New project: Flying Saucers
11 months ago – Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 08:32:24 AM

FLYING SAUCERS

We want to inform you that the campaign for our board game FLYING SAUCERS is live on Kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nicsteele/flying-saucers-0?ref=17y3sk

This time, the campaign was prepared and will be led by our friends and associates from the German publishing company Spieltrieb, and they will also handle the entire production and subsequent distribution of the rewards.

Flying Saucers is probably our best game, and certainly the most original one. The first version of the game was created and released back in 2007. Since then, the game has been improved several times, and all game mechanics in the Kickstarter edition are identical to the ones our author team submitted to the German publisher for testing. The last version of the rules was written just before the Essen Fair 2019, when our team had a guest appearance at the Spieltrieb stand.

We like to make games with short, clear and simple rules. The best example is the diceless game Tank Chess (4-page rulebook) in which several types of tanks (each one with only three characteristics: speed, firepower and armor) fight each other. The first edition of the game Flying Saucers had only four types of pieces and even simpler mechanics – only two piece characteristics are important: strength (which combines both firepower and armor) and speed. This is kept the same in the first level of the final version. Originally, it is also played without a die, which was added later as optional, to introduce luck into the game.

We also like to make games about aerial warfare, and our games Age of Dogfights: WWI, and Age of Dogfights: WWII are perfect examples. In the game Flying Saucers, starting from the second level, Bombers, Attackers, Carriers and many more piece types join Fighters, Intruders and Strikers, which make this game perfect for gamers who enjoy very dynamic "aerial" battles.

Various types of flying saucers are fighting somewhere in distant space to collect resources, process them in facilities, and use them to assemble a structure that will ensure their survival (and victory in the game). The following images show some examples from the rulebook.

In addition to the basic tasks that exist in each of the 4 levels, there are a variety of interesting scenarios that provide endless opportunities for creative fun and competition. Some of the scenarios are: Neutralizing Base Station; Breakthrough of Bombers; Return of Voyager; Collecting crystals; Rescue of Nuclear Foundry; Convoy, etc. The following images show diagrams of some scenarios.

Age of Dogfights

As we announced in the previous update, we finished the remaining diagrams and examples in the instructions, along with a few minor chapters. The entire text is now being proofread, and here we will showcase the pages that were not presented in the previous update. The printing of the rulebook will take some time, and at the same time, we'll finish the printing of some auxiliary sheets. All in all, the most important part of the work for the authors has been finished, although under a lot of stress and tension, but we are completely satisfied because we managed to incorporate everything we wanted into the final product.

The first few pages:

The remaining pages of Air-to-Air Firing chapter:

Other rules:

PDF with the whole rules can be found HERE. (note that we will print a few dozen rulebooks on digital printers before printing the whole batch on offset machine, when we will add a few auxiliary titles that are not included now, on pages 48 and 50).

Update #43
12 months ago – Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 09:50:28 AM

We are aware that we have delayed the announced finalization of the rulebook, and thus, the completion of production several times. Now that process is finally coming to an end. Unfortunately, we were by no means able to realistically estimate how much time we needed for the last part of the creative phase of a project of this magnitude. We don't want to make excuses, you have every right to be angry and impatient, but we hope you'll be satisfied when you finally get your games.

There have been some comments here and on BGG questioning whether we'll deliver the rewards at all; to reassure you, it will definitely happen very soon. As we have already produced 95% of the elements, we certainly won't be throwing them away. What remains to be printed are only the instructions, and a punched sheet with chits and auxiliary player aids.

Since the process of printing the entire edition of instructions on an offset machine will take some time, we decided to print a few dozen rulebooks on digital printers before that. It is an additional cost for us, but these rulebooks will serve for proofreading done by our community here, and, on top, we will also use these for the first batch of the games to be sent to the backers. That batch is intended for backers who pledged for some expansions, that are due in the second wave, so we could ship them the offset-printed rulebook along later (since there might be some need for corrections). Our main proofreader from England has already finished most of the text, but due to the changes in the meantime, everything will be checked once again.

At this point, we can present the rulebook almost in its entirety, except for a few pages that lack updated images, and a few shorter chapters that are currently being edited.

