Ravenfield Co-Op D.I.Y Conquest Campaign Idea

[Desert-Mammoth]

Hey there.

I'm thinking of GM-ing a co-op Ravenfield D.I.Y conquest campaign, but I thought I'd run my idea by the masses to see if there is any interest in such a thing. Lemme know what you think, and whether I'm an over ambitious moron :D

Basically you take on the role of an Eagle Divisional Commander, in charge of your own little army on a “world map” that I have created. The game operates in turns, with each player telling me where they want their army to go. Armies can move once per turn, to a neighbouring region, or can they stay put. Once I've moved the players' armies, I then tell them what battle to fight and how. That is to say, the battles are resolved from within the Ravenfield game by each player seperately.

For example, Player One moves into Foxtrot region. I then tell him/her what map they should use, what force balance and game type. They then fight the battle, and tell me the result (a win or loss). On a win, the region they are attacking changes ownership to the Eagle side. If they lose, then the region remains the same and their army moves back to the region it attacked from. Alternatively, the Raven forces (which I will move prior to the players' turn) might attack a player's army directly. In a battle where two opposing armies are in the same region, the losing army is destroyed and re-spawns elsewhere (usually away from the front lines).

The game would take several days, and I would aim to have a turn resolved in a single day. A turn would end once all players had moved and resolved their battles. Depending on how things go, it may all happen quicker than this. I've never done anything like this before so I don't really know how well it's going to work. Playing it by myself though, it seemed to function quite well.

It's not quite multiplayer as we know it, but it's probably the closest we'll get, and hopefully it'll be kind of fun, who knows? Maybe it's just a stupid idea born of weekend boredom.

The Setting: The Battle of Aquilcela is a major confrontation between the Raven Defence Forces (RDF) and the Eagle Armed Forces (EAF). This is the second battle in my non-cannon Eagle-Raven War. The previous took place at the Roglonia Cluster, where the RDF was able to score a stunning victory over the EAF and thus reverse the war effort in their favour.

Now with the EAF's navy at the bottom of the sea, the RDF's Carrier Group “Corvus” strikes at the Eagle Nation's heartlands, hoping to take the island fortress of Aquilcela from them. Aquilcela is a major military production post for the Eagle Nation, and so its loss would fatally cripple them.

An Example of the Map:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1349918460

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1350365520

[Chastity the Celibate]

Interesting

[Desert-Mammoth]

Originally posted by xnadu27:

Interesting

I think so. I've started to hash out a few extra rules to make things more interesting, such as spec ops side missions to gain advantages before a battle, night raids, and benefits in joining forces with another player for a battle in the same region.

[CarbonDevice]

I would have thought that the player wasn't directly involved in the game battle but instead you, the gamemaster, would play out the battle in spectator mode. It could have made for an interesting series on Youtube or something like that. Of course with the player being in control of the battles on their side without anyone else being able to see the conflict then cheating would probably occur (unless you've got some hardcore role-players).

[Rainbow]

I f***ing love it

[Desert-Mammoth]

Originally posted by AcidDevice:

I would have thought that the player wasn't directly involved in the game battle but instead you, the gamemaster, would play out the battle in spectator mode. It could have made for an interesting series on Youtube or something like that. Of course with the player being in control of the battles on their side without anyone else being able to see the conflict then cheating would probably occur (unless you've got some hardcore role-players).

What you say makes sense if I were planning on writing about a fictional war, using the input of others to help shape some of the random events that would occur in my story. And, it would probably make sense in many other uses too, such as a youtube series like you've mentioned.

However, I was hoping to offer the chance to some enthusiastic players to make some meaning out of their battles. With the addition of certain key features, I was hoping to mix things up and make things a little more interesting. Examples were pulling a card before each player's assault that would either help them or hinder them prior to the battle, or would otherwise give them chances to hedge their advantages.

Such cards would have been something like "Spec Ops Raid", which would allow the player in question to play a spec ops game, and if they were successful, then they would gain an additional flag in the follow-up battle. Or "Night Assault", where a player would take part in a 50/50 infantry only battle at night, and win or lose, they would gain the flags taken in the follow-up battle. So if you took half of the flags on island during the night assault, you'd then do the real battle and start with those flags you took.

At the end of the day, Ravenfield for all its simplicity is very inflexible, so I've had to use my imagination to make things a little more interesting. It would have been nice to disallow vehicles for one team, or restrict one team from using certain weapons etc etc

But as you say, there would be nothing I could do to stop someone from cheating. That's why I framed this as a cooperative experience, as people tend to be more honest when they're not going up against another human being in something. And if they do cheat, then what does it matter? I'll never know, and if they want to ruin the experience for themselves then that's up to them I guess.

