Translate This Page
Critical Collapse
A GAME OF CONSEQUENCES
The Rules Tutorial 3 Continued
Phase 8) Collect + PP from Investments Roll for Resources and/or Special Research.
This phase is where the players get to roll for Resources if they have invested in ER or for Special Research that is available at certain levels of TR, but before they do, each player that invested in one or more of the research categories will be receiving some + Political Points. Some players may also be receiving bonuses to their rolls depending on the levels they have invested in Economic and/or Technical Research.
Player A who had invested in Economic Research and Military Research receives two Positive Political Points, one PP for each level, he records this on his Player Record Sheet. The other players add any Political Points they may have received from their investments in research. Player A now has +12 Political Points. Player E invested in ER, TR and MR, so she receives three +PP's, for a total of 13 PP's. She also receives a bonus of +1 to Gold, Steel and Oil rolls and a +2 to Produce rolls. Each Player updates their Player Record Sheets. Player A is first because he is the lead player, he rolls first. He spends 10 EP's for his roll for Produce. He decides not to enhance his roll for produce and rolls a six sided die. He gets a 4, he has no bonuses so the result is two Produce Units for every eight Farmland territories he controls, we know that he controls 10 territories 9 of which are Farmland so he gets two Produce Units. Next he decides to make his next roll for Gold, that will cost 20 EP's, he also decides he doesn't want to take a chance of getting zero so he adds +2PP's. He rolls a one, with the two Political Points he added he now has a three which gives him one Gold Unit. If he would not have added the Positive Political Points prior to rolling he would have thrown away the 20 EP's for the search for Gold, there are now only 19 Gold Units left to find.
The other players make their rolls, deduct their EP's and Political Points and this ends phase 8. Note: All Resource Units can be placed anywhere in the owner's territories where the player has Nationality Units except in Orbit, and there are no limits to the amount of Resource Units placed on a territory.
Phase 9) Intelligence Operations (I.OP.). This is the only method of acquiring new territories without a possible direct commitment of war. In a sense much of Intelligence Operations is like setting up puppet nations to do your dirty work. Of course the risk of being caught can incur Negative Political Points, (reflecting political embarrassment).
When phase 9 arrives , each player who has Level 1 or higher of Military Research must make an announcement as to whether they are running an Intelligence Operation or not, the lead player can ask each player also to reach this consensus. Once it has been established which players are going to run an I.OP. each player involved secretly writes down on their Player Record Sheet how many Positive Political Points the are committing to the Operation, the players must commit at least one PP. Those players who are not running an I.OP. but have the capability mark down 0 on their Player Record Sheet. After this has been done the players move to phase 9a.
Phase 9a) Counter Intelligence. Each player who has L1 MR or better now marks down how many Political Points (if any) they are committing against each player who is running an operation on their Player Record Sheet which has specific sections for each of the other players. When the players are done go to phase 9b.
Phase 9b) Results. The results are carried out in player sequence order. As with many aspects of Critical Collapse player order is very important and plays a major role in strategy.
There will be times when a player will take a territory or territories with SFA Units only to have another player retake it on the same phase.
Below we have an example of what Player C decided to do. Remember she had 3 PP's to work with after subtracting the Counter Intelligence from the other players. So her choices on the Intelligence Operations Chart could not exceed 3 PP's. On page (28) we described several options available to her. There is no best choice since each choice involves planning for an unseen future or particular conditions or reactions.
Players can devise elaborate plans all around I.OP. just like in the real world, sometimes with success and of course sometimes with failure. Intelligence Operations can be a very powerful tool, but it can also be a very dangerous tool too. As you will discover during play, careful planning and preparations can make all the difference for success.
