Honorverse strategic wargame

I have done some looking, and have not found a truly strategic (4X) Honorverse wargame. If there is one, not SITS, then please tell me about it and drop this thread. Otherwise some of us should get together (on the forum) and decide what features we should have in the game (either video or another board game).

For a first set of ideas:

Haven, Manticore, The Andermani Empire, and the Solarian League as playable factions with unique tech trees and victory conditions.

Some kind of opinion/ influence/ happiness system. E.X Manticore and Haven start out as fairly hostile so for both the set up is low/low and therefore actions against the other increase happiness.

Minimal tactical control over battles. This is why admirals like Honor exist. You are the Supreme Overlord, not some soldier.

I read about an Honorverse Online game a long time ago which sounds kind of like what you describe except you were going to create your own star nation rather than run a pre-made one and it didn't talk about victory conditions. But I haven't heard anything new about it in years so I believe it was scrapped for reasons unknown.

I would love this if it allowed the player to design warship models for their nation. I would also love a Honorvers Tabletop RPG very, very much.

The tabletop RPG would be epic, especially as it would likely be a fairly simple programming job to create a dedicated server to allow us to play without having to go to Honorcon or similar for a game.

The bit about designing your own ships is at least for me, problematic. Simply put my thought was simply a way to put the complexities of HH interstellar politics into a set of numbers and spreadsheets to create a way for us to see the what if? scenarios that keep, at least in my head, popping up.

What if the Solarian League saw Manticore as a threat after the end of the First Havenite War?

What would a real full scale offensive into the Solarian League actually do?

How much damage would a Manticore-Andermani war do in the years preceding the Second Havenite?

David Weber granted a license for an Honorverse computer game. It was scheduled to come out a year or two ago. But the game never came out and the company has disappeared.

There was a group working on the outlines of a game, and had been keeping in contact with David, with the intent of seeking permission when they got far enough along. But we have not heard from them in quite a while--a year now?

You would have to negotiate with David if you wanted to develop such a game.

csilkenat wrote:The tabletop RPG would be epic, especially as it would likely be a fairly simple programming job to create a dedicated server to allow us to play without having to go to Honorcon or similar for a game.

The bit about designing your own ships is at least for me, problematic. Simply put my thought was simply a way to put the complexities of HH interstellar politics into a set of numbers and spreadsheets to create a way for us to see the what if? scenarios that keep, at least in my head, popping up.

What if the Solarian League saw Manticore as a threat after the end of the First Havenite War?

What would a real full scale offensive into the Solarian League actually do?

How much damage would a Manticore-Andermani war do in the years preceding the Second Havenite?

For me the most fun part of many space 4X games is playing around with the ship design system, on those that have them at least. I usually keep a save where I have all techs developed just to play around with the design systems.

I was the lead of the team that tried to develop Honorverse Online(the fan lead effort , not that game that was promised to us by Fall 2008).

Although, it would not be valid for the Honorverse, the Squadron Strike Product by Ad Astra Games will definitely scratch your tech itch.

Unfortunately, I halted the project for the following reasons:

1) I could not continue to finance the website and the Project as a whole.
2) The release of the IOS Game("The Secret Fleet")
3) The complexity of the project

As for the RPG, Terri Pray(Honorverse Line Coordinator over at Final Sword) has said that they are in talks with BuNine to develop an RPG in a way that works without hindering the direction of the novels. what this ]seems to mean is they do not want an RPG product that may reveal too much or restrict what David can do with the Novels("What do you mean the Treecats are evil and have a secret fleet?"). I expect that we will get an RPG, but later, rather than sooner, since the Compendium Series("House of Steel,etc.") is not yet done.

However, I do have an idea for a 4X project if you are interested.


First, some things to consider:

1) Manticore is OP
In the novels, Manticore has the advantage of tech and skill(especially once Haven starts murdering their own officers for failure.). Then, of course, you have Honor herself, who is the avatar of munchkin. While this advantage is marginal, the definition of a game is anything that is marginally better that players are more likely to use. Simply put, it is more advantageous to play as Manticore, so the better players are likely to be Manticore.

2) It ain't double-blind when its YOUR side too
There are no FTL Communication Networks in the honorverse(unless the MAlignment has yet another tech toy), so giving out orders in realtime is impossible. By the time you send out an order to a ship, it may have moved. While this makes it easier to plan ambushes, it also means that any strategic game would have to reflect that all "pieces" on the board are not exactly at those places, and that they reflect more of a "last known location".

3) All your Tech are belong to the Mad Wizard
The FULL Tech Tree is known only to the membership of BuNine(Those fine folks who have given us House of Steel). According to Ken Burnside and his team at Ad Astra, the rules system they use for designing ships is even kept a secret(possibly to prevent min/max ship design by players).


Here is my idea for a Strategic Game:
Setting:Silesian Confederacy (1900 PD)
Players:4 Admirals + X Captains
Description: This simulation is based on the assumption that the Andermani Empire has decided to use the growing tensions between Manticore and Haven to annex Silesia. Manticore must now block this process while protecting its commerce. Haven has also taken the opportunity to start a new round of commerce raiding.Meanwhile the Silesia Confederacy seeks to preserve itself against Pirates and the new Andermani Invasion.
Gameplay:Each Admiral allocates resources via "Victory Points". As their name implies, VPs are earned by victory on the battlefield, but lost in defeat. You also get penalized VPs through Public Opinion,Commerce Raids, Espionage and other problems.

