Bill Eldard
United States
Burke
Virginia
-
Bloodybucket wrote: IMHO, a game that tried to let the player be a heroic Hornblower type captain would be fast moving, emphasize maneover choices over real world physics, and allow for overcoming great odds with skilled/lucky play. . . . I think going heavy on movie type "critical hits" would be a plus, so rather than always striking out hull sections you might draw a card that gives a more descriptive hit that still yields simple results "Steering ropes hit, must sail straight next impulse" or "Carnage on gun deck, broadside at half strength for one turn while officer rallies stunned crew".
How about Fighting Sail: Sea Combat in the Age of Canvas and Shot 1775-1815
It appeared in Strategy & Tactics #85, so it may be difficult finding a copy. But among the scnearios --- most of which involve 1 v. 1 or 2 v. 2 battles -- there is a fictional scenario right from a Hornblower novel, pitching his HMS Lydia against the Panamanian (nee Royal Navy) Natividad. (I hope I remembered the names correctly. It's the battle recreated in the Gregory Peck Hornblower film). Other scenarios include USS Bon Homme Richard vs. HMS Serapis, Lake Erie and a number of clashes from the War of 1812 with ships like USS Constitution, and Trafalgar. Includes critical hits, fouling, changind wind direction, and other stuff.
-
Dan Edwards
United States
Shoreline
Washington
-
Scrib -
How about using your chit pull via cards, and giving the players the chance to change the pull sequence by spending cards that would otherwise be viable combat cards: You get a better chance to move first but you burn your good attack or defense cards to do so.
Ok, so now I'm thinking the game would have these features:
1- WOW type movement cards
2- Variable turn sequence
3- Attack and Event/Defense cards, with some cards being dual use
4- A non written way to track damage to ships and crew
5- Key crewmembers that grant abilities and suffer casualties
So, a turn might go like this:
Scrib plays a card in a bid to go first, but BloodyBucket counters, forcing Scrib to play a "Experienced Sailing Master" card to regain first move. Using WOW type movement cards, Scrib moves to deliver a stern rake on BloodyBucket. As Scrib Tacks, BloodyBucket plays "Caught in Irons" and ends Scrib's Movement phase. Unable to fire, card play goes for next move.
Scrib again plays the card needed to move next, and completes his move for the stern rake. He plays a fire card along with a "Chain Shot" card and anounces he is aiming for the rigging. Rolling for damage, he gets three rigging hits and a critical, and rolls on the critical rigging chart. The critical kills BloodyBuckets officer of Marines, but Bloodybucket plays "Ship's Doctor" to negate the result.
Out of cards to effect the turn sequence, Scrib has to let BloodyBucket move next. BB plays "A change in the Wind" and rolls on the wind chart, shifting the direction that the wind blows from. BB then moves to a position to deliver a parralel broadside, but Scrib Plays "Well trained Gunners" and announces he will return fire out of turn. BB plays a fire card and "Marines in the fighting Tops", gaining one D6 of extra crew hits. BB shoots for the hull, but fails to score a critical, doing four hull and two crew hits, plus a rolled four crew hits for the card played. Scrib fires back at the rigging, getting no hits and one critical, and gets a "Wreckage covers port Broadside" result. BB will have to clear the wreckage by playing a card or burning a movement sequence before he can use the portside guns.....
-
Harvester of Eyes.
United States
Louisville
Kentucky
My demeanor was meaner.
-
Quote: Scrib fires back at the rigging,
Dan, that's completely unrealistic. I ALWAYS fire at the hull.
But it's a great idea for game mechanisms.
-
Mick Mickelsen
United States
Dallas
Texas
-
As huge Patrick O'Brian fan I've also wanted a game that is like you describe. I even exchanged emails with Wings of War designer about using his system for such a game. If someone puts this together I will support it anyway I can. (I think using the mini-ships such as in Pirates of the Spanish Main would be awesome too.) In any event I'm looking very forward to 1805: Sea of Glory.
-
Mike Haverty
United States
Owasso
OK
-
I have only limited AoS gaming experience, but based on what Dan posted above, I think we could draw inspiration from (of all places) Star Wars CCG, using a single deck for action purposes, randomization, AND damage tracking.
First, every card would have a type, such as Hull, Rigging, Crew and Special.
