SoaringDylan
The Sobbley Trainer
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- Nov 17, 2015
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Welcome to XCOM TBG - Digital Edition.
For those unaware, this game is based on the game "XCOM The Board Game". You don't need any knowledge about the board game to play this game, although you will find similarities between the two. It is however, recommended to have played "XCOM: Enemy Unknown" as all mechanics and flavor are derived from that game.
All disclaimers out of the way, Let's get started.
This game will be quite complicated, so bear with me while I explain this to you.
Everyone will get one role (see roles in the Premise spoiler).
When signing up please tell me the role that looks most fun to you, and the role that looks 2nd most fun to you. I'll try and fit everyone in a role that looks fun to them.
Feel free to read everything in the "How to Play" spoiler. But the important part is that you know how to play your own character, you have a team that you're allowed to help, but everyone has their own role and if you try to do all of them; this game will be very complicated for you.
In XCOM earth is being attacked by an unknown treat, these aliens are far more technologically advanced then we are, but we need to defend our home planet.
In our TBG version, there will be 4 roles:
Now if you're still reading. Congrats! You have survived my onslaught of explanations and I'm surprised you still live. This game is made for 4 people but I have a question for everyone that's signing up, or thinking about signing up:
Do you think we should make this game 4P or 8P?
In the case of the latter, each turn (so one Timed Phase, and Resolution Phase) we'd switch parties between team A and team B. They play with the same resources and continue onto each others adventures.
If you have any question about any part of the rules, feel free to ask. They are quite extensive and I probably have missed something important here or there.
Oh and as a final note, any individual action or number (like amount of starting soldiers and interceptors, or starting abilities) will be revealed upon game start.
Players:
Subs:
For those unaware, this game is based on the game "XCOM The Board Game". You don't need any knowledge about the board game to play this game, although you will find similarities between the two. It is however, recommended to have played "XCOM: Enemy Unknown" as all mechanics and flavor are derived from that game.
All disclaimers out of the way, Let's get started.
This game will be quite complicated, so bear with me while I explain this to you.
Everyone will get one role (see roles in the Premise spoiler).
When signing up please tell me the role that looks most fun to you, and the role that looks 2nd most fun to you. I'll try and fit everyone in a role that looks fun to them.
Feel free to read everything in the "How to Play" spoiler. But the important part is that you know how to play your own character, you have a team that you're allowed to help, but everyone has their own role and if you try to do all of them; this game will be very complicated for you.
In XCOM earth is being attacked by an unknown treat, these aliens are far more technologically advanced then we are, but we need to defend our home planet.
In our TBG version, there will be 4 roles:
- Central Officer
The Central Officer is the one who gathers and distributes all knowledge about our opponent so we can have an edge over them. Your primary objective will be to discover important events, help the Commander with making decisions, and making sure our tech up in the sky stays running. - Chief Scientist
The Chief Scientist is the brains of our operation. They spend most of their days inside the lab researching alien materials to discover new technologies, putting us on par with that of the aliens, or even advancing past them. - Commander
The Commander is the primary leader of the XCOM Project. They have to manage the budget, make sure all the council members stay in positive relations with the project, and make certain we shoot any alien activity right out of the sky. - Squad Leader
The Squad Leader is the most dangerous of our jobs. Everyday they risk their lives on the battle field making sure to not only succeed their mission, but also make sure that their squad mates survive. You will be doing all work on the ground, and fighting the aliens head-on.
You win by finishing the Final Mission which will randomly unlock as a mission, with there being a bigger chance the more normal missions you've completed
You lose the game if your base takes 8 damage (it takes one damage for each alien in the base after a Resolution Phase.) or if you lose 3 council members to the aliens.
You lose the game if your base takes 8 damage (it takes one damage for each alien in the base after a Resolution Phase.) or if you lose 3 council members to the aliens.
This game has a lot of terms that I'm familiair with that you might not be, so I'll explain any that I believe are worth explaining, or that someone points out to me that is confusing.
The Council:
The council is a group that has a representative from all the continents on earth.
(North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia & Australia)
Resolution Phase & Timed Phase
These two terms are explained at the top of "How to Play"
Lead:
A lead is a possibility for you to research.
Panic Counter:
Each continent has a panic counter, their current state on this counter is displayed at the beginning of each turn. The counter goes from 0-8. If the counter for a continent is between 0-5 their panic levels are low and there will be no negative effects because of this. If a continent reaches panic level 6-8 this continent will be in high panic. Meaning they will give a different amount of credits and some of your abilities might become unavailable. If the counter reaches 9+ the continent will fall into despair. Meaning they will leave the continent never to be recovered. Meaning you will no longer receive any income from them. If your base is in a continent that falls into despair you automatically lose the game
XCOM Base:
The XCOM base has 8 hit points, upon taking 8 damage you lose the game. At the beginning of the game your base will be build in one of the 6 continents. Depending on which one your Central Officer will gain a special continent ability. This ability only works if the continent the base is in is in low panic.
