World Burner Options - a net assessment

Burning Empires World Burner
1

Since my group is probably going to start a BE campaign this week, I whipped up a few worlds for fun using my handy World Burner spreadsheet in Excel (Luke, how would I go about posting this?) and was struck by how certain choices can have major, non-obvious consequences in the final dispositions. Wanting to be a good competive GM who doesn’t let his players screw themselves too badly before they even start, I went ahead and did what the military calls as “net assessment” analysis of each option.

Basically, I subtracted the Vaylen points for each phase from the Human points for each phase to come up with a unique “signature” for each World Burner option of how it will affect the disposition totals and thus the flow of the game. Some of the results are obvious, like, hey, Core Worlds are screwed in Infiltration and Void Worlds are screwed in the Invasion, but there are subtler things: For example, almost all the choices balance out in the end, when you sum all the phases together, but that’s not true for Core World vs. Void World.

This is much, much clearer in my original Excel file with happy graphical tables (Luke, again, can I post this?) but in the raw:

Formatting key – all numbers represent Human disposition for that phase minus Vaylen disposition for that phase, so positive numbers are good for the humans and negatives are bad:
[Option name] / [Infiltration] / [Usurpation] / [Invasion] / [Total of all phases]

Core World / 0 / -1 / 7 / 6
Interior World / -1 / 0 / 1 / 0
Outworld / 1 / 1 / -2 / 0
Void World / 1 / 0 / -7 / -6

Alien-Life-Supporting / -1 / 1 / 0 / 0
Human-Life-Supporting / -1 / 1 / 0 / 0
Non-Life-Supporting / 2 / 0 / -2 / 0
Partial-Life-Supporting / -1 / 3 / -2 / 0

Predominantly Liquid / -3 / 1 / 2 / 0
Predominantly Land / -1 / 0 / 1 / 0

Artificially Created Environs / 2 / -2 / 0 / 0
Naturally Rugged and/or Broken Terrain / -1 / 2 / -1 / 0
Naturally Tame and/or Habitable Terrain / 1 / -2 / 1 / 0
Broad Range of Conditions / -2 / 0 / 2 / 0

Sub Index / 1 / 1 / -2 / 0
Zero Index / 0 / 1 / -1 / 0
Low Index / 0 / -1 / 1 / 0
High Index / 1 / -3 / 2 / 0

Civilian Commune / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
Imperial Stewardship / -1 / -1 / 2 / 0
Lawless or Anarchic / -3 / 5 / -2 / 0
Merchant League / -2 / -1 / 3 / 0
Military Dictatorship / 1 / -4 / 3 / 0
Noble Fief / 0 / -3 / 3 / 0
Theocracy / 2 / -4 / 2 / 0

Levy / -2 / 2 / 0 / 0
Lords-Pilot / 1 / -2 / 1 / 0
Professional Volunteer Force / 0 / -1 / 1 / 0
Religious Orders / -1 / -2 / 3 / 0

Educated or Informed / 3 / 3 / 3 / 9
Hysterical Fear / -1 / -1 / -1 / -3
Ignorant / -6 / -6 / -6 / -18
Indifferent / -3 / -3 / -3 / -9
Paranoid / 1 / 1 / 1 / 3
Personal Experience / 5 / 5 / 5 / 15

Agriculture / -3 / 2 / 1 / 0
Industrial Capital / -1 / 0 / 1 / 0
Military Capital / -2 / -2 / 4 / 0
Raw Materials / 0 / 1 / -1 / 0
Refined Goods / 1 / -1 / 0 / 0
Services or Skilled Labor / -1 / -1 / 2 / 0
Unskilled Labor / -2 / 1 / 1 / 0

No Quarantine / -4 / -4 / -4 / -12
Standard Quarantine / -1 / -1 / -1 / -3
Advanced Quarantine / 1 / 1 / 1 / 3
Strict Quarantine / 3 / 3 / 3 / 9

Unregulated / -2 / 3 / -1 / 0
Loosely Regulated / 1 / 1 / -1 / 1
Moderately Regulated / 3 / -2 / -1 / 0
Tightly Regulated / 3 / -4 / 1 / 0

2

Interesting analysis, Syd. I was thinking along similar lines the other day, trying to suss out net changes in dispo rather than absolute numbers. Only issue I see with your analysis is that it doesn’t take into account dispo changes relative to each choice. Some steps involve very small changes while others involve very large ones, relatively speaking.

