Design Log: Stardate 02.24.2003

The Changing Fortunes of Battle

STCCG old-timers may recall that long ago, when Blaze of Glory came out with its overhaul of ship battle and introduction of the Battle Bridge side deck, I wrote a series called "How to Host a Ship Battle" which explained in detail how to use the new tactic cards. (The title, for those who have never visited our Specialty Products section called "The Party Zone," is a parody of Decipher's popular "How to Host a Murder" series of party games.) Personnel battle had already been revamped in First Contact, but wasn't quite as complex because it had no analog to tactic cards.

Now Second Edition has again put a new face on battle – not to mention a new name, or more accurately, new names. That's right, "battle" is passé as a gameplay term, and not without reason. Consider First Edition's myriad of terms: Away Team battle and Rogue Borg battle, both superceded by personnel battle (which could include both personnel and Rogue Borg), and ship battle (which could include both ships and facilities). Some cards referred just to "battle", leaving it open to question which kind of battle it meant (sometimes it meant either kind, sometimes only ship battle). So Second Edition has done away with the ambiguous terminology. Now, if you want to start a fight involving ships, it's called an engagement; if you want your personnel to beat up on your opponent's personnel, it's called combat. But a lot more has changed than the names, so First Edition players will need to make note of the differences before they haul out the big guns in Second Edition.

Declaration of War

Probably the biggest change to get used to is the fact that you can't start either combat or an engagement just by saying, "I attack your cards." Like almost everything else in Second Edition, if you want to pick a fight, you're going to need a card, generally an Event card, that explicitly lets you do it. Those with the Maneuver keyword, such as BaH!, allow you to begin an engagement, while others with the Assault keyword, like Brutal Struggle, allow combat. (Be aware, however, that not all Maneuver and Assault cards necessarily allow you to start battle – some, like the Power to the Shields interrupt, play to affect an engagement or combat already begun.)

In most cases, you must destroy the Maneuver or Assault card to begin the engagement or combat (e.g., Just Like Old Times); occasionally, the game text simply allows you to start an engagement, with the card later used as a damage marker if you win (e.g., Point Blank Strike).

While many players miss the free-wheeling opportunistic battle of First Edition, the relative ease of assembling an armada and blowing your opponent out of the game made for a major turn-off for new players and didn't square with the design goal of keeping the main focus of the game on overcoming dilemmas in order to complete missions, with features like battle remaining an auxiliary tactic. "It's tough to balance battle in the game when there's no cost – when all you need is the opportunity in order to battle," said STCCG designer Evan Lorentz. "Battle now has both a card-draw and card-play cost, and the card-play cost can be adjusted if necessary to tweak the balance."

Other happy side effects of card-based battle initiation include eliminating confusion (and FAQs) about what constitutes battle (for example, is destroying a ship with Romulan Ambush a ship battle?) and the complicated counter-attack rules (you can bring in other ships to counter-attack, but only where your opponent attacked you last turn). The only actions that constitutes combat or an engagement are those specified as such on a card; and battles are free-standing – that is, I can't start an engagement with your ship just because your personnel were in combat here with mine last turn; no matter what you did, I still have to have a card for an engagement.

Don't Follow the Leader

Every First Edition player knows you can't start a battle without a "leader," which everyone knows is someone with Leadership. Or an OFFICER. Unless you have someone with a special skill that specifically says he can start initiate battle (but that doesn't make him a leader or confer the skill of Leadership). Or a card that removes affiliation restrictions, like Emblem of the Empire. Or a Tal Shiar personnel with no other leader present – whoops, that rule disappeared a few years ago. Or unless you're counter-attacking

Well, as you can see, even something as minor as the definition of "leader" has unexpected complications. So in 2E the "leader" rule has been eliminated, in favor of card-based solutions. Since you need a card to let you start combat or an engagement anyway, why shouldn't that same card tell you exactly what you need to do it? While many specify "your Leadership personnel" and others ask only for a personnel of a particular affiliation, more specific requirements are possible – for example, The Orion Underworld lets you begin an engagement only involving "your [NA] ship with your Thief aboard."

Affiliation Restrictions? What Affiliation Restrictions?