 

 

 

Update #42
about 1 year ago – Sun, Nov 26, 2023 at 10:22:06 AM

These days we are busy working on ironing out the rules for the game. Completion of work on them is near. We thought we would not publish updates until everything is finished, because preparing the update material takes our precious time (about two to three days). However, due to justifiedly impatient backers, we are now publishing an update. In it, we show the last game we played and in which we made sure that all the rules work well. Before describing the game played, we give some general information.

We admit that we are quite late with deliveries and there are various reasons for this. Several times we gave estimates when everything could be finished and it did not come true. We do not shy away from criticism or our own responsibility. Most innovative projects that are being done in various fields (construction, designing cars, airplanes, software, etc etc) are delayed for numerous reasons, but when finished, everyone benefits. Only the investor has more expenses than initially planned, but not in this case, where the financial loss is beared only by us (Forsage Games), not the backers.

We could have delivered games long ago that would have been quite good. However, when we started to create a game with such a demanding theme and when we saw that the initial idea (based on the game Age of Dogfights: WWI) could be much better, we did not want to miss that chance. Already while the campaign was going on, we received questions and suggestions from individual backers about what they would like this game to contain, that we had not foreseen. After a lot of dedicated work, I think we succeeded in this - to create a game that is very realistic, in which the real aircraft characteristics are perfectly transferred to the board game, and even the tactics used by real pilots. In doing so, we made sure (and I think we succeeded) to keep the simplicity and playability that graced the AoD1 game. We haven't skimped on adding hardware elements either, we have yet to count how much we've added. All those elements raised the cost of production, but that was our choice, because we simply want the game to contain everything we consider necessary right from the first release. We hope you'll have a little more patience, and don't fear, the start of shipping is near, you'll get a game that has much more content and is more advanced than what was announced during the campaign.

Game according to the scenario "Clear the Skies"

This update, like the previous one, is written by me, Predrag, with personal impressions and evaluations. I would like to emphasize right away that the gameplay was not staged in any way, and that we played to the end according to all the rules and every dice roll. Several times during the game, as luck would have it, we rolled such numbers that seem very improbable: for example, from the best firing position, when it is enough to roll at least 2 for a hit, a 1 was rolled several times in a row.

This scenario is the most demanding, as it has as many as 4 connected episodes. It encompasses fighter combat, reconnaissance, interception, tactical bombing (fighter-bombers), bomber breakthrough, and bombing of a specific target in the enemy background. When I wrote the first version of the scenario and sent it to Stefan for translation into English, his impression was that the Allies had a big advantage and that the third and fourth episodes would be just a formality. I then only partially changed the text, in the sense that in each episode at least a few German fighters have ace pilots.

In this game, Dragan had German planes, while I had Allied ones. The first episode in which two lone Mosquito scouts need to scout three locations behind enemy lines was problematic at the start, as the Germans have two Ta 152 fighters that can prevent them from doing so. It is true that both in reality and in this game the speed of the Moquito is its main asset, but in this case, the German interceptors are even faster, so it would be questionable whether it is even possible for Mosquitos to complete the task. We decided to play that first episode a few times, until we found the best starting setup. As we assumed, in the first run, the German fighters easily caught up and shot down both British scouts. In the second attempt, the Mosquitos had an escort of two Spiteful fighters. In this case, the Mosquitoes easily completed the task, and it turned out that even only two accompanying fighters were overpowering.

In the third run of the first episode, Mosquitoes were escorted by only one Spiteful. We made scouting a little easier, so instead of a fixed altitude (L9) for the scouts, we allowed a range from L7 to L9. In this run of the first episode, only one Mosquito partially completed the task by scouting only one location. The second scout also scouted one zone, but was shot down on its way to the next one. Only after my remaining Mosquito left the board heading west (carrying the films for development and analysis) was Dragan obliged to tell me if there were hidden planes in the recorded area; unfortunately for me, that area was empty. This means that in the next episode, I wouldn't know which of the two remaining zones I should bomb in order to destroy as many German fighters on the ground as possible. After playing three runs of the first episode, we concluded that in the final text for this scenario, there should be one Spiteful protecting the Mosquitos, and the initial position of Ta 152 fighters should be at a very low altitude, to make their task a bit harder.

