Community Edition Objective Changes
Hello Armada fans!
The Community Edition Launch is just around the corner - we’re aiming for a release date of Aug 3rd. It’s a fairly sizable collection of changes, so let’s take a look at some of the changes bit by bit over the next couple of weeks. First up, a sneak peek at a few of the several objective changes! If you're not familiar with what the Community Edition is, check out this article:
ARC and Legacy Merge
The Armada Ruleset Collective and the Armada Legacy project together are introducing the Armada Community Edition!
What's happening to objectives?
Several objectives are getting reworked, though most are unchanged.
Why change the objectives?
There are many objectives that are showing their age. Some offer a very high reward for minimal risk, and need to be toned down, while others provide little benefit to the second player. This means that in tournaments, a small subset of objectives are the ones most frequently seen while other objectives were almost never taken. More objectives in common use mean players will need to account for those possibilities when designing their fleets.
Will that cause confusion about which version of the objective is used?
We understand the possibility, but encourage players to look for the COMMUNITY tag on the upper right corner of the card to know they have the most recent version - easily found on Star Forge and the other Armada resources kept up to date on the Armada Community & ARC (for now) websites.
Community Tag
Most Wanted
Let’s take an objective with a minor change, but major effect, as an example.
Most Wanted (New)
The only change here is the addition of the words non-flotilla when selective objective ships. This restriction will mean that for the second player, more expensive ships will need to be chosen as the Objective ships - and perhaps taking a combat-capable ship out of the fight. No longer is Most Wanted a “safe” choice for factions with cheap flotillas (looking at you here, Rebels!). Making Most Wanted a less common choice opens up room for other Red Objectives to see play.
Dangerous Territory
Here’s an objective with a more significant change that will affect gameplay.
Dangerous Territory (New)
Previously, Dangerous Territory was largely superseded by Infested Fields. Both objectives allowed players to score points off of obstacles, but with Infested Fields scoring via squadrons was easier due to their unlimited maneuverability. Additionally, the exogorths in Infested Fields added a lot of value against squadron fleets, while Dangerous Territory’s negation of obstacle effects for second player was not nearly as useful. See below (note the lack of the COMMUNITY tag on these older objectives):
Dangerous Territory (Old)
Infested Fields (Unchanged)
You’ll see that Dangerous Territory now offers an additional bonus effect for the second player, boosting their ships’ navigation by 1 click of yaw as long as they’re near an obstacle - perhaps they’ve scouted out this area of space in advance and can navigate more efficiently! In terms of gameplay, this should make the objective more attractive to fleets fielding less maneuverable ships (looking at you, GAR!) as well. By changing lesser used objectives to be more attractive for the second player, Armada gameplay will remain interesting and vibrant, keeping players engaged and on their toes.