Ogre Grand Massive Campaign

[43Supporter]

I'd suggest a slight alteration to the scenario-selection rule:

Each player selects three mission cards. Place the cards selected face-down. One card is removed. The rest are then turned face-up, in order. First player to win three missions wins the campaign.

[whatheck]

Sounds like a simple best-of-5 competition if I'm understanding, which also seems fun.

[Kapkev]

I really like the maps for the game ( G,S, M) map looks great and the way you can combine them into a big map. I think it would be great to make a game board with 2in or 1.5 in squares each square represent one of these maps. This could be use to have your battles on random maps. Maybe use to have random forces. Hide objectives that need to be recon. Does that sound like it will work with your ideas?
Maybe this way a person can do a recon, locate the enemy battle group or objectives, do a retreat and regroup or something. Just my thoughts. Love to see all these maps scale down on one board/ map.

[whatheck]

Yeah, with the geomorphing maps there's definitely potential to lay out a contiguous world map to which one can point and say this is where this battle is happening, adding a geographical aspect to the campaign.

The trick would be making a battle's position on the world map matter without introducing elements that lead to un-fun battles. How does the site of the battle contribute to winning or losing the campaign? It would generally increase complexity and book keeping. This will of course appeal to some and seem a bridge too far to others.

Maybe good ideas

• The win condition is now to "control" some number of contiguous squares.

• There are rules about where you can attack from, based on the squares you control.

• The player who controls certain areas has sole access to specialty troops or armor (marines, hw team, etc)

Maybe bad ideas

• The location of specific forces is tracked on the world map and opponents try to force lopsided engagements

[Kapkev]

Ideas came from different post on Steve Jackson game ogre, subject campaign. Taken from old BBS post. By Kc 751 date 5/7/92, mib 5150 may 2009, offsides June 2008, whathack jan 2023.

Does sound like a good working game?

The Map
a square grid of 5x5 or more, each square is one of the ogre/gev maps (G, S, M) any other maps can be use also. The two players control a number of squares on the map edge or corners.

Strategic counters
These will be used on the map. The players will have a set number, which will represent armor companies, mechanized infantry companies, fog of war, spies, the underground, supply trucks, Supply lines, Engineers, mines, supply depot, maybe objective. These counter are unknown to the other player. The players will move their counters on the map taking turn until two opposing counters are on the same map square. Where a battle can take place if it is two military unit, or some event if it is something else. This maybe be used to establish a war front.

Objectives
The players can choose a # of objectives to complete as a way of scoring victory points.this could be:
- Recon a rear map area or square
destroy a depot, command post, train station, port, convoy, armor units, etc
Special building, factories, field assembly facilities, reinforcements point
Crawlers are being reloaded, Ogres are being repaired or reload
Push the front forward
Hold the line
Escort
Capture towns, units, map area or square, etc
Etc

Resources
Players can have reinforcements base a map square they control.
A number of cities they control, or where manufacturing is located
Ogre can be available base on a time line the player chose.

Battles
If two opposing military counters are in the same map , a battle can take place.
The number and type of battles can be determined by a book or cards with objectives and victory conditions. Benefits can be minor with the focus on objectives as what wins the game. These can be small battles that can use the basic game map and units.
Could there be a strategic combat result table where dice rolls show # of units lost.

Could this be a stand alone game, what would make this possible. Please comment

[whatheck]

There are some interesting ideas there, but I guess you can tell that it doesn't include the level of detail which would be required to actually play it.

Fog of war, and hidden troop movements raise a couple questions. Does your opponent know where anything is, or do they know where everything is, but not what each element is? Depending on those answers you may need a non-player referee to arbitrate the campaign for the players.

There's mention of supply lines, but not what they do nor how the line is defined on the board nor how one would disrupt or protect it.

A lot of strategic counter types are mentioned but not explained. What happens when an "armor company" encounters "spies", for one example?

If it were all worked out into something playable, I'm pretty sure it would be beyond the complexity level I'd personally be interested in for an OGRE campaign. It all reminds me of a campaign system for Battlefleet Gothic I became enamored with long ago. Resource generation and movement, construction and repair of war vessels, and a non-player referee to collate inputs from the players and track the game state. Cool to think about, but not so fun to actually execute (we did try), in my experience.

[bubbasynklayr]

I seem to have come to the right place: I myself am working on a grand strategic game of world war Ogre style. Anyway, I was hoping to upload a picture of the game board I've been working on, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do that. So, all I can do is paste the link to one of the images I've uploaded so far at BBG: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/7916251/ogre

[offsides]

I've been out of the loop with Ogre for a while thanks to the whole covid shutdown mess and then getting divorced, but OM#4 has dragged me back in (for which I'm very greatful!) and this thread has jump started some ideas that have been sitting in the back of my head for a while. My thought for how to do the campaign is this:

Start with a square grid, 3x3 would be the minimum, 5x5 is probably better for a full campaign but bigger works too, assuming everybody has the time to play more battles. Randomly roll to determine which map the central square is. Each square outward will then be randomly determined from what can geomorph to attach to that side (e.g., if the midde square is a G map, the 4 adjacent ones would have to be S maps; or if using playmats, the connecting geomorphs would determine what the next maps could be) - but don't determine what a map is until it is needed (this is one part of the fog of war).

Pick a scenario that works for the map in question (when in doubt, ceasefire collapse always a good start, but by no meanse required). Not only will the winner of the scenario get to pick where and what the next map/scenario is, but the nature of the scenario and its results may influence that as well. For example, if the first scenario is breakthrough and the attacker wins, the next logical scenario would be Raid on the map one square 'forward' from the attacker's perspective. If the defender won, they could counterattack 'forward', or perhaps pick a different scenario to either side. Or maybe you start with the train scenario, and if the train escapes the next scenario could be in the direction of its escape. In all cases, the winner doesn't get any major tactical advantages in the next battle; it's the ability to choose where and how the next battle that is fought that is the primary benefit to winning.

The campaign would end either when all the maps have been fought on (with whoever one more battles being the overall winner), or each side could secretly pick one map that has their HQ and a specific scenario for it, and when the attacker picks that map the defender would announce that it was their HQ location and reveal the scenario for that. You could add in other minor tactical advantages like some extra reinforcements or other little things for either winning multiple battles in a row or capturing pre-defined special objectives (no more than one per map), but otherwise keep the playing field at least close to level. Also maybe give the attacker a handicap for being farther from their own end to simulate longer supply lines, which would help keep defenders from getting overwhelmed if they lost more than a couple in a row. As each map was "won", the winner would determine who could choose the unrevealed adjacent sides as battle sites as well, which would also give additional strategic advantage to winning. And if one side boxed the other in so that they couldn't select another battlefield, that could also end the campaign before having revealed all the battlefields. For longer campaigns, you could also allow battles to be fought over already revealed maps (using the same map that was already revealed), allowing one side to try and 'flip' who has control of it so they could push forward more easily.

Ultimately, this would make a fairly easy strategic map to track; each revealed square would just be a note of what map it was and who won, which battle it was (numeric order), along with any notes on the battle itself that might affect the next/future battles. If using the HQ map that would also need to be secretly tracked, but that's about it. Each battle would then be decided individually by the person who won the most recent battle and resolved as a self-contained event. Of course you could add additional strategic advantages/disadvantages if both sides agreed to it, but even that could be covered mostly by notes on the strategic battlefield as well.

I know this is a little jumbled, and it definitely needs both testing and polish but what are peoples' thoughts?