Phase 10) World Market. The World Market is where Resources from every part of the game world can be bought and/or sold, this is done through a bidding process. Some sources are evident such as the player's nations, other sources are more abstract such as territories not controlled by the players. The market value of Resource Units on the World Market is fairly stable and usually quite predictable. Bidding or selling is done before the actual Market value of the Resource Unit(s) are known (with the exception of insider information gained through Intelligence Operations). The players now have an opportunity to make some additional Economic Points by selling some of the Resources they had acquired during phase 8. They also have the opportunity to buy some Resources by bidding on a particular Resource or Resources. First let's see how the World Market works before we get into bidding. You will notice that there are four columns and three rows. Each column represents a Resource, that is; Produce, Steel, Oil and Gold, followed by their price and then an area to hold those Units in the World Market. In the second row are the pricing conditions, the 1d10 is a ten sided die and the 1d20 is a twenty sided die, followed by a formula then by a fixed amount of EP's to be added. Note: Final results may need to be rounded, See Index Game Math. For example; Our current game has on the board a total of 9 Industrial Units, 6 University Units and 3 Mining Units. For the current price of Produce the lead player (Player A in our example) rolls 1d10 multiplies this number by the total number of University, Mining, City and Factory Units + 1 (which is 10, there are no City or Factory units at this time) divided by the total Produce Units currently in the World Market +1 ( 0 + 1 = 1, so 10/1 = 10) then adds 5. If Player A rolls a 9, then (9 x 10 )+5 = 95 EP's. The current price per Produce Unit on the World Market is set at 95 EP's. For Steel Player A would do the nearly the same thing except he would count the number of Factory and Refinery Units of which there are none as of yet, so 1/1 = 1. If he rolls an 7 on a 1d10, then (7 x 1 )+ 10 = 17 EP's as the current price per Steel Unit. There are no Oil Units in the game as of yet but it follows the same process only with City and Factory Units and a 1d20 multiplier. Now onto Gold. With Gold we again have the lead player roll a 1d20, the result is an 8, there are no Gold Units currently in the World Market so we now divide 100 by 1 (100/1), which equals 100 to this we add the result from the die roll + 20 which gives Gold's current price per Unit at 128 EP's, 8 + 100 + 20 = 128 EP's. Now into bidding. Before the lead player even rolls for the World Market prices the players have to write down their bids and what Resources they want to sell, (the only exception to this rule is for players who have gained Insider Information on the World Market from Intelligence Operations). Players can estimate the price of a given Resource by being aware of whats in the Market and how many pertinent Industries are affecting the price, but there are factors such as Military Units which may actually make certain resources more valuable to other players which the Market cannot reflect. When
Players decide to bid on or sell a Resource they must already posses the EP's or Resource in order to sell or to bid. Below are the examples from our present game. As can be seen, only two of the players are participating in the World Market this turn, Player A whom is selling one Gold, and Player F whom is selling four Produce. None of the players are bidding for Resources. The lead player asks if the bidding is locked. When all the players are locked this means that what has been written down for bids and selling is final. The players expose this portion of their Player Record Sheets for all to see. The lead player then rolls the correct die for each category of Resource (When you know that only one or two Resources categories are being dealt with just roll for them). In our ongoing game we see that only Produce and Gold are are being sold and there are no bids on any Resource. A 4 is rolled for Produce and a 2 is rolled for Gold. The current selling price per Produce Unit is (4 x 9) + 5 = 41 EP's, and the current selling price per Gold Unit is 2 + 100 + 20 = 122 EP's. Player A removes his Gold Unit from the board and places it in the World Market then adds his 122 EP's to his Player Record Sheet. Player F removes the four Produce Units that have been sold from the board and places them in the World Market then adds his 164 EP's (4 x 41 = 164) to his Player Record Sheet. This concludes phase 10. Note: The next time Produce price is calculated the number of Industrial Units will be divided by 5, Gold will be 1d20 + 50 + 20.
