Changes from the GDW Imperium rules for Imperium PBeM.
by Henry J Cobb
$Id: imp_pbem.txt,v 1.5 2005/05/12 14:50:21 hcobb Exp $

The following changes are made to the Imperium rules for multiplayer Play
By E-mail.

THE GAME

The Interstellar Wars were decided by the actions of thousands of military
officers and civilian leaders who were often many weeks by the fastest
courier from even their local government, not to mention the year long
travel time to the Imperial throne.

PBeM Imperium divides up the responsibilities of running each empire by
assigning character roles for the leading officers of each unit.

In addition to the referee, PBeM Imperium has a governor for each side who
represents the civilian leadership for that empire but who relies on other
players to command officers in the field.

The governors are responsible for creating a system of ranks and branches
that officers are assigned to and the minimum rank required to command each
size of unit, from a single scoutship to a vast spacefleet.  In addition
each governor determines procedures for promotion, demotion and court
martial in their own empire.

In addition to the players currently in the game, there are three queues of
players who may be waiting to join.  There is one queue for players who
only want to be Terran officers, another for players who only want to be
Imperial officers and a third for players who are willing to play on either
side.

As independent units are dispatched on missions, player characters are
taken from these queues and assigned an identity and the minimum rank
needed to command that unit.  These players are first taken from the queue
for their chosen side and next from the queue of players willing to serve
on either side.

If no players are available, the referee will create a non-player character
of the proper rank to fill the role.  These non-player characters will
always follow their orders as written until a player becomes available to
take over this non-player character.

Player characters are removed from the game if the referee loses contact
with them, or they resign their post, or all friendly units in their system
are entirely wiped out.  In addition governors are removed if they lose a
war, to be replaced by their officer with the highest fame rating,
regardless of rank.

For example, officers who lose a space battle at a friendly planet which is
not itself conquered are assumed to somehow make their way to the planet
and hold out there until friendly units arrive which can pick them up.

Players who have been removed from the game may immediately rejoin and if
the removal was due to the loss of their system or losing a war they go to
the front rather than the end of the queue for their side.

Messages can only be sent between forces if they are carried on ships,
shared instantly within one system or sent on communication lasers between systems,
which takes one week between two systems in the same hex and two years per
hex between systems in different hexes.

Players are expected to keep their true identities secret and not share
in-game information so as to maintain the enjoyment of all players.

Fame: Fame is a personal rating system that is only used for political
events like replacing a losing governor or for bragging rights at the end
of a war.  Each player's fame rating starts at zero at the start of a war
or when they start controlling a character and is increased by the number
of build points of enemy units the forces under their direct command
destroy.  If player controlled forces are joined together then multiple
players can gain fame at the same time.

For example the captain of a cruiser and the admiral commanding the fleet
would both gain fame for the units destroyed by that cruiser, but units
destroyed by non-player character captained ships in the same fleet would
only yield fame to the admiral.  If the admiral dispatched the cruiser to
separate from his force and pursue enemy forces by itself then only the
captain would gain fame for the damage he inflicted.

A player's fame rating is only reduced when they leave the game or at the
start of the next war, when it is reset back to zero.

SEQUENCE OF PLAY

The Sequence of Play is changed to allow for more independent action.

Each turn is redefined to be year long, which includes 52 weeks.

For each Year perform the following steps.

A. Production Phase.
    1. Roll for the result of any Imperial appeal made last year.
    2. Roll for Imperial Intervention and gain Imperial Replacements.
    3. The Imperial governor decides what kind of appeal to make or not.
    4. Both sides calculate income.
    5. Roll disruption on any ships that were not maintained or built last
year.
    6. Both governors decide which planets will be producing which units
this year.
    7. The Imperial player decides how to order destroyed Imperial ships
from the last year for Imperial Replacements in future years.

B. For each of the 52 weeks in the current year perform the following steps.
    1. Destroy all Fighters in locations without bases to operate from.
    2. Fight one round of ground combat.
    3. Resolve Action Plots for groups of ships.
    4. Resolve space battles.
    5. Shipyard activities step.
    6. Reallocate fuel.
    7. Plot actions for ships.

C. At the end of the year check to see if the glory index indicates the end
of the war and otherwise repeat the steps for the next year of war.

The actions a ship can plot are:
    a. Wait at the current location and observe.
    b. Refuel.
    c. If in an outer system location travel sublight to an inner system in
the same stellar hex.
    d. Pursue another group of friendly or enemy ships in the same system.
    e. Flee to a random outer system location in the same hex, avoiding all
hostile ships.
    f. Jump to an inner or outer system location in the same hex or to an
inner or outer system location of the next system along a jump line.
    g. If in an inner system, conduct bombardment and or landing operations
against a hostile planet there.
    h. Land or takeoff between a planet and its inner system.
    i. Load or unload cargo if landed at a planet.
    j. Undergo maintenance or repairs if landed at a world or outpost.