Episode Two:

In this episode, the Allies have a significant numerical advantage, as many as 13 aircraft against only 4 German Bf 109 fighters. However, most of the Allied aircraft are tasked with attacking the German airfields. Since I didn't find out the exact zone in the first episode (I only know that the hidden fighters are not in the southernmost one), I decided to attack both zones with equal force. Because of this, there is no possibility of completely destroying both zones, so in the third episode, the Germans will certainly have at least a few surviving fighters. I decided to use rockets to destroy the opponent's AA guns in order to make the task easier for fighter-bombers armed with bombs. Dragan managed to shoot down two out of three Typhoons, which significantly reduced my attacking potential. By the end of the episode, I managed to shoot down all the German fighters and drop bombs in both zones (Power 100 in each), and also neutralize a few AA guns. At the end of the episode, Dragan had to show me which zone had the hidden fighters - it was the northernmost one. Since 100 worth of bombs was dropped on that zone, I only destroyed 2 fighters on the ground. It was determined by dice rolls that these were one Me 262 and one Fw 190. That means that, for the third episode, Dragan has at his disposal as many as 6 fighters (one Me 262 and three Fw 190, plus two Ta 152s that survived the first episode).

Episode Three:

In this episode, the player with German planes had as many as 6 excellent fighters to prevent 5 American bombers from breaking through to a distant target in the background. The bombers are accompanied by 6 fighters, but all of them have external fuel tanks. Those tanks can be dropped to allow fighters to actively protect the bombers, but at least a few should retain the tanks so that they can continue to escort the bombers to the distant target in the fourth episode. One unfavorable circumstance for the Germans is that the 4 surviving fighters have just taken off and are at LL altitude. If the game is played with the optional rules "Speed Difference When Firing" and "Inertia", the low altitude and low speed mean that these fighters have to spend a few rounds until they get a chance to fight.

At the very beginning of the episode, I decided to drop the tanks off 2 Mustangs, but it turned out that they were not strong enough to stand up to the German fighters, so that's why I dropped the tank off one Lightning later. By the end of the episode, with fluctuating luck, I managed to get through to the east with 4 out of 5 bombers, however, the problem was that three bombers were damaged. Regarding the fighters, I only had two Mustangs in escort, one of which had spent some ammunition and each had already used up one or two full throttles. One of them was piloted by a beginner, which turned out to be a significant handicap in all the games we had played until then (as it reduces the probability of hitting the target).

Episode Four:

Since I managed, with some luck, to save 4 bombers in the third episode, I hoped that I was close to the final victory. The task in the fourth episode is to bomb a zone, for which destruction is enough to drop bombs from two bombers. Since the task zone is protected by many AA guns, the bombing should be carried out from a higher altitude. On the German side, only two Me 410 heavy fighters participate in this episode, and since heavy fighters are a second class compared to single-engined fighters, I thought that my Mustangs would easily manage to protect their bombers.

However, the game flow was different from my expectations. It turned out that the attack with damaged and slowed down bombers, although flying zig-zag in order to avoid the enemy, was not the best tactic. Also, the Me 410 proved to be a respectable opponent. Their goal was not to fight the Mustangs, but to target the bombers; with their heavy armament, large amount of ammunition (so they can always use tracing bursts) and strong durability, they managed to shoot down two bombers before they had a chance to drop their bombs. One of my Mitchells managed to drop its bombs and hit the target, and the other (A-20) was within reach of the target. Then, however, after performing a sharp turn to compensate its damaged tail, a Me 410 barely managed to get in a firing position and it shot down the A-20! That was the end of the game, because the Allied forces didn't have any more bombers to be able to destroy the target.

The winner of the whole scenario was decided in the last round. We are satisfied with how all the rules work together.