Exaust This:
Exhaust this is a modifier that can be present on any Tech card, meaning they can only be used once each round by "exhausting" it.
Alien's mission plan type:
The strategy the aliens are using to attack Earth. Can be discovered while playing the game.
Crisis:
A bad event that will occur at the start of the Resolution Phase. The Commander has to deal with these, but they can effect anyone.
Scientists:
These units can be assigned to unresearched tasks and sometimes tech cards from the Chief Scientist. The amount of them determine the research strategy of a current lead. (1 = passive, 2 = aggressive, 3 = all in) Without them you can't research.
Elite:
An elite soldier shoots twice (2x accuracy check) instead of 1. The 2nd accuracy check can't result in a retaliation of the enemy.
The Council:
The council is a group that has a representative from all the continents on earth.
(North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia & Australia)
Resolution Phase & Timed Phase
These two terms are explained at the top of "How to Play"
Lead:
A lead is a possibility for you to research.
Panic Counter:
Each continent has a panic counter, their current state on this counter is displayed at the beginning of each turn. The counter goes from 0-8. If the counter for a continent is between 0-5 their panic levels are low and there will be no negative effects because of this. If a continent reaches panic level 6-8 this continent will be in high panic. Meaning they will give a different amount of credits and some of your abilities might become unavailable. If the counter reaches 9+ the continent will fall into despair. Meaning they will leave the continent never to be recovered. Meaning you will no longer receive any income from them. If your base is in a continent that falls into despair you automatically lose the game
XCOM Base:
The XCOM base has 8 hit points, upon taking 8 damage you lose the game. At the beginning of the game your base will be build in one of the 6 continents. Depending on which one your Central Officer will gain a special continent ability. This ability only works if the continent the base is in is in low panic.
Exaust This:
Exhaust this is a modifier that can be present on any Tech card, meaning they can only be used once each round by "exhausting" it.
Alien's mission plan type:
The strategy the aliens are using to attack Earth. Can be discovered while playing the game.
Crisis:
A bad event that will occur at the start of the Resolution Phase. The Commander has to deal with these, but they can effect anyone.
Scientists:
These units can be assigned to unresearched tasks and sometimes tech cards from the Chief Scientist. The amount of them determine the research strategy of a current lead. (1 = passive, 2 = aggressive, 3 = all in) Without them you can't research.
Elite:
An elite soldier shoots twice (2x accuracy check) instead of 1. The 2nd accuracy check can't result in a retaliation of the enemy.
The game has 2 phases: the Timed Phase and the Resolution Phase.
In the Timed Phase our enemies will be moving around as we speak. Making it so that everyone only has 24 hours to submit their action. Sometimes, unexpected events could happen during the Timed Phase making it last longer, or shorter.
In the Resolution Phase both us, and our enemies are deciding on what to do next, and resolving any ongoing activities. The Resolution Phase will last until it's over. Players have 24 hours to input one action until we move onto the next action. (if you for some reason are not available in the next 24 hours, please state so and we can further increase this limit!
)
In the Timed Phase our enemies will be moving around as we speak. Making it so that everyone only has 24 hours to submit their action. Sometimes, unexpected events could happen during the Timed Phase making it last longer, or shorter.
In the Resolution Phase both us, and our enemies are deciding on what to do next, and resolving any ongoing activities. The Resolution Phase will last until it's over. Players have 24 hours to input one action until we move onto the next action. (if you for some reason are not available in the next 24 hours, please state so and we can further increase this limit!
)Every Timed Phase, each role gets their own action.
The Commander will receive a budget from the Council, that they can spend this phase. This can range anywhere between 5-20 credits (can also be shown as $). The amount depends on the amount of Council members still in the council, and how long the game has been going on.
You have to make sure your team doesn't overspend your monthly budget, otherwise bad things will happen. Besides this, you will also determine the amount of interceptors we send in to any continent to deal with enemy UFOs. At max you can send in 3 Interceptors to any continent. Sending an interceptor costs 1$ for each interceptor.
The Chief Scientist will have a few leads on scientific researches they can do. The amount of options they have will always be 6. Each technology represented to the Chief Scientist will have 3 values:
1 - 2 - 3
You can only use each priority on one tech each turn. In the Resolution Phase, the order of which researches will be researched is dependent on their priority, with the highest priority going first.
