Beyond the Ridge - The Forum Socioeconomic Political Backstabbing WargameWelcome, colonist, to the vast frontier. The Ministry of Expansion has granted your party of travelers and vagabonds a charter, and a land grant on the far edge of our territory. The wild and unexplored expanse of the hinterlands, that which lies beyond the colossal mountains of the Apollyonian ridge.
Your job is to start anew. Under the Primacy Initiative, you have been granted the rights to found a Free Settlement. Under the Initiative, it is effectively the rights to found a new stepping stone for your people. A vast and expansive combine of barely similar people barely getting along under the common banner of our proud nation. You will draft your own constitution, your own laws. Conduct trade among yourselves and others. You will be completely free to run your colony as you like, so long as you remain allegiant to our government, and participate in taxation and drafts when it is required of you. You will carry our banner, free to start anew, and we will protect you.
However, this isn't just uncharted territory, it's disputed territory. Our longtime rivals have disputed our claims to these hinterlands, and it is up to you to plant our banner and keep it there-- forever. For the pride of our nation, and the glory of our people.
Welcome to Beyond the Ridge! The hybrid socioeconomic / political / mafia / wargame monstrosity I've created that's a weird mix of a lot of games I like, such as Shadow Empires, Civilization, Mafia, Arms Race, Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, and Space Station 13. Well... it's complicated. It's meant to be creative in the way it handles the core systems in relation to the player, and while it's a game I intend to keep on running if it succeeds, it's also meant to test some systems out that I've been thinking about using to design an actual 4x-type game, so it's a little bit of everything.
The basic premise of the game is two teams, from competing empires, set up colonies in disputed territory. They start with 100 settlers and the freedom to design their colony however they want. The economics, the laws, the political system-- everything. Their mission is to outlast the other settlement. Whether through direct warfare, indirect sabotage, or mass political campaigns, your job is to undermine the other colony, and outlast.
Each colony will have 8 Founders-- the players. They are the main organizers of the expedition, from which stem all walks of life. They have the initial political power, and will be the ones that draft the constitution of their settlements.
The players are not special. Out of the 100 original colonists, each player has 5 followers, along with whatever other abilities they have. However, this game is meant to test out a few new ideas, so NPCs are just as important. The game runs on a 1:1 system I've created, that will attempt to simulate the interactions of the NPCs in the world, in terms of economics, but also politics and combat. In short, the players are only better due to their starting equipment and political power. There is no leveling, and there is no imbalance of power in terms of physical and economic input. The Founders are meant to be leaders, yes, but they are just as fragile as their followers.
The game ends when all 8 of the founders of either team are either dead or surrendered, or if the flag of the opposing team is taken down for 3 consecutive turns. Meaning, your starting settlement has been occupied for 3 turns.
However, there's also a few twists. Not all the players on the team have the same goals. There are ways to win without your team... and even a few people who will directly be working against it.
Your job is to raise a settlement and community that will last. That will outlast both external and internal conflict, and that will bring your nation pride and glory.
It is time to venture beyond the Apollyonian ridge.
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THE GAMETwo teams of 8 players each will compete to unravel the colony of the other team. Each player is a Founder, an influential member of the group of 100 colonists who have struck it out into the great unknown. The players will create their characters, assigning ability points to them, and choosing a Role.
There are 4 groups of Roles-- which are basically your background, in a sense. Your Role is who you are when you got here, and will give you certain bonuses in various fields and certain assets that will help the colony succeed. There are 15 different roles, from 5 different fields. Your role doesn't necessarily restrict you to the archetype of gameplay it represents, but it will greatly help you in the field it specializes in.
Additionally, each player on a team will get a Fate. This is also representative of your background.. but in a different way. It represents your inner goals, desires, and motivation. The Fates have alignments, which determine their inclination to help the team along, and are secret. There is 1 Enemy Fate, who will work directly against the colony, 2 Neutral fates, and then 5 Supportive fates. It's... not as simple as that, however, since even the Supportive fates (which all have win conditions where the Colony wins) also can win on their own, depending on what goal they're assigned. The Fate system is designed to create a sort of mafia aspect to the game, where an interconnecting net of conflicting goals can tear apart the colony from the inside out if the players aren't careful in how they design their political and economic systems.
