"Multiple point types in point based army list creation" Topic

I'm designing an army creation system for my packaged scifi skirmish game, Exoshift, and I've run into snags with the original idea for army list creation, and how it dealt with new models being released between major rulebook releases, which has me exploring some ideas.

Keep in mind that this isn't for a construct your own units game, instead it's a point system to buy and configure pre-designed units within a faction.

The idea I have now is for 2-3 types of points that are used to buy units and upgrades. This is not an original idea, but I'd like to get some opinions anyway.

Also keep in mind that I plan to have a free and official army list creator web app for the game to ease list creation.

Let's call the first point type, "Manpower" or MP for short This will be the most numerous and is the closest to a traditional point system. These will buy the basic and bulk of the troops you field, albeit with only a few basic equipment and abilities.

The second type would could be called "Munitions" which would buy special weapons and equipment. Troops that come with those by default would cost roughly the same manpower, but include a munitions cost. Off board strikes could be purchased with this during list creation.

The hypothetical third type could be called, "Specialists" or "Tech." This would be used to purchase the highest tech upgrades, the most experienced and deadly troops, as well as army-wide upgrades and doctrinal abilities.

A standard game at a set point value would have an equal amount of all point types. Different scenarios or missions would have differing amounts, or even different amounts for the attacker and defender. Certain specialized armies within each faction would trade types or get more or less of a specific type.

A few problems I can think of right off the bat is for pickup games. A nice feature of point based games is that you can show up to a store and play a game with friends at a set value, pre-making a list so you can get right to playing.

The answer to that would be to have pickup games played with standard missions that have equal values of each point type. Anyone who wants to play more involved scenarios that are pre-arranged will probably be making their own lists for the scenario anyway.

Then there's the added complexity, trying to find things to fill a few extra points. But, that seems to be just a part of wargaming anyway. Also, the army list app could have a built in "Variants" functionality that will append variants that you create to an army list once printed out.

One way to do this is to have set ratios. For example, the lower-tech Lizardmen (for example) get just 20 Munitions and 10 Tech per 100 manpower. While super-tech Space Marines get 20 munitions and 10 tech per 30 manpower.

That way you can specify a game of "100 points" and you don't then have to worry about how to count different kinds of points.

Army lists within a faction could have different blends. So your line infantry have a blend at 50/25/10 and the guards are 50/30/20 or whatever.

That's a great idea for presentation.

Although that means the other point types usually have lower values, which means a different point scale and less granularity.

It would work due to these point types being used far less. Much like Infinity has that Support Weapon Cost. One nitpick I had about SWC was that it often uses .5 values. *smacks forehead* Although the solution is just to set the default ratios higher.

Guess this system isn't too controversial.

I just had a crazy idea where you could purchase munitions or tech stockpiles during list creation, using manpower for more of that resource. However, that would require you to place down an extra stockpile objective that, if destroyed, gave your opponent more victory points.

There's no real reason the munitions and tech points have to have lower values. An army list could easily have a ratio of 100:100:100.

Flames of War and I assume most games allow you to purchase upgrades for extra points. You buy tanks at 100 points and upgrade the gun for 10 per tank or whatever. The army lists also limit how many of tank A or gun B you can buy.

I guess the question is, what is the point to having three types of points? What does this accomplish that can't be done with just one?

Having restricted unit availability allows you to include troops that would be trolliffic (say, badass ninjas or wolf guard terminators) if taken en masse but that are manageable in ones or twos.

Having a Support Weapons point system separate from the base unit points allows you to put a cap on firepower and stop someone from taking nothing but HMGs.

I guess I'm thinking of FoW where each army list has a "Chinese menu" of what units you can take. The army list would limit you to one unit of Badass Wolf Ninja Guard but you could spend points as you chose (more guys but less tech or vice versa).

Yeah, I'm coming from playing a variety of games, but FoW's system is the most recent I've played as a primary game.

My original method for army creation was a mirror of FoW. I liked the idea that across an entire galaxy, you would have these specific army compositions and variations, including a variety of species that happen to be nearby, or tech from industrial plants.

All this discussion has given me a lot of thought and I will most likely go back to FoW/Historical style where you have slots and units to fill those slots, and a normal point system.

This was an interesting idea to think about, but not feasible if a normal points + force org works just as well and people are used to it.

Although an Infinity style SWC, aka very limited "Tech" resource, can help simplify the upgrade purchase rules, instead of constantly writing special case restrictions for when a model can take powerful upgrades, you just rely on the Tech cost. I wanted to avoid writing "For every X basic unit, you can take this upgrade," for everything in the game.

To make this 2-3 resource system worthwhile, I'd have to go way into it, doing stuff like the having extra resources in the middle of games, or more stuff like that resource stockpile idea, and that's more bookkeeping than needed.

I think that Fallen Frontiers game said they were planning to do that, but I don't think they got anywhere with the concept considering the state of the rules they posted. It's an interesting idea in theory, but takes a lot more to do something interesting, fun, and fast.

Thanks for talking me away from this crazy path. :P

There's nothing wrong with multiple points levels. If you look at early Heavy Gear or Jovian Chronicles, there are actually 3 different points costs. You have an Offensive 'threat value', a Defensive TV, and an Aux or Miscellaneous TV.

A light, fast recon unit might have a very small Offensive TV because it only packs a machine gun, a mid-level defensive TV because its fast but doesn't have much armor, and a really high Misc TV because it has all sorts of "make others better" systems like target designators, ECM, good sensors, etc.

You calculate all three TVs as part of the vehicle design process, and average them together to get the basic TV, IIRC.