Phase 11) Purchase Military Units. Military Units are not only used for war, they also are used as police, peace keeping forces etc. They can be the difference between a stable Nation and one that is on the brink of collapse. With the exception of Infantry, all other Military Units have prerequisites. O.K., back to our players. There are only two players that are going to purchase Military Units, they are Player A and Player F. On the bottom of page 37 we can see their layout. Notice Player A bought SFA Units and Player F bought Infantry Units. Player A, after selling his gold to the World Market had 122 EP's after purchasing his three SFA Units (10 EP's each) Player A is left with 92 EP's. But Player A unlike Player F is faced with a problem of supply. On Phase 14 if Player A doesn't have sufficient Produce Units there will be consequences. Player F, sold four Produce Units to the World Market for 164 EP's plus he still had 25 EP's at the time of the sale, giving Player F a total of 189 EP's. Player F also had a very good roll for Produce because of bonuses to his roll by investing in Technical Research and augmenting his roll with Political Points. As it stands Player F is the richest nation even after spending 75 EP's for Infantry Units (he could not purchase SFA Units because he does not have L1 of Military Research) he still has 114 EP's and plenty of Resources. Phase 11 ends now onto the Open Market.
Phase 12) Open Market. Here players can sell or buy just about anything from each other. This is the simplest of all Markets. It is basically a free for all. When the lead Player announces the Open Market, players can just start trying to sell or buy goods from each other. So with our continued example game Player A Knows that he needs more Produce. He already has two Produce Units but he needs three more, he is starting to have doubts about his strategy as he looks over the other players' nations. Besides Player F, only Player D has an extra Produce Unit but if you look at the game board you can see that Player A is just North of him and with troops that appear ready for an invasion! Player A offers to pay 10 EP's to any player willing to sell him Produce, it is not a surprise that his offer is rejected. Player F does however offer to sell a Produce Unit for 21 EP's. Player A is the only one interested and accepts he transfers 21 EP' to Player F and Player F transfers the Produce Unit. When players use the World Market all transfers are instantaneous. None of the other players seem to want to sell or buy anything on the Open Market this turn. But not all is lost for as bad as Player A's situation looks there are still plenty of options open to him on future phases and turns. Thus ends Phase 12. On the following page we can see both Player A and Player D on the Game Board as of Phase 12.
Phase 13) Invest in World Bank. This is a like a security blanket. Players may invest their EP's in the World Bank at this time, but before they do they need to consider why. There are still four Phases that EP's could potentially be spent, so if players invested all of their remaining EP's into the World Bank they may not be able to finance certain situations, although on Phase 17 during the Private Market they may be able to gain some EP's form other players there would be nothing to spend them on and depending on their Growth Percentage (GP) most of those EP's will be lost. Investments into the World Bank may seem complicated but it is relatively simple in actuality. Any EP's invested into the World Bank earn a 25% interest payable on phase 5 on the following turn, if a player decides not to collect their interest on phase 5, the accumulated interest is considered a new investment, in other words the investment is compounded. To illustrate this further let us assume Player F is going to invest 100 EP's into the World Bank on turn 1 phase 13. On turn 2 phase 5, Player F will have available 125 EP's in the World Bank, if Player F leaves the account alone, on turn 2 phase 13, it will be as if he is investing 125 EP's in the World Bank. By turn 3 phase 5, Player F will now have 156 EP's ( actually it is 156.25 however we always round fractions for World Bank calculations). By turn 4 phase 5, he will have 195 EP's. Below is a table showing the progression of 100 EP's being initially invested into the World Bank. Once a player invests into the World Bank, the player receives 1 PP for every 10 EP's invested, 5 EP's although only half of the amount to receive a PP still earns a PP. So if a player invests 25 EP's he will receive 3 PP's. Now when it comes to withdrawal, the player incurs -1 PP for every 10 EP's withdrawn beyond the interest gained, which has been explained on phase 5. The World Bank gives the player the ability to continue in the game even if the player loses all of their territories (nation less) as long as that player has at least L1 of Military Research. Any Levels of Research that the player posses before loosing his or her territories are still retained however some of the benefits may not be open, such as being able to grow or mine Resources, or manufacture some Military Units. The player will be able to use all of the Markets. Any Resources that the player buys will be held off board, they are considered to be held by numerous private corporations throughout the game world and they cannot be stolen. Should the player acquire a territory or territories either through Intelligence Operations or by negotiations with another player or players, "all" Resources that the player possesses must be placed in those territories because the player is a nation again. Continuing with our example only Player F wants to invest into the World Bank. Player F invests 100 EP's and earns 10 Political Points. He records this information on his Player Record Sheet. This ends phase 13.