The game takes place over turns, which represents 3 months of time. The turns are broken into different phases:
1. The Roleplay Phase
This phase will last 2 days, and is where the players roleplay as their characters… talk, plan, interact with the world. This mostly happens without GM input, but any actions that would need to be resolved with a roll will halt the specific arc that is taking place, where anyone else in that arc may also throw in a roll as they wait for the GM. An ‘arc’ is defined loosely, but basically, well, is anything that would involve another player to the point where their actions depend on the results of yours. Searching around camp for something wouldn’t necessarily have to halt the actions of all the other players, but if say, two people were fighting, the two that are fighting would have to wait, and anyone else that wants to participate in the fight. For the sake of roleplay, you can only roleplay on the same map grid as another character, and the basic rules of what your character knows are in place as well. In terms of time progression, the roleplay phase is assumed to begin immediately after the council meeting. Players will also submit their long-term actions for the processing phase, and PM the GM with secret actions during this phase. If roleplay dies out or all the players on both teams agree, this phase can end early.
2. The Processing Phase
This phase is when the game “run”, and constitutes the 3 month duration of a game “turn”. This is when all the little cogs of the game run in the background and determine what happens, how the colony grows, etc. This turn will take as long as it takes the GM to process it, but should hopefully be no longer than a day. Secret and non-secret long-term actions by players will run during this phase.
If events happen during the turn that require input from players (e.g. important decisions, or someone fighting off an assassin in the middle of the night), then there will be a reasonable pause for the given players to respond through PMs.
Additionally, every turn a random event happens, given via a 2d6 roll, and each player will get a random event roll as well, that it modified according to their luck.
3. The Council Phase
The Council phase represents the meeting of all “councillor” players (as outlined in the constitution), and will also last 2 days. This can be everyone, for only a handful, but it’s up to the players how this will go. This is where the heads of government discuss events that happened during the processing phase and outline their courses of action. It is assumed all councillors are in attendance during this phase regardless of location, as they travel to the council to meet and then return to their map location. Of course, if a councillor chooses not to attend (such as for safety concerns) or is otherwise unable to attend for some other reason, they will be absent.
The order of phases is slightly askew for the first turn. In the first turn, the council phase will occur after the roleplay phase, so players can discuss how to establish their new government and civilization before the turn happens. The following turn will run normally, so there will be a roleplay phase after the turn runs before the next council meeting, where players will then choose whether or not to ratify the constitution they discussed in the previous meeting.
CHARACTERSEach player plays a Founder character, an important and otherwise influential member of their colony. Under the initiative, Founders are in charge of determining the government of their colony, which the other members of the expedition and all further immigrants agree to abide by. There are no restrictions on what policies can be enacted by a Free Settlement, so long as the settlement agrees to pay taxes and drafted soldiers to their founding government, allow officials from their founding government to attend to business in the Free Settlement, and otherwise swear allegiance to their founding government.
The game will run on a relatively simple 1d12 system for skills and combat. Rolls will be used to check for success against a table:
2- : Major Failure
3-5: Minor Failure
6-8: Slight Success / Neutral
9-11: Minor Success
12+: Major Success
Rolls will be augmented by difficulty and skill levels, which will modify the result, affecting which category the result falls into.
Most skills will have a base difficulty modifier of -1 for being untrained in the skill, but easier skills may have a penalty of 0, and harder skills will have a larger penalty for being untrained. Additionally, all skills have a specialization when chosen, which give a bonus depending on the skill being performed, if the scope of how the skill is being used falls under the specialization. Specialization is denoted with parentheses. Example: Leadership(Squad Tactics). There aren't any pre-defined specialties in the game, you simply choose an area of the skill that your character would be the most proficient in. As long as it's not too broad, your specialty will be ok (although if it's similar to other player's specialties, I might consolidate the two and give an official name for that type of specialty, to avoid confusion).
As long as you get one point in a skil, you get a specialty in that skill. (And if it's an academic skill, you get a tree as well.)
