Campaign incorporating Mare Nostrum

[Karvon]

Wondering if there would be any interest in a campaign using FOG2 for land battles and Mare Nostrum for naval engagements?

[kronenblatt]

I'm sure deeter would love that idea!

[deeter]

I do! If you have a copy, maybe we could try some games of Mare Nostrum?

Deeter

[Karvon]

OK, I'll look over some references I have and give some thought to putting together something.

I'm game for trying some Mare Nostrum MP; I've not played it MP before, just a few solitaire games so far.

[SnuggleBunnies]

I played through all the SP missions, but never messed with skirmishes or MP. I enjoy the game, but I do feel that the wego turns are too long, and every battle turns into just insane chaos over which you have little control, I mean even less control than I think historically was the case.

[deeter]

I am open to scenarios or skirmishes from anyone interested. Some of the design decisions are disappointing: long movement allowances for WeGo make it hard to predict where things end up, made particularly harder given the unfortunate decision to make ships only occupy one hex rather than two. I think these doomed the game to obscurity. Still, it is currently the best game on subject and the skirmish mode is great fun.

I stopped playing because multiplayer is mostly nonexistent with the few players I've seen being non-English speakers.

Sure hope they remake this with a better design someday. The old WeGo board game Trireme had two-hex ships and shorter movement rates making combat less chaotic. Meanwhile, please PM me if interested in a game.

Deeter

[Karvon]

I've found a number of campaign rules sets designed for DBA that I think could be readily adapted to FOG2. A number of historical periods I think might prove interesting include:

1. Peloponnesian War: Various Greek factions, Persians, Syracusians.

2. Magna Grecia: Syracusian, Carthaginian, Greek, Roman, Phyric

3. Successors: Greek, Successors,

4. Punic Wars: Roman, Carthaginian, Syracusian, Macedonian, Greek

Any particular preferences among these?

One problem with Mare Nostrum is the apparent lack of historical lists in skirmish games. There are no limits on what you can purchase regardless of what historical faction you pick. Thus if you play Athenians for example, you could choose to include monstrous ships stuffed with towers and marines and corvus which the Athenians never had access to. I'm wondering if there is a way to create a mod to rectify that issue? Not that I have any talent or experience with such things.

[Karvon]

It seems the MP server for Mare Nostrum is no longer supported. Forum note from a year ago noted trouble publishing matches and there have been no follow-up posts indicating the issue has been addressed.

[deeter]

Challenge posted without any issues. We'll see how it goes. There are many problems with the game regarding skirmishes. House rules can sort that out though. For example, a Punic Wars scenario could limit all ships to being cuinqeremes or smaller with septeres allowed for flagships whereas in the Hellenic period, anything goes. These could be further refined by allowing better crews for Carthage and bigger marine complements (or even corvuses) for Rome.

Deeter

[Karvon]

OK, our test game of MN seems to be working, despite my ineptness, so I'm going to work a bit more on the campaign.

I think I'm going to go with using the old SPI The Punic Wars as a base for the strategic game and then we'll use FOG2 and MN to handle major battles. I have a Cyberboard set for the Punic Wars which I've added an updated map I found and I'm going to add some variant tables to it as well from an expansion someone wrote. I found a copy of the rules online in Italian which I ran through Google Translate to provide an English copy which I then read through to proofread.

The main work will be deciding on the appropriate conversion of game SP for army and fleet to points in FOG2 and MN. I'm also going to have to put together some fleet lists for the two sides as MN doesn't actually have fleet lists in the skirmish games.

I suspect we can recruit a few people to act as generals and/or admirals for the two sides.

[Giacofa93]

I'll jump in here: I'm intrigued by this but do not own MN and would like to know your opinion if it would be a good buy and how much I might spend for it. I've been looking around on the internet but did not find it anywhere.
Also, if you need anything for the italian translation I'll gladly help!

[kronenblatt]

OK, our test game of MN seems to be working, despite my ineptness, so I'm going to work a bit more on the campaign.

I think I'm going to go with using the old SPI The Punic Wars as a base for the strategic game and then we'll use FOG2 and MN to handle major battles. I have a Cyberboard set for the Punic Wars which I've added an updated map I found and I'm going to add some variant tables to it as well from an expansion someone wrote. I found a copy of the rules online in Italian which I ran through Google Translate to provide an English copy which I then read through to proofread.

The main work will be deciding on the appropriate conversion of game SP for army and fleet to points in FOG2 and MN. I'm also going to have to put together some fleet lists for the two sides as MN doesn't actually have fleet lists in the skirmish games.