Phase 14) Supply or Decommission. Usually referred to as the Supply Phase, although Decommissioning takes place first. Decommissioning is in effect deactivating troops. There could be many reasons a player may want to do this, lack of Resources being one of the major reasons so as not to incur Negative Political Points or because of negotiations between other nations to disarm. Decommissioning is not cheep though and a player must have sufficient EP's in order to do this. Supply is one of the most crucial aspects of Critical Collapse. The players will probably need a scrap piece of paper or notepad to assist them in this. First count all of your Units that require Produce, write the number down. Then count all of your Units that require Oil (Note: Some Units require both Produce and Oil in order to be considered supplied), write this number down. Now count your Resources and determine which Units you want to supply.
Units that cannot be supplied are turned over to reveal their reverse side which has their penalties briefly described. Some of these Units may incur Negative Political Points at this time, some may only lack movement and or attacking capabilities and some may have special conditions that must be evaluated. What happens to the Resources that are used? With the exception of Oil Units they are all removed form the board. Used Oil Units however get counted collectively on phase 20, that is all of the used Oil Units from all of the players get counted and this number is added to the Carbon Dioxide Index. The Carbon Dioxide Index will be covered later. Players also can receive Positive Political Points for certain Industrial Units that are supplied, once the players supply status is known for all of their Units, the players complete actions appropriate for their conditions. If players have Gold Units they receive +1 PP for every Gold Unit they control. If players have Missile Units they receive +1 PP for every Missile Unit they control. Continuing with our ongoing game none of the players wish to Decommission any of their Units so they move directly into the Supply Phase. Player A decides he is not going to supply his Mining and University Units. He knows that he is going to incur two Negative Political Points but he has other plans.
Sometimes during the Supply Phase it is convenient to place your Resource Units near the Units you are going to supply and simply take them off so the other players can see what you are supplying. Player A now has a total of -3 PP's, although he is in no immediate danger this accumulation of Negative Political Points could eventually lead to disaster. Below we see both Player A and D's Resource Units removed from the board, Units that are Supplied are Face up, the Mining and University Units have been flipped over revealing their penalties. If Player A had chose not to Supply some of his SFA Units, he would have been required to roll a 1d20 adding the absolute value of his Negative Political Points to the result, if that result is 20 or more the SFA Units would have been converted to IFA infantry Units, bringing further penalties against Player A.
Phase 15) Declarations of War. (see Declarations of War)
Things can get a little rough here.
The Lead Player is the first to make an announcement of Declarations
of War, after the Lead Player's announcement and to which territories
he is now at war with he must spend 10 EP's per Military Unit under
his control and 5 EP's per Unoccupied territory being Declared War
upon, each player follows in sequence in like manner. It is as simple
as that, or so it seems! When a player Declares War on an Occupied
territory (but not Occupied by another player) the cost is 10 EP's,
if it is a territory Controlled by another player the cost is 25
EP's, There is no cost for Contested territories for the parties
involved, if a player for whom is not involved, but would like to be,
the cost is 20 EP's, unless an alliance exists between the players .
Once War has been Declared against a territory the player will not
have to Declare War against that territory again unless a truce had
been established. If player x
Declares War against player y, player y receives 5 Positive Political
Points. See page 29 for definitions of Occupied, Controlled,
Contested and Unoccupied territories. What's so rough you may ask,
well you have only just begun to fight. This ends phase 15.