Second, these action cards would include all the things you described. Movement cards, attack cards, special actions, etc. Most movement/iniatiative cards would be of the type Rigging, most attacks would be of the type Hull, and I think Crew cards would cover a wide spectrum of uses, including things like your "Experienced Sailing Master" for initiative, "Well Trained Gunners" etc. Special cards are things normally outside the control of the crew/player, such as wind changes, etc.
All these cards are shuffled into one deck for each ship. A player would have a standard handsize (probably 7ish) that is refreshed at the start of each new round of play.
The ship card itself includes stats for standard broadsides and what movement deck (a la WoW) it uses.
So, using your example above, much of the maneuvering and card play back and forth is the same, until we fire. Now rejoining the action...
...BB plays uses the default Fire action on his ship, which is rated a 4, and also plays "Marines in the Fighting Tops" which has the action text "+1 Damage, +Crew." BB announces he is shooting at the Hull; his total damage rating is 4 +1 from the card he played, so Scrib flips the top 5 cards from his action deck: the card types he flips are Hull, Hull, Rigging, Crew, Special. Since BB fired at the Hull, the 2 Hull cards are discarded from the game; the MitFT card also causes the Crew card to be discarded from the game. The untargeted Rigging and Special cards go to the bottom of Scrib's deck (as do all cards used during play - only damaged cards are removed permanently from the ship's deck).
Critical Hits would be taken care of by having a Critical Hit box on some of the cards in the deck; these effects are triggered any time that card is destroyed.
For example, one of the Hull cards destroyed has a Critical Hit box "Wreckaged Covers Port Broadside: this ship may not fire its Port broadside for the rest of this round and the next round." A Critical Hit box on a Rigging card might be, "Fouled Rigging: this ship only moves once next round." A common Hull critical might be "Heavy Damage: destroy two additional cards in this ship's deck."
So, as cards are played or "undamaged" during action they get recycled to the bottom of the deck. As the fight wears on, a player's ship deck gets smaller and smaller until he is sunk outright (runs out of cards) or he strikes his colors (could also have Special cards that force surrender on various low-deck situations). The damage system also lets you target how you reduce the enemy ship's capabilities. Oh, you lost your "Quick Tack" Rigging card, now I know you can't do that any more; or, alternately, I just saw it go to the bottom of your deck, so I know you can't quick tack again for at least 4 more rounds, and plan my actions accordingly.
Altering the composition of the ship decks via the cards themselves and the size of the deck will let you loosely model different ships. For more customization, you could create captain cards that let you customize your ship a bit. "Aubrey: at the end of each turn, reveal 2 cards from your ship deck: put one in your hand and the other on the bottom of your deck."
You could add more detail to combat as well. +1 Damage (card draw) for rakes. -1 Damage when target is more than 1 card-length away. Cards like "Chain Shot: only playable when firing at Rigging: +2 Damage." etc.
Anyway, hope I'm clearly describing how I think this system would work... the "deck as life + recycling" of SWCCG is one of my favorite card game mechanics and I think it would work wonderfully for a "light" naval wargame like this. If there is interest, I wouldn't mind collaborating with someone more knowledgeable about AoS warfare on making up an alpha prototype...
-
Dan Edwards
United States
Shoreline
Washington
-
I'd never thought of the "deck per ship" concept, and was thinking more of a common deck with some split use cards and rules to differentiate between nationalities/commanders, probably because that is what I'm used to from Up Front.
If the players wanted to do more than a couple ships a side, would managing the multiple decks be a hassle? Come to think of it, if you used the Up Front model of one deck for three or four fireteams (ships) would there be an upper limit on the number of ships commanded?
What about a more traditional board, counter/figure and deck of cards game?
I'm thinking the concept would be best for actions with three or four ships a side max, with the focus really being one on one or two.
-
Mike Haverty
United States
Owasso
OK
-
I was definitely thinking of this as one ship/deck per player, so each player only has to keep track of one deck regardless of the number of ships.
If the OP is thinking of a game playable on a pub table, I think being able to get the entire game down to just 1 deck (including ship card and optional captain card) per player could be ideal...
-
Dan Edwards
United States
Shoreline
Washington
-
Now I'm confused; you think it would work best with each player controlling only a single ship, regardless of the number of ships - meaning one ship per player hard limit?
