This is somehting that i've been worndering for quite some time, knowing that the economy will be a major difference between Mordheim and Necromunda, since we won't have Warpstone to deliver. The turf wars and the management of said turf will definetly be the central point of the game. I've though a bit about this:
1- Like in Necromunda, there will be several types of turf you gain and each one will give you certain amount of credits. Also, some might have certain negative side effects (like the waste pool)
2-You will have to assign gangers to collect the income from your turf. We can either make this by having a bigger roster and making the gangers assigned to not be available for battle or assign the gangers at the end of the turn.
3-Your initial turf should be enough to hold a small gang of juvies for a short time at least. Also, recruits should be limited and the more turf you have, the more people you can hire. This would have some exceptions, tho

As well, turf takeover/defense is another delicate matter. I think that it would be good if the player could choose to take an offensive action against a gang or a defensive action against a gang that attacks your turf. As well, i hope the missions of scavenging and shootout become secondary objectives instead of proper missions and the main focus of the game is taking over the turf of your enemies.

I also hope that the game has set gangs from the beginning and isn't like in Mordheim, where the AI rolls a new warband everytime you fight.

Turf is definitely an important part of Necromunda, despite being largely represented in after game dice rolls. I would like to hear what they plan to do because it really should be a major component of the game.

What I'd like to see is taking territory being an important aspect of the game, doesn't mean that stuff like Shootouts and the like wouldn't be important as well, but those would be more like Skirmishes and Scavenging runs while conquering and defending territory would be more like battles you need to prep for. Territory should favor the Defender because they've had time to prepare, so as an Attacker it's something you have to plan for, gather resources and Gangers for a big attack. It shouldn't really be run of the mill in my opinion, but the product of strategy, with the normal Gang Fights being the standard.

To me the ideal would be that when you hold Territory you can make certain upgrades, some for defense, others to boost efficiency, and working a territory is basically putting in a garrison. Obviously this would make Attacking more difficult, so there should be prep work that helps overcome the defenders. Necromunda had rules like coming in from the vents and sewers, so you should be able to fight a pre-battle to take control of these sorts of things to bypass some of the defenses. Or you can just trust your gang is strong enough and go for a dangerous frontal assault.

Another thing could be as I said you should have to assign gangers to territory, and then there could be a reinforcement system where depending on what upgrades your territory has, things the attackers have done to undermine your response, etc.

@DeTortor said in Turf wars and possible turf management:

To me the ideal would be that when you hold Territory you can make certain upgrades, some for defense, others to boost efficiency, and working a territory is basically putting in a garrison. Obviously this would make Attacking more difficult, so there should be prep work that helps overcome the defenders. Necromunda had rules like coming in from the vents and sewers, so you should be able to fight a pre-battle to take control of these sorts of things to bypass some of the defenses. Or you can just trust your gang is strong enough and go for a dangerous frontal assault.

On that, i kinda thought about having 3 types of missions to choose that are generated randomly: Defensive missions (you thwart the efforts of another gang to take your territory), Offensive missions (you attack the territory of another gang) and supply missions (don't progress towards defense or offensive, but there is much to gain from these).

My idea would be that you have to carry out a certain amount of successful offensive missions against an enemy gang in order to take over one of their territories, and the same applies to them. The offensive would escalate until you reach a showdown missions against the enemy when you will drive them out from the territory (for example, you carry out several looting or sabotage missions against an enemy gang and it will culminate in an assault mission). In showdown missions you should have a clear objective, like reaching a mine shaft or destroying a water depo in order to win.

With defensive missions you would stop temporarily the offensive of an enemy gang for a certian amount of time (since they will need time to recover from the defeat). Same will happen to you if you get defeated by an enemy gang and you wouldn't be able to take offensive action for a time (2 days or so) depending on how devastating was the defeat.

Supply missions would be like the Scavenges or shootout scenario, where you can find more valuables in the battlefield and the objective doesn't count towards your offensive against another gang. Also, you get more loot by battlefield scavenging in this mission than in the others.