Phase 16) Purchase IFA Infantry and/or SFA Units and place. This is different from the purchase of Military Units on phase 11.
Phase 16 is often referred to as just Foreign Aid. All players have the ability to purchase IFA Infantry Units, but only those players with at least Level 1 of Military Research are allowed to purchase SFA Units. Players are given the opportunity to supply Foreign Aid to Unoccupied territories that have just had War Declared on them by the other players on phase 15. Player A is first, he still has 16 EP's left, he decides to purchase an SFA Unit for 10 EP's and place it on territory 10-4 which Player F is at war with. Player B purchased two IFA Units for 10 EP's on territories 6-11 and 5-10 which Player C is at war with. Player C purchased one IFA Unit for 5 EP's and placed it on territory 10-4 which Player F is at war with. Player D purchased two SFA and one IFA Units for 25 EP's and place them on territories 16-7, 15-6, and 14-7 respectively which Player A is at war with. Player E purchased one IFA Unit for 5 EP's and placed it on territory 15-6 which Player A is at war with. Player F doesn't have EP's left, therefore cannot purchase Foreign Aid. After all Foreign Aid purchases have been completed if any of the territories are now solely Occupied by SFA of a particular player, that player places their Nationality Units on the territories and receives a Positive Political Point per territory newly controlled. Note: What is the difference between purchasing SFA and IFA Units besides price? If you recall earlier from the Unit descriptions SFA are like puppet governments, mercenaries and covert operatives, they are under the players control and therefore represent the players nation in one way or another. IFA Units are independent from the players and represent Independent nations, players have no control over these Units or the territories they occupy. Using SFA as Foreign Aid is rather risky. Since SFA Units are a representative of a players nation, if the player who Declared War on that particular Unoccupied territory that is now Controlled and Occupied because of Foreign Aid by SFA of another player, those two nations will be at war, if and only if the player decides to follow through with the combat. This can best be illustrated from the example below. The three territories that Player A has Declared War on are now all Occupied. Territory 16-7 is now Controlled by Player D. If Player A decides to move his Units into territory 16-7 on phase 18, both Players A and D will now be at war. Neither player incurs any additional costs nor does Player D receive the 5 Political Points for Player A being at war with him, it is considered an instigated conflict. Territory 15-6 is Contested and Player A is already at war with it. Player A and Player D are not officially at war within this territory since it is not controlled by any one player. Although combat may continue for many turns and both players may continue to move Units into and out of it, fighting in this territory does not constitute a war between the two nations. Once this territory is Controlled by a player however, War will have to be Declared to continue conflict. Territory 14-7 is Occupied and Player A is already at war with it and will be until the territory is conquered. These concepts may be a little hard to grasp at first for some players, don't worry too much it is only a game. This will be covered more during the combat phase 18. Now on to our ongoing game.
Phase 17) Private Market. The major difference between the Private Market and the Open Market is that the Private Market is between one player to another player and any physical goods sold, traded or just given away must be transported by either Land, Air or Sea-transport Units. But the Private Market is a lot more than just private trading, its also about politics, alliances, truces and just plain negation. Player A offers to make an alliance with Player F. He offers Player F Level 1 of Military Research for Level 1 of Technical Research and a promise not to thwart any more of Player F's Activities, including I.OP. Player F considers Player A's proposal. It seems like a fair trade and he agrees. The two players exchange the Research with each other. They both mark down on their Player Record Sheets that hey now have those Levels of Research. As far as the rest of their alliance goes only time will tell, this is a treacherous game after all. The other players pass on the Private Market and thus ends phase 17. Now on to Movement.
Phase 18) Movement. Movement is divided into sub-phases with sub-phases. Each player follows in sequence throughout the sub-phases. Only Supplied Units may move. Air Units are first followed by Sea Units then by Land Units.