I suppose that might work best for the deck per ship idea, but I think most players might want to control more than one ship, and there is the matter of controlling other units - ship's boats, landing parties, etc.
Why not use a system that would work on an issued hex map with counters or plastic minis, but with the manuever cards and upgraded minis you could move it to a pub table sans map?
-
Mike Haverty
United States
Owasso
OK
-
Hm, seems kinda redundant to have two systems in one game: a board-and-counters version AND a maneuver-cards version. Also, if one player was playing multiple ships, he'd have to keep the card hands separate, which seems awkward.
I'm going to see if I can get something written up for comment here in the coming week or two.
-
Michael Edwards
United States
Everett
Washington
YA RL'YAH
Phnglui mglw nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah nagl fhtagn! With cheeze!
-
FWIW, various reports from folks sailing on ships like the Rose, and from a newly published book on the tech of the Age of Sail, indicate that tacking takes from 5 to 15 min in these type of ships.
-
Dennis Ugolini
United States
San Antonio
Texas
-
Tradewinds Ted wrote: Back in 2004, Dennis Ugolini posted some proposed rules for "Letters of Marque" which fits the description reasonably well. It was designed to be played using the ships from Pirates of the Spanish Main from the FIRST set. There are cards to represent different ship configurations, with boxes to mark off damage, and also lists the speed/manueverability. I printed the cards out and laminated them so I could simply use a dry erase marker on them. You can aim high or low, and damage is recorded for rigging/masts, or castle/gun deck or lower hull, and the dgree of damage is range dependent too. So yes there is some writing to keep track of damage, but no preplotted movement. Movement is strongly influenced by the wind of course. Players roll for initiative, then alternate moves, choosing one ship to move at a time, until every ship has had a chance to move. There are also rules for boarding actions. I only tried playing this a few times but it seemed to work pretty well. My only complaint might be that the numbers used for crew size are too small to allow for capture of a disarmed large ship when boarding from a small ship, and this could easily be adjusted. It was designed to be played using the ships from Pirates of the Spanish Main from the FIRST set, so it has none of the newer ship styles in subsequent "Pirates of...." editions. Of course it wouldn't be too hard to reason out some rules for the schooners that allow greater maneuverability close hauled or when tacking than a square rigged ship would have, for example. The rules can be found in the earliest page or two of the files for POSM or if I did the link right, here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/6466
Even if no one picked up on this, it's nice to be remembered, so thanks, Ted.
The rules do hit all the notes people are looking for -- it's Man O'War's fun combat, but with hexes and simplified WS&IM movement, so no rulers and clutter (*love* the dry erase idea). As Ted said, the crews are too small, some people have complained that the wind changes too dramatically and too often, and there are no new ships since the first edition. But making your own ships is half the fun!
I think I still have originals of the rules and ship layouts (all done in Word and Powerpoint, respectively), so if anyone would like a copy for inserting house rules and making new ships, send me a geekmail.
-
Christopher Taylor
United States
Lake Forest
California
-
You might check out Ship of the Line. It has a pretty novel movement system, the mechanics are beer & pretzel-y, but with some depth. I haven't played in a long time, but I have pretty fond memories of pushing around some POTSM ships with it.
-
Scott Wilson
United States
Arizona
-
Wow. Using your logic, Sag, one could make the argument the ACW was boring because it was brutal, Pickett's charge was simple (close your eyes and run like hell towards the stone wall), and you would need to upgrade the muskets to machineguns to make it an interesting era for gaming.
It may not be your cup of tea, but to gamers who know the history there is a sublime beauty to the image of wooden ships under sail fighting with the elements while trying to fight the enemy. Nelson is not just famous for breaking the line at Trafalgar (and he was not the first to do so) he was a larger than life figure who was already hailed as England’s greatest Admiral before Trafalgar. Nelson Sailing boldly into Abukir Bay to destroy the anchored French fleet and with it, Napoleons plans for conquering Egypt; at Copenhagen putting his telescope to his blind eye and stating he did not see the message ordering him to retreat his squadron and pressing on to victory; Nelson, as a captain, capturing one ship by boarding and then using that ship as a bridge to capture another ship by boarding - these are the things age of sail gamers see when they see two lines of ships shooting each other to bits.
