Setting up and Managing the Stellar Conquest Full Thrust Campaign
Back up to the Full Thrust Stellar Conquest page As a group of us were getting interested in Full Thrust, I decided that a campaign would be a fun way to keep people's enthusiasm up, as well as getting some battles fought. A number of campaign settings and rules have been posted on the GZG-L list and various other websites over the years, but the simplest system I could find appeared to be that of the old Avalon Hill boardgame, Stellar Conquest, a near mint copy of which I happen to own. I simplified the rules somewhat, and added Captain and Admiral ratings from a post to the GZG-L list by Sean Schoonmaker, plus some ideas from a set of campaign rules by Roger Burton West, and the result is the rules we played this campaign under (which can be found here on Chris' website as I haven't got round to coding them, myself).
Setting Up the Game
So, my first task was to pre-generate all the primary worlds from the card deck. I recorded all this information as I went in a simple Excel spread sheet. Another reason for doing all this pre-generation early was that as I was also playing in the game, by the time the game commenced I could no longer remember details of any of the 55 systems I had generated! The initial set-up called for four strategic players so I fielded the Eurasian Solar Union, Chris Harrod opted for the Neu Swabian League, Antony Spalding, after initially favouring the New Anglian Confederation, decided on giving the United Nations Space Command a run (under the catchy title of 'the Oceanic Colonies'), and Paul MacQuibban became very keen on the Imperial Japanese Space Fleet. Each player began with a 2000 Full Thrust point fleet, four Scout Troops (of 9 Scout Ships each) and 35 Colony transports, plus 25 Industrial points to spend as they saw fit. Basic movement for fleets and scouts was two hexes per turn. By a complicated method involving the average price of Scout ships, I had worked out that one Stellar Conquest Industrial point was worth 63 Full Thrust points. The ESU and IJSF opted for more ships at start-up and the ESU, IJSF and NSL purchased the technological development “3 Hex movement”. The Oceanic Colonies bought Level 1 Industrial Tech (allowing the building of Factory complexes on colony worlds which would, in turn, increase the number of Industrial Points each colony would produce). From the beginning I had decided that there would be a secret fifth power involved and this would be my 2005 Christmas present, the Kra'Vak. At almost the centre of the campaign map is the Draconis system, and this seemed the perfect place for them. So, I plonked all their colonists on Draconis V (which happened to be a Terran type world) and spent all their Industrial Points on ships (some 3500 points all up). Chris had mentioned the Berserkers as a possible fleet type for the campaign, and how they would move randomly in a battle. I shamelessly stole this idea for the Kra'Vak, except it was to be their strategic moves that were random. To keep things simple, as I was both player and referee, I pre-plotted the ESU moves out to about Turn 7, working out a strategic plan of expansion. Then, as the other players' orders came in, I resolved all movement and scouting.
Managing the Game In the example below, we see a report for the Eurasian Solar Union for Turn 16 - a production turn.
The Production phase report follows with increases to populations on planets (only for Terran or Sub-Terran worlds), number of Industrial Points produced, and what they have been spent on. In this case the technology development "4 Hex Movement", and a partial purchase of Controlled Environment Technology which allows settlement of barren Worlds - and ships. As Production Phases happen only every four turns, most reports are a lot briefer than this one. Though the Oceanic Colonies, after splitting up their Scout Troops, generate about twelve separate Scout reports.
To which we say, "Thank Goodness for computers!"
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