Talk:Command Post

Old forum comments

(The Ludocity website previously had integrated forums, but they fell into spam-covered decline and were shut down in 2015. The comments in this section have been automatically converted from that forum.)

I just finished typing up the rules for a game idea I've had. However, it's more of an idea than game, as it's completely untested. It's loosely based on 'Star Wars Battlefront', a pretty fun game that I play far too much. In SWB, as I will hereafter refer to it as, the objective is to eliminate your opponents army. You can do this by shooting them/blowing them up, or by capturing their spawn points, or Command Posts. If you hold all these for 20 seconds you won, as the enemy cannot bring in more reinforcements. Owning more Command Posts also means the enemy cannot bring in men all over the place, and allows you to do just that. Something got me thinking about the Command Post bit, and I came up with this game. The fighting part has been removed, stripping it to the Command Post bit. The game still has problems, i.e. teams guarding their Command Posts, but everything can be fixed. Anyone have any ideas/problems with it? --Peads (talk) 2009-06-05 15:52:18

I've played a bit of Star Wars Battlefront - it's a nice mechanic.

An easy way to stop "guarding" would be to have more posts than players. You could put all five of your team on five posts, but if there are six other posts out there, an active enemy will be able to get them all. You could have every player guarding two posts, on a patrol, but if the playing area is large enough, anything could happen.

Not sure if it needs a "combat" mechanic. Something needs to happen when I'm guarding a post and you walk right up to it, but maybe you could just say that if both teams are physically standing at a post, it has to be set to white, and whoever leaves first accepts that their opponent will set it to their own colour. (I suppose most guarding would involve hiding somewhere where you can keep an eye on a flag, and change it back whenever anyone touches it.)

How does the scoring work? Do you get all the players back to a central point, and have the neutraliser crew make a quick round of the flags to record their final colours? --Kevan (talk) 2009-06-05 21:53:31

Yep, forgot to include that in the rules. Will add tomorrow, as I'm going to bed in a few minutes. I was considering testing this at that Home-Educator event I asked you about, where there'd be at least 20 players, but probably loads more. Might have to think about that. --Peads (talk) 2009-06-05 22:01:45

I wanted to have guarding in the rules, but I was scared that it might lead to problems if playing with lots of players. How about people majority for guarding? If an attacking group had at least two more people than the defending group, the defending group would be forced to disperse and the attackers convert the command post to their own. I think 10 would be the max size for groups but the neutralisers would also have the power to break up groups to stop 'mob wars'. I really like your idea, but having more posts than 25+ players would be pretty hard... 2 mile sq. playing area anyone? Both seem viable options and could work, though I prefer you idea better. Also, the flags could A4 pieces of paper/card to make it easier (and cheaper) to run, though flags are much cooler. One of the most awesome posts would be an actual flag pole, where you run the flag up it --Peads (talk) 2009-06-06 12:11:21

Ah, majorities would be good, and would cut down on the number of posts you needed. You probably don't need an explicit "must disperse" mechanic; just say that if one team has a majority at a post, they claim the flag. It's up to the minority team how they react to that - they can either give up and disperse to claim other posts, or try to call a few teammates over so that they can become the majority.

Hard to tell whether a "mob war" would be a problem - I don't think a large group steamrollering each post in turn would actually be that powerful, as they'd be easily defeated by a scattered, agile team quickly reclaiming flags in their wake.

In terms of cheap props, chalk graffiti might be good, in a suitable environment (with players and neutralisers just crossing out previous graffiti). --Kevan (talk) 2009-06-07 11:37:22

Yeah, perhaps the theme could be some dark, underground thing, or a [prison. The graffiti would be great for that.

I was musing on the game and thought that people writing down their names on a piece of paper at the command posts would be fun, so you could track who found where. Perhaps this could expand into a variant or a different game, where someone writes down their name and their team name on the piece, then folds it over. The next person coming to the command post does the same, without looking at the other people's names. At the end, you see which team wrote down the most names at the command posts, thus giving the control of the post. Neutralisers would either cross off the top three people or add a couple of neutraliser names to it. Perhaps people could have individual scores as well as team scores, their other score being 5 points for every command post they found. However, more command posts would be needed for this, and it would be more of a searching game rather than a 'war' game. I really want to playtest this game at the convention in September, so hopefully I can. On an unrelated note, I found your Urban Dead game yesterday, Kevan. It's pretty fun! My name on it is Pe'ads. --Peads (talk) 2009-06-07 15:58:59

Update

The Command Post rules have been finished, and are now untested as opposed to unfinished, thanks to a discussion with Kevan. I hope to test this game in September, but feel free to test it if you want. --Peads (talk) 2009-06-19 17:50:09

I know you've probably already thought about this, but a good way to test your game would be to implement it on a paintball course, I think. At least the weaponry would be more reminiscent of Battlefronts.

Although, I do think the idea of the attacking group being two or more is a good way to resolve conflict. One of my favorite games is Diplomacy, so I guess I'm biased. :) --BigBur (talk) 2009-06-24 01:33:13

Yeah, either with paintball guns or laser guns would be awesome, but I wasn't intending to make a clone of Battlefront. However, actual combat would be freakin' amazing with 30 players! --Peads (talk) 2009-06-24 10:20:31