Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Corellian Conflict Strategy - Prioritizing Starting Locations

I've started two rounds of Corellian Conflict now, both times as the Rebels, both times as the Grand Admiral, so needless to say I've been putting a lot of thought into the setup for Corellian Conflict, specifically starting locations as well as good starting lists.  We'll be talking about lists later, but I'd like to talk about starting locations now:





How did you read the rules?


There are two potential readings of the rules prior to any clarifications at this point.  One (that I have played both times) has the order going:

Corellia > Imperial > Rebel > Imperial > Rebel > Imperial > Rebel x4

The alternative to this is:

Corellia > Imperial > Rebel Player (2 presences) > Imperial > Rebel Player (2 presences) > Imperial > Rebel Player (2 presences)

This has each rebel player placing both their presence stickers at the same time, and lets Imperials deduce more easily which locations are Rebel bases and outposts.  For sanity's sake I'm just going to be dealing with the first one, which I will be calling "Rebel x4".


Starting Planets and Combined Resource Value:


How many players do you have?  This will actually change the calculation on which planets are best.  Repair Yards, after all, are worth 5 refit points per player - if you have 3 players they are worth 15 total, instead of 2 player's 10.  Let's stick with 3 players for right now.  I'm also just going to assume everyone will take some losses, and thus Repair Yards will always be useful.  Don't forget to add 25 points for a base or 5 points for an outpost.  I will deal with total repair yard and resource bonus and Combined Resources or CR.

Resource Rich Planets:

Top Tier - "+2 Victory Locations"
Corellia - 35 CR (20 / RY)
Saberhing Asteroid Belt - 31 CR (16 / RY)
Nubia - 31 CR (16 / RY)

2nd Tier - "+1 Victory Locations"
Selonia - 27 CR (12 / RY)
Xyquine II - 26 CR (12 / RY)
Vagran - 23 CR (8 / RY)

3rd Tier - "Pure Resources"
Corfai - 19 CR (19 / "+2 Victory")
Duro - 17 CR (17 / "+2 Victory" / Skilled Spacers)
Polanis - 15 CR (15 / "+1 Victory")
Crash's Drift - 13 CR (13 / "+1 Victory" / Skilled Spacers)

And there you go, the top 10 best resource locations in the galaxy.    Imperials get 4, Rebels get 6.  That was easy...

Or is it?  There's a lot of other things left out of this mix - namely Diplomats and Spynets.  We will talk about those in a bit, but right now let's look at what happens if each side picks just based on resources for the first turn:

"Rebel x4"

Imperials get:
Corellia
Saberhing
Selonia
Vagran

Rebels get:
Nubia
Xyquine
Corfai
Duro
Polanis
Crash's Drift

Imperials also get 100 points for 4 bases, while the Rebels get 90 points for 3 bases and 3 outposts.  Income, assuming nothing changes hands on the first turn, will be Imperials:  216, Rebels: 211.  Pretty even, with a slight advantage in pure CR to the Imperials.  Take away the bonus 15 CR per Repair Yard though, and it looks a bit different:   Imperial: 156, Rebel: 181.  Repair Yards are almost always useful, but if the Rebels don't take any loses, they can get HUGE and fast.  That's 60 points per fleet of upgrades.  Probably best for the Imperials to mix things up somewhat, and grab Corfai or Duro (depending on how much they value Skilled Spacers) out of Tier 3 for their final pick.

Let's also look at "Rebel x2", where each rebel turn is a single rebel player picking 2 locations:

Imperials:
Corellia
Saberhing
Xyquin II
Duro

Rebels:
Nubia
Selonia
Vagran
Corfai
Polanis
Crash's Drift

Imperials:  209   Rebels:   218.  That's interesting - a 14 point swing to give the rebels a 9 point favorite, but it gives the Imperials Duro naturally.  One big difference is that the Imperials know that one "+2 Victory" location the Rebels have holds only an outpost, and they can roll the dice for that with their one assault on turn 1.  More importantly, both sides have 3 Repair Yards, so they even out there - no one is getting too huge unless they win a Special Assault.


Other Considerations:


How much of a value to you put on getting that one ship into a perfect deployment?  That is the value of Spynet.  With only 3 on the board, they are also locations with very poor resources.  Obviously easier for the Rebels to start off grabbing just one low value location, but the Imperials may want one themselves, and they do start off with a slight advantage in resources after all.


Spy Net:

Centerpoint - 5 CR (5 / "+0 Victory" / Spynet)
Raider's Point - 4 CR (4 / "+0 Victory" / Spynet)
Forvand - 2 CR (2 / "+0 Victory" / Spynet)

Relatively worthless locations for an outpost (or a base) as your opponent doesn't even get a victory point for taking them over.  But the Spynet token is one of the most powerful bonuses you can have.  What is Superior Positions after all, if after you set up in the perfect spot, your opponent's ISD is suddenly on your flank?  It is definitely priced as such, with the "best" location being 8 CR less than the "worst" Resource planet.

Again, this is easier for the Rebels to justify grabbing, especially after the Imperials go hog wild with resource planets.  8 points to protect your biggest asset?  That could be 50 points of repairs you saved.