Final testing
about 1 year ago – Sat, Nov 04, 2023 at 01:02:43 PM

We can finally announce that we have reached the stage where we are doing the final testing of Age of Dogfights: WWII. The way we write the rules and check if everything works as we wanted will be covered in a separate update, but only when the shipping starts, so that the writing would not take up our precious time. Now, it is imperative that we check that the rules work well in different game variants (with and without optional rules). The second task is to see if we have foreseen a sufficient number of components (altitude stands, speed indicators, chits, etc.) for the games with a larger number of aircraft, and make sure that the standard 3 bi-fold board segments offer enough maneuvering space for fast fighters. Before presenting the analysis and conclusions after the games played, I would like to highlight a few remarks:

Spacers

We assumed that the number of altitude stands could be insufficient (14 levels, 8 pieces each = 112 in total) for games with many aircraft. There are never 112 planes in one single game, but the problem is that even with 20 - 30 planes, a dozen stands of the same height may be needed. That's why we recently made punching tools for the production of spacers, transparent plastic elements that are placed under the altitude stands, raising them by one or two levels. A game set will contain 10 spacers (6 that raise by one level and 4 that raise the stand by two levels). That way, the potential problem of the lack of altitude stands is solved.

Speed Indicators, Speed Calculators and Purple die

One of the main improvements in AoD2 gameplay compared to the previous game is the introduction of the principles of inertia and energy. Reminder: in AoD1, players have only one blue die at their disposal, which modifies the number of steps each aircraft can take in one turn. The number obtained on that die is added to the basic speed value that is written on the control panel and on each token. In addition to that blue die, there is also a green one that can only be used by some aircraft types (single-seat, single-engine fighters) and for only a limited number of times during the game; it represents "full throttle", and therefore has higher numbers than the blue die.

In AoD2, at first we predicted 6 dice (5 different blue shades and 1 green) with different numbers. This gives players possibility to drastically influence the aircraft speed, but slow-flying aircraft can easily attack fast targets, which is not realistic. This is solved by using optional rule "Speed Difference When Firing", which requires tracking each aircraft speed in each turn. This is done by Speed Indicators, and we planned to include 23 of them in each set.

However, only when using optional rule "Inertia", the full effect of the concept of energy is achieved. In this case, instead of using different dice for movement speed, player can freely increase or decrease the aircraft speed, up to +2 or -3. We decided to introduce a new movement die, purple, with numbers -1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1.

Although not necessary, as all calculations are the simplest math (adding or subtracting 1 to 4), we decided to make an auxiliary tool called Speed Calculator. It can be used when playing without optional rules, but it is most useful when playing with Inertia. In our testing, we used improvised piece of paper with drawn positions for the slider, and when printed, they will look like this:

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All texts for updates we publish on our Kickstarter projects are written together by our whole team, but the further text in this update is written by me, Predrag (senior author). As already mentioned above, we will write about our way of working when creating AoD game series in one of the following updates. For now, I'll just say that for this game, Dragan, the junior author, was in charge of writing the optional rules "Speed Difference When Firing" and "Inertia". His task was also to find a convenient way to represent all the different firing positions, which was a tricky task, considering that this game, unlike AoD1, also has the roll tilt. During the work on it, Dragan consulted me all the time, but, I have to admit, I was skeptical of how everything would fit together in the end. I didn't doubt that the rules would realistically depict the situations in the air, but I was afraid that all of this would take the game away from our MCMD principle that we are proud of and that has been successfully proven in our previous games. That's why I am writing this entire text personally, from my point of view, with honest impressions I got while playing.

 The first game, scenario: Warming Up for the Final Fight 

We chose this scenario for our first game because it is a pure dogfight, without any air-to-surface and surface-to-air effects. The main feature of this scenario is that it has three episodes, and players determine the types and the number of planes that will participate in each episode. The choice of aircraft types can create advantage in certain episodes, but the total number of aircraft on each side is equal (17 each). I had German planes, and Dragan had British ones.

First episode

We played the episode according to the basic rules, without the optional ones. I decided to use 6 planes, 4 Bf 109 and 2 Me 410. Dragan chose only 4 planes (the minimum), arguably the best ones he has: 2 Meteors and 2 Spitefuls. I hoped that my numerical advantage (6 to 4) would be adequately used during the game. However, among my fighters there are two "second-class" ones, Me 410 heavy fighters, so I was afraid that Dragan would know how to use that fact. By the way, during WW2, all the heavy fighters that were widely praised before the war proved to be inferior in combat with single-seat single-engine aircraft, so they were mainly used as fighter-bombers and as night fighters.