Originally posted by RainbowGoat:

I f***ing love it

Many thanks :D

[CarbonDevice]

Originally posted by Pamster:

Originally posted by AcidDevice:

I would have thought that the player wasn't directly involved in the game battle but instead you, the gamemaster, would play out the battle in spectator mode. It could have made for an interesting series on Youtube or something like that. Of course with the player being in control of the battles on their side without anyone else being able to see the conflict then cheating would probably occur (unless you've got some hardcore role-players).

What you say makes sense if I were planning on writing about a fictional war, using the input of others to help shape some of the random events that would occur in my story. And, it would probably make sense in many other uses too, such as a youtube series like you've mentioned.

However, I was hoping to offer the chance to some enthusiastic players to make some meaning out of their battles. With the addition of certain key features, I was hoping to mix things up and make things a little more interesting. Examples were pulling a card before each player's assault that would either help them or hinder them prior to the battle, or would otherwise give them chances to hedge their advantages.

Such cards would have been something like "Spec Ops Raid", which would allow the player in question to play a spec ops game, and if they were successful, then they would gain an additional flag in the follow-up battle. Or "Night Assault", where a player would take part in a 50/50 infantry only battle at night, and win or lose, they would gain the flags taken in the follow-up battle. So if you took half of the flags on island during the night assault, you'd then do the real battle and start with those flags you took.

At the end of the day, Ravenfield for all its simplicity is very inflexible, so I've had to use my imagination to make things a little more interesting. It would have been nice to disallow vehicles for one team, or restrict one team from using certain weapons etc etc

But as you say, there would be nothing I could do to stop someone from cheating. That's why I framed this as a cooperative experience, as people tend to be more honest when they're not going up against another human being in something. And if they do cheat, then what does it matter? I'll never know, and if they want to ruin the experience for themselves then that's up to them I guess.

I'm not criticising the idea, I actually really like the sound of it, probably because it's something that I would have made up as a kid to play with my toy soldiers in an overly complex way.

I do however have three questions. One, will the turns be simultaneous when the players move their pieces? Will a frantic battle happen when two regiments move on the same space at the same time? Also, when you say it's co-op, do you mean each player gets say, 5 regiments or will one player be the division commander while the other is the the actual fighting force? Finally, will there be workshop mods added in? For maps I'd assume so but what about weapons and vehicles?

I also have a suggestion I would like to make. Could you possibly add air superiority? If you do, will the area that has say, a bomber wing assigned to it, lose manpower (balance slider change) and (possibly) lose a flag when it comes to be attacked? Given your interest in drawing cards I'll make the guess that a card is drawn for damage values. I would find this mechanic interesting as nowadays air superiority is key to many combat successes.

Other than that it is well thought out design and something that I can tell will become pretty popular with the community (assuming people see the idea). I would probably be interested in playing a match one time, assuming this idea gets the attention it needs.

[CarbonDevice]

Just thought of another idea. How about adding intelligence reports? If the game is going to be co-op then you could easily roll a dice to see if the player' regiments spot any other forces and get details on the force. You could also really easily restrict what the player can see so this should be, visually, pretty easy to implement.

[Desert-Mammoth]

Originally posted by AcidDevice:

I'm not criticising the idea, I actually really like the sound of it, probably because it's something that I would have made up as a kid to play with my toy soldiers in an overly complex way.

I do however have three questions. One, will the turns be simultaneous when the players move their pieces? Will a frantic battle happen when two regiments move on the same space? Also, when you say it's co-op, do you mean each player gets say, 5 regiments or will one player be the division commander while the other is the the actual fighting force? Finally, will there be workshop mods added in? For maps I'd assume so but what about weapons and vehicles?

I also have a suggestion I would like to make. Could you possibly add air superiority? If you do, will the area that has say, a bomber wing assigned to it, lose manpower (balance slider change) and (possibly) lose a flag when it comes to be attacked? Given your interest in drawing cards I'll make the guess that a card is drawn for damage values. I would find this mechanic interesting as nowadays air superiority is key to many combat successes.

Other than that it is well thought out design and something that I can tell will become pretty popular with the community (assuming people see the idea). I would probably be interested in playing a match one time, assuming this idea gets the attention it needs.