As for the territory upgrades, i like the idea but limiting the upgrades to 1 per territory in order to keep things balanced. The upgrades could be things like better advantage in the defense of the territory, higher income, more recruits... There are lots of possibilities that could force the player to choose depending on his/her overall situation.

As for the reinforcement system, if i remember correctly, the showdown missions in Necromunda allowed the defender gang to call reinceforcements, since the defenders wouldn't rout from a decisive battle. That is something important to consider.

There's definitely a difference between what I would consider ideal and what I would find fun. To me the ideal is everything is customizable down to the territory options. This of course would lead to balance concerns, but I don't think a limit to one upgrade would be necessary, certainly there would need to be a cap and it becomes more expensive to upgrade the more you do. How many is a different question, but it would need to be a strategic choice to be fun, it shouldn't be an option to be able to max out defense, economic and whatever else would make sense to put in there all at the same time, you have to choose, or if you make it rounded then you spread out weaker upgrades.

I think we're in agreement in spirit of how territory should work, if not the details. Territory would be best if it is represented with actual maps you fight for control of, but there should be mission types that aren't territory control missions. I would prefer to theorize more towards the region of too complicated to work, and scale back to something more realistic, yours is more practical but I think it can have more depth.

I like the idea of specific, logical objectives that are related to the map type. I'd like to see that in battles leading up to a territory fight as well. Like my idea of taking control of the pipes leading to a territory, they could make the goal securing the pipe entrance, then when you attack the enemy territory then you can use the pipes to deploy inside the enemy perimeter for example.

I wouldn't want it to be random, maybe some randomized elements like Mordhiem for availability, but I'd really like to see more strategy to it. Basically a difference between "No Man's Land" missions and "Enemy Territory" missions. "No Man's Land" mission types would basically be things like the shootout and supply missions, more skirmish type where you're fighting in neutral territory over scavenge and reputation. As opposed to "Enemy Territory" missions where you're of course trying to expand your territory at the expense of your rivals, or maybe you're just trying to undermine your enemies. The main point of aggression into enemy territory would of course be taking or destroying enemy positions, but there could be other stuff like my "pipes" idea where you're preparing for your assault. Or you can try to raid or raze an enemy position for supplies and to take them down a peg.

Another thing is that gang size could dictate how much territory you can hold, thus stopping you from getting too powerful as eventually you can't actually hold more, thus the raiding and razing missions would come into play.

I'm quite curious what the devs have in mind, but personally I'd like to see a greater amount of strategy worked into how things work between missions and how you select missions.

We are in agreement in 2 things: How territory should work and that our ideas might not be the idea, but what we consider best. The bets we can get through this is polish our ideas to reach something better, don't ya think?

When it comes to the upgrades, you also have a point there should be more choice and more upgrades to a territory. The increase in cost to successive upgrades in the same place is an option, but i also thought something like Territory size. For example: watering holes and ruined domes would be the smallest, while betting houses and mining settlements would be the biggest. The bigger the settlement, the more upgrades it can take for less increase in cost (since they are more important to the gang, and more worth defending/protecting) or the opposite (since the territory is big, it would cost more to implement the upgrade than in a smaller area).

I think my idea of different choices of mission might not be the best and definetly needs more polishing, but the choice between defensive and offensive missions is something i like to see if we are going to have turf wars while the neutral missions should be random (since they are more like a temporary chance of getting a good bunch of credits/archeotech).

I like your idea of taking control of the pipes and how it can affect the deployment rules. For example, if you control the pipework to one of the territories you are attacking, at the beginning of the mission you would be given a choice between 2 or 3 deployment rules, while if you didn't, you had to stick with the default deployment rule.

As well, in offensive missions you will be sometimes left with no loot (since you are in enemy territory and you have to bail after completing the objective). Like for example, in sabotage missions you will have to do something like destroying a weapons caché or cut the water supplies of the enemy. If you manage to rout them without completing the objective, you will get loot from the mission (some weapons or some credits) while if you complete the objective, you will get nothing since you destroyed the loot. Of course, there will be raid missions where you will still supplies, but in some others you will get nothing.