I was the first to move. My fear came true, Dragan skillfully used the better service ceiling of his aircraft, flying at a safe height and attacked when it suited him. The episode lasted only 9 rounds, because all my fighters were either shot down (3 Bf 109 and 1 Me 410), damaged (1 Me 410) or withdrawn with no ammo (1 Bf 109). Dragan lost only one Meteor, the other one was only damaged, as well as one Spiteful. It is interesting that the downed Meteor was first damaged by defensive fire from a Me 410, and later finished off by a Bf 109. So, the ratio of destroyed aircraft was 4:1 for Dragan, and 1:2 in damaged ones. Note: the damaged aircraft from the first episode can participate in the third episode, because they are being repaired during the second episode.

I partially blamed my poor performance and defeat on bad luck, as my planes missed (bad dice rolls) at some key moments.

As for the rules, we both found that everything worked smoothly. Determining the probability of a hit in a specific position is simple and exact, divided into a short checklist: first it is determined whether it is A, B or C position, then the tilt of the target is considered and finally the tilt of the attacker, which all influence the firing outcome.

We concluded that 25 rounds per episode in this scenario is too much, so we reduced it to 15.

Second episode

We decided to play the second episode using the optional rule "Speed Difference When Firing". I chose four Fw 190 A-8 and three Fw 190 F-8. I also reused the only undamaged fighter from the first episode - the Bf 109, which made a total of 8 fighters. Dragan surprised me again with his choice - he chose only 4 Spitfires. In this episode, I had twice as many (8:4) fighters as Dragan, of similar strength.

Dragan was the first to move. A fierce fight immediately broke out. Dragan immediately raised his fighters to maximum altitude in order to use the better ceiling of his fighters. And not only that, Dragan saw more optimal trajectories of his fighters in order to get to the most favorable firing positions. When the Spitfires were at a lower altitude, I attacked from all kinds of positions, which wasted a lot of ammunition with little effect.

The episode lasted for 10 rounds, in which all the German planes were either shot down or retreated after getting damaged. The result was disastrous for me - I had 4 destroyed and 4 damaged aircraft. Damaged fighters from the second episode cannot participate in the third, so in the next, final episode I could only count on previously unused fighters (and the one that was damaged in the first episode). Dragan had only one damaged Spitfire.

After such a fiasco, I finally concluded that bad luck was not the cause of my defeats. Choosing the right moment to attack from the best position made the difference between victory and defeat. Also, it is important to make sure that when attacking, the fighter doesn't become an easy target itself immediately after.

The optional rule "Speed Difference When Firing" works great. With the help of Speed Indicators, you can clearly see the current speed of each aircraft. A fighter currently flying at low speed cannot attack, or has a significantly lower chance of hitting fighters moving at high speed. An aircraft token that makes a turn in the last step remains banked (roll tilt). Such a position usually makes it more difficult for enemy aircraft to come in a favorable firing position. Applying these rules in the best possible way proves to be the exact principle established by the ace pilots during WW2: "Fly higher, fly faster and don't fly level". When determining the probability of hitting the opponent, the factor of the speed difference between the aircraft is added to the existing checklist, but even with that, the whole procedure remains simple.

During the game, we noticed that 23 Speed Indicators might not be enough, even with only 12 aircraft on the board. The problem is that often most aircraft fly at similar speeds, so the same speed indicators are used.

The third episode

We agreed to play the third episode with the optional rule "Inertia". All available aircraft on each side participate in this episode. I saved my best fighters for the last episode: Me 262 and Ta 152 (two of each), and from the first episode, I only had one Me 410 left, which was repaired in the meantime. So I only had 5 fighters in the final episode. On the other side, out of a total of 17 planes that each player has at his disposal, Dragan lost one fighter in the first episode (while the two that were damaged are again available), and one was damaged in the second episode (therefore not available now).

In this episode, the balance of power was 15:5 in favor of Dragan. Considering that in the previous episodes, the player who had fewer planes won, I was hoping that in this episode I would finally win, because I have a lot of potential targets. The fact that I have the fastest fighter (Me 262) gave me additional optimism. I didn't expect a total turnaround and a final victory, but at least a victory in this episode.

I was the first to move. Both sides entered the fight immediately, so there was a lot of action on the board. Throughout the game, we often used tracer bursts to increase the hit probability. This turned out to be a good practice, especially for fighters that have a lot of ammunition at their disposal (Me 410 and Fw 190).