The max bonus and max penalty for any roll is -3 or +3. This cap is added after all other effects, so having a really high skill can be useful if you are facing a lot of negative modifiers, but otherwise you will never get more than +3 to a roll. Example: If you have +3 on a +1 difficulty roll, that would be +4, but then it is capped down to +3. If you had -3 to a roll, the +3 would make it 0 for difficulty, unaffected by caps.
Modifiers can also be fractional (e.g. .5), this just means there’s a 50/50 chance of getting a +1 from it in a roll.
There are 15 skills, corresponding to the 15 roles in the game. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the role gets a bonus to that skill, or that other professions don’t get a bonus to that skill as well, it’s just that way for ease of explanation and because I like symmetry.
So, to summarize modifiers that can affect a roll:
Effective Skill: Combination of your skill level and the highest of the two base stats for the skill. E.g Business 2 + MAGNETISM 3 would result in 5 effective skill, or a +5 to the roll.
Specialization Modifier: All skills differ for this somewhat, but if you're unskilled, you will typically get a negative modifier, depending on how good your stats are that the skill is linked to (you lose 1 point of penalty from being unskilled for every point in the highest base stat the skill is linked to), and you gain a positive modifier for skill rolls within your specialty.
Difficulty: The difficulty of the task at hand, as judged by the GM, but this will range from -3 to +3. -3 being extraordinary feats of achievement, and +3 being extremely mundane things that for some reason we're rolling for them.
Caps: The total modifier to a roll can only be 3 in either direciton, so if it's below -3 or above +3, it will cap to this.
CHARACTER CREATIONThe following template will be used for creating characters:
CHARACTER TEMPLATE:
Name:
Age, Sex:
Background:
Description:
Role:
Nation:
[b]STATS:[/b]
Mind:
Matter:
Magnetism:
Manipulation:
Luck:
[b]SKILLS:[/b]
-
-
-
-
-
[b]INVENTORY:[/b]
Each player gets 6 ability points, which are used for improving skills and stats. Once the game starts, skills and abilities can’t be improved. (I might modify this in later versions, but first I want to see how balanced they are to begin with). Additionally, you all start with 500 credits (plus whatever you may get from your role).
Costs:
Stat Raise: 2 AP
Skill Raise: 1 AP
2 Extra Followers: 1 AP
To sign up simply copy the template into the thread and fill it up, and state which team you wish to be part of.
Your fate will be decided when the game begins.
It's alright in my opinion for the other team to know who they're going against rolewise and build wise, since they should at least be able to formulate some sort of strategy, and having everyone in the same thread during chargen allows for some friendly banter as well, etc.
Please include the skills your role give you and your specialty for those in your SKILL list! Starting STATS as well.STATS/SKILLSThere are 4 main stats in the game, which roughly mirror the stat system of CK2. They are:
MIND (INT): A measure of your raw intellect in terms of not only academic pursuits, but your ability in general to think cognitively and use the wait of raw logic or intuition to get through situations. Critical for investigators, academics, and craftsmen.
"On two occasions I have been asked,—"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
- Charles Babbage
MATTER (STR / DEX): A measure of how much of a physical instrument your body is, in terms of both your ability to levy strength, or levy finesse on a situation. How physical you are. Important for fighters, craftsmen, and laborers.
"This too shall pass." --Ancient Persian proverb
MAGNETISM (CHR): A measure of your ability to influence others, your charisma, your ability to talk your way out of situations. When neither intelligence or brute strength will solve a situation. Important for diplomats, politicians, preachers, and merchants.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." --Douglas AdamsMANIPULATION (INT): A measure of your ability to conduct in intrigue. To hide in the shadows when needed, to misdirect, to beguile, to seduce, sedition, to spin others around you in a tightly-knit web to accomplish your ends. Important for merchants, spies / intelligence officers, and members of the criminal underworld.