Haha, truth be told it's probably my childhood love of tabletop games like Risk, D&D and Warhammer that made this possible. I mean, what is Ravenfield's Conquest Mode going to be but an automated version of what I'm doing? I often find the link between board games and video games is simply a matter of automation, not that me realising this is somehow unique.

And in the case of Ravenfield's conquest map, I figured "manually" operating it like a board game would work rather well. I've done a few test runs all on my lonesome over various maps, and they've always been fun. If nothing else, it gives you a reason you keep playing, to want to win as there are suddenly concequences to your actions.

So to your questions!

1) A game turn operates like so: I start the turn by moving the Raven forces. I will then upload an image of the map, with arrows highlighting where the Raven forces have moved to. The players will then have a chance to move i.e they can attack a Raven army, or hold their ground against a Raven army that has moved into their region... or they can simply move into another region if they are trying to get somewhere. Player movement happens all at once, and in this way players can decide to support each other by moving into the same region where possible. I'm currently devising a special way of resolving multi-player battles.

So in bullet point format:

- I move the Raven forces. Upload a new map image in a post.
- Players then look at the map and decide where they want to move. They then tell me, and can communicate with each other where they might like to combine forces.
- I then move the players' armies and upload a second map highlighting the various battles, and will then include the information in this post for each player's battle.
- The players fight their battles and give me the results. Once all results are in, the turn is over.
- I then upload a third map showing the current state of the game.
- Next turn starts, rinse and repeat.

I don't know how well Steam's forums can support this, as they are very basic with pre-1980's coding in place. However, I can't see their backwardness getting in the way too much, it just means I wont be able to dress everything in bells and whistles.

2) So if two player regiments move into the same region things change slightly, and it will depend on the circumstances of what is opposing them. If it's two regiments going up against two regiments, it will simply be 2 battles with a 50/50 balance. Both battles must be won or lost for the region to change hands, but in both cases the losers' armies will be obliterated. I.e if 1 player is victorious in either attacking or defending, one of the Raven armies is removed from play, and if the second player is also victorious, then the region would change hands if the players were on the offensive. If it was a strictly defensive effort, so long as one player won, they would keep the region, but if one of the players lost, their army would be destroyed. I'm not set on this method, but I think it would be the simplest way forwards.

I was also thinking about splitting the battle into stages. For example, the first player handles the initial Night Raid, the second player handles the main battle. If there were more than two players, it could be that the third player is then given an option to "blitzkrieg" into a neighbouring region. This would all be established prior to the battle so that there would be no hold ups.

What do you think? Keep it simple or try to spice it up with the varying stages?

3) It depends on how many people I can recruit, but initially it was one army per player. However, if I only end up with 2 or 3 players (which at this point looks like the high estimate), then it could well be 2 armies per player or more. I think it is a decision I'd have to make in the moment, once I know how many I have. But in any event, each player would be independent, though if they wished to elect a "General" then that'd be up to them.

I've also thought about allowing players to choose different army types so that they can work together better. For example, an Armoured Division allows for full vehicle vanilla play, but cannot night raid or do special forces, whilst an Infantry Division can do both but only has access to jeeps and quads/landing craft in battle, and an Airborne Division that uses strictly infantry (no cars/jeeps/tanks) but has access to planes/helis/landing boats and can move 2 regions on the map, whilst being allowed to carry out bombing raids that give them special combat bonuses. I'm currently experimenting with this idea. It complicates things a little, but it does add a bit of variety. If Ravenfield would let me allow/disallow certain vehicles for the two teams, it would be perfect, but alas...

4) As for workshop mods, I think people kinda love Ravenfield for its mods, so I would be wrong to try and make people stop using their flashy laser guns or crazy sports cars, so when it came to things like that I would simply let people do as they wished (barring balance-wrecking things). However as for the maps, I would use strictly vanilla as I've found the bot performance on many custom maps to be a bit hap-hazard. That said, I would be open to map recomendations by the players involved if they feel one in particular would work well.

---

As for the idea of air support, aside from the experimental Division-Types, I hadn't given it much thought beyond it being a card that could be drawn. That said, perhaps I could involve some strategy in it, by allowing each player a bombing wing that could be used to do certain things but at a risk of losing it. So yeah, bombing an enemy army to paralyse it for a turn, or to grant the player an extra flag or to effect the balance slider, but throwing a D6 to determine if the wing is destroyed in the attempt.

I agree that air superiority is very important, and in the current setting, I had planned for the Raven fleet to start with it. For example, the players would initially find their armies getting badly affected, until the Eagles were able to get their own into the air to contest the space. But this idea is starting to fade as I come up with new ones lol.