I also like what you say about gang size and i think that gangs should have a bigger roster than Mordheim warbands, but in that case, gang numbers should be something that isn't easily increased and the amount of turf and your victories against other gangs should influence the amount of new recruits you have available to add to your ranks.

I really hope more people come in and discuss this and add some ideas. It's always good to have more options

Territory size is something I'd like to see as a factor as well, I'd say it'd be best if it allowed for more upgrades(if that's on the table of course) but they are more expensive. It only makes sense. Let's say one Defensive Upgrade option is Heavy Stubber Emplacements. Well if you have a bigger territory then that means there's going to be more gun emplacements, hence it should cost more. Perhaps for successive upgrades it should be proportional to the cost of the first upgrade, such as the initial cost +50%, something simple, plus naturally since it's bigger it's naturally going to have a larger effect on the territory. Also keeping it simple would be a sort of modular system, small Territories could have for example 1-2 slots for an upgrade, but each upgrade could have Tiers to upgrade your upgrade, while larger ones can have more like 5 upgrades. The numbers I'm using are kinda arbitrary, but also I think that would probably work well. Small has 1 upgrade, medium 3, large 5, and each upgrade can be improved say 3 times.

I agree that what I'm calling "No Man's Land" missions should be randomized, pretty much exactly like Mordhiem. That would represent exploring the Underhive in search of opportunities. You get to choose, but from what is available. Something else that might be harder to pull off is there can be a random chance that one of the missions you pick is actually an ambush, and your goal would be to fight your way out(lower chance as it'd be annoying if it happened too often). This also means that you can ambush someone else, which is easier to represent as you just pick it.

Defense/Offense I agree with, your own territory shouldn't be safe. However I'm not sure how Defense should work. It'd be too easy if your whole gang gets to be there right away, especially with the upgrade system, and Necromunda did have a pretty good reinforcement system for a dice game, this I think should be represented. You have a smaller amount of gangers there at the start, but other gangers respond. I think it should be tied with assigning Gangers to work a territory, the ones you assign are the "garrison" and need to try to hold off an assault until help arrives. This could also be tied into upgrades and prep missions, as then you can upgrade reinforcement times and also sabotage them to give yourself more time.

What I think would work well for a "No Loot" outcome would be secondary victory conditions. Like say you're assaulting an enemy water tank. If you can take over area you can loot or capture it for additional resources, or if you know you can't win the fight then there's secondary raid objectives, like targeting it and destroying it instead. There shouldn't be no opportunity to get loot, but maybe just victory conditions that don't give a loot bonus, with a bonus loot reward for a more favorable victory outcome. To me I think if you drive off the enemy there should be loot, because you have time then, but as I was saying there could be objective victories that if you complete and withdrawal you only get whatever you grabbed during the fight.

Gang size is tricky, I definitely agree that it should be bigger than Mordheim. but the magic number cap is hard to say. Too big or too small both would have issues both mechanically and lore wise. I think it should be tied to territory in some way, maybe settlements, or maybe a unique territory type like Gang Hideouts. There could be a gang rating system like Warband rating that dictates how many Settlements you can manage. I'm spitballing here mostly, but writing it out I think it should be a mixture of infrastructure and rating because that would add depth. As a starting gang you have to grow your reputation/rating to control more territory, however since rating is most likely going to like xp where you don't lose it, there should be a way to lose capacity. Fortunes change, so the reason I present it this way is that your gang should be able to both rise and fall, the best way I can think to do this is you start losing territory you lose capacity, maybe have the lowest ranked gangers abandon you if you can't support them, or have a Loyalty system the lowest loyalty gangers leave first if you lose your capacity for too long, and your most loyal stay with you.

Yeah it'd be great to get some other opinions, more theorycrafting would undoubtedly get fresh perspectives or at least a consensus of more people would have more weight for the devs to consider if they take a look.