Diplomats:

I'll be honest, I liked these a lot more when I saw them as a shield for one of your "+2 Victory" bases.  They are all on +1 planets, but they let you block off your opponent's best neutral assault while you hold onto them.  Especially useful if you think you won't hold against a specific assault, and you want to ensure it isn't going to be as lucrative for them.  Almost certainly better as the team in the lead, because you can block your opponent's obvious neutral assaults with them.

Aurea - 9 CR (9 / "+1 Victory" / Diplomats)
Drall - 9 CR (9 / "+1 Victory" / Diplomats)
Froz - 0 CR (0 / "+1 Victory" / Diplomats)

So if you are the Rebels, block the Imperials obvious Show of Force location, and vice-versa if you are the Imperials with Hyperlane Assault locations.  Are they worth the 4 CR opportunity cost for the Rebels?  Maybe.  Are they worth assaulting Turn 1 as the Imperials?  Almost certainly.


Skilled Spacers:

Bit of an odd duck here:

Duro - 17 CR (17 / "+2 Victory" / Skilled Spacers)
Crash's Drift - 13 CR (13 / "+1 Victory" / Skilled Spacers)
Talus - 8 CR (8 / "+1 Victory" / Skilled Spacers)
Tralus - 8 CR (8 / "+1 Victory" / Skilled Spacers)
Sileria - 7 CR (7 / "+0 Victory" / Skilled Spacers)
Plympto - 1 CR (1 / "+0 Victory" / Skilled Spacers)

Well, that's a... well...  So you go from Duro, which is valuable even without the spacers, to Crash's Drift, the "worst" of the Resource Worlds (the next best being Sacorria, at 10 CR and no bonuses, which we didn't even talk about).  Then on to Talus and Tralus, which again, are worse than Crash's Drift, but located in the Core (and thus are targets for Hyperlane Assault).  Then Sileria, which is one of the best "+0 Victory" resource worlds, all the way to Plympto.

The benefit of Spacers is betting to switch out one of your regular 3 objectives, in case you are matched up against someone who will take advantage of it.  Only useful if you are defending a regular attack on a neutral world, or outpost.  Better for the Rebels to have than the Imperials if only for the "outpost", so might behoove the Imperial player to seize the ones it can.  Again, Duro and Crash's Drift are in the top Resource list, so an Imperial player could dip down to grab one or the other to deny the Rebels one for later.  Also good for the Imperials on Turn 1, as they have "incomplete" lists and are on the defense - and the Rebels probably aren't attacking a base.


Biggs' Big Board

Top Tier - "First Round Picks"
Saberhing Asteroid Belt - 31 CR (16 / "+2 Victory" / RY)
Nubia - 31 CR (16 / "+2 Victory" / RY)

2nd Tier - "2nd Round Picks"
Selonia - 27 CR (12 / "+1 Victory" / RY)
Xyquine II - 26 CR (12 / "+1 Victory" / RY)

Imperial 3rd Round Picks:
Vagran - 23 CR (8 / "+1 Victory" / RY) - Pure Resources Go!
Duro - 17 CR (17 / "+2 Victory" / Skilled Spacers) - Skilled Spacers!
Centerpoint - 5 CR (5 / "+0 Victory" / Spynet) - So I built a dual ISD list, and...

Rebel Final Picks (4 total) and the order I would consider each one.
Vagran - 23 CR (8 / "+1 Victory" / RY) - Imperials didn't grab it!
Centerpoint - 5 CR (5 / "+0 Victory" / Spynet) - Worth the 8 points I'd get from Crash's Drift to keep one MC80 alive.
Corfai - 19 CR (19 / "+2 Victory") - A risk at "+2 Victory" but we can put a base on it
Duro - 17 CR (17 / "+2 Victory" / Skilled Spacers) - See Corfai
Aurea - 9 CR (9 / "+1 Victory" / Diplomats) - One less place for the Empire to do a Show of Force at.  Know where else they can't?  Polanis (or Duro if you're feeling frisky).
Raider's Point - 4 CR (4 / "+0 Victory" / Spynet) - Worth the 11 points I'd get from Polanis to keep one MC80 alive... I hope they don't use their Centerpoint Spynet in the same matchup.
Crash's Drift - 13 CR (13 / "+1 Victory" / Skilled Spacers) - I need Skilled Spacers and the Imperials took Duro.
Polanis - 15 CR (15 / "+1 Victory") - Resources are Good... but not that good.

4 comments:

  1. Yes, pretty much. Good that you've analyze this, because we were a little confused over your picks in the Vassal CC - but now we all agree with your analysis :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nate and i (Raleigh) just finished our second round of our 2 player CCC, The imps are up 3 wins to 1 and as of round 3 we will now have some skewed battles. Imps have 2 fleets of 500 vs two rebel fleets in the 425-450 range. I can report how it goes if you want more data.

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    Replies
    1. By all means! My suggestion would be to put battle writeups in the Battle Report Forums:

      https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/forum/518-star-wars-armada-battle-reports/

      Good place for them to go, and interesting for the community to read.

      Delete