Originally posted by AcidDevice:

Just thought of another idea. How about adding intelligence reports? If the game is going to be co-op then you could easily roll a dice to see if the player' regiments spot any other forces and get details on the force. You could also really easily restrict what the player can see so this should be, visually, pretty easy to implement.

Great idea! Fog of war! I hadn't thought of that.... wow, that could really add a new dynamic. I'll have to give that some thought.

Thanks for your kind words and input. Hopefully my 443583454358358 word essay hasn't scared people off. I do kinda get carried away once I start typing.

[CarbonDevice]

Originally posted by Pamster:

1) A game turn operates like so: I start the turn by moving the Raven forces. I will then upload an image of the map, with arrows highlighting where the Raven forces have moved to. The players will then have a chance to move i.e they can attack a Raven army, or hold their ground against a Raven army that has moved into their region... or they can simply move into another region if they are trying to get somewhere. Player movement happens all at once, and in this way players can decide to support each other by moving into the same region where possible. I'm currently devising a special way of resolving multi-player battles.

So in bullet point format:

- I move the Raven forces. Upload a new map image in a post.
- Players then look at the map and decide where they want to move. They then tell me, and can communicate with each other where they might like to combine forces.
- I then move the players' armies and upload a second map highlighting the various battles, and will then include the information in this post for each player's battle.
- The players fight their battles and give me the results. Once all results are in, the turn is over.
- I then upload a third map showing the current state of the game.
- Next turn starts, rinse and repeat.

I don't know how well Steam's forums can support this, as they are very basic with pre-1980's coding in place. However, I can't see their backwardness getting in the way too much, it just means I wont be able to dress everything in bells and whistles.

I reckon Steam's forums can support it, it is after all just 'Screenshot, description, player action 1, player action 2, friendly chat, battle reports, repeat'. One thing I must ask is how do you decide where the Raven army moves? Of course you could use common sense and say 'Ah, well, of course we'd move this regiment here, it would cut off supply lines! Why wouldn't we do that?', but often in real life and history there have been great military blunders regarding divisionary movements and tactics (in WW2 for example the German's center army group during Operation Barbarossa decided to swing down south instead of spearheading Moscow. This movement gave the Russian's tow weeks of preparation time and probably ended up saving their lives. You could argue that this decision was made because HItler was in desperate need of the oil fields to the south of the Soviet Union, but I think I need to stop blathering on about military history). Right, back to the actual topic, if I was to decide the way in which the Raven's regiments move then I would personally make some over-convoluted dice-roll dependent decision maker where the dice-roll of each regiment affects their overall choice. I doubt you'll do it that way but it can sometimes be (rarely) lifelike-ish.

Originally posted by Pamster:

2) So if two player regiments move into the same region things change slightly, and it will depend on the circumstances of what is opposing them. If it's two regiments going up against two regiments, it will simply be 2 battles with a 50/50 balance. Both battles must be won or lost for the region to change hands, but in both cases the losers' armies will be obliterated. I.e if 1 player is victorious in either attacking or defending, one of the Raven armies is removed from play, and if the second player is also victorious, then the region would change hands if the players were on the offensive. If it was a strictly defensive effort, so long as one player won, they would keep the region, but if one of the players lost, their army would be destroyed. I'm not set on this method, but I think it would be the simplest way forwards.

I was also thinking about splitting the battle into stages. For example, the first player handles the initial Night Raid, the second player handles the main battle. If there were more than two players, it could be that the third player is then given an option to "blitzkrieg" into a neighbouring region. This would all be established prior to the battle so that there would be no hold ups.

What do you think? Keep it simple or try to spice it up with the varying stages?

I would personally prefer the more varied stages, but to maximise their full potential the different regiment types would have to be used, otherwise blitzkrieging around an area in a pincer movement would be pretty lame with your old run-of-the-mill infantry plus a few tanks. Another example would be parachute regiments get something like an extra flag in night raids due to the element of surprise.

Originally posted by Pamster:

3) It depends on how many people I can recruit, but initially it was one army per player. However, if I only end up with 2 or 3 players (which at this point looks like the high estimate), then it could well be 2 armies per player or more. I think it is a decision I'd have to make in the moment, once I know how many I have. But in any event, each player would be independent, though if they wished to elect a "General" then that'd be up to them.