We didn't have enough Speed Indicators, so we used small pieces of paper with a number written on them to compensate.

The episode also lasted only 10 rounds. I managed to take down as many as 4 of Dragan’s fighters, but I lost all 5 of mine, so I lost this episode as well. The total score was 33:12 for Dragan (undamaged planes bring the player 3 points each, the damaged ones from the second episode 2 points, and the ones damaged in the third episode 1 point each).

The final conclusions after the entire game are as follows:

- turns are played out quickly, and the games are very dynamic

- in all variants played (with and without optional rules) there were no issues nor inconsistencies with the rules, everything worked perfectly

- the player who makes better decisions wins, and luck has minimal influence

- when in a good firing position, it is too easy to destroy or at least damage enemy aircraft, therefore we have adjusted the Firing Outcome Chart (which is generally possible to adjust by simply shifting the numbers, according to players' preferences)

- 23 speed markers aren’t enough, so there will be 36 in the set

- there are enough altitude stands

- a standard board of 3 bi-folds is big enough for this scenario

My fear that the game has become too complicated compared to AoD1 was unfounded. Dragan and I liked the game the most when we played with almost all the optional rules, because that way the principle of transferring the aircraft’s energy from one form to another - potential to kinetic and vice versa - comes to full effect.

We are grateful to all the backers who during the campaign requested to somehow include the principles of inertia and energy. This motivated us to develop the game mechanics that support aircraft acceleration (instead of leaving it for some other game in the future). It took us additional time, but we are very satisfied how it turned out, and I think it was worth it.

 The second game, scenario: Ramrods 

For the second game, we chose the asymmetric Ramrods scenario because of its relative simplicity. Although bombing a target on the ground can give an allied player as much as 6 points (3 x 2), the emphasis is still on the dogfight. We agreed that Dragan would help me in finding the movement paths for getting in the best firing positions. I made the final decisions about how the aircraft would move, who I would attack, whether I would use tracer bursts and the like, but now, thanks to Dragan's help, the fight was much more equal.

We have used improvised chits (bombs, etc.), because they are still not produced. The serial chits will be round, not square.

I played with Allied planes and immediately directed all 3 bombers towards the target. Dragan sent his single-engined fighters towards the escort fighters, while he attacked the bombers with Me 410 heavy fighters. Only one of my bombers successfully reached the target and dropped bombs worth 2 points. In dogfights, Dragan gained an advantage of 1.5 points, so I was within reach of victory in the tenth round (with an advantage of half a point). At that moment, my remaining aircraft were close to exiting the board and ending the game. However, in that tenth round, the Spitfire (no. 3), which ran out of ammunition, was caught by an Bf 109 (no. 4) and got damaged, thus equalizing the total score in the game. Dragan had one more remaining aircraft to move, Fw 190 (no. 5) and he managed to attack the same Spitfire from above and shoot it down. With that move, he secured the victory by half a point!

What a game! Both Dragan and I were delighted by the game’s course and the exciting ending. I was a little bit sad because of the defeat at the last second, but, nevertheless, I was happy the game had such tense ending. I remembered a Facebook post from a couple of years ago where Marcelo Figueroa and Tricia Sydney showed a game of AoD1 played in an asymmetric scenario, which resulted in a draw. Both games show that in Age of Dogfights, the result of even asymmetric scenarios can be uncertain until the very end if the knowledge and skill of both players is approximately equal.

I cannot say how long these games lasted, as it would not be relevant, due to all the additional work we did alongside. In any case, the games are dynamic, and all the turns play out quickly. If played with many aircraft, you should dedicate 2 to 4 hours for a game.

Large Caliber Anti-Aircraft Guns
over 1 year ago – Thu, Oct 12, 2023 at 03:11:13 PM

As we announced, this update is dedicated to the rules for the effect of large-caliber AA guns. This type of weapon was not featured in the game Age of Dogfights WWI, nor announced during the Kickstarter campaign for this game, but we, the authors, consider it necessary in the final version of the rulebook. Component-wise, 3 transparent thin plastic foil sheets will be added, with printed markings, each 30 x 20 cm in size. The printing will be done soon, which we'll show in one of the next updates.

The rules are as follows: