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Imperius Dominatus goes live!

 Post subject: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Wed Oct 28, 2020 1:18 am 
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Hi!

My latest project, Imperius Dominatus: Warfare in the Age of Heresy is now complete!

It is a scratch built d10 epic system that draws from all versions of epic, other wargames and even 40k built in.

The Facebook Group is here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/389010114859638/

More importantly our website, live as of today is here:

https://imperiusdominatus.org/

All current files, cards and play aids are available for download.

Primarch

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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Wed Oct 28, 2020 1:20 am 
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Hi!

For those interested, these are the design philosophies behind ID, taken from our pinned post on this subject on the FB group.

As the project continues ever forward and the 30k ruleset and army books are completed and being redone in their new format and 40k army list development in full gear, even today we still try to remain true to our goals and vision for this project.

What are those goals?

Simplicity. Everyone likes simple and easy to understand rules. But its not simplicity for the sake of simple. We keep a keen eye on the "fun factor". A simple rule that is meaningless or boring doesn't add anything to the overall enjoyment of the game is something to avoid. While each rule is to simulate or solve a game dilemma, the "how" it will play out in game is even more important. So we keep an eye out for "empty" rules that just take up space and provide no meaningful context of gameplay value ton the player.

Uniformity. Sounds dull right? But its not that kind of uniformity. ;) What we mean by this is not to create a different subset of mechanics for a given unit or model that is part of the game. Think back to all previous epic rulesets. You had one system for most ground units, one for titans, one for fliers, one for certain armies. The list goes one and on. We view that as terrible design because now players have to REMEMBER and LOOK UP all that different stuff in game. One of our guiding principals was that EVERYTHING in the game is based and works in concert with the SAME BASE SYSTEM. There are no special subset of rules to use or apply, the titan works on the same rules and the rhino and the infantry, fliers have dogfights using the same base close combat system and EVERYTHING uses the same stat line, abilities and weapon traits. In simple terms its integrated rule set where everything operates under the same simple bases
assumptions with no exceptions. In fact we absolutely LOATHE exception based design and have kept "special snowflake rules" out of the equation.

Homogeneity. Just a fancy word for "sameness" or "bland repetition". You may ask how can you keep things simple and uniform and not be dry, boring and repetitive? The answer from a design point of view is that you design a clean simple basic rules structure, but you add DETAIL via a codified system of Abilities that when applied make that unit "work" differently in play. If your list of abilities is comprehensive enough, then you have literally thousand of combinations to use to make them all behave and act differently in game. Since the abilities are strictly defined in game terms you know exactly what that unit can do beyond its stats. This is mean that two units with similar stats will have its role reinforced by abilities to make them better at their given task and thus reinforce tactical gameplay. In simple terms you don't need simple lackluster units to avoid an overly complex game. You make the baseline stats simple to read and interpret, then you add an extra shell of detail via abilities.
At a glance mechanics. Most players dislike looking up stuff in game. It detracts from the experience. We tried to make all mechanics as visual as possible. We have things like army to-hit values, where the whole army has the same to hit value for ranged and close combat or one value for each. That's a total of 2 values tops the player will have to remember. The army cards themselves are a good example of this. All visual and most of what is needed in game in on the card and it also serves as as a tracker of casualties all rolled into one. We also kept tables simple and eliminated them were feasible, but also made them so as to be printed latter on as play aids. We wanted everything to be as accessible ass possible, with no more than a casual glance of the most common things needed in the game. The goal being to have a quick learning curve and easy to remember data to avoid excessive loop ups and wasting gaming time.

Probability. This is at the same time a simple addition, but so profound it impacts all aspects of design in ID. The die type. Its well known how bad a d6 is for lack of granularity and probability distribution. In fact one of the main reason games like 40k or previous editions of epic have so many rules in it is to differentiate or mitigate the shortcomings of the d6 probability spread. We chose the d10 because the d10 is the most intuitive and easiest to remember and apply spread of probability (everyone knows how to count by tens), but more importantly in eliminated the vast majority of little rules needed to make up for that lack of flexibility in the d6. Now hit probability, kill ratios and such can be finely tuned to make units act as they should and also importantly, cost them appropriately for balance. There is no underestimating how important adopting a d10 is to make this ruleset work appropriately.

Influences. We kept a very open mind on this point. Anything and everything would be considered and we would use what worked and made sense. We kept the army card mechanic from second edition, because in our view it does two very important things: easy army building and balanced formations. Its hard to make any simpler a method of army building where you spread out some cards, select what you need from a predesign method, lay them all out and your ready to go. The time consumed is quite minimal and lets players vary it for variety, but still keeping it simple to modify and apply. There other is balance. Some previous editions of epic make it too easy to make over effective formations that exploit the rules or don't really make the army feel like its organization is true to the lore. With this system we can make possible both points in having core units to build around and in the end have a proper army organization. There are no useless formations in ID, we made sure of that. :) EA had a lot of good ideas for barrages, fliers and such, while not applied in the same way we kept modifying those ideas into the current form. Suppression for example was added, but without the need for blast markers and to much tracking. Its a simple easy to remember "at a glance" mechanic now that requires no tracking. We even took certain concepts from 40k and redeveloped them into its own thing like blast dice (which eliminated the need for templates). One aspect of the mechanics that is certainly different and does not mimic any other epic game is the close combat mechanic. We had a great dislike for the tedious method of second edition and the methods from epic40 or EA we deemed too cumbersome or not appropriate for truly large conflicts. Therefore the current method, were each element adds a certain amount of dice, you roll, get hits and apply them just like you would shooting (no special subset of rules) and depending who didn't more casualties, the other may retreat. It was concise, easy and conclusive, but FUN! who doesn't like throwing fist full of dice! ;)

References. One goal we had in mind was the "modernization" of epic formations. Even the most recent game (EA) is over 15 years old. Netepic is 23 years old and its parent system is a whopping 28 years old! A lot has changed in that time and there are many units not represented and the formation do not reflect the current lore. In the case of 30k, the red and black books were CRUCIAL in this, not only did the formation structure come from them, but formulas and conversions were made to convert the stats of units there to ID. When you look at an ID Statline you are IN FACT looking at converted 30k stats and abilities. Even our abilities list and weapon traits come from those books. That is why as Forgeworld publishes more books, ID grows as well. I think that's important because it gives ID a "live" fell that it expands and grows with the universe of 30k and 40k. 40k is easier in this regard. The wealth of information out there in books is vast. We use mainly 7th and 8th edition, although 7th is used more for stat conversion due to its being the same ruleset as 30k, so as to guarantee a consistent conversion. We want ID to reflect epic as it is today, so the books are quite important for that. Mind you we still plan to hand out formation cost for legacy formations, such as those from net epic and second edition, since how you collected your force should be no barrier to play ID with what you have, but the main focus of the core formations will be as faithful to modern lore as possible.

I'm sure I may have missed some things, but its a good start of a conversation. :)

My thanks to everyone whom have supported this project, its been very rewarding and fun!

I more than happy to answer more directed questions. :)

Primarch

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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:09 pm 
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Wow, this is a really impressive looking ruleset. I have only skimmed so far but it looks really good. I like the streamlining efforts, as much as I love Epic Armageddon it does get quite slow to play at large volumes.

I really like the special characters having their own stands too - always thought that was an advantage Space Marine had over EA. Also, the insane scale of some of those grand companies - awesome! :) Really captures the scale of the HH I think.

One question - for order tokens would those be placed on the company cards rather than on the board? (As you are keeping those secret I assume you have to remember yourself which orders are move, which are fire etc?)