I've also thought about allowing players to choose different army types so that they can work together better. For example, an Armoured Division allows for full vehicle vanilla play, but cannot night raid or do special forces, whilst an Infantry Division can do both but only has access to jeeps and quads/landing craft in battle, and an Airborne Division that uses strictly infantry (no cars/jeeps/tanks) but has access to planes/helis/landing boats and can move 2 regions on the map, whilst being allowed to carry out bombing raids that give them special combat bonuses. I'm currently experimenting with this idea. It complicates things a little, but it does add a bit of variety. If Ravenfield would let me allow/disallow certain vehicles for the two teams, it would be perfect, but alas...

Big ol' +1 on this idea but, as you said, Ravenfield does not currently support different equipment for different teams. However this is a highly requested feature and will allow the game to become more like a sandbox game (that does seem to be the direction SteelRaven is going at the moment, a fully customizable sandbox FPS), so hopefully SteelRaven will implement it.

Originally posted by Pamster:

Great idea! Fog of war! I hadn't thought of that.... wow, that could really add a new dynamic. I'll have to give that some thought.

Thanks for your kind words and input. Hopefully my 443583454358358 word essay hasn't scared people off. I do kinda get carried away once I start typing.

Yay! Someone finally gives me a compliment on a board game mechanic! Anyway, I hope that these features are added to improve this concept that will hopefully be implemented.
As for the 443583454358358 word essay a comprehensive guide will probably lure more people in as it will (hopefully) look less intimidating than a wall of text. I'd reccomend just makinig the guide in the Ravenfield Guide Section.

[Desert-Mammoth]

Originally posted by AcidDevice:

I reckon Steam's forums can support it, it is after all just 'Screenshot, description, player action 1, player action 2, friendly chat, battle reports, repeat'. One thing I must ask is how do you decide where the Raven army moves? Of course you could use common sense and say 'Ah, well, of course we'd move this regiment here, it would cut off supply lines! Why wouldn't we do that?', but often in real life and history there have been great military blunders regarding divisionary movements and tactics (in WW2 for example the German's center army group during Operation Barbarossa decided to swing down south instead of spearheading Moscow. This movement gave the Russian's tow weeks of preparation time and probably ended up saving their lives. You could argue that this decision was made because HItler was in desperate need of the oil fields to the south of the Soviet Union, but I think I need to stop blathering on about military history). Right, back to the actual topic, if I was to decide the way in which the Raven's regiments move then I would personally make some over-convoluted dice-roll dependent decision maker where the dice-roll of each regiment affects their overall choice. I doubt you'll do it that way but it can sometimes be (rarely) lifelike-ish.

Yeah, we'd be fine. It would make things overall more accessible, as not everyone would be comfortable with using either a third-party site or program to conduct it. Plus, I used to do a bit of forum-based D&D back in my nerdy hay-day so I've got a good idea of how to make things work just fine.

As for the Raven movement, as much as I would love to create some kind of procedural system, I think it would be easier if I just move them to areas that make sense. This would still leave room for error, as I'm not a fantastic chess player, and it will also allow for me to set up interesting scenarios (i.e, the Raven forces focus all their efforts on crushing a particular player's army at the expense of leaving the other areas of their front wide open).

But typically, the Raven forces will simply be looking to do the largest amount of damage possible. So they'd actively engage players with overwhelming numbers, and avoid balanced fights where they would be more likely to lose. At the moment, the troop ratio will be abour 3 to 2 in the Ravens' favour at the game's start, owing to the larger story at hand (they are on an unstoppable drive across the ocean after dealing a series of defeats on the Eagles).

Originally posted by AcidDevice:

I would personally prefer the more varied stages, but to maximise their full potential the different regiment types would have to be used, otherwise blitzkrieging around an area in a pincer movement would be pretty lame with your old run-of-the-mill infantry plus a few tanks. Another example would be parachute regiments get something like an extra flag in night raids due to the element of surprise.

I agree. I also think people take more pride in their forces if they are able to modify it a little. Well I'm currently in the process of reworking the system and trying different things. Truth be told, I was just here seeking interest, with the simple rules already tried and tested, but I've started evolving them dramatically in the last 24-48 hours. I am probably putting far too much work into this lol.

Once I've got it all figured out, I'll be able to stream line it all into brief and simple explainers. My conversation with you is pretty much a constant stream of conciousnes. I in no way intend the rules to be so complicated that they need to be referenced every 5 minutes.

Originally posted by AcidDevice:

Big ol' +1 on this idea but, as you said, Ravenfield does not currently support different equipment for different teams. However this is a highly requested feature and will allow the game to become more like a sandbox game (that does seem to be the direction SteelRaven is going at the moment, a fully customizable sandbox FPS), so hopefully SteelRaven will implement it.

