Metrowar - Discussion

Thanks. My two big fears involve clutter and an inadvertent surplus of resources when there ought to be a deficit. Fearing a lack of interest goes without saying.

As it is, there are 4 hazard types which can be assigned to both stations and tunnels:

Mutants - Self-evident. When at a station, it means Mutants as military units have taken it over. If those units are killed then the station can just be taken. But when in a tunnel, it means there's a "leak" somewhere and must be plugged. Trade cannot go through that tunnel, and the only way to seal the leak is to own and have garrisons on both sides. Mutants can randomly spawn at stations or as tunnel "leaks" with increasing frequency based on the number of stations/population of the players. But at the beginning of the game, they might already exist in unexplored areas.

Radiation - Also fairly self-evident. When at a station, the station is flat out uninhabitable and is too risky to send military units into it. Everyone except Stalkers is barred from entry. The same goes for tunnels. Right now it's a toss-up as to whether or not I will allow players to "reclaim" these areas, but it will likely involve lots and lots of research points. Naturally you can bypass them by surface travel, which always has its risks.

Plague - This is a mechanic to prevent people from "banking Pop." The higher the Pop in a station (max is 20) the more likely they are to catch and spread disease. When a station is hit with Plague, they will no longer be able to grow the population and will lose 50% each turn until they hit 1 and are flat out eliminated. Pops "migrating" from this station to another, i.e. colonization will spread the Plague there, and anywhere along their route. The only way to stop Plague is with a lot of research points. So either you dump a bunch of points in there the moment it appears, or you cordon them off and, frankly, wait for them to die. Military units are not effected, since there is a military plague (virus bomb) designed for that. I was also considering having Plague appear in tunnels during the initial exploration of the map with a similar research point requirement.

Paranormal - This is one I'm not quite sure about, because all of the mechanics I can come up with it have already been done somewhere. I was thinking that it's a coin-toss area, with a 50/50 chance that everything you send into it goes crazy and gets killed. But honestly this is much more of an RP kind of thing, and I'm leery about dealing with it. It's not like there's an army of Khans walking around ready to dispel this stuff.

 

Also been ironing out the combat system. It's a very simple system, relies on RNG as just about most games without tactical direction do. Also easy to churn through, without being utterly unfair.

Every type of unit has a Strength value. The two opposing sides have opposing strength, and these become a simple ratio.

Ex. Militia has a strength of 1. Versus each other, it's 1:1. Two versus one would be 2:1.

This ratio is turned into a percentage, with the attacker being 0-X% and the defender being X-100%. Wherever the RNG lands is who "wins."

But "winning" isn't everything. A second RNG is run that judges whether the victory is small, significant or decisive. This too is based on their strength ratio, meaning that an overwhelming superiority in force is more likely to result in a decisive victory.

Since units can have dramatically different strength, and since it's never possible to evenly split it along simple lines without including individual damage counts (cumbersome in the extreme), the level of victory determines the percentage chance that the unit will be killed. Both sides have increasing chances of losses, though the loser has a far greater chance. This means that both sides will likely lose 'something,' but the winner will likely come out on top, especially if the victory is decisive and results in 100% enemy casualties. A small victory may very well backfire and get your best unit in a stack killed. All depends.

Being a wargamer, I 'wish' I could make this more complex, but it just isn't possible: I can't afford to go to that level of detail and keep up with the rest of it, let alone expect players to provide all of the excess information needed. The scale isn't small enough. In the end, the game is a platform for roleplaying stories, not the other way around with tons of detail to explain a bigger picture.



Unit Strength lowdowns are as follows. Note that armored cars and trains require a few research points and cost fuel to operate (move/attack/defend) so their huge strength advantage comes at an obvious price. Stalkers have very low strength because they are meant to recon, not get into pitched fights. They can avoid combat with everything except other Stalkers, turning them into a kind of behind-the-lines special forces unit in the late-game after most of the Metro is explored and nobody feels the need to send them to the surface for supplies.


Militia - 1 STR
Regulars -3 STR
Armd. Cars - 6 STR
Armd. Trains - 18 STR
Stalkers - 1 STR
Mutants - 2 STR


To put the resource and production costs into perspective:

Militia - 1 Gun, 1 Production
Regulars - 1 Weapon, 3 Production
Armd. Car - 2 Weapons, 1 Fuel, 1 Filter, 1 Research, 6 Production (costs 1 Fuel/turn when active)
Armd. Train - 6 Weapons, 2 Fuel, 2 Filter, 5 Research, 12 Production (costs 2 Fuel/turn when active)
Stalkers - 1 Gun, 1 Filter, 2 Production (Costs 1 Filter/turn whenever outside of friendly territory, including in the Metro since they pop in and out of dangerous areas to hide)
Mutants - N/A


And to further justify mechanized units:

- All units except mechanized can only move one place (one station over) per turn. They can, however, go over the surface at the cost of 1 Filter.
- Mechanized units can move 2 places, although they must stay in the Metro. Armored Trains can carry 1 non-mechanized unit with it, adding mobility to other units.