“Reality is frequently inaccurate.” -- Douglas Adams
LUCK: How fortunate you are. Only used directly by explorers, but will help with random events as well as other things. The only stat that can be made negative (up to -3, and it only refunds 1 AP per point)… but be very careful…
"Luck is not chance. It's Toil. Fortune's expensive smile is earned." --Emily DickinsonEach skill has two base stats from which it draws from. A skill’s highest base stat will add to your skill rolls using that skill (and will be factored into your character sheet as your “effective” skill in that field. Each point in a stat will also remove one point of base (untrained) difficulty from a skill that uses it as a base.
However, stats also have latent effects. This is to add variety to chargen, but also because otherwise INT would be the most overpowered stat to pick.
MIND: No effect (It’s used in the most skills, so it’s benefit is it allows you to succeed in many different skills)
MATTER: Each point of MATTER gives you +.5 to map range on foot, +.5 to resistance and dodge rolls, and +.5 to unarmed/melee damage rolls, and +1 to carrying capacity
MAGNETISM: Each point of MAGNETISM will give you +1 starting follower, as well as make your factions and political parties more attractive. High MAGNETISM will also give NPCs a higher starting relation with you, making it more likely that they cooperate with you.
MANIPULATION: Each point of MANIPULATION will give you +1 to intrigue related stuff. Eh, there’s not really a skill for that, so it’s its own pseudo skill. Generally, manipulation will allow you to determine the intents of NPCs, persuade NPCs, and conceal your actions to other PCs. Generally anything stealthy or seditious is controlled by this skill.
LUCK: Makes you either unlucky or really lucky. Each +1 to LUCK will give you a BOON, a minor hidden thing that will help you out. Each -1 to LUCK will give you a CURSE, a minor hidden thing that will constantly annoy you. Going to -3 in LUCK will give you a MAJOR CURSE. Again, don’t test your luck. (b-dum-tsh)
ROLESThe bread and butter of the game, roles are the archetypes that each player will choose from when creating their character. There are 15 divided among 5 fields.
The fields are: SOCIETY (roles involved with culture and education and society building), MARTIAL (combat oriented roles), ECONOMY (roles built around making money and creating commerce), FRONTIER (the working class, the prophets, the explorers), and UNDERGROUND (the criminals and scum).
For a party of Founders to be valid, it must have at least one profession from each field (with the exception of UNDERGROUND). Additionally, only one Founder may be from the UNDERGROUND field.
There are also.. certain roles that are highly useful to a starting colony, which are marked with a (!!), and it is highly advised that every colony start with at least one of these.
Due to the size of the list with the extended descriptions of each role, the role list will be at the bottom of the next post, but the abbreviated list will be posted here:
Role - Skill
SOCIETY
Academic - Academics
Engineer (!!) - Intution
Envoy - Diplomacy
MARTIAL
Officer (!!) - Leadership
Marshal - Investigation
Veteran - Combat
ECONOMIC
Merchant (!!) - Trade
Magnate - Business
Artisan - Production
FRONTIER
Explorer (!!) - Pathfinding
Laborer - Labor
Preacher - Theology
UNDERGROUND
Pusher - Streets
Vagabond - Rogue
Mercenary - Intimidation
For the most part, these rules so far are the majority of what needs to be known to understand the game and create a character. If this seems like a lot, don’t worry, since you generally only need to know the gist of the different Fates and Roles to play the game. What follows is a brief few overviews on the various internal systems the game will be running. They aren’t really that necessary to understand at first, so (please) don’t feel too overwhelmed by the massive novel I’ve managed to write for a forum game.
If the descriptions seem below vague and unhelpful: that’s because they are meant to be that way. A large aspect of the game is the fact that the players won’t have a whole lot of information on what is happening within their colony except for what they gather themselves or with their NPCs. This is intentional, since it involves a higher degree of trust. Is that report compiled by one of the cabinet members of the settlement legitimate, or just meant to further a political goal? Part of this intrigue is possible in part due to the obfuscation of how internal systems work.
It is also, of course, because a game that allows this much freedom for players can’t possibly have concrete rules for every imaginable scenario, and just that, well, I also haven’t quite thought of them all yet. This is meant to be a playtest as much as it is a game: things may change over the course of the game, depending on balance, and how the little systems I design work out. After the game is over, all of this will be made public for the sake of transparency and feedback, so things can be iterated on and the game is improved. This game is meant to be organic and growing. Of course, any changes or iterations to systems made during the game will be applied to both groups. The impact doing so would have on the game will be considered beforehand, lest a change completely unbalance and throw a team on their ass, even if such a change would be secret and ideally unintrusive.