I hope so. I was starting to lose a little faith in the guy, which was a bit poor of me, but the recent patch has proved to me he is very much driving forwards with this game. I've had such a bad experience with EA titles that I get very skeptical, sometimes unjustly, when I don't hear a peep from the dev in a few weeks. Needless to say, if he was able to add those features, I would be able to put a much bigger spin on this game.

Originally posted by AcidDevice:

Yay! Someone finally gives me a compliment on a board game mechanic! Anyway, I hope that these features are added to improve this concept that will hopefully be implemented.
As for the 443583454358358 word essay a comprehensive guide will probably lure more people in as it will (hopefully) look less intimidating than a wall of text. I'd reccomend just makinig the guide in the Ravenfield Guide Section.

Haha, it's a great idea! It would only really work on a bigger map though I think, where there's a lot of regions behind the front lines. I'm perfectly capable of creating bigger maps, but I don't want to drop 3 players into Rome 2 Total War's campaign map and expect them to conquer an entire continent. Start small, end big, that's my philosophy.

That said, if I see an excuse to shroud an area, such as bad weather or something, then I will... but then I'd have to talk a player out of rage quitting when 6 Raven armies jump out of the mist and onto his/her head.

As for the guide idea, that's fantastic. I hadn't thought of that. Once I've got it all written down and simplified, I guess that would very much be the way forwards. That way we've pretty much got a constant rule book that can be easily accessed.

Though like I said, I was here looking to see what kind of interest there was, as opposed to hashing out the rules on the fly. Maybe I should focus on getting it all written and done, get the Guide made, and then make another thread at a later date to see if I can catch a few fishes with my simple, easy to read wording.

In any case, once I think I've gotten all the bases covered, I'll throw it up for your opinion. Your input has been valuable and I could do with a second pair of eyes looking over my work. It's very easy, if you are a team of one, to think "Yeah that's a great idea, that makes sense!" when in reality you've just committed some kind of creative suicide! :D

[CarbonDevice]

All right then, I'll leave you to making the guide and a complete ruleset before I dump more information than needed on you. The foundation is solid and with some more work and (possibly) tweaks, the 'D.I.Y Conquest Campaign' should hopefully be completed and become a working thing!

Although I do have to ask one final question, which is, 'Will you give the players gun presets that they must use?' because while one player might be using laser beams and handheld tank cannons, the other might be using bolt-action rifles and bi-planes. I'll assume you'll only let the players have weapons of a certain time period to prevent half the division having plasma guns and sticky grenades and the other marching forward with muskets and black powder (although that would be pretty funny)!

[Desert-Mammoth]

Well here's it is in all its glory. There are bits I can add, and bits I can clarify, but I am no game designer - I'd be here all week. I think it's enough to get me started. By all means have a read and tell me what you think; I'd ask you to pay particular attention to the Army Types section.

Thanks for your help :)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1351645222

[CarbonDevice]

I like the guide and think its pretty good quality, plus it explains the rules in more detail than this thread, which is good because its not always easy to get rules from a thread that's scattered about like this one.

As you asked me in particular to look at the different regiment/brigade types I'll go on to that now.

I think the infantry regiment and the CAD divisions should function well, but the paratroopers seem a bit 'off'. This is mainly because for airborne regiments to do a paradrop I'd think it makes more sense to only allow them to jump if they are stationed at an airstrip with an air wing attatched to it (preferably a transport plane wing). To allow for this you could add a few airstrips on the Eagle's island to allow for prioritisation of certain areas and would be the foundation for adding new 'strategic positions', which leads onto my next point:

Respawns. Where does an regiment/brigade respawn? If they spawn at the back of the map away from danger then won't the rest of the battle will be them marching back? I'm going to assume that right now you're just going to put them somewhere that's about two regions away from the nearest enemy force. However, in regard to adding in strategic positions, what if you were to add specific, static spawnpoints and the destroyed force would respawn at the nearest one. This could add another layer of strategy to the game as it would allow the player to group their forces and feel more like their accomplishing something when they defend/capture a region. For now the only two strategic points I can think of are airfields and spawnpoints. Maybe roads could be added bewteen certain points that would speed up the movement of your troops? I don't know but I do have one last idea:

Supply lines. Not super complex supply lines that ask you to be a logistics expert, but instead regiments/brigades that are completely cut off from other regions lose manpower each turn (maybe even equipment, like tanks, jeeps etc, after a few turns). I'd also say that if some of your troops did a valiant holdout at one of the spawnpoints but it was cut off from all other friendly neigbouring regions then the spawnpoint would cease to function, leading to less towers of doom where 5 regiments come out from nowhere.This would give the need for players to think as to whether or not they should make an epic last stand in the hope of a friendly break through that could happen or if they should just leave the point and live to fight another day. This also leaves for more strategic options for paratroopers, such as 'should I land them as relief forces in the stranded region and let the main army break through or try to hold open a corridor so that the other regiment can escape?'.