During the Shipyard activities step first roll two dice for each
neutralized counter and on a roll of 11 or 12 it recovers.  Then shipyards
at unneutralized planets perform one week's worth of maintenance, repairs
or construction on all ships they hold and unneutralized planets perform
one week's worth of construction on all non-ship units they are working on.
Ships are completed with empty fuel tanks, but they may refuel from the
planet or other ships landed there during the next step which is Reallocate
fuel.

Ships that withdraw from a battle can only choose to Flee, Land (if in the
inner system of a friendly planet) or Jump (if they have enough fuel to
jump).

Once all groups of ships have plotted their actions these plots are
revealed and groups of ships that are being pursed may change their plots
to Flee or Jump if they have plotted anything except Pursue.

If different ships in the same group choose to move to different locations
then they split the current group and each pursuing ship of the first group
must choose which of the groups to follow.

MOVEMENT

There are two kinds of movement, sublight movement which any ship can use
and is confined to a single stellar hex and faster than light movement
which only jump ships are capable of.

Each ship is assigned a tactical speed for sublight movement.

The tactical speed of freighters and tankers is one.  The tactical speed of
capital ships is two.  The tactical speed of all other ships is three.

The tactical speed of a disrupted ship is one less than normal, but no less
than one.

A group of pursuing ships will catch the ships they are pursuing unless the
targets jump away, land or flee.

If a group of ships is pursuing a fleeing group of ships then each group
rolls one die during the Resolve Action Plots step and it adds the speed of
the slowest tactical speed in their group.  If the pursuing group has a
higher adjusted roll then it catches the fleeing group and forces it to
battle.

Multiple ships pursuing from the same location may pursue as a single group
or multiple groups and the fleeing group of ships rolls separately against
each group of pursuers so that all, some or none of the pursuing groups may
catch up and engage the fleeing ships in battle.

If a group of fleeing ships is pursued and avoids all pursuers and rolls a
six on at least one of their pursuit rolls they find one unit of fuel per
ship in the group by scraping it off some comet they hid behind.

Each hex has one inner system location for each primary or secondary system
in that hex and a limitless number of outer system locations.  Tertiary
systems do not have inner system locations because the star is too hot to
approach that closely.

Each ship or group of ships that travel together is always located on a
planet or in the inner system or at an outer system location or in jump
space.

The only form of sublight movement that ships have the endurance to
undertake are trips between two systems in the same hex.  This would
require fleeing from the inner system of one star and then moving into the
inner system of the other star of the binary system during the next week.
Jumps between stars in a binary system only take one week, but require fuel.

Each week each jump capable ship may make at most one jump, if it has
sufficient fuel units.

Refueling: 

Each jump capable ship requires a number of fuel units equal to its
maintenance number in order to perform a single hyperspace jump and (other
than tankers) has a fuel capacity equal to its maintenance number.  Tankers
have a fuel capacity of 6 fuel units and so they can either make 6 jumps
without refueling or refuel 6 maint units of other ships.

Outposts that are deployed and unneutralized have a capacity of 6 fuel
units and are assumed to take a refuel action each week to refill this
capacity.  Worlds operate in the same manner but have a capacity of 20 fuel
units that they refill every week.  Outposts and worlds are assumed to have
sufficient fuel shuttles to share fuel with friendly ships on their planets
or in their inner system during the Reallocate Fuel step of each week, but
they do not have enough fuel shuttles to refuel ships in the outer system
or transfer fuel between ships on the planet and in the inner system beyond
the planet's own fuel capacity.

During the Reallocate Fuel step of each week, all friendly ships located at
the same location may freely trade fuel units around to allow some or all
of the ships to jump.

Ships that are located in an inner system location and plot to refuel fill
up to their capacity in fuel units from the abundant fuel sources in the
inner system.

Ships that plot to refuel in an outer system location locate a fuel source
on their first turn of refueling and then gain one fuel unit per refueling
ship each week that they continue to refuel at that location without moving
or fleeing.  Tankers that refuel in an outer system location gain one fuel
unit per week starting from the first week unless they are in a tertiary
system in which case they gain 6 units of fuel each week from the intense
stellar winds of these large stars.

Surveillance: All players are always aware of which friendly ships are in
their current hex and the number of ships in each group of hostile ships in
space locations in that hex and all friendly and enemy outposts and worlds
there.

In addition a ship or group of ships that chooses the wait action gains one
step along the following chart every week.