THE CHARTEREach team’s expedition operates under the Charter, which abstracts the policies put into place by their founding governments to regulate colonists heading into the frontiers. In practice, these policies are slim to none, since both countries have instituted the Free Settlement system as an incentive to get more colonists into disputed territories along their borders. Along with a pre-made propositional constitution that both teams will start with outlining basic things that they can build their constitution off of (or just ignore and scrap completely), the expeditions have the following guidelines:
1. An expedition leader will be elected from among the 8 Founders, prior to the expedition. Until a Constitution is ratified, they will be the sole executive body of the expedition, with complete authority and power. Legally, anyways…
2. Until a Constitution Is ratified, both expeditions are subject to the federal laws of their sponsoring nations. These will be detailed to each team, when the game starts, but effectively this means that any Marshal roles will have legal powers until the Constitution is ratified.
3. If a Constitution isn’t ratified after 3 months (at the beginning of the second turn, during the Council phase), the propositional constitution provided will automatically kick in, until a constitution is ratified.
To ratify the Constitution, more than 75% of existing Founders must agree.
THE ECONOMYThe economy of the game is intended to be heavily simulated at a 1:1 level, with all NPCs acting as actors—but also to be simple enough to in theory be calculated with pen and paper and a set of dice. The exact workings are to be kept secret, but in general:
All NPCs have sets of needs they will prioritize over others, food and shelter being first, and consumption will be based off of this. Builders and farmers will be the first professions to grow in a new colony.
The economic turn is processed in phases, as such:
1. All NPCs work, with producers going first, then crafters, then consumption occurring. This is so that everyone has sufficient money to allow purchases to happen.
2. Then the entrepreneurial phase happens, where after all needs that NPCs with to satisfy are satisfied, the NPCs look for ways to invest their money. This can result in NPC businesses and economic firms being developed, or maybe they just buy some extra land for their farm, or even worse, just put it in a savings account.
3. Finally, after everything is done, the appropriate happiness modifiers are ran, based on consumption that occurred during the turn. Happy NPCs are motivated to stick with their political party. Dissatisfied ones well, will vote unfaborably during the next election, or if pushed far enough, may take up the pitchfork and oust the local rulers.
The government is free to interfere with the economy however they want, but shortsighted policies may have drastic impacts if implemented improperly. For instance, simply handing out free food and expecting NPCs to build up the food industry in the meantime until stocks run out might backfire, as the free food will basically make food have no value. Doing this along with agricultural subsidies, however, may work better...
All players and NPCs will start with a certain amount of currency from their nation, which can be used to drive the economy. But this isn't strictly necessary. If you want to run a commune, or a barter society, or create your own currency and exchange for the national currency, feel free to.
The players are meant to interact with this economy, not dominate it. However, it is entirely possible that one or two players may begin to dominate the economy… which can be dangerous depending on what their motives are.
POLITICAL PARTIES / HAPPINESSAll NPCs have a political party. The mechanics of this are tricky, but it affects who they will support in elections (if there are any) and what policies they support.
Once the Constitution is ratified, political parties will form. Founders can lead parties by expressing their political ideologies (using a rough political compass model), which their followers will then espouse as well. There are a number of factors at play here, ranging from mob mentality, propaganda and PR, success of current policy, and happiness, but a strong political party can very much benefit the Founders at the helm of one.
In general: NPCs will leave political parties if their needs aren’t being met and be more likely to switch to another party that is able to promise and fulfill better conditions for the colony.
Happiness is a big factor, and depends on a lot of things, such as prosperity, crime, social policy, and political participation. Autocracies can succeed, but as the population grows larger and larger, there is an exponentially increasing happiness debuff, meaning more and more resources to suppress the population that could have been used to benefit elsewhere.