Anyway, rant over, I think that these ideas should fit into the simplicity to the game as it would provide more strategy than 'hey, let's just pile up forces here because there's more enemys there!'. Other than that I'd say that the game is complete and probably needs to be playtested now. Hopefully more people will see this and give it a go, and then hopefully think 'Damn, that was good fun!', assuming it gets the attention it needs!

[Desert-Mammoth]

Originally posted by AcidDevice:

I like the guide and think its pretty good quality, plus it explains the rules in more detail than this thread, which is good because its not always easy to get rules from a thread that's scattered about like this one.

As you asked me in particular to look at the different regiment/brigade types I'll go on to that now.

I think the infantry regiment and the CAD divisions should function well, but the paratroopers seem a bit 'off'. This is mainly because for airborne regiments to do a paradrop I'd think it makes more sense to only allow them to jump if they are stationed at an airstrip with an air wing attatched to it (preferably a transport plane wing). To allow for this you could add a few airstrips on the Eagle's island to allow for prioritisation of certain areas and would be the foundation for adding new 'strategic positions', which leads onto my next point:

Respawns. Where does an regiment/brigade respawn? If they spawn at the back of the map away from danger then won't the rest of the battle will be them marching back? I'm going to assume that right now you're just going to put them somewhere that's about two regions away from the nearest enemy force. However, in regard to adding in strategic positions, what if you were to add specific, static spawnpoints and the destroyed force would respawn at the nearest one. This could add another layer of strategy to the game as it would allow the player to group their forces and feel more like their accomplishing something when they defend/capture a region. For now the only two strategic points I can think of are airfields and spawnpoints. Maybe roads could be added bewteen certain points that would speed up the movement of your troops? I don't know but I do have one last idea:

Thanks for taking the time to read it, I appreciate your kind words. Having reviewed it myself, I think I was far too eager to "get something down" and as a result, there are many mistakes and many unclear points. Furthermore, rather than making things look simple and more approachable, I've gone ahead and forged another wall of text.

I'm going to take a sledgehammer to it and simplify it without compromising on the rules. Child language, straight to the point, bang bang boom. Otherwise, I'm going to get an awful lot of people that ready the first sentence, think I've created some kind of actual Ravenfield spin-off video game, and start asking/saying loads of daft stuff.

And yes, having "Bases" as spawn points would be a better alternative and it would give players reasons to go after certain regions if it meant reducing the spawning ability of hostile forces. I'll work it in.

As for the Airborne, I'm going to have to re-read exactly what I've put, re-think how it all works, and then decide on whether I want to edit them. I wanted an army type that was very mobile, and restricting them to a handfull of regions might ruin the fun factor of being able to out-flank hostile forces as and when required. Personally, I feel a test-run is needed at this point to establish how well these armies work. I can test them myself repeatedly, but without people yelling "this SUX!!" at me, I can't really get a sense of how well they'll operate in a live fire exercise.

Originally posted by AcidDevice:

Supply lines. Not super complex supply lines that ask you to be a logistics expert, but instead regiments/brigades that are completely cut off from other regions lose manpower each turn (maybe even equipment, like tanks, jeeps etc, after a few turns). I'd also say that if some of your troops did a valiant holdout at one of the spawnpoints but it was cut off from all other friendly neigbouring regions then the spawnpoint would cease to function, leading to less towers of doom where 5 regiments come out from nowhere.This would give the need for players to think as to whether or not they should make an epic last stand in the hope of a friendly break through that could happen or if they should just leave the point and live to fight another day. This also leaves for more strategic options for paratroopers, such as 'should I land them as relief forces in the stranded region and let the main army break through or try to hold open a corridor so that the other regiment can escape?'.

Anyway, rant over, I think that these ideas should fit into the simplicity to the game as it would provide more strategy than 'hey, let's just pile up forces here because there's more enemys there!'. Other than that I'd say that the game is complete and probably needs to be playtested now. Hopefully more people will see this and give it a go, and then hopefully think 'Damn, that was good fun!', assuming it gets the attention it needs!

