Invader Bot Final Draft Version 1 - A Campaign Design Process Update

 

Above is a screensnip of the "final" draft of my invader bot. Invader Bot Final Draft v1 is available as a downloadable file.

I am still working on the rules that explain how to use the bot, but I do believe the bot itself is done, design-wise. I have left room for some modifiers, just in case, but for the main, I think this is the finished version.

Keen-eyed observers will note that I've two different tables that allow for an Enemy Concentration to act/react to the Player's Field Forces. This is intentional as the first, under Resolve Enemy Concentration is how the enemy reacts immediately upon contact with a Field Force. Consider it a meeting engagement situation. Table 4b Concentration Reaction is for when the Enemy Concentration is already present on the map either it moves adjacent to a Field Force or vice versa.

My continual use of 3d6 for most of the bot's behaviors and the player's actions regarding the bot is also intentional. The percentages worked out a lot better, even better than using a d20, and this also allowed me to have values for modifiers which would have trashed the 2d6 probability curve.

Where I use "Recruitment Rolls" is intended to work with the modified army generators that I borrowed heavily from Rally Round the King, but just as easily can equal battalions, regiments, brigades, or squadrons or batteries, depending upon the tactical system a player uses. 

I did allow that the 3d6 roll for the bot's behavior under Table 3 could determine the reaction and the adjustment to the size of the Enemy Concentration at the same time, or two different rolls could be used to determine these, individually. So, a much larger formation could retreat, for example, instead of just the weaker concentrations. This decision is left to the player to make.

As I may have mentioned before, this bot intentionally works to punish the player who is too cautious or indecisive, being that their nation can quickly be overwhelmed with enemy sightings, which all too soon, come to be revealed as large-ish bodies of enemy troops.

That the bot allows for flank attacks, even multiple flanking maneuvers, at the tactical level is something I wanted for my own use, but may be something that other players also turn out to like. The fog of war element of a campaign can be tough to pull off, so I did try to make as much provision for the player to deal with the unknown as possible. 

I purposely did not add a table for the strength of flanking forces as those belong to the tactical system and not the strategic bot, in my view. 

However, the rules will really go far to explain the nuances of how this is all intended to work, how the Enemy Concentrations "move" on the map, how a player's population centers can fall to the enemy, and a number of other situations and descriptions that will prove helpful to not only utilizing the bot, but also show, I hope, that the outcomes have both a rational as well as historical basis. Pure randomness is just that and it would have been a lot easier to create a table that relied solely upon random outcomes.

Yet, I'd like to think that there's a reason as to why certain things are more likely to occur and others are far less likely, due to factors that are visible and can be manipulated to some degree, but also allow for improbable extremes.

Should anyone wish to use the both, even without the full explanation, they are free to do so. If otherwise republished or posted elsewhere, I only ask that a link back to my blog is provided as the source and myself as the creator. This will also hold true once I have finished writing and re-writing the rules  as well as for the tables and rules for the upcoming Defender Bot.

This is not to say that I have any expectations that hundreds of players will use this, but I do want to make it clear, up front, for folks to know that I want for them to feel free to make use of the bot and not have to ask my permission first. Strange days...