FACTIONSAdditionally, PCs and NPCs can found factions, which are like minded groups aimed towards a certain goal. These aren’t necessarily political parties: the two are independent and exist on top of each other: a political party can be aligned with a political party and the two can support each other, but this isn’t always the case. This can range from an academic organization, to a trade council, to an underground resistance movement.
Public Factions are founded by someone giving a Founding Speech, with the results of which dependent on Diplomacy roll. A better roll will yield more followers and more faction strength. Be creative and roleplay with your speech: a good speech may yield a bonus to the roll at GM discretion.
Secret Factions are founded using a MANIPULATION roll. Secret factions grow slower and have to operate in a hindered capacity to maintain their secrecy, but can be useful for doing such things as, say, overthrowing a corrupt ruler.
Religions are a special type of faction. Powerful religious leaders can be… dangerous.
THE MAPThe game map is a 7x7 grid that must be explored by explorer characters. They have the monopoly on this information, and whatever information they give to the colony may very well be false, but you’ll just have to trust them, won’t you? Starting colonies will be placed on roughly opposite sides of the map.
Each grid square represents a map area of 40x40 miles. A settlement can be founded in any grid square by construction a building there—multiple towns and localities are possible as part of a Free Settlement, and may very well be necessary depending on what resources are located where.
Characters can move between grid squares, with efficiency depending on their movement speed.
Actions during movement depend on AP:
On foot, characters and parties have 4 AP.
By vehicle, characters have 6 AP.
Roads double AP.
AP can be used to either move a tile, or explore a tile. Moving through a tile won’t yield very much information about the tile: due to it’s size, since it represents direct movement. Even exploring might not reveal everything about a tile. Small settlements may not be found by even multiple successive exploration rolls.
Movement takes place during the processing phase. It is assumed if you do a round trip, you’ll be back in time for the council meeting: otherwise your next turn will start out in the wilderness where you ended off.
Settlements have plots, which are arranged in “sectors”, describing the distance of a plot from the city center. This is intended to provide a sort of system for land value in highly developed towns, to allow for a retail market, but also to simulate the effects of expansion on cities and make it more difficult to patrol the outskirts of a town effectively while undermanned with a police force.
The plots are divided as follows:
Center: 1 plot – The center of the city, usually the initial tent or the main capitol.
City Square: 8 plots – The buildings immediately surrounding the capitol, the centrepoint of life and commerce and urban development. Highly valued in a large city.
Inner City: 64 plots—The downtown area, not as esteemed as the center square, but more useful for business than the ‘burbs.
Outer City: 256 plots—The outer city area, more quite, more remote, under less scrutiny by law enforcement.
Suburbs: 1024 plots – The outermost limits of the city—very remote, unlikely to be under stead police presence. But even this space is limited.
Outskirts: Mostly infinite—Represents the outer areas of the city, for resource collection, farming, and whatever else. The wilderness, the entire rest of the map square. All resources will be in the outskirts unless the city is built specifically on a resource node, where that node will be in the other sectors instead.
Outskirts further from the city center get travelled much less by shoppers, and are harder to patrol by law enforcement due to their size. There are penalties to freight from the more distant sectors into the inner sectors as well.
The upside, is well, they’re more quiet, which can be an upside or downside depending on how you look at it. The point of this system is so that the center parts of the city are strategic and highly sought after, and the outer parts of the city are where more of the mundane activity and residential buildup occurs. But, well, you’re free to do whatever you like, I guess.
COMBATWell, when all these fancy tenets of modern society fail, there’s always the good ol’ fashion sword to resort to. For those more violence-minded, this section of the rules is for you.
That being said, this is also intended to be more streamlined and simple, sticking to the simple 2d6 system everything else is built on.
Combat is resolved with skills: well, just one skill: the Combat skill—and being unskilled in combat carries a hefty -2 to rolls, giving you a significant disadvantage.
The mechanics are pretty simple. The attacker rolls. If he succeeds, the defender rolls, if he rolls lower, a hit is scored. Then a hit location is chosen randomly, and damage is applied. Well, it’s all more slightly nuanced than that.
For the attack roll itself, there are plenty of factors at play. The range of the weapon, for ranged combat. The leadership bonus of being under the command of a competent leader. The debuffs of the soldiers due to damage. The list goes on.
