Check the Fixtures page to find out what challenge to send, and to find out who's up for a fight. All matches have a 15 day time limit.

Challenges must be issued within 5 days of receiving your turn newsletter and both sides must be deployed within a week of the newsletter. If either player misses their deadline then I must be contacted via this website or the forum. I will issue the player a warning, if she/he does not reply to the warning informing me the game has started (both units have deployed), before the deadline for the current campaign turn, then a default victory will be awarded.

Multiple Unit Combat
Multiple Unit Combat means more than 2 units in the same region, from potentially any or all of the 4 races.  Some of this will evolve as situations arise, e.g. it's possible say to have a 3v2v2v1 scenario (3 Machina, 2 Spawn 2 Marines and 1 Greys) all in the same region!!!

2v1:
Probably the simplest case, but let's illustrate with an example of 2 attackers (A1 & A2) v 1 defender (D1).

Both attackers fight, and the first one to beat the defender (measured in game turn time) gets the win, and the other battle doesn't count. I.e. the defender can't kill the second attacker if the first one kills him quicker. Obviously the same goes if there are 2 defenders and 1 attacker.  "Game Turn Time" means the final turn the game finishes determines who was "quicker", not the date the game finished.  Only the attacker who wins fastest is credited with the win.

So some examples and the possible permutations:

• A1 wins in 13 turns.  A2 wins in 15 turns.

  The attackers gain the region, A1 is credited with the win, both attackers live on.

   

• A1 loses in 13 turns.  A2 wins in 15 turns.

  The attackers gain the region, A2 is credited with the win, A1 dies.

   

• A1 loses in 20 turns.  A2 wins in 15 turns.

  The attackers gain the region, A2 is credited with the win, A1 does not die. Basically A2 managed to defeat the single defender, before he would have killed A1.  This should lead to more co-operative play amongst pairs of attackers / defenders, as one can effectively come to the aid of the other by winning first.

   

• The last example for completeness is obvious, the defender wins both fights.

  The defender keeps the region, and both attackers die.

2v2:
This is basically 2 independent  1v1 fights.  Who fights who is determined randomly.  In the event that one player from each side is killed, the remaining 2 stay on to fight again.

1v1v1:
This is where 1 unit from each of the 3 different races converge on the same region.  Each player fights the 2 other opponents. If there is no overall games winner (i.e. everyone wins 1 game), the aggregate points difference from both matches determines the overall winner, the other 2 players die.  There can be only one!

2v1v1:
There are 4 players so we can have 2 straight matches. This will effectively have to be determined in 2 rounds, unless the race with the "2" wins both.

1v1v1v1:
Again there are 4 players so we can have 2 straight matches, with the winner of each of the first matches fighting in a 'grand final'. Who fights who will be determined randomly.

Any other circumstances that develop will be dealt with through discussion with all 4 generals, as the time comes.

Third phase: Resources and Production

Certain regions contain valuable resources or factories. These allows the general to purchase units from the waiting-list of players. The value gained from these items is a follows

• The gold-sack: Provides 1 Resource point per turn.
• The factory: Provides
  • 1 Production point per turn
  • Facilities to purchase as many units as one can afford.

Unit purchase
A unit costs 2 resources and 1 production point. The units can be placed at any factory ruled by your faction. The unit to be purchased is the player at the top of the queuing list on the Teams page. The unit is then placed on a factory owned by the faction, and it must remain there the rest of the turn.

Play Faster
In an effort to speed up the game there will be 3 movement and reinforcement turns per month, irrespective of whether a battle is finished or not.

In the event that a region is in dispute (by having an active battle in place) at the start of a new turn, that region is considered neutral, produces no resources or production points, and can't be used for reinforcements. The units currently fighting can not be moved until the fight is over.

A region will be considered 'disputed' if there is an active battle in place at the start of the turn and the attacking units outnumber the total number of defending units in the region.

However the region is still open for general movement and the units moving into it don't effect the combat currently taking place (but may make new ones if opposing forces move onto it together).  When the combat finishes, if there is a hostile force on the same region, another fight ensues.

Turns are on the 1st, 11th and 21st of each month, and orders need to be in by midnight GMT on these dates.

Final phase: Deciding the winner

Each region represents 1 territory point. Some regions are harder than others to keep or claim, but they are all equal in value. The points are accumulated throughout the game.

The game-master sets the final score to decide the winner - either by most points or by total domination.

Rule changes
All rule changes are decided by the administrator, so if you want a rule changed, please petition through your general. If you'd like clarification or explanation of the rules, please use the contact form.

Rewards
A medal is awarded a player who wins his first battle. These medals are by no means as highly rated as the Belts on the official forums - but they are usable there. The medals are usable until the start of the next campaign.

For each new victory, the player can add a highlight (the yellow mark) on the medal.

The general also has the same system, but starts out with a gold medal with no highlights.

A player who already has a medal and quits the campaign will lose their medal.

Privacy policy
You must provide your email address for the purpose of the campaign and it will only be used by me, for such purposes. Should circumstances change for any reason the Administrator promises not to pass your email address on to any other person without your express permission