We have a small Epic 30k community on Dakka so will have to let those guys know about it!
Otherwise, you have actually made me create a facebook account to check the conversation on there ;D


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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 8:27 am 
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wow that's an incredible amount of work. Fabulous


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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 11:36 am 
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One suggestion I would like to make - is there any possibility of a community outside of Facebook? I don't like to use the platform as a point of principle and think that there are probably others who feel the same way.


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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 10:54 pm 
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Pacific wrote:
Wow, this is a really impressive looking ruleset. I have only skimmed so far but it looks really good. I like the streamlining efforts, as much as I love Epic Armageddon it does get quite slow to play at large volumes.

I really like the special characters having their own stands too - always thought that was an advantage Space Marine had over EA. Also, the insane scale of some of those grand companies - awesome! :) Really captures the scale of the HH I think.

One question - for order tokens would those be placed on the company cards rather than on the board? (As you are keeping those secret I assume you have to remember yourself which orders are move, which are fire etc?)

We have a small Epic 30k community on Dakka so will have to let those guys know about it!
Otherwise, you have actually made me create a facebook account to check the conversation on there ;D


Hi!

Yes, you could place order counters on the company and attached support cards as well as a manner of keeping track with the sole caveat that it needs to be clear which cards being to what formations on the tabletop to avoid confusion. :)

Good Call on the Dakka forums, I will post the header of this thread there, thanks! :)

Primarch

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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 10:54 pm 
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lylekelm wrote:
wow that's an incredible amount of work. Fabulous


Hi!

Thanks! :)

Primarch

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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 10:55 pm 
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Pacific wrote:
One suggestion I would like to make - is there any possibility of a community outside of Facebook? I don't like to use the platform as a point of principle and think that there are probably others who feel the same way.


I believe Cybershadow would make a section here for it if there was enough traffic.

So its in your court to make that desire known to him. :)

Primarch

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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Sun Nov 08, 2020 4:03 am 
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Hi!

Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and thorough. Ill be updating errata and modifications from player feedback over the course of the week. Once finalized ot will be uploaded to our website.

Primarch

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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Fri Nov 13, 2020 1:14 pm 
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Have to say I am loving the rules Primarch, and also the great community that is building up around it! I think this will be a really great focal point for events and things like that, when the world returns to normal again.

I am now eagerly awaiting the Ork rulebooks so I can complete work on them for a Great Crusade-era setting.

Keep up the good work! :)


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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Sun Nov 15, 2020 5:53 am 
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Pacific wrote:
Have to say I am loving the rules Primarch, and also the great community that is building up around it! I think this will be a really great focal point for events and things like that, when the world returns to normal again.

I am now eagerly awaiting the Ork rulebooks so I can complete work on them for a Great Crusade-era setting.

Keep up the good work! :)


Hi!

Thanks pacific!

First I'll do the scheduled update then orks. :)

Primarch

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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2020 12:36 pm 
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That's great! Look forward to seeing the updates.

I'm also working on Squats at the moment. Would the AD formations roughly line up with what we have in NetEpic gold at the moment? I'm not too worried about specific points cost or special rules for now, but just so if I have collections of minis the amount of stands I have for detachments etc will be correct

Thanks in advance !


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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 6:22 am 
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Hi!

There should be similarities, but won't be exactly the same, since it uses the latest organizational modes from current codexes and army lists from 40k.

Primarch.

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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 6:02 pm 
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You're not going to tell me there was something other than the Squat 2nd ed ruleset that came with 40k 2nd edition, are you? :D

If you do that is going to be worth some money ! ;D


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 Post subject: Re: Imperius Dominatus goes live!
PostPosted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 7:13 pm 
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Pacific wrote:
You're not going to tell me there was something other than the Squat 2nd ed ruleset that came with 40k 2nd edition, are you? :D

If you do that is going to be worth some money ! ;D


Hi!

Lol! Squats will be done last, since they now no longer exist, I think its a good idea to ask the fan base what kind of army they should be and what units they should have.

Its like a whole new project within the project. ;)

Primarch

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