Recap: Eggplant Strategy Playtest #1

Recap: Eggplant Strategy Playtest #1

Not long ago I wrote a GURPS-based system for play-by-post strategy games. I made up my mind and decided to run a small playtest game with just 2 players. Here's a short recap and my thoughts on it.

Factions

Player #1 used tsav'eri - fairies from his homebrew setting, for his faction. We had to create two custom faction traits for them to represent their enhanced mobility and innate healing magic. Enhanced Mobility allowed the fairies to not be hindered by mountains that much, and Toughness 2 decreased the casualties after the battle by 20%. Which is a lot, and I do not know if I priced it right. But it's 8 points out of 12!

Tsav’Eri [12]

Race: Tsav’Eri.

Traits: Corruption Shift 1 [-2]; Enhanced Mobility [2]; Mercantilism 1 [4]; Population Stability -1 [0]; Toughness 2 [8].

Starting Leader: Leader.

Starting Terrain: Mountains.

Player #2 used Ulm from Dominions 4 as an inspiration for his faction. His nation is barbaric, but is good at mining and farming. The player also created 2 whole schools of magic, which I appreciate a lot.

Ulm [12]

Race: Humans.

Traits: Corruption Shift -1 [2]; Farming 1 [4]; Mercantilism -1 [-4]; Producer (Herbs, Stone, Iron) [6].

Starting Leader: Mage Smith.

Starting Terrain: Forest.

World

I used Hexographer to generate a small world map. Here's the result.

There was also a system of caves, but it didn't get used.

Game

And now let's talk about the game itself. Player #1 started in the mountains and immediately recruited an explorer and sent him to explore and prospect the surroundings. Soon the whole mountain cluster had iron mines and quarries in every hex. Units of light infantry were spread out to explore as much land as possible. In addition, there was a ruined tower infested by kobolds, and some special herbs and relics to the south. But the player didn't bother gathering those. The tower was reconstructed, and allowed the leader to scry distant lands, revealing any hidden features.

Player #2 started in forested hills and cautiously started exploring the surroundings. He found both gold and special resources, and a passage to the underground tunnels, which he never bothered to explore. Exploration was slow, because the player did not split his army, and explored with a single stack and an exlorer.

Soon, the players met each other. Just when Player #2 had a streak of bad rolls, and had his treasury emptied by the upkeep. This forced him to disband his exploring army and leave the leader mage vulnerable! The brutal fairies used this opportunity to mercilessly slaughter the mage.

While Player #1 was joining the spread out light infantry units and supplementing them with horse archers and a good warlord, Player #2 recruited some specialized woodlands and mountain infantry and archers. His explorer got caught by the enemy light infantry and killed. Feeling an urge to avenge the dead explorer, he ordered his mountain-specialized troops to attack that light infantry. But the enemy retreated unscathed, while forming his "doomstack", adding some medium cavalry to it.

Player #2 probably felt that an attack on his capital is coming, recruited 5 units of pikemen to counter the cavalry, and retreated to the capital. After I looked up the siege rules, I figured that the pikemen were quite useless, since cavalry superiority does not count during sieges.

And then the final battle happened. Player #1 made a deliberate attack, while Player #2 went into all-out defense. As a result, Player #2 suffered severe casualties. At this time I was pointed out that Player #2 could've changed the strategy. After that, Player #2 surrendered, seeing that he has no chance to win. The battle probably would be significantly different, if Player #2 had recruited a warlord.

End state (Turn 15)

Thoughts

First, of all - we did it! Play-by-post format has a reputation of being unreliable, and players/GMs flaking and disappearing, but I know that I'm reliable, and the players were too. I tried to resolve a turn per 1-2 days, with reasonable delays on weekends, and I think we did a decent job keeping the tempo. At first it took a while for me to draw the fog of war manually, until I realized that I can just use layers. Then it became quick and simple.

Mass Combat is fun! This was my first time ever using Mass Combat, and I liked it, even though it felt intimidating and confusing at first. I did my share of mistakes, but it was inevitable.

As for the system - it requires a significant revision. The framework is functional, but many things need to be changed or tweaked. First, at the very first turn we got confused about when we have to do the income rolls. Then I was suggested to allow the players to issue orders to the troops that are being recruited to accelerate the game. This way a player could recruit an army and immediately send it somewhere on the turn it was recruited. We started using it, and it was a good addition.

Resources weren't important. What matters is the money. At the end, each player had a stockpile of resources and food, and it wasn't used for anything. First, I have to standardize troop costs in resources, and maybe add/increase resource costs to more troops/buildings. Something has to be done about food too. Money felt too random to Player #2, and he has a point. Usually it was either +900K from a good roll or 0K income from a bad roll, and the Wealth value was insignificant. I think I should revise the income system. And there should be ways to invest money in more things, so it won't be stockpiled in the treasury to just build a huge army when you need it, to avoid upkeep.

The world needs significantly more special features, neutral monsters/armies, and other things to do. I deliberately have omitted most of this to test the barebones framework of the system. But those things should be there during the more in-depth playtests.

Sadly, magic didn't get used this game, so I have no thoughts on it. Maybe next time!

All in all, this was fun and educational, and I hope that I will manage to rework the system into something more satisfying and try again. And again, thanks to the players, they were good!