Next to deciding the priority they also need to decide on a research strategy:
In the resolution phase the success will be decided, and based on the strategy that amount of work will be done on a research. More info will be found in the Resolution Phase guide.
The Central Officer will receive all information regarding enemy activity spread across the timed phase. The later the event happens into the phase, the less of an impact it has on the overal game.
After each event the Central Officer will have to pick between a few choices and at the start of the Resolution Phase these events will play out. These events can range from killing one of your units, destroying enemy UFOs to losing a council members. So pick wisely.
The Squad Leader will get the option to choose a mission every Timed Phase. If they decide to take a mission while one already is on-going, the new mission will replace the old one.
The Squad Leader also decides who goes on every mission. He has to choose out of a number of soldiers in the barracks, these soldiers will all have a class with a different set of skills:
Each soldier used on a mission, or on base defense costs 1$ each.
The Commander will receive a budget from the Council, that they can spend this phase. This can range anywhere between 5-20 credits (can also be shown as $). The amount depends on the amount of Council members still in the council, and how long the game has been going on.
You have to make sure your team doesn't overspend your monthly budget, otherwise bad things will happen. Besides this, you will also determine the amount of interceptors we send in to any continent to deal with enemy UFOs. At max you can send in 3 Interceptors to any continent. Sending an interceptor costs 1$ for each interceptor.
The Chief Scientist will have a few leads on scientific researches they can do. The amount of options they have will always be 6. Each technology represented to the Chief Scientist will have 3 values:
- Required Work
The required work is a number between 1 and 3. How to generate Work is explained in the Resolution Phase - Operator
Who will benefit from this card, the Commander, Chief Scientist, Central Officer or Squad Leader. - Effect
The effect of this research.
1 - 2 - 3
You can only use each priority on one tech each turn. In the Resolution Phase, the order of which researches will be researched is dependent on their priority, with the highest priority going first.
Next to deciding the priority they also need to decide on a research strategy:
- Passive - 35% chance to fail - generates 1 work - costs 1$
- Agressive - 50% chance to fail - generates 2 work - costs 2$
- All-In - 70% chance to fail - generates 3 work - costs 3$
So say you pick a research that costs 2 work, you can decide to pick an Aggressive research strategy, which would have a 50% to be successful and create 2 work. While it also has a 50% to fail. But if you were to be successful you'd get the tech that turn. You could also go with the Passive research strategy. Which has a lower chance to fail, 35%, but would only give you 1 work. Meaning you'd have to research it for 2 turns in a row. High risk, high reward.
In the resolution phase the success will be decided, and based on the strategy that amount of work will be done on a research. More info will be found in the Resolution Phase guide.
The Central Officer will receive all information regarding enemy activity spread across the timed phase. The later the event happens into the phase, the less of an impact it has on the overal game.
After each event the Central Officer will have to pick between a few choices and at the start of the Resolution Phase these events will play out. These events can range from killing one of your units, destroying enemy UFOs to losing a council members. So pick wisely.
The Squad Leader will get the option to choose a mission every Timed Phase. If they decide to take a mission while one already is on-going, the new mission will replace the old one.
The Squad Leader also decides who goes on every mission. He has to choose out of a number of soldiers in the barracks, these soldiers will all have a class with a different set of skills:
- Assault - Skills: Firepower & Positioning
- Sniper - Skills: Critical & Positioning
- Heavy - Skills: Firepower & Teamwork
- Support - Skills: Critical & Teamwork
Each soldier used on a mission, or on base defense costs 1$ each.
The Central Officer has no special turn in the Resolution Phase. Most of their abilities work for everyone so they can activate their ability during anyone their turn.
The Commander will at the start of the phase hand over the budget of last months operations (automatically). In the case of a benefit, they can either buy interceptors or soldiers for the Squad Leader with any remaining credits. In the case of a deficit bad things will happen. You can not bring credits from a previous turn onto the next one. So spend all!
After the Commander is done it's the Chief Scientist's turn.
The Chief Scientist's turn is mostly automatic, if they don't have any special action to do (which can be unlocked by research) their turn will automatically end and the output will be determent.
Researching Techs:
To research a tech, an amount of work needs to be put into said research. The amount required depends on each research. Based on the priority and research strategy chosen in the Timed Phase a dice will be rolled to see if there has successfully been put in any work on the lead. If there has been successful progression on the lead, the research team will continue onto the next lead. However, if one of the attempts fails all research for this turn ends. That is not all, a failed research attempt on a lead renders the lead useless, meaning you can't further research this lead. The lead will be discarded and you'll get a new one next Timed Phase. It is possible to see a lead return in any of the following Timed Phases.