Phase 18a) Air (Interceptions, Anti-Aircraft Fire, Drops, Pickups, Airborne and Bombardments). Air-Transport Units can be one of the most versatile Military Units in the game. Movement of Air-Transport Units is based on their Movement Factor and any bonuses acquired from Military Research. The allowed Movement is up to half of the Air-Transport Unit's Movement Factor to its target, complete its mission and then either use up to the other half of its Movement Factor to move to a safe Landing Zone or remain in that territory for either Combat or strategic placement and the Unit is flipped over to indicate that it is out of supply (has been moved).
Phase 18a1) Interceptions. Interceptions are when an Air-Transport Unit has either been Intercepted by another Air-Transport Unit or Missile Unit (if Units meet the Research prerequisites, note Missiles are under a special category). Phase 18a1 is open to all other players after the primary player has moved his or her Air-Transport Units to the target space. The allowed Movement is up to half of the Air Unit's Movement Factor to its target, complete the Interception-Combat (Combat Chart) with the Intercepted Air-Transport Unit and then use up to the other half of its Movement Factor to move to a safe Landing Zone if the Unit survived the Combat. The Unit is then flipped over to indicate that it is out of supply (has been moved). Note: Should the Defender's/Attacker's result be DUS/AUS or DR/AR the mission/Interception failed. If the Defender's result be UC-#, this is treated as a D-#, where # is the number of Units lost to Combat. Combat is fairly simple. For Interception-Combat the same chart is used as is used for all Combat. The Combat Chart will be explained in more detail in phase 19.
Phase 18a2) Anti-Aircraft. Anti-Aircraft is used when an Air-Transport Unit's target territory has an enemy Armor Unit (for land) and/or Missile Unit on it (if Units meet the Research prerequisites), or for Sea Hexes (spaces) a Sea-Transport on it. Only Sea-Transport and Armor Units have the Anti-Aircraft option and it can only be used if the Air-Transport Unit has that space targeted and NOT just flying over a territory (Missile Units are special, see Missile Units Expanded on page **). Phase 18a2 is open to all other players after the primary player has moved his or her Air Units to the target space. The Air-Transport Unit after its mission has been completed, is then flipped over to indicate that it is out of supply (has been moved).
Phase 18a3) Drops and Pickups, Airborne. Drops and Pickups can only be performed on territories that the player already Controls. Basically a Drop or Pickup is just the transporting of Units by means of a Air-Transport Unit from one or more territories the player Controls to another territory Controlled by the same player. The Air-Transport may utilize its full movement capabilities in transporting its Cargo. Units that have been transported may move on phase18c normally. The Air-Transport Unit after its mission has been completed, is then flipped over to indicate that it is out of supply (has been moved). Airborne Units (that is Infantry Units and Level 6 of Military Research, known as Paratroopers), may be Dropped and Picked up from any territory. The Air-Transport can only use up to half of its Movement to the target territory and then the other half of its Movement back to one of the player's Controlled territories, if the territory that the Air-borne landed on is now Controlled by the player the Air-Transport may remain on that territory, but its initial Movement to that territory is still limited to half. Airborne Units that have been Units that have been transported may move on phase 18c normally. Roped or Picked up may move on phase 18c normally if the territory in question was not Contested. The Air-Transport Unit after its mission has been completed, is then flipped over to indicate that it is out of supply (has been moved).
Phase 18a4) Bombardment. Bombardment.
Phase 18b) Sea (Transports, Interceptions, Drops, Pickups and Bombardments).
Phase 18c) Land(Transports, Drops, Pickups and Bombardments).
Phase 19) Combat. Combat is one of the simplest aspects of the game.
Phase 20) Conditional Events and Cleanup of Negative Political Points. Before Conditional Events are rolled for, the players are given an opportunity to eliminate their Negative Political Points. For each Negative Political Point the player has, a Positive Political Point will eliminate it. There are two classes of Conditional Events, those that are natural based, and those that are caused by the player's actions.
Continue on to Phase 8.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