You’re right, some interesting surprises in there. I have no idea why the dispo bounces around so much as you move through indifferent-to-personal experience, for example. That whole circle thing (how do you jump from personal experience to ignorant in one shot?) is already weird to me.

I was thinking about doing something similar with characters. I know there are optimal character builds out there relative to each phase. Next game I’ll probably have the players decide which FoN will fit into each phase before play, so they can tune their character to the Infection-level skill list.

p.

3

Off the top of my head:

Generational change. Think of all those World War II veterans coming back home, absolutely NOT talking about what it was really like to be in combat – the “Greatest Generation” had plenty of PTSD – and then their kids growing up with weird notions formed by John Wayne propaganda films and variously enlisting for Vietnam with wild-eyed idealism or chanting “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, ho Chi Minh is gonna win!” I’d justify such a change as the elders, the ones who actually experienced the last Vaylen incursion, dying off or losing influence without having genuinely talked to the next generation about what it was like.

4

That’s an excellent example, Sydney.

-Chris

5

Thanks!

6

Sydney,
If I could pay you a salary, I would.

email me the file.
-L

7

It’s not quite complete, though. Only half the disposition carries over into the next phase, so surplus Usurpation disposition is twice as valuable as surplus Infiltration.

8

Emailed.

And, y’know, you can always pay me in kind. Or services… heh heh heh.

9

True, but conversely disposition you have now is more valuable than disposition you might get later: If my excess disposition from the Infiltration helps me win the Usurpation, I can help set up the circumstances story-wise for the Invasion.

10

Storywise, yes. But if we’re reducing this to purely mechanical terms, which is what it seems like you are doing, then you should account for the disparity in long-term value of disposition.

11

There are not only methods, but limits, to my madness. I’ll email you the Excel file and you can figure out the discounting formula!

12

At a glance, I noticed that the best options for the Vaylen under Quarantine and Attitude toward Vaylen work out better for the Vaylen than the best options for the Human side work out for the Humans.

Interesting…

13

Hey, you’re right, actually.

The best attitude, personal experience, nets +15 human disposition over all three phases combined; the worst, ignorant, nets -18. It’s clearer if I reorder them by net effect:

Ignorant / -6 / -6 / -6 / -18
Indifferent / -3 / -3 / -3 / -9
Hysterical Fear / -1 / -1 / -1 / -3
Paranoid / 1 / 1 / 1 / 3
Educated or Informed / 3 / 3 / 3 / 9
Personal Experience / 5 / 5 / 5 / 15

And on quarantine, the best (strict) is only +9, while the worst (none) is -12:

No Quarantine / -4 / -4 / -4 / -12
Standard Quarantine / -1 / -1 / -1 / -3
Advanced Quarantine / 1 / 1 / 1 / 3
Strict Quarantine / 3 / 3 / 3 / 9

In almost every other set of choices, the overall effect across all three phases nets to zero – except for Location, and even there the best human option (Core) is merely equal to the worst (Void), at +6 and -6 respectively.

So, if you’re looking at the Infection as a whole, you can choose almost anything you want and still dial up or down the difficulty for the human side at will simply by being careful about Attitude and Quarantine. But the options you choose for other choices have tremendous impact on how each Phase goes: In general, most choices favor the Vaylen during Infiltration (presumably to keep the game from ending prematurely!) and Human during Invasion, but there’s a great deal of variation. Each option can be seen as having a kind of spectrograph composed of its net Infiltration, Usurpation, and Invasion scores.

Which, again, is much clearer when you graph it. Pending (possible) posting to the Downloads section, I can email the Excel file to anyone who want it on request.

14

Whoops, actually, there’s one small exception to the “all other options net to zero over all three phases” rule, namely economic regulation:

Unregulated / -2 / 3 / -1 / 0
Loosely Regulated / 1 / 1 / -1 / 1
Moderately Regulated / 3 / -2 / -1 / 0
Tightly Regulated / 3 / -4 / 1 / 0

This is such a small deviation that I wonder if I’ve found an error, actually.

Looking at the raw pattern of Vaylen vs. Human bonuses by phase for each of the four regulation options…

3 0 3 1 3 2
1 1 3 2 2 2
0 4 2 3 2 1
1 5 0 4 1 1

… I suspect that “Loosely Regulated” should actually be a “2” under Vaylen Usurpation, rather than a “1.”

Luke, am I looking at this too closely, or is this errata?