After the Chief Scientist is done it's the Commander's turn again.
This time however, the results of any aerial combat with their interceptors will be determent. Just like the Chief Scientist, if they don't have any special action their turn will automatically end and the output will be determent.
The calculation of a successful aerial operation depends on the amount of Interceptors and UFOs in the area. The calculation is as followed:
with the max chance of success being 99% and the calculation being rounded upwards.
The success is either you have destroyed all enemy UFOs or all your interceptors were destroyed.
For every UFO remaining in a continent their panic counter will rise by one.
After the Commander is done with Aerial Combat, it's the Squad Leader's turn.
The Squad Leader will handle both the Base Defense and Missions. In <- this order.
At either of these events, the Squad Leader has to assign which of the soldiers he brought on the mission attacks what enemy. You can keep on attacking as much as you want as long as you have soldiers allocated to the event.
All soldiers can hit all enemies, those specialized in it gain a x2 boost to their accuracy. There is a base chance of 25% to hit an enemy each turn. There is also a 25% chance that an enemy shoots back. On a scale of 1-100:
If an enemy shoots your unit, it has a 80% chance of hitting. If it hits your unit dies in one shot.
Enemies have between 1 and 3 HP. And might have a special ability. Enemy stats will be shown whenever the enemy appears.
After this, the team gets to decide on a plan and after all 4 members agree the next Timed Phase will start.
The Commander will at the start of the phase hand over the budget of last months operations (automatically). In the case of a benefit, they can either buy interceptors or soldiers for the Squad Leader with any remaining credits. In the case of a deficit bad things will happen. You can not bring credits from a previous turn onto the next one. So spend all!
After the Commander is done it's the Chief Scientist's turn.
The Chief Scientist's turn is mostly automatic, if they don't have any special action to do (which can be unlocked by research) their turn will automatically end and the output will be determent.
Researching Techs:
To research a tech, an amount of work needs to be put into said research. The amount required depends on each research. Based on the priority and research strategy chosen in the Timed Phase a dice will be rolled to see if there has successfully been put in any work on the lead. If there has been successful progression on the lead, the research team will continue onto the next lead. However, if one of the attempts fails all research for this turn ends. That is not all, a failed research attempt on a lead renders the lead useless, meaning you can't further research this lead. The lead will be discarded and you'll get a new one next Timed Phase. It is possible to see a lead return in any of the following Timed Phases.
After the Chief Scientist is done it's the Commander's turn again.
This time however, the results of any aerial combat with their interceptors will be determent. Just like the Chief Scientist, if they don't have any special action their turn will automatically end and the output will be determent.
The calculation of a successful aerial operation depends on the amount of Interceptors and UFOs in the area. The calculation is as followed:
Code:
((amount of inteceptors * 2) / amount of UFOs) * 40%The success is either you have destroyed all enemy UFOs or all your interceptors were destroyed.
For every UFO remaining in a continent their panic counter will rise by one.
After the Commander is done with Aerial Combat, it's the Squad Leader's turn.
The Squad Leader will handle both the Base Defense and Missions. In <- this order.
At either of these events, the Squad Leader has to assign which of the soldiers he brought on the mission attacks what enemy. You can keep on attacking as much as you want as long as you have soldiers allocated to the event.
All soldiers can hit all enemies, those specialized in it gain a x2 boost to their accuracy. There is a base chance of 25% to hit an enemy each turn. There is also a 25% chance that an enemy shoots back. On a scale of 1-100:
Code:
1-25 = hit (or 0-50 if specialized)
26-50 = enemy hits (or 51-75 if specialized)
51+ = miss (or 76+ if specialized)Enemies have between 1 and 3 HP. And might have a special ability. Enemy stats will be shown whenever the enemy appears.
After this, the team gets to decide on a plan and after all 4 members agree the next Timed Phase will start.
Now if you're still reading. Congrats! You have survived my onslaught of explanations and I'm surprised you still live. This game is made for 4 people but I have a question for everyone that's signing up, or thinking about signing up:
Do you think we should make this game 4P or 8P?
In the case of the latter, each turn (so one Timed Phase, and Resolution Phase) we'd switch parties between team A and team B. They play with the same resources and continue onto each others adventures.
If you have any question about any part of the rules, feel free to ask. They are quite extensive and I probably have missed something important here or there.
Oh and as a final note, any individual action or number (like amount of starting soldiers and interceptors, or starting abilities) will be revealed upon game start.
Players:
- @CheffOfGames [Central Officer]
- @DarthWolf [Squad Leader]
- @Elementar [Chief Scientist]
- @Lone_Garurumon [Commander]
Subs:
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