Change of Station / Campaign Rating

[Philosfr]

There are some injuries and skills that I question whether or not they count for campaign rating. For example, Change of Station. I can understand where such a minor upgrade wouldn't increase the campaign rating itself. The fact it doesn't take a "skill slot" seems to reinforce this. There's not even a card for this in the Campaign Upgrade deck.

Similar would be injuries like Shaken or A Wayward Adventure. A Wayward Adventure certainly doesn't seem like it should count since it says no injury is gained (but then again, my opponent is without their model for 2 full turns). Shaken is more grey... it is a true injury but it only lasts one game. For that game, does it count against campaign rating? Coffee fits into this same role on the upgrade side... does it count against you for the game?

The campaign rating is the part that seems the most wonky to me. Picking up a Change of Station on a couple of Peons so that they don't die from Injuries so quickly doesn't seem like it's worth giving my opponent 2 soulstones. Of course, upgrading a terror tot to an enforcer so that it can pick up a relic hammer for pounce is a bit different, but the actual change of station doesn't increase the power (in fact, hurts when Make Them Suffer is available).

We've been playing that all upgrades, even change of station and coffee count for CR, but thought I'd throw it out there.

[Justin]

Congrats, you made me double check both my master files and crack open a physical campaign deck, but Change of Station is definitely in there.

 

As to your question, unless it says it doesn't affect the Campaign Rating, then it does. If you don't fee Change of Station is worth it, you may not want to take it; that's part of the cost. Different people will feel that way about different Upgrades.

[santaclaws01]

It seems like there are very few barter results that are worth taking due to what adantage it gives to your opponents economy. I play in a small campaign and after the second game I realized that buying two upgrades after the first game was a big mistake. It gave my opponent two extra soulstones in the encounter and two extra scrip in the aftermath. He will certainly not buy any upgrades less then the most superb ones to give up that advantage. Me on the other hand will strive to get some minor injuries on my crew just to lessen that advantage for my opponents (and never buy another barter uprade untill the other players does it). If I save my models from injuries my opponent will have a much better economy throughout the whole campaign just because I thought buying upgrades was what I was supposed to do.

This can not be as it meant to. Other things must count towards campaign rating too or the whole barter thing becomes a meaningless trap for noobs like me.

If they're not buying campaign upgrades then your crew is getting stronger while all they get is scrip that they apparently aren't even using and soulstones in the game which can only help so many models.

[Philosfr]

Congrats, you made me double check both my master files and crack open a physical campaign deck, but Change of Station is definitely in there.

 

As to your question, unless it says it doesn't affect the Campaign Rating, then it does. If you don't fee Change of Station is worth it, you may not want to take it; that's part of the cost. Different people will feel that way about different Upgrades.

Thanks Justin!

I did go back and I found my Change of Station card  I have my cards in sleeves, and somehow I stuck Change of Station into the same sleeve as another upgrade.

Interestingly, Change of Station made a key appearance tonight while we were talking scheme pools. I was playing against an Arcane Effigy that had Change of Station into an Enforcer. Bodyguard was in the pool. I pointed out to my opponent after the game that the Effigy would make a sneaky Bodyguard target since it's an Enforcer and nobody is going to expect Bodyguard on a support piece. I also managed to score Guard the Stash points with my Primordial Magic that was Change of Stationed to a Minion, so perhaps I'm undervaluing it...

Regardless, thanks for the clarification!

[lumor_]

It seems like there are very few barter results that are worth taking due to what adantage it gives to your opponents economy. I play in a small campaign and after the second game I realized that buying two upgrades after the first game was a big mistake. It gave my opponent two extra soulstones in the encounter and two extra scrip in the aftermath. He will certainly not buy any upgrades less then the most superb ones to give up that advantage. Me on the other hand will strive to get some minor injuries on my crew just to lessen that advantage for my opponents (and never buy another barter uprade untill the other players does it). If I save my models from injuries my opponent will have a much better economy throughout the whole campaign just because I thought buying upgrades was what I was supposed to do.

This can not be as it meant to. Other things must count towards campaign rating too or the whole barter thing becomes a meaningless trap for noobs like me.

[solkan]

It seems like there are very few barter results that are worth taking due to what adantage it gives to your opponents economy. I play in a small campaign and after the second game I realized that buying two upgrades after the first game was a big mistake. It gave my opponent two extra soulstones in the encounter and two extra scrip in the aftermath. He will certainly not buy any upgrades less then the most superb ones to give up that advantage. Me on the other hand will strive to get some minor injuries on my crew just to lessen that advantage for my opponents (and never buy another barter uprade untill the other players does it). If I save my models from injuries my opponent will have a much better economy throughout the whole campaign just because I thought buying upgrades was what I was supposed to do.

This can not be as it meant to. Other things must count towards campaign rating too or the whole barter thing becomes a meaningless trap for noobs like me.