Gone are the days when Klingons, Kazon, and Non-Aligned forces could attack anyone; Federation couldn't attack anyone except Borg; and everyone else (except Borg) could attack anyone except their own affiliation. No more are your Romulans prevented from blasting your opponent's Non-Aligned ship out of the sky because he happens to have one Romulan aboard. "There was actually very little storyline support for the notion that the Federation never started fights," says Evan. "Benjamin Maxwell just started blasting away at the Cardassians, and there were lots of instances in Deep Space Nine." So now everyone is in pretty much the same boat as the First Edition Borg: feel free to attack anyone else – as long as you have a card that says you can! Of course, some affiliations have more cards to facilitate engagements and combat than others (the Federation currently has no affiliation-specific battle cards), but anyone with a Leadership personnel can Cry "Havoc!" (and let slip the dogs of war).

Homeland Security

Once upon a time, protecting your outpost or headquarters from destruction was a serious concern, because you needed someplace to report your cards. Well, facilities don't exist in Second Edition, and nothing destroys a headquarters mission, so you can't lose your reporting ability, but that also means your ships don't have any SHIELDS extension from an outpost and your personnel just reported and still on the mission could be a mite vulnerable... except for one simple rule: You cannot begin combat or an engagement at a headquarters mission.

Combat – It's Nothing Personal

The combat pile, personal combat against randomly drawn adversaries, and "stunned" and "mortally wounded" effects are no more. Combat is now much like classic Away Team battles, where you total Strength and compare to see who wins, with one huge difference: there is no automatic "random kill" by the winner. So what happens when you win at combat? Exactly what the card that let you begin combat says. That may be a random kill (Let Honor Guide You), or it could mean you score points (A Chance for Glory) or take a captive (Taken Prisoner).

Why was personal combat eliminated? "There was really very little difference in the overall outcome of personnel battles under the First Contact rules," said Evan. "It was pretty rare for anyone to be mortally wounded, and for the most part, you would never start a fight if there was any significant risk that you wouldn't win. So it came down to this time-consuming business of flipping over cards and comparing strength, to get pretty much the same results." Of course, there was also the lengthy rulebook description of personnel battle to deal with. So in the same spirit of simplification that characterizes all Second Edition design, the designers opted to dump the cumbersome mechanism and go back to basics. But it has the potential to make combat more interesting in the long run, because the outcome isn't limited to someone being killed; any desired effect can be had with card-based outcomes.

We Have Engaged the Enemy

Engagements actually work very much the same as a classic, pre-Tactic card ship battle, except it's all one-to-one unless a card lets you(or your opponent) add another ship to the engagement. If you're starting the engagement, your ship has to be staffed (as well as meeting any requirements on the card allowing the engagement, such as a [Kli] ship or a Leadership personnel aboard). You total your Weapons, your opponent totals his Shields, and the higher total is the winner.

And like combat, engagements no longer cause automatic "rotation damage" with a default meaning such as "reduce RANGE to 5 and -50% HULL damage." The card that let you begin the engagement tells you what effects take place if you win, ranging from scoring points (A Chance for Glory) to killing a personnel aboard the opponent's ship (Cry "Havoc!") to card-based damage marked by placement of the Event card on the ship (Pierce Their Defenses).This retains some of the best features of Tactic cards while dropping the randomness factor of drawing them from side decks and the calculation of HULL damage. Now, a ship can carry only two damage markers, and a third destroys it.

The Fortunes of War

Moving into Second Edition? Here's how battle has changed, in a nutshell:

You can only begin an engagement (ship battle) or combat (personnel battle) using a card that allows you to do so. There is no counter-attack concept.
You don't need a "leader" to battle, just whatever the enabling card requires.
Any affiliation (even Federation) can attack any affiliation, including their own – as long as you have a card that lets you.
You cannot start combat or an engagement at any headquarters mission.
Combat is resolved simply by totalling and comparing Strengths; the higher total wins.
Engagements are one-on-one unless a card lets you or your opponent have another ship join the engagement.
Engagements are resolved simply by comparing the attacker's total Weapons to the defender's total Shields; the higher total wins.
Neither combat nor engagements have an "automatic" outsome such as killing a personnel or damaging a ship, and there is no default definition of damage. All effects of battle are specified by cards.

Kathy McCracken
Major Rakal
Star Trek Intelligence Officer

February 24, 2003

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