Cold War Comments Thread

[TheTalkingMeowth]

What is up with the Mintek, anyway?

Their missionaries have always struck me as...suspiciously effective. Though I suppose they have mostly targeted fairly unpleasant military dictatorships thus far.

[Kurt (OP)]

What is up with the Mintek, anyway?

Their missionaries have always struck me as...suspiciously effective. Though I suppose they have mostly targeted fairly unpleasant military dictatorships thus far.

If you aren't familiar with Starfire, the Mintek are a race/government type known as a Federal Theocracy.  Federal Theocracies are based on the Thebans from the book and supplement Crusade.  A race like this is a big problem once discovered.  They appear to be friendly, and will always try to get a trade or better relationship with any race that they encounter.  The problem is, once they obtain that relationship they will use that access to try and convert their new friends to their religion.  By the rules, once they get a trade or better relationship with a race, any of that race's populations within three warp jumps of one of the Theocracy's settlements will lose all population growth to the nearest Theocracy world as religious converts.  In addition, a Theocracy can convert populations after the world is captured to a loyal population over time. 

Basically, Federal Theocracies are annoying neighbors, but not as big a threat as something like the bugs. 

Kurt

[nuclearslurpee]

The Mintek are going to be very grumpy when they arrive on the Bedu home world to find so much stolen out from under them.

Have the Bjering and Virena's faction of the Bedu contemplated forming an alliance structure vaguely similar to what the D'Bringi had with their client races prior to the great merger? It seems that the Bedu ships would be more effective as a wing of the Bjering fleet should the Mintek inevitably decide to continue expanding their reach, and the Bedu are hardly in a position to concern themselves with notional independence for the time being.

[misanthropope]

what political state are the bedu going into?

i dont remember the 3rd ed federal theocracy in detail, but ISTR that their assimilation of conquered races hinged on growth population.  does the reduced growth rate in this game slow down how fast the bedu are going to be digested?  'cause that could be really sad for the mintek, with the D'Broaches breathing down their necks and Warp Point Drano entering the meta.

[Kurt (OP)]

The Mintek are going to be very grumpy when they arrive on the Bedu home world to find so much stolen out from under them.

Have the Bjering and Virena's faction of the Bedu contemplated forming an alliance structure vaguely similar to what the D'Bringi had with their client races prior to the great merger? It seems that the Bedu ships would be more effective as a wing of the Bjering fleet should the Mintek inevitably decide to continue expanding their reach, and the Bedu are hardly in a position to concern themselves with notional independence for the time being.

Right now the Bedu refugees are focused on escaping, and really haven't thought much beyond that.  They currently have the equivalent of a trade and military relationship with the Bjering.  They currently want to keep their independence, but I think they will quickly discover that while they have escaped and survived, they will be much too small to be effective on the larger stage moving forward.  I haven't tallied it up yet, but I don't think they managed to get enough population out before the end to add up to a medium population, which means that they are very limited moving forward.  They likely will become part of the multi-racial federation the Bjering are putting together with the Tomsk Union. 

[Kurt (OP)]

what political state are the bedu going into?

i dont remember the 3rd ed federal theocracy in detail, but ISTR that their assimilation of conquered races hinged on growth population.  does the reduced growth rate in this game slow down how fast the bedu are going to be digested?  'cause that could be really sad for the mintek, with the D'Broaches breathing down their necks and Warp Point Drano entering the meta.

The Bedu refugees currently have a trade & military treaty with the Bjering, but as I said in another post, I think they will ultimately join with the Bjering due to the fact that they weren't able to get enough people out to amount to a medium population. 

The pop growth thing is for when they have peaceful relations with an unsuspecting race.  For assimilation after conquest it works a little differently.  After conquest a d10 is rolled every turn and the total is recorded.  Once the total exceeds the number of PU on the world then the population is considered assimilated and is now a full member of the conquering race.  This is cumbersome, though, and it means that a world with a large or very large population won't be converted during the realistic time frame of the campaign.  A full-sized very large population has 3,200 PU.  At an average of 5 PU per turn (assuming 1d10 per turn averages 5), it will take 640 turns to convert the entire population.  This isn't much of an advantage for the Federal Theocracies.  You should be able to go through the normal conquest rules and then political machinations and end up with an amalgamated partner in much less time, making this useless.  Instead, I've decided that the Federal Theocracy only has to amass 10% of the points it would normal need before the large or very large population is converted.  In other words, you don't have to convert everyone, just the important ones, and scare everyone else into complacency.   

[misanthropope]

the bedu homeworld is going into the, whatever the name is, the "you just got your defending army blown up" political state, then? later editions have kind of a "puppet government" alternative and i didn't know if such a thing had found its way into the current state of 3rd ed.

