Victory by Any Means Campaign Guide (Second Edition)

Disclaimer, have done some proof-reading and rules suggestions for VBAM 2e, and collaborated with the designer some 10 years past on fan projects for Babylon 5 Wars.

Overall pretty good product. The layout and font choices are clean and crisp, and the art has improved over the previous edition to improve the overall presentation.

One great addition are the new ship construction rules. Ships are separated into different pre-defined classes with base cost, maintenance, command cost and construction points. With those construction points, players can build any ship/fighter or ground unity they want with only a minimal amount of restrictions. As technology advances, the number of construction points increases allowing more advanced races to build better ships for the same relative cost. Only shortcoming is that at present there are only about a page of special abilities, but this should be expanded upon with future products. Overall however I find the system very elegant. Most tactical games will point value a more advanced unit accordingly, however in this strategic game, a more advanced race will have a qualitative advantage.

Trade Fleets seem somewhat simplified, previously I believe a fleet would be moving between systems whereas in 2e it's simply assigned to a system and grants an economic bonus based on in-system productivity. Planetary management is fairly straightforward as well with only a few basic values, but it seems like its enough to give detail without bogging the system down. Alternate rules can add such stuff as bio values or alternate population growth. A few rules do still seem a bit fiddly like the Raider encounters. However there is an alternate system for those as well.

Some players may miss some of the expansion rules from 1e edition, but as a base game this seems like a good foundation moving forward.

A lot of potential in this "modular" game system, with infusion of ideas, imagination and/ or existing other Si-fi stories and settings. The no. of combination is virtually unlimited as VBAM attempts to be the AD&D for space in the universe. It can be played by PBeM and narrative story develops as it goes. The role of Campaign Moderator is crucial to a good VBAM game just like a Dungeon Master (DM) in AD&D game. The writing is very good in the first few pages I read and I am motivated already to run a campaign on my own or here on BGG as PBF (Play-by-Forum). I would like to see if it can become a paper-run Master of Orion or Alpha Centauri PC game. But I have to crunch a wealth of materials in its 160-page campaign book first.

Fun campaign system, lets you quickly setup and play a campaign with its rules, or adaptable with many other systems with a little work.

It’s not compatible with any other game universe that anything from modern game universes it’s only compatible with sci-fi game universes