At any time, if you feel like you've made a horrible, unrecoverable error during the campaign, you can turn to the Starting Anew rules on page 31 of Shifting Loyalties and take a do-over.  When you do so, you even have the 5 scrip per campaign week compensation, and be given the opportunity to do barter flips for each week.

So you're not trapped if you feel you've made a huge tactical error.

 

 

[lumor_]

Problem is barterflips is not an opportunity. Why would you ever want to spend scrip to make your opponents economy that much stronger? Maybe one or two results are worth taking, maybe not even that (because even the best rewards are quite situational). Am I missing something? 

[santaclaws01]

Problem is barterflips is not an opportunity. Why would you ever want to spend scrip to make your opponents economy that much stronger? Maybe one or two results are worth taking, maybe not even that (because even the best rewards are quite situational). Am I missing something? 

Yes, because each skill and equipment is essentially an upgrade, and with most of them having an SS cost of 0, you are attaching them to your crew for free in the actual game. I would still rather give my Hooded Rider the ability to Flurry and have all my models within 10 be finished of on an 11 or higher than not give my opponent 2SS.

[lumor_]

I think it comes down to in what scale you play your campaign. I may work very good in a campaign of 6-10 players while in my small campaign, with only three, the cost of giving away better income becomes huge in proportion to what you get. Compare the 10 player campaign, where one of your opponents only gain anything from your upgrade in 1/9 of her played games, to the smallest possible campaign (2 players) where your upgrade gives your opponent more income in 100% of her games (and every game after that you have to face an opponent who got that advantage, while giving away even more to later encounters...).

[Adran]

There is only so much that extra script can buy you.

We found in our campaign that by week 2 we generally had enough script to buy what we wanted anyway (well with skills and upgrades and our weekly new gang member), so granting the opponent extra script isn't that much of a down side. 

If they aren't buying campaign upgrades with that extra script (which will change the economy back in your favour) then they are buying models that they can't field (since the game size is normally based on the smaller arsenal size). yes, they have some extra options, but I geenrally find the campaign upgrades are undercosted compared to normal upgrades, especially when you can get combinations that aren't normally possible. 

[Artiee]

Also remember that scrip is limited to 16 a week.

We had one player at week 4 giving 10 scrip to the other player.

[santaclaws01]

So why won't you be getting scrip your next game against that opponent if they got so much from you?  Are they not buying skills? If not then why does it matter if they're getting their 16 weekly scrip faster than you are? 

[lumor_]

Noone want to buy skills after they found out I will give them extra scrip every game that they can use to make their arsenals more flexible or save to buy a master. I hope I'm  wrong and it will work better later in the campaign.

[Philosfr]

Problem is barterflips is not an opportunity. Why would you ever want to spend scrip to make your opponents economy that much stronger? Maybe one or two results are worth taking, maybe not even that (because even the best rewards are quite situational). Am I missing something? 

Yes... balance.

I did the same thing you did. I played very safe, saving 1's and 2's, buying all the cool toys. My campaign rating went through the roof. I posted in these forums asking if I was missing something. But I kept playing. At one point I played a game of CR 8 vs my opponents CR -3. And I still won.

The campaign rating system is a balance. If you're doing well, winning games, not getting injured, getting new stuff... your crew will end up stronger. If your opponent loses a bunch and has a bunch of injuries, their crew is getting weaker. By adding CR you can have balance in the games. Otherwise all it means is the player who wins the first couple of games will have more money and be able to dominate the whole campaign. This way, the underdog gets a boost in terms of extra scrip and extra soulstones.

But what do they do with extra scrip? They buy upgrades or models with it. If they buy upgrades, their CR goes up and they lose the advantage. If they buy models with it, they have too big of an arsenal so they can't play with it all and the game balances out. If they just keep their cash it's effectively as if they didn't get it.

Once I realized that (and I was playing in a campaign of 8 and a campaign of 3 people when I learned this, so it works for both sizes), I stopped worrying. Sure, it's a bad idea to try to take Assassinate when your opponent has a 14 SS cache, but even then I still won the game. I even managed to run them out of Soul Stones with "death by a 1000 cuts" and they had to keep spending SS to damage prevent 1 damage from multiple sources. 

The upgrades are worth every SS and every CR you pay for them.

[Artiee]

If they don't want to buy skills,  that is their choice.   Buy skills and upgrades.  Nothing is like having Peacekeeper with a Helmet (Hard to Kill) and Fan the Hammer (Rapid Fire)  or Teddy with a Gatling gun (range 12 ) and Off-hand Fighting (MI Attack gain +)

You will have more access to equipment than they will.   Heck, I played Pandora,  I was nice having  Echoes of Madness upgrade.   They win that crucial initiative flip,  Use the Echoes of Madness to make them activate a non crucial model.

Edited November 24, 2015 by Artiee

[lumor_]

I hope you are right. Guess I just have to play some more encounters to see the big picture.

Thanks for reassuring me!