To understand the historical significance of the age of sail and to read some of the best stories from that era I would recommend 'To Rule the Waves' by Arthur Herman.
But to answer the original question of this post - I use to play Privateers and Gentleman all the time. It was a naval RPG attempting to recreate the Hornblower genre. I loved it, but there is a lot of bookkeeping.
-
Take joy from you wins; take lessons from your losses.
United States
38.978164N 76.486881W
Maryland
-
Your choice of the Civil War as a metaphor was not the best, as weaponry was going through a vast transition at the time, resulting in the opportunity for some truly revolutionary concepts in combat tactics. Because of these changes the war was truly dynamic.
In fact, Picket's charge is an example of a truly boneheaded decision made in spite of years of evidence that such an advance would be catastrophic. Lee's order was made by the 20-year-old boy that attended West Point before the Crimean, not the 70-year-old man that had decades of study and practical experience facing modern gun barrels. A moment of true blunder from such a capable, seasoned commander.
But the effect may have even been greater at sea. With steamers and better deployed guns entering the picture the naval aspect of the war was maybe even more intensely different than the ground warfare.
That said, the path of this thread had been to discuss naval tactics in the Hornblower era, and unfortunately they were dominated by Fighting Instructions. With downwind ships the battles generally fell into a very predictable pattern. That's just history. No doubt some people will enjoy lining up ships and slugging it out, but the point of my earlier posts was that you should not expect gripping, dynamic battles if the game is to be based on historic simulation.
Boarding parties? Sign me up. Pursue and capture? There's some interest for me there too. In fact a one-on-one battle between two ships arriving at different points of sail can be quite interesting as they close with each other. But generally once battle set in it was brutal, straight up, and served in a dirty glass. The battles you cite are outliers, and in a game situation you're going to find players that quickly optimize their position and stick to it, for the obvious reasons. My best recommendation in that case would be to recreate the actual battles, not the era, though the historical record may be lacking a bit in detail as it usually is in naval engagements. My concern is that these too will quickly be optimized.
My advice back when this thread was hot was to abandon the outright simulation a bit and find a way to liven up the action. Moving to the Civil War era brings steam into the picture. Giving the boats a broader point of sail would change things as well, and you could use it to handicap. Adding a more fantastical element such as a bit of magic or steam-punk could liven it up. I just think that if you try to actually play the era as it was will result in a game with flat action and not very many interesting decisions.
Sag.
-
Dan Edwards
United States
Shoreline
Washington
-
Sag,
I agree wholeheartedly that my ideal AOS game would be more of a simulation of Hornblower, Bolitho and Aubrey than a strict replay of real history, hence the thread title with the emphasis on mythical and Hornblower.
Some of my favorite wargames are lousy history...the Ambush! series being a case in point. It's really a simulation of WWII movies rather than actual WWII squad combat.
-
Andrew Godzik
United States
Chicago
Illinois
-
Just stumbled upon this and read the whole thing.
A Hornblower game would be great fun, but mustn't use those cardboard ships. I wonder why their have never been any Hornblower games?
Someone mentioned that the Broadsides and Boarding Parties game was originally more complex and set in this era instead of the pirate setting. Have the original rules ever been leaked onto the internet? Would be interesting to read through them and see how they were. The game already has plastic minis, seperate boards for ships and boarding actions and what not. Wonder if the original rules had anything on landing actions such as taking out a fort protecting a harbor.
Well, anyway, this has been an exciting read and I really hope something comes of this...
-
Rolling bad dice in wargames since 1977
United States
Austin
Texas
-
Dan, et. al.,
You might give the rules set Don't Give Up The Ship! a try. I t may be a good start for at least the maneuvering stages of your ship-to-ship game. It's pretty fun.
Brady
-
Matthew Jones
United States
Forest Grove
Oregon
-
Bloodybucket wrote: Sag,
I agree wholeheartedly that my ideal AOS game would be more of a simulation of Hornblower, Bolitho and Aubrey than a strict replay of real history, hence the thread title with the emphasis on mythical and Hornblower.