Thus you will see that, although at high cost, mechanized units have distinct advantages and disadvantages. Desperate factions may blow tunnels, but this will isolate them from trade and make offensives more difficult since they can only be performed by foot infantry across the dangerous surface. Armored trains, while hideously expensive, can also move infantry units at the same high speed. And Stalkers become positively deadly skirmishers if left to their own devices, although their cost in Filters prevents people from spamming them vs. Militia.



The last military subject, then, is "The Bomb." Ergo, "How I learned to stop worrying and love the Metro."

Demolition Bombs are meant to deliberately cave in tunnels and stations. Whether it's as a last-ditch defense against a fearsome enemy, or as a deliberate act of subterfuge by trying to blow connections between allies, Demo Bombs are a useful, albeit expensive and unwieldy weapon. Any unit can pick up a bomb from the station it is built at and then "carry" it to the destination. They can blow the station they currently occupy (and then retreat in a specified direction) or blow any adjacent tunnel. However, blowing tunnels counts as an Engagement, and so military forces must fight and win a battle in order to successfully place and detonate the weapon.

Virus Bombs are the other side of the coin: Conquer the Metro "bloodlessly" in the best traditions of a certain Communist. These work in the same manner, although with stations only, and will instantly kill everything in the station except for units that could escape in time. That means mechanized units and whatever infantry can be carried on trains, although they must have a clear route of escape. Virus Bombs are therefore a quick way of purging the enemy, kind of the new WMD inside the Metro. The catch is that the station you purge is stuck under Plague conditions until it can be recovered with Research points.

The natural delivery method of these bombs, then, is the Stalker Team, which can conceivably sneak past the front line and detonate the weapons. As a result, Counter-Stalker teams become a necessary screen, a small layer of defense to keep the enemy from performing such actions. The same goes for Demo Bombs in far flung corners of the Metro, meaning that you may have to "shadow" Stalkers from other factions to prevent them from doing anything... suspicious. Bombs are clearly visible on the map, however, so it has more to do with your deployment than the shock of it.

 

It's almost complete. Once I round off the play-by-post template, all that remains is a tutorial (of which most of this topic already is) and decisions on how to set up the beginning.

Which leads to the next issue, which requires your input:

- How many of you want to play?

- How many are willing to pitch in at least once per day?

- If not once per day, how often per week, bearing in mind that it may already be slow paced?

- If there are few players, would you want to cut down the size of the map, or leave it wide open for potential new players?

- What restrictions would you want to see on starting position, considering that everyone will start with one station with the same resources (ergo, 'where', inside or outside the Ring line, at hubs or single stations, etc.)?

and lastly

- Any other suggestions so far?

 

That's unfortunate. But, considering the kind of game this really is, I don't think it would have mattered if I started the very day I joined. This game can drag out for a very long time, especially if people roleplay and refuse to outright annihilate each other. A few extra days would not have made much a difference since you would have dropped out mid-game regardless.

That said, again, with a big enough map, and enough mutant spawns and wars, there may very well be room left over for you even after the 14th. All depends.

But having enough players to give it life is really what makes or breaks it. The more people, the more interactions, the more balancing, the more politics, backstabbing, cooperating, trading, etc.

 

I'm a loner, so sadly that's no dice. Comes with the territory of living in a subway for the past 20 years.

 

Somehow I manage to find time during slow hours at work to do this stuff. Since I'm too lazy to port it over, I'll dump these notes here. Most of this is GM only info that players will only need to be aware of, not calculate themselves:

 

... so does that mean you're joining in?

 

Righto, so nailing things down:

We'll start with a 2-day turn for a week or so to get people up to speed. Gives time to work out kinks and set up a routine. After that a one or two day no-post period may come into effect, maybe in the dead middle of the week to free up weekends.

I'll also knock the map down to just the Ring and everything within it. It's the only logical solution. Expanding it later will be possible, but if all of the end hubs are owned it will be difficult to justify further expansion. All depends.

In the meantime.. I suggest coming up with ideas for your factions. You can pick existing ones if you really want, but this is open-ended: Have at it.

The setting is very simple: This is something like 2020. Central Metro Command has collapsed and major factions are just beginning to form. All stations you run into that are not totally jacked up will be Neutral stations with their own armies and populations. You are just one of them, but with a mission.

 

Update: Here's the map shaved down.



Even with this reduction, there are still 52 stations to play with. Also, I decided to cut the Lyublinskaya Line (light green) because its extension north does not connect with the Ring and might as well be considered an outgrowth like the others. All of these stations will remain on the map but blacked out, to be opened whenever Artyom gets around to them in his journal.

No one has mentioned any restrictions on start positions, so that means anything is fair game. Note that it's first-come-first-served when the game really gets running, and there's nothing to prevent people from starting right next to each other in the middle of Polis.

 

This is shaping up to be some really poor timing. If I held off on this for.. what? Three Weeks? Would people even still remember it existed?