Other Players will be the SITS players around the world who report their games to the GM. The games will follow the rules imposed by the campaign(damaged ships carry over,etc).
Goals:
1)Manticore:Its goal is to push the Andermani back while protecting their shipping. On the surface, analliance with Silesia might be ideal, but the fact that the Confederate government is legalizing piracy and continuing to ignore to Cherwell Convention makes an alliance troublesome.
2)Andermani:Their goal is liberate the people of the Silesian Sector from their corrupt government.However, Andermani merchants also look forward to dominate the regional market if they can use the Campaign as a pretext to expel Manticore.
3)Haven:Their goal is not to won per se, but to make sure Manticore losses.Haven wins when Manticore leaves and the PRH can execute their own designs for Silesia.Haven is gaming for a war or attriction, which ultimate means that it will make sure that NEITHER side has an easy victory.
4)Silesia:Survival makes strange bedfellows, and Silesias survival may depend on the very pirates and "Independence Movements" which it fought against in the past. Victory depends on halting the Andermani advance. They can either work with Manticore but lose the revenue that comes with ignoring genetic slavery or work with Haven and the new "Privateers" who once targeted local trade.

Without Honor:This campaign will use custom characters. In universe, think of it as a wargame simulation, much like SITS.

Phalanx wrote:<snip>

3) All your Tech are belong to the Mad Wizard
The FULL Tech Tree is known only to the membership of BuNine(Those fine folks who have given us House of Steel). According to Ken Burnside and his team at Ad Astra, the rules system they use for designing ships is even kept a secret(possibly to prevent min/max ship design by players).

<snip>

Not game-related, but just a general comment on the quoted paragraph.

Some of us at BuNine don't have the full tech tree (or at least, I don't know any more than any of you do, except maybe accurate dimensions on some things). Not that I'm complaining. I'm having enough "fun" trying to get what's publicly known to fit into a given design. Trust me, those rules make it difficult for what I see certain people here suggesting as far as weapons loadouts and other stuff. It's a *lot* different when you see these things in 3D and have built the internal systems and spaces that nobody normally sees.

Thanks for clarifying that.

I suppose only a select few(like Gina), even have access to it, let alone knowing what is on it.

Anyways, that is what I would do as a 4x Campaign. But right now, I really want to get a podcast started.

Phalanx, if those are your three biggest worries about balancing one of these games, then this should be fairly simple.

Item One: Manticore
This one really depends on when you start the game. If it is right after OBS, then Manticore is really not quite so overpowered due to being both on the defensive, and not having many of the technical edges, like MDMs and podlayers that destroyed Havenite fleets. Within this, the point of honor can be resolved with a system that I call command points, essentially giving each officer a cap on how many and what kind of ships they can personally command. Honor starts out with a mere handful of command points, making her a very powerful small unit commander, however she is not the fleetkiller that she can become. Also, no plot armor.

Item Two: Vision
This is why I was thinking instead of ordering around individual ships, there would only be fleet markers. You should really be able to tell where your fleet is, even with severe delays. Smaller commands could be split off under junior officers.

Item Three: This is why wait this long to build something like this. There are plenty of materials from past books to give us plenty of time to update the game as new books are released, making this a continuous work in progress.

These are probably not really good answers, however they are the best that I have right now. Sorry about that.

MaxxQ wrote:

Phalanx wrote:<snip>

3) All your Tech are belong to the Mad Wizard
The FULL Tech Tree is known only to the membership of BuNine(Those fine folks who have given us House of Steel). According to Ken Burnside and his team at Ad Astra, the rules system they use for designing ships is even kept a secret(possibly to prevent min/max ship design by players).

<snip>

Not game-related, but just a general comment on the quoted paragraph.

Some of us at BuNine don't have the full tech tree (or at least, I don't know any more than any of you do, except maybe accurate dimensions on some things). Not that I'm complaining. I'm having enough "fun" trying to get what's publicly known to fit into a given design. Trust me, those rules make it difficult for what I see certain people here suggesting as far as weapons loadouts and other stuff. It's a *lot* different when you see these things in 3D and have built the internal systems and spaces that nobody normally sees.

Honestly I think having access to a simplified version of the design rules would help since it would let people test their weapon loadout ideas to make sure they before making the suggestion on the forums.

It will be interesting to see just how they make the RPG without hindering the direction of the novels. The easy way would be to just have the RPG start at a certain date and say in big bold letters that events in the RPG are non-canon, unless confirmed by another source.

The others all seem to have big drawbacks. Setting it before the Honor series stops players from playing with a lot of the more advanced ships and hardware from the books, plus hinders those who want to play in the Star Empire era. Setting it afterwards hinders those who want to play with the early Honor ships and situations while setting it far away from the main front limits those who want to play around in the Haven sector, rather than in some far off region either never heard of or rarely mentioned in the books.

I'm sure they've thought of some way around these issues I haven't though.