I like a lot how you put the upgrade system, specially the scaling on price and territory size. I think it's much needed to have territory size in mind when thinking, since the investment would be greater there. As well, i think i could add a little something: upgrade branching. For example, you put the idea if placing Heavy Stubbers for defense as Tier 1, but once you get to Tier 2, you would have 3 options: Autocannon (general purpose, reliable and effective), Lascannon (Very reliable weapon but less powerful) or a Heavy Bolter (Incredibly effective, but prone to jamming). As well, different upgrades would vary in cost (remember that having a Heavy Bolter in the underhive is something the most powerful can dream of). The branching could also be applied to income upgrades (increase safe income or having a small chance of getting double the income) which could spice things a little bit.

As for the defense missions, i think there should be scenarios with no reinforcements (as the AI will dispatch the gang to go deal with the attackers). Those would be the missions prior to the "showdown mission" where you attack the main stronghold of the enemy and drive them out. Those missions could be for example the saboteur or raider scenario where you have to steal or destroy the supplies/weapons cache of the enemy gang. There can be also be other missions, like hitting a betting house or stealing an ore shipment.

When it came to the "no loot" outcome, i didn't put it correclty, but you managed to see how i wanted it to be: if you successfully rout the enemy gang, you get the extra loot since you didn't destroyed the goods. But if things go south with one ganger tied in melee against 2 and your juvies pinned by gunfire, it might be a good idea to put that grenade to good use and destroy the weapons, therefore, fulfilling your objective. I think this would actually make players think more when it comes to consider their odds of winning against the defenders: is it worth to get some of my gangers injuried for those weapons? Because even a weaker gang could be able to fulfill the objective with the right strategy.

Yes, definetly gang size is a trick question that will be incredibly hard to define. We shouldn't have a set gang size since the beginning, but have it grow as we progress getting more turf and fame. I really like your idea of both combining infrastructure and rating to set the gang roster size, but Rating can go up and down quite fast, since it's tied to the skills, xp and gear of the characters in your gang, and one mission that went very bad can make your rating go down quite quickly, something that wouldn't do full justice to how it should go. We could also have territories have rating, which could solve the problem partially but i don't think that's the best answer.

As well, i like what you say about low rank gangers abandoning you as you start to lose turf and reputation. I think that tied to that, we should have that with your loss in reputation, you would have less people willing to join you (with this i kinda support the fact that we need also limited recruitment). But not everything would be over if you suffer a devastating blow, since you can wait for the wind to blow over or you might get lucky...

I really want to hear more people talk about this, since this will be the thick of the game outside the battles. I really like we are slowly polishing our ideas by speaking our minds, but we definetly need more people if we want to add more. Still, things look promising

Yes, upgrading gun emplacements to a more powerful arsenal would be something good to have, but if I can be a tad pedantic the Lascannon is an Antitank weapon, it would be the most powerful in raw damage, personally one way I would consider balancing it would be making it have to recharge for a turn or something, because realistically it would be instantkilling and taking off limbs with each blast(but I think that would be a bit OP, even if it's lore accurate). Besides that, yeah that's basically the idea, though other possibilities are a bit harder to say. Mines and such I know had a possibility of collapsing, so reinforcing the structure could be one idea.

Yeah for defense I was more specifically talking about defending your territory itself, as in the Settlement, Gambling Hall, etc, in that case I'd say reinforcements should be a given unless undermined beforehand. There could be defense missions outside the structures themselves where there's a no-reinforcement aspect, the prep type missions or raids.

Well, on regards to the Lascannon, i remember that the Necromunda rulebook said something in the style of "It's unparalleled anti armor power is something most gangers find unfit and unecessary in the Underhive", so of course it's it's not going to be on high demand when you compare it to an Autocannon or a Heavy Bolter. Still, we gotta have in mind that Las weapons are the most reliable and that is their main advantage over others: more successful ammo rolls.

So when it comes to make the devastating Lascannon more balanced, we could have it consume a lot of ammo per shot and being less accurate than other heavy weapons (being single shot) as well as using more OP to shoot. Same can be applied to the Plasmacannon if we ever see one.