[Paul M]

Interesting, our game has the Bauer and they ended up fleeing the RM into the arms of the Thebans in a similar sort of action, and both race names start with B-even.  The RM has been busy indoctrinating the remaining Bauer and has gotten a good chunk converted to their religion that way.  It is currently nearly a quarter of their home system population that now see things the RM way.

I'm not really a fan of treating IU as disposable income, but those are the rules.  I treat them more like IU was in IS where it was permanent.  But then I also keep a balance from turn to turn, I try for at least 1 month and best cases 2 months income as a warchest.  So with that the Bedu fleeing would have had at least some MCr available.   To a certain extent they may have done the Mintek a favor as now they can build IU which gives a fairly large adjustment against the conquered population malus.

I'd have assumed the Bedu political state is "conquered" and the fact it was done by peace treaty rather than demonstration strikes or an invasion is window dressing.

[Kurt (OP)]

the bedu homeworld is going into the, whatever the name is, the "you just got your defending army blown up" political state, then? later editions have kind of a "puppet government" alternative and i didn't know if such a thing had found its way into the current state of 3rd ed.

The 3rdR rules don't really cover a civilization surrendering as a whole, they mostly focus in individual planet/populations, or at the most, an entire system.  For this campaign I've added a role-play element of negotiated surrenders, either total surrender or on terms.  I think it is unlikely that most races would fight to the bitter end against a non-genocidal enemy.  Some would, preferring total defeat to surrender, but most wouldn't.  In the case of the Bedu, their military defeat fit in too well with what was going on in their internal politics.  Their loss in the main battle meant that they wouldn't be able to stop the Mintek short of their home system, and probably not even there, given that they had neglected their defenses.  Further resistance would be futile, merely wasting lives to no good end, and the opposition, which had been trying to oust the supreme leader, saw this as an opportunity to get what they wanted in the first place. 

[Kurt (OP)]

Interesting, our game has the Bauer and they ended up fleeing the RM into the arms of the Thebans in a similar sort of action, and both race names start with B-even.  The RM has been busy indoctrinating the remaining Bauer and has gotten a good chunk converted to their religion that way.  It is currently nearly a quarter of their home system population that now see things the RM way.

I'm not really a fan of treating IU as disposable income, but those are the rules.  I treat them more like IU was in IS where it was permanent.  But then I also keep a balance from turn to turn, I try for at least 1 month and best cases 2 months income as a warchest.  So with that the Bedu fleeing would have had at least some MCr available.   To a certain extent they may have done the Mintek a favor as now they can build IU which gives a fairly large adjustment against the conquered population malus.

I'd have assumed the Bedu political state is "conquered" and the fact it was done by peace treaty rather than demonstration strikes or an invasion is window dressing.

That is correct, they are considered conquered at this point.  The Mintek have so grievously overstretched their economy that they had to conquer the Bedu or face severe cutbacks throughout their nation.  They are going to be facing some internal problems relating to the fact that they view themselves as the good guy, constantly defending themselves from aliens who attack them even as they try to enlighten them, but are in fact now dependent on conquest to make their economy work. 

Kurt

[StarshipCactus]

Wow, these new aliens are very aggressive without knowing the full capabilities of the foe they face.

[Kurt (OP)]

Wow, these new aliens are very aggressive without knowing the full capabilities of the foe they face.

Arrogance will lead you down paths you might not otherwise travel. 

[nuclearslurpee]

An interesting series of events. From the ending explanation it sounds like there is a distinct possibility that the Doraz end up in a war assisting the Norn, since the Aurarii are not interested in alien contact so there will be little choice of a faction to "work with" if the Doraz wish to expand the Alliance.

Interesting tactic by the Aurarii in using military speed to pursue a faster force, even if they could not catch the Doraz force the possibility to induce breakdowns and eliminate the stragglers is a useful tactic. Maybe Starfire veterans are unsurprised but I found this clever. I have wished many times that Aurora had a similar mechanic, instead of commercial/military engines having strategic/full-speed movement would I think add an interesting mechanic and this encounter shows one reason why.

[misanthropope]

sounds ta ME like the death snots caught some luck.  stead of having to blow up two fleets, they only have to deal with the remaining fraction of one.  and one of their new pets probably has good loot.

[Paul M]

Good one Kurt, though the mental image of the slugs on their hover chariots with their eyestalks poking over the rim of the chariot side makes me laugh.  This is a very real case of first contact going side ways.  I'm not sure we have had such in our campaign though I think there was a few very odd ones.