K. David Ladage
United States
Cedar Rapids
Iowa
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Battleship
By: Clifford Von Wickler
Published: Hasbro / Milton Bradley (a.k.a. Wizards of the Coast)
Web: http://www.hasbro.com/games/en_US/battleship/shop/details.cf...
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A Brief History
When I was a kid, I loved this game. Battleship was relatively cool -- carriers, submarines and the like alone in the ocean firing out at the enemy. That was then. This is now. There are many issues with Battleship once you are more than (say...) 10 years old. But more on that later.
Game Play
Battleship is played on two independent 10x10 grids. Each grid is marked as A1 to J10. Players will place five ships in their grid: a PT boat (2 spaces), a Cruiser and a Submarine (3 spaces each), an Aircraft Carrier (four spaces) and a battleship (5 spaces).
On each player's turn, they will guess a location. The opponent then checks their deployed ships and lets the acting player know if this was a 'hit' or a 'miss'. If iut is a hit, and a ship is sunk, this is also relayed to the acting player. Each player, in addition to their grid, has a grid to keep track of the hits and misses that they make. Once a player has sunk all five of his opponent's ships, he has won.
There is a variant (Salvo) that allows each player to make multiple shots each turn, set by the number of ships they have remaining. This way, a player with four remaining ships will get more shots than a player with only two remaining ships. The way the number of shots is determined (one per remaining ship, one per remianing ship + 1 additional shot if the battleship is still afloat, etc.) varies.
What's Wrong With This Game?
When you are 6 and 8 (as my boys are), this is a fun game. Guessing, sinking ships. All fun stuff.
Once you are more than 10 years old, however, the fact that this game is 'solved' becomes evident. Firing at random locations is not what you do any longer -- you create a grid of shots that ensures that the largest remaining ship cannot hide. This is no longer a game as much as it is a simple matter of isolating the ships' locations systematically and removing them from the board. This is possible because the ships cannot move at all once placed.
Conclusions
The game is not bad, in and of itself. It is simply not very fun once you understand that it is solved. If you have small kids -- they may like it. But save the money and play it on graph-paper or something. It the kids are any older, get them a game where they can make some true tactical and strategic choices each turn.
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David Heiligmann
United States
San Antonio
Texas
30 years ago, I was put on the original Car Wars!
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Oh, man!
You sank my battleship!
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Chris Topher
United States
Dist of Columbia
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Why don't you review Chutes and Ladders next?
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John "Omega" Williams
United States
Michigan
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Sorry. Thats not "solving" the game. Thats building a strategy. and its not a 100% victory strategy. I've been beaten by random patterns to my nice grid many many a time. Just as I've won several. Nothings solved there.
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J. Chris Miller
United States
Utah
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Try Battleship: Galaxies. It's a great game...They need to come out with an expansion though.
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William Garramone
United States
Nashville
Tennessee
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jormungard wrote: Why don't you review Chutes and Ladders next? LMAO 
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Tom Curtis
United States
Oregon
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When the kids get older, get them Checkpoint: Danger! It's like Battleship, except good.
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2810/checkpoint-danger
-Mathematical deduction is used to triangulate your opponent's agents instead of plain guessing.
-Some amount of placement strategy exists to make your agents harder to find.
-The board doesn't fold upwards and leave a cavity between the top and bottom that the little pieces can get stuck in. (Always hated this about Battleship.)
-Games don't take as long to play, so there's time for a rematch.
Who hasn't played Battleship as a kid? But also, who hasn't also stopped playing it at some point?
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K. David Ladage
United States
Cedar Rapids
Iowa
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jormungard wrote: Why don't you review Chutes and Ladders next?
Why don't you review Chutes and Ladders?
Was there a point to this post? Or were you just being a... well, you know...
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Richard Hutnik
United States
Poughkeepsie
New York
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jormungard wrote: Why don't you review Chutes and Ladders next?
I am tempted to actually make Chutes and Ladders a game with some decision making in it, where players would manipulate the board to muck with other players in the game. Still have to think best way to do it. Why? Because it is there.
Well, I did take the heart of what is in Chutes and Ladders and made it FAR worse with W.W.B. Next up, to maybe do the opposite and try to make it better.
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Mike Pranno
United States
Chardon
Ohio
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jormungard wrote: Why don't you review Chutes and Ladders next?
My kids actually liked this one much better.
Shootin' Ladders: Frag Fest
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