Also, those defense scenarios where you have a very advantageous position against the attacker should be the ones you name: gambling hall, mining settlement or the water depo. If i remember correctly, in tabletop those didn't allowed the defenders to rout since they were defending family and friends, therefore the attacker had to make them go out of action or fulfill the objective (reach the centre of the fort or destroy something). Thus, the defenders could call other gang members as reinceforcements.

Also, something i want to see is shaped charges as a consumable. In tabletop you could use them to effectively destroy objectives with a single charge if you didn't had explosives or melta guns.

Man, almost 300 views but no additional perspectives.

Las being both reliable and in the case of the Lascannon being powerful could easily become an OP combo. I think that additional "action points" could offset that, like how dual wielding weapons caused them to cost more offense points, so it's less but bigger hits, while auto weapons can be fired more consecutively. Heavy Bolter would be the most shots but lowest damage per shot, Autocannon is middle, and Lascannon is less shot that hit really hard. At least by lore that's how they work.

Here is also a question of if Environmental damage/destruction will be a thing. A big reason you wouldn't want to use a Lascannon(which is anti-tank) in Underhive in-universe is you could easily cause a cave in if you hit a weight bearing structure. If Environment damage is a thing, weapons like Lascannons or Krak grenades/missiles should come with an inherent danger of destroying something you don't want to. Bringing about a cave in may be a bit much, but explosive barrels, tanks of corrosive liquids and such could make it in easier. We'll have to see. This relates back to territory because either you can inadvertently damage your own turf or the enemy can destroy something by accident or on purpose.

I'm not sure if it's the same in Necromunda, but in Shadow War that was based off it, defenders didn't automatically rout or have to roll for routing, but could choose to retreat if they got under a certain threshold.

Kinda unrelated, but yeah I'd like to see stuff like grenades, mines and charges be like potions and firebombs in Mordhiem, give them an item and if they use it it's gone, so you have to buy more rather than always having grenades once they're equipped.

Which leads to another possible Territory type, ammo dumps. Which could be an upgrade idea actually, a valuable but volatile(thus easy to destroy in a raid) asset.

Yeah, it also annoys me to see no one else commenting, but maybe it's because they like the ideas. Dunno.

Yea, the destructive power of the lascannon is something to consider, even if lore wise, gangers don't think this weapon is practical in their wars. I think the Lascannon and also the Plasma cannon, since they are brutal weapons, could have their Offensive point cost to shoot increased (to 3 or 4), maybe they consume more ammo per shot than other heavy weapons or, since they are single shot weapons with a lot of recoil, they could have something like the "slow" penalty 2 handed weapons have in Mordheim (less accuracy).

I never thought about Enviromental Damage that much, since that's another important topic that should have a really long through process, since in Necromunda tabletop there are a lot of enviromental hazards, as well as being equipment to deal with some of those (like Bionics and rebreathers). But i like the idea of destructible enviroment, as well as using the hazards to your advantage (like busting a pipe with an acid leak on top of an enemy).

I remember that in Necromunda, in the assault scenarios the defenders could opt for a retreat, but they would never rout from having their gangers fall out of action. At least that was what the rulebook said.

I also like the idea to have consumables to be used as traps, but i remember that in vanilla Necromunda, Grenades were a weapon. I think it would be far easier to treat then as a consumable rather than how they were trated in Tabletop (A weapon that once it's used, it fails all ammo rolls).

I like the idea of having weapon caches. Maybe having those would decrease weapon costs in the market or give a small bonus to ammo rolls.

Necroing an old thread, but for me the bigger question is should gaining turf resemble the old Necromunda system or the new N17 Necromunda system.

The old system was basically every territory had a special ability to boost your gang but the new system has turf size and special territories as completely separate things. Personally while I prefer the older system I think the new system lends itself better to a map based campaign (and this a mini-game for a computer game).

The game can then set up a solo or multiplayer map based campaign with modofiable parameters (map size, number of other gangs, length of campaign, etc.) which will increase replay ability of the game once story mode is finished.

The big question on a map based campaign is if you use a turn based system or a timed system to manage expansion in the map.