Has anyone checked out Ship of the Line? I skimmed the thread and my Firefox Finder bar didn't pick it up. It's a downloadable from www.wargamedownloads.com and I don't think it's tremendously heavy compared to the other three heavies in the OP. You get a set of maneuvers that you can choose from depending on whether you're close-hauled, reaching, or running (basically slow, medium, and then fast) You choose these by setting a d20 to one of twenty different possible maneuvers. The gunnery comes after the maneuvering and depends on whether you're in range and the firing arc for what cannons you can fire (Fore, Aft, Starboard, Port) which in turn tell how many "gunnery dice" can be allocated to fire, which in turn helps with damage...
I'm breaking it down to basics 'cause this ain't the thread for a review
Though there is one here: www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/92501
Suffice it to say that even if you don't like the damage modeling, which is very Beer'n'Pretzels (though isn't that what we're trying for here?), the maneuvering idea is worth taking a look at...
And finally, Ambush is totally realistic, man!!! 
For what it's worth,
MJ
-
Dan Owsen
United States
Redmond
Washington
-
I really enjoy Close Action. Yes, it takes some time to play, but really once you get the hang of it, it's not that hard, especially if you have some players who know the system.
Luckily not only do we have players who know the system, we also have one who is willing to game master campaigns. Each player gets a ship to command (so you can imagine yourself as the captain). A whole chain of command is set up and you are given orders. From there you are on your own as to how you carry them out (well, unless you are part of a squadron). Communication lag is taken into account, weather effects (brutal in those days), etc. If by chance fleets meet, combat takes place. Each player has different victory conditions which vary depending on rank. It takes an enormous amount of work and knowledge by the gamemaster, but as a player it does kind of give some of the feeling you are describing. The thrill of getting the enemy in sight, raising sail and getting the wind gague (or running like hell). The maneuvering before the battle is half the fun. Once in battle, there is a chance your personal character will get wounded, which makes you act a little more realistically (well, at least some people do).
Of course not everyone has a willing gamemaster to pile on the authentic campaign set up. I wonder if some of the coming strategic games could generate scenarios of interest.
-
Mike Windsor
United States
Fort Worth
Texas
-
I just read through all this. By God, sign me up!
It seems like a lot of the discussion is the classic "simulation" vs. "game" discussion. I thought that what was initially proposed fell clearly on the side of "game." If I were designing it, I'd err on the "game" side. To use the Wings of War analogy: (1) How often can you pull out Wings of War and have a fun game? (2) How often can you pull out Whistling Death and have a fun game? They both have their places, but my guess is that a good game is going to get more playing time by more people than an excellent simulation. A game like this could be played by kids also, and that's a plus in my book.
Now, on to the fun stuff. From what I read at BGG, printing cards can be expensive, but they are just vital to the game proposed. First, a big deck of cards can give all sorts of flavor that "1 crew hit" or even a "random event" or "critical hit" chart just doesn't give you. I'd love to see cards like, "Your second lieutenant just lost his arm, no one can order a change of sails this turn," or "A spar and sail are dragging in the water, lose one movement card each turn until you assign crew to cut it away." In addition to random event cards that have the possibility of changing the wind or sea state each turn, you could have a slew of other possible events. Remember the "fog" engagement early in Master & Commander? Here's a card to replicate that situation, "The enemy loses you in the fog/smoke -- an enemy ship of your choice must maintain its current heading for two turns." That would allow you to move for a better shot or try and escape in the fog/smoke. (I know that there are situations where this may not be workable, but we aren't even playtesting yet.) In all the movies, there is the issue of false colors, so you can have cards like, "Is that man wearing a scarlet coat? -- your opponent must reveal his true colors." You can have reef or sandbar cards that force you to slow down or risk running aground. Man, this could be a load of fun. Sign me up for the "making up stuff to put on cards" committee.
For anyone who wanted a pirate theme, you can adjust the ships for the era and come up with new cards for the flavor. "Get movin' ye bunch of drunkards! -- your opponent cannot change course or fire this turn." 
As for "realism", I often wonder whether the more complex (fiddly) games actually yield more realistic results for all of the trouble you go through. Sure, it may be more accurate to have smoke markers all over the map that diminish with the wind, but you might get a real close result by having some "smoke" cards that reduce firing accuracy when played.
Obviously, I'm pretty high on the idea.
-
|
|