    1. The maint number for each hostile ship.
    2. The number of hostile counters on each planet in the hex.
    3. The class for each hostile ship.
    4. The type of each hostile counter on each planet in the hex.
    5. What sort of units are being built on each planet in the hex.

The current surveillance level is maintained as long as there is one
friendly ship remaining in the hex at all times, but when new ships or
units enter the system the surveillance level on these units starts at
zero.

Ships are also informed of the effective tactical speed of each group of
ships that is pursuing or fleeing in their hex and the classes of all ships
that they engage in battle with.

COMBAT

Space Combat.

One space combat battle is resolved each week for each space location that
has ships from both sides in it.  A group of ships that flees and is either
not caught or not pursued winds up in a random outer system location
separate from all other groups.  If a group of ships flee and are caught
then they wind up in the same outer system location as their pursuers along
with all groups that where chasing their pursuers.

Replace Range Determination with Initiative Determination.

If one side caught a fleeing group of ships or their entire force jumped
into an inner system which had enemy ships there from a previous week then
their side has the tactical initiative during the first round of space
combat and the players roll for the initiative every round thereafter.
Otherwise roll for the initiative on the first round and if the adjusted
result is a tie the Terran forces have the initiative.

For the initiative roll each player adds the tactical speed of his slowest
ship to the roll of one die.  A player with fewer non-fighter ships than
his opponent adds one to his roll.  A player who had the initiative in
the previous round of space combat adds one to his roll.

If the two adjusted rolls are tied then the initiative passes to the player
who didn't have it in the previous round but he cannot change the range
this round, otherwise on the second and later rounds the player with the
initiative can increase the range one step from long to withdraw or short
to long or can decrease the range from long to short or he can leave the
range the same as the previous round.

If a player chooses to withdraw then the battle is over and all of his
ships must plot to land, flee or jump.

Ship Allocation.

It is the player who doesn't have the initiative who puts out his ships to
be matched by the player who does have the initiative and it is then the
player who has the initiative who declares types of fire first.

Combat Resolution.

Every time an undisrupted ship with a screen factor of 2 or higher suffers
a hit from space combat or planetary defense fire, roll one die and if the
roll is less than the ship's screen factor it becomes disrupted instead of
being destroyed.

High Intensity Missile Fire.

This requires too much record keeping so replace this with the following.

Only the player with the initiative may declare Suicide Attacks (for beams)
or Time on Target attacks (with missiles) in space combat.

Attacks are resolved in the following order.

    1> Defensive fire against suicide attacks.
    2> Suicide attacks.
    3> Normal Beam attacks.
    4> Normal or short range missile fire.
    5> Time on Target Missile attacks.

Apply destruction or disruption effects to each ship at the end of each of
these five steps before resolving any fire in the next step.  (A ship which
is hit multiple times in the same step is of course eliminated because the
first hit would have at least disrupted it, but it defends against all
attacks during each step with the state it had at the start of that step.)

A ship which conducts a Time on Target missile attack is holding back the
first missiles in a launch wave so that all of its missiles will strike at
the same time, which will hopefully overwhelm the target's defenses.

Resolve all other attacks first and then if the ship using a Time on Target
attack has survived, resolve its attack as a normal or short range missile
fire attack but with a +1 modifier to hit the target.

Using a Time on Target missile attack does not affect the ship's ability to
use normal or Time on Target attacks in later rounds.

Surface Combat.

Use the same procedure as in Space Combat to determine initiative in
Surface Combat, but range isn't used.  Troops have a speed of 2, fighters
have a speed of 3 and all other units have a speed of zero in ground
combat.

Use the missile CRT instead of the surface combat CRT with each attack made
by one unit against one target in ground combat.  Neutralized units cannot
attack and are attacked at a plus one to the roll.

Troops attack and defend with their printed strength.  Planetary Defense
Systems and fighters attack and defend with factor two.  Outposts defend
with factor two.  Worlds except for homeworlds defend with factor four and
homeworlds defend with factor six.  Other counters have no effect in
surface combat.

A world or outpost can only be put forwards for ground combat once all
friendly troops, fighters and planetary defense systems have been
eliminated.

Outposts can only be destroyed by hostile troops.  Any other unit can only
neutralize them.

Terminating combat.

Only one round of surface combat is conducted each week on each planet.

Remove all counters that lack ground combat factors if there are hostile
unneutralized troops on the planet and the only friendly units with ground
combat factors on the planet are a neutralized outpost or world.

STARSHIPS

The production cost of Scouts is changed to 2 RU each.

The Maintenance number of Missile Boats is changed to 2 and the Maintenance
number of Motherships is changed to 3.