In tabletop with turf just being a measure of how good your gang is as well as giving an income stream it lends itself to the fights themselves nearly always being in no mans land and the expansion into new territories just being a simple expansion of the gangs area of influence.

Remember that in between the actual gang fights is really just war and management and once it is done then it is just starting the next round of the campaign and selecting the next opponent and scenario to play.

If you want to make it more interesting have the AI gangs be persistent gangs for each campaign and also take part in the actions of selecting an opponent and having a battle each campaign round.

In all due honestly, i prefer the old system. It adds a lot more depth and if they make turf gain random (you can't choose what you get) it will force to adapt you to it. For example, if you get the waste pool or the ruined dome, which are not that good but they give steady income. One thing that they can do with turf too is to make it like the Mordheim veteran system.

For example, you get a clinic and that decreases treatment price of your gangers by 2 to a minimum of 1. You can get more clinics and that means you can treat your gangers for barely any money. As well, you can get other neat stuff like Guilder office (more chances of sales), Guilder market (Better prices in the market), drug labs (random chance of getting a consumable drug)... There are many possibilities to this and it all comes down to see how the devs are going to adress it.

I think they will keep making it turn based like in Mordheim (In week lapses) but in Necromunda it will be by shifts. One shift will probably be what one week was in Mordheim.

Turf isn't a measure of how good your gang is, it's just how territory you have and by extension, how rich your gang is. How good your gang is is shown by turf, gang rating and prestige wich you your wealth, how good your fighters are and how much fights you won. For example, you can have a gang that holds little turf and has lost a few fights, but they are a tough bunch of mean and hardened veterans.

As well, i agre in the fat that we need permanent gangs in the game to make the game a bit more fair and also more interesting. And if they do this, they might be able to bring back old rules like Hatred and blood debt, which make the game more fun and slightly more challenging.

I would assume that the campaign will be a turn based system again, which is fine by me. If they add multiplayer campaigns then they can have turns timed to prevent AFK players(or deliberate trolling) ruining it for everyone else. A multiplayer campaign is doable, I think particularly if they do territories in a way similar to how we discuss.

Territory gain is not something I believe should be done in a way true to the tabletop. The way it's done in TT is more a representation of the limitations of TT. In a video game it should just be represented as actual places on the map that you directly fight over. If I was hosting a Necromunda TT campaign, and had the resources, I would have specific map setups for when you fight over territory and the winner gains in, but that would be difficult due to required terrain, logging the setup, having multiple games, etc. It's just not something easily done IRL. But that limitation is not shared by video games, so we don't need a random dice roll to determine territory, and we don't need to only represent it as an item on a list. It can go deeper, and in doing so add a strategy to the campaign to the tactics of individual skirmishes. Maybe the Settlement you really want is too well defended, so instead you take over the chem pit to finance the takeover, things like that.

How I would like to see it is Territory is represented on the campaign map and a big part of the game is fighting for control of it, or raiding/razing enemy territory. How they can handle income is that in the between battle sequence you simply have the ability to assign Gangers to your territory for them to work it, which would be similar to the TT campaign.

Overall, the TT should be used as inspiration, but not directly copied because with video games you can turn necessary abstractions into concrete representations.

About making the turf gain something more specific, it could be done if permanent gangs are implemented: All gangs are given around 10 pieces of territory, all random and in the first missions you do with your gang you take your first turf from one of the weakest gangs in the area wich will be something really nice, like a settlement, a mine or a betting house.

After that, it could be done in two ways: you choose before battle what turf you will be contesting and you have to do like 2-3 battles (depending on how fortified the place is) against the enemy gang in order to add that territory to your turf, or you can fight an enemy gang a few times and after that, you can choose 1 out of 2 turf you have the chance of gaining.

And about the raiding missions, those could be done in the random missions. Let me explain: your gang gets informed that other gang is moving their weapon caches to another location, and so you can attack them while they are on the move. That could be said with some other things, like ore shipments, archeotech, etc... But these need to be spiced up a little bit in order to make them more interesting.