Defense rolls basically mirror attack rolls in the same aspects.
For hits, a 1d6 is rolled. The hit location depends on the result. There are 6 hit locations: Head, Torso, and the 4 limbs. You can aim for a specific limb by adding a numerical modifier, and the attack roll will be penalized by the same amount.
Damage is rolled with the same 2d6 system, with a different scaling system. Weapons have damage modifiers, which affect the damage roll, and there are negative penalties that can be incurred from things such as range, armor of the defender, skill/stats of the defender, and stats/skills of the attacker.
The following table is used:
2-, 3-5: Miss
6-8: Minor Hit, minor damage to the area, not-critical or likely to be permanent.
9-11: Major Hit, major damage, possibly life threatening or permanent, large debuff depending on location
12+ Critical Hit, immense damage: life threatening and/or definitely permanent. Critical hits to the head result in instant death. Wear a helmet.
WEAPONS:
Weapons have classes, which determine their rough statistics and usefulness in a fight. Here is the basic list, but the limit is your imagination, especially with a good Academic and Engineer on your side.
Unarmed: Fistfighting, -2 damage roll, modified in damage by STR
Melee: The art of clubbing or stabbing your opponent, -1 damage roll, modified in damage by STR
Personal Weapons: Small sidearm type weapons, like a pistol, revolver, or such. The statistics vary, but pistols tend to have more ammo at the expense of damage, and vise versa. These weapons tend to be very low range. 0 damage roll.
Longarms: Big booms. Ranged weapons (or melee weapons) designed to put the hurt on the enemy. +1 to damage roll. Tend to be a balance between ammo and range and damage (e.g., SMGs, rifles, and shotguns).
Demolition Weapons: Rocket launchers, C4, grenades. Incredibly destructive, loud, overt, and hurtful. Likely to be extremely expensive: if you can even find these things in the first place. Custom Weapons can not be Demolition Weapons. +2 to damage roll.
Ammo is handled using a roll system, where an ammo die is used. E,g, 1d4 for a typical pistol. Rolling 1d4 on using the pistol would require a reload and new mag. This represents, say, firing more shots than you would have liked in taking down a target.
Ranged in combat use a bracketed system. There are 5 different ranges in combat:
CQC: Up close and personal. Ranged weapons have a -2 to hit in CQC, and Longarms and up can’t be used at all. Melee weapons can only be used at this range.
Close: Across a room or street.
Medium: Across a field or parking lot.
Far: Across a large clearing, down a long street, or a large empty plain. Typical rifle engagement distance for infantry.
Extreme: Out of visual sight for nonscoped weapons. Typically only launchers and snipers will be useful here.
The time to move between range brackets depend on the range bracket. The following table is used:
CQC – Close: 1 combat round
Close – Medium: 2 combat rounds
Medium – Far: 3 combat rounds
Far – Extreme: 5 combat rounds
Movement occurs at the end of the turn. You can fire when moving, but you will get a -1 debuff to your hit, and a -1 debuff to defense.
Cover is useful too: full cover will protect you from ranged attacks so far as you stay put and the weapon can’t penetrate the cover. Half Cover and Partial cover give -2 and -1 to attack, respectively, so long as you stay behind them the entire turn.
What determines where enemy forces in combat start off depends on a lot of things: the terrain, who is defending, the leadership rolls of both sides, etc. Try to think and act strategically and things will go better for you. Rushing a convoy through enemy territory down a long unscouted road would leave you very ripe for an ambush, as an example.
Large-scale combat is handled at 1:1 with small-scale combat. That is, every move and hit between every member of the fight is simulated.. I may automate this… heh…
Morale is another factor in a fight. The morale of your troops depends on the loyalty of your troops (which also affects how likely they are to stay loyal to their nation as opposed to their commander, etc.). Training troops will be a balance between good training and political indoctrination to prevent a rogue general from leading troops back to the capital to oust the leader.
Running out of morale has bad consequences. Ranging from orderly retreat to full-on rout or mass surrender. Apes together strong. Apes scared together run together.