I suspect we can recruit a few people to act as generals and/or admirals for the two sides.

Sounds like fun: I'd be interested!

[Karvon]

I'll jump in here: I'm intrigued by this but do not own MN and would like to know your opinion if it would be a good buy and how much I might spend for it. I've been looking around on the internet but did not find it anywhere.
Also, if you need anything for the italian translation I'll gladly help!

You don't need Mare Nostrum to play in the campaign if you don't wish to serve as an admiral.

Mare Nostrum is far from perfect but it is really the only game of its kind available AFAIK. I enjoy puttering around with it, though I'm hardly an expert with it

It's available here:

https://www.matrixgames.com/game/mare-nostrvm

I believe I'm good as far at the Google Translate of the Italian copy of the rules. I've done a quick review and think I got all the slightly off words or mistranslations, for example friction sometimes in place of attrition.

Regards,

Karvon

[deeter]

I picked up my copy for $5, but had a credit for that, so it was free

Deeter

[kronenblatt]

I think I'm going to go with using the old SPI The Punic Wars as a base for the strategic game and then we'll use FOG2 and MN to handle major battles. I have a Cyberboard set for the Punic Wars which I've added an updated map I found and I'm going to add some variant tables to it as well from an expansion someone wrote. I found a copy of the rules online in Italian which I ran through Google Translate to provide an English copy which I then read through to proofread.

I found some rules in English, that may or may not be the correct ones. Sent them to you by email.

[Karvon]

Update

1. I've incorporated a number of variants into the rules: A Macedonian intervention, A more realistic sea attrition system, a new siege assault table, an expansion on supply rules, a two season year rather than a single year turn.

2. I've updated the Cyberboard module for the Punic Wars with additional counters for the variants and additional tables. I've replaced the original map with a really beautiful more colorful one made by a fan.

3. I'm in the process of developing the rules for interfacing the tactical options vs resolving combats normally. Here is what I'm thinking so far.

In the game, open battles are probably not so common. Armies and fleets will often likely end up in towns or cities to secure control of regions. When attacked in such a spot, the defender always has the option to retreat into the town and stand siege or fight off an assault. These kinds of actions will have to be resolved using the Punic Wars rules as FOG2 is not designed with these in mind. Also one-sided actions probably aren't going to appeal to most players and FOG2 and NM really aren't designed for those either.

I'm planning of a base conversion of 1 army strength point to 400 FOG2 pts. MN would convert at 1 to 300. As FOG2 has a maximum of 2000 pts, we will scale the smaller force downward relatively to the larger if these exceed 2000 pts.

Difference in leader ratings will shift the odds .5 per pt of advantage.

1 FOG2 and NM will be options for battles in the open which do not exceed 3:1 odds.
2 The defender can opt for the tactical option if he's got a leader present and in the open.
3 The attacker can opt for the tactical option if he otherwise catches the defender in the open.

After battles, defender losses will applied at 100% and attackers will be applied at 50% in conversion back to SPs. If a CinC dies, then he will be replaced per Punic War rules.

Oh and Mare Nostrum is on sale through Dec 2 according to the website. A good chance to pick it up cheap if you have any interest at all in the genre.

and it's even cheaper on steam atm
https://store.steampowered.com/app/726630/Mare_Nostrvm/


Karvon

[deeter]

The price of a beer or latte!

Sounds like great progress. I suppose we'll all need to get Cyberboard then?

Deeter

[Karvon]

The price of a beer or latte!

Sounds like great progress. I suppose we'll all need to get Cyberboard then?

Deeter

Yeah, you'll need it to do your moves and follow the game. It's freeware and simple enough to install. It is sometimes a little difficult for some to play at first, but it's not too bad, once you get the hang of it.

Here's a link to the page for it.

https://cyberboard.brainiac.com/download.html

[Karvon]

For the 1st Punic War scenario, I think we'll need a minimum of 8 players. Only 4 will be active initially. The Romans both get rotated out every two turns - 1 year - when the consuls are elected. Two new leaders are randomly drawn. I think it would be good to have a pool of 5-6 Romans to reflect this musical chairs reducing the odds of the same player returning to command too quickly.

Two Carthaginian leaders start the scenario with the possibility of death or recall, so a couple of back ups would be wise.

There's a slight chance of a Macedonian leader coming into play and that could be filled by one of the Carthaginian pool, if it materializes.

[deeter]

I've installed Cyberboard and await your stuff.

Deeter