ECONOMICS

For a planet to be considered connected for income, a transport must land
on that planet and load a tribute cargo from an unneutralized outpost or
world then travel to either Earth (for the terrans) or any Imperial world
(for the imperials) during the same year.  The same transport may carry
tribute cargo for any number of friendly planets (but no other cargo at the
same time) and multiple transports can carry out this mission for the same
planet, but it only counts once per planet per year.  The transport that
carried the outpost to a planet is perfectly acceptable for this "treasure
fleet" mission, as long as it doesn't carry anything other than tribute
cargo on the way back.

It is possible for both governors to collect income from the same planet
during the same year and for both of them to be unaware of its current
status at the end of the year.

When each unit is purchased it is assigned to a specific planet for
production.  If this planet is no longer under friendly control or is
conquered during production or before the order to begin construction
reaches that planet then the resources are wasted.

Any attempt to build units beyond the countersheet limit fails and the
resources are wasted, but if a counter is available at the time the
construction order reaches the planet then it will begin construction
as soon as it has available shipyard capacity.

Each friendly world or outpost can build any number of ships up to its yard
capacity.  In addition each outpost may build either one planetary defense
system or one regular troop unit at a time while each world may build any
number of non-ship units.  Non-ship units each take 40 weeks to build.

Maintenance.

Outposts have a shipyard capacity of 6 maint numbers and worlds have a
shipyard capacity of 20 maint numbers.

Each ship takes up its maint number in shipyard capacity to build, maintain
or repair.  

Every ship requires its maint number in consecutive weeks of yard time at a
world every year for maintenance or it risks becoming disrupted.  Ships that
are already disrupted require three times their maint number in consecutive
weeks of yard time at a world in order to be repaired.  Building a ship
takes 20 weeks times its maint number.  Shipyard activities at outposts
require twice as much time as the same actions on worlds.

For example an outpost could maintain a Dreadnought by using its entire
capacity for for 12 weeks, repair it in 36 weeks or build it in 240 weeks.

Due to a special pre-fab construction facility, Missile Boats only take 30
weeks to build at Sol shipyard, instead of the 40 weeks required at other
terran worlds and the 80 weeks required at terran outposts.

Ships undergoing maintenance, repairs or construction have no combat
factors and are destroyed if their yard is taken or destroyed while they
are in it.  Note that neutralizing an outpost or world will delay all yard
activities until it recovers.

If a ship did not receive the needed yard time during a given year it must
roll greater than it's maintenance number with no modifiers at the start of
the next year or become disrupted.  If the ship had been previously
disrupted at that time then roll one die and if the unmodified roll is
greater than one the ship simply remains disrupted, but on a roll of one
the ship is destroyed.

Effects of Disruption.

A roll of one on the die is always a failure for an attempted jump by a
disrupted ship.  If the jump roll is a failure then roll two dice and a
roll of 3 to 12 the ship simply loses all the fuel it was carrying and
cannot attempt to jump for that number of weeks (if it doesn't become
undisrupted by shipyard repairs before then) and on a roll of two the ship
is removed from the game and considered destroyed.  History will record if
the ship misjumped and the crew settled down on a planet of catgirls in
comfortable shoes.

Imperial Replacements are resolved at the start of each year as noted in
the Production Phase steps.

THE IMPERIUM

Imperial appeals only cost one glory point, but it takes a full year to get
the Emperor's reply all the way from Vland.

During a Civil War, no appeals may be made until the new Emperor is seated,
but the seating of a new Emperor clears any further appeals prohibited
restriction.
 
WARS AND PEACE

Interwar Income Phase: Both players receive a full turn's income for war
preparation.  The advantage of attacking first is sufficient for the loser
of the previous war.

STARTING THE FIRST WAR

Instead of the listed setup, the Imperial forces start with the following
worlds and outposts.

Imperial Worlds: Dingir, Gashidda, Ishkur, Tau Ceti, Epsilon Eridari and
Nusku.

Imperial Outposts: Shulgi, Kinunir, Shulgiili, Enki Kalamma, Shuruppak,
Markhashi, Zaggisi, Apishal and Dushaam.

Both players start each war with no more than each system's limit of
yard capacity of ships at that system.

The side who "moves first" in any war (The Terrans for the first war, the
loser of the previous war for the rest) gets to start each group of ships
throughout their empire with whatever orders their governor likes.  The
ships of the other side must remain within friendly systems until they have
been given new orders by their governor (which cannot be issued before the
start of the war) or by a player character officer (who cannot order
violations of neutral space before they have evidence that enemy ships have
invaded friendly space).

The following systems will be ignored, either because they don't appear on
some versions of the map or are not reachable under these rules: Altair,
Smade's Star and Luuru.

-HJC