Supply lines are another good idea. Armies stuck in regions not connected to another friendly region suffer penalties. Personally, I think they should just become "stuck" and cannot move out until a friendly player/army is able to link back up with them. That way they're sitting ducks unless their team mates help them out. In this scenario you've got A) Loss of resources B) Concequences of not working together, which I think works quite well as a logistics lesson. I'll mull it over.

I'm thankful for your help and ideas, and whilst I might not use all of them, your perspective on things has undoubtedly changed the original direction that the rules were taking. You have my thanks!

As for whether this will gain any popular support, I'm doubtful at present. I don't think there's enough people like us that play the game. I don't want to judge or come across as hilariously opinionated, but reading the forums, I get the impression 90% of Ravenfield players are either children below the age of 10, or non-English speakers. Not that I have a problem with non-English speakers, it's just in this case understanding the English language is kinda important lol.

Still, it'd be a shame to abandon this project now after all the time I've invested. I'll see it through to a reasonable end, and if nothing else, I can always solo-play whatever system I end up with... which is pretty much what I was doing anyway, and what sparked this whole thing to begin with.

Anywhos, I better get busy. I'll let you know how it all goes. Thanks again.

[Desert-Mammoth]

Ah, I had a bit of an idea that will change things significantly, but might simplify everything and streamline the experience. Let me know what you think.

Each player is given 4 points to spend when creating their force. With these 4 points, they can purchase:

2 Infantry Divisions for 1 point
1 Armoured Division for 2 points
1 Airborne Division for 3 points


All three army types operate the same in-game. That is to say, an Infantry Division has full vehicle access, as does an Airborne Division and the Combined Arms Division - now renamed to Armoured Division - of course remains as it is.

All three armies are capable of performing Night Raids and Special Forces Raids, which will be an optional choice the player can persue prior to attacking an enemy. Paradrop is removed from play.

Things change on the world map. Armoured Divisions retain their ability to "Blitzkrieg" following a successful attack and region acquisition. Blitzkrieg's 50% negative effect is removed from play, making the ability much more effective. They also gain "Break Out!", an ability to use if they become encircled. If activated, Break Out! allows an encircled Armoured Division to attack in the direction of the nearest friendly region.

The Infantry Divisions have no abilities at all, which is why they are cheaper. If encircled, they cannot move.

The Airborne Divisions are scary, capable of traversing the map at will, and launching bombing runs - as they currently can in the present rules. The risk related D6 rolls will still apply.

So there is potentional for a player to have the following set ups:

8 x Infantry Divisions

1 x Armoured + 4 x Infantry

1 x Airborne + 2 x Infantry

2 x Armoured

With these changes, I will introduce changes to the multi-player battle system. It is still divided into stages, but each stage (bar the Night Raid) gives a Victory Point towards the victor, which counts towards how the battle is ultimately resolved. The more players, the more stages. Something like this:

Multi-Player Battle Stages

Player 1 - Night Raid - Gives territorial advantage to Player 2
Player 2 - Main Battle - Bulk of conventional fighting. +2 Victory Point to winner.
Player 3 - Enemy Counter-Attack - Last Stand style scenario. +1 Victory Point to winner.
Player 4 - Disengage - Second conventional battle, with mixed up flag ownership. +1 Victory Point to winner.

Victory Point Table

If your team has1 more point than the enemy, then you hold or take the region, but their armies escape.

If your team has 2 more points than the enemy, then you hold or take the region, and their armies are destroyed.

If your team has 3 more points than the enemy, then you hold or take the region, and their armies are destroyed and DO NOT respawn.

If your team has 4 or more points than the enemy, then [BAD THINGS HAPPEN]

In the event of a draw, the region does not change hands, and no armies are destroyed. The battle ends in a stalemate.

Annnnnnnd I'm also thinking of doing away with the "numerical advantage" system I've got. Rather than messing with the balance slider, battles are resolved as if 1 on 1, regardless of how many armies are in a region.

Example: Ravens move 4 armies into a region held by 1 Eagle army. Rather than a really one sided game, the Eagle army must fight 4 seperate battles. For each battle, the loser loses an army. So if the Eagle army won the first 2 games, 2 Raven armies would be destroyed. If the Eagle army in this situation lost the 3rd game, it would be destroyed.

This would make it a bit more Risk-like, and a bit simpler to process.

What do you think? Any of this sounding like an idea? Or should I keep with what I already had?