Does anyone find that the game is *too* quick?

[AlyssaFaden]

All -

I got the game just prior to Christmas and I've had the opportunity to play it four times now. I really dig the period and aspect of this warfare and think they did a great job of handling complex aspects - such as wind direction, sail size, handling etc - very elegantly and intuitively. But I can't shake the fact that it's LETHAL. Last night it took us longer to set up than to actually play. ONE salvo took out half of the participating ships.

I've seen this in all 4 games now: ships of the line destroyed in one go or sinking 1-2 turns later due to fires or flooding.

For example:


This resulted in three of the frigates being wiped out from the game: one the next turn (flooding/fire), the other two a turn later (fire/flooding).

Last night was the only time we've run with the optional "first salvo" rule which gave the french ships about 10 tokens and the English 9, but note that there are no raking shots here. The ships getting hit from both sides I can *kinda* understand should and would get mauled, but the ones on each flank I would not have expected to get so heavily beaten up from ONE broadside.

Basically fire, flooding, boarding and collisions seem to do damage that is off the scale with what the ships can handle. Has anyone else observed this or have any thoughts on giving them a little more durability?

[Moideeb]

I haven't found that. The two games i have played, one with two frigates, the other with two frigates and two SOLs, lasted around an hour each. There was a point when my opponent crashed his SOL into his frigate, and that almost sank his frigate in one go, but the damage to the SOL was negligible. To be fair, we only played with the standard rules, so maybe it speeds up with the advanced rules.

[The Mad Hatter]

We played two games in about 4 hours, each lasted about 90 minutes or so, definitely didn't feel it played too fast. What is causing so much damage to the ships (is everything a broadsides at super close range)?

[AlyssaFaden]

Well it has varied (across four games), so I wouldn't want to home in on a specific instance, but examples from the previous games:
- first game I had a collision between ships and almost wrecked my frigate (it hit the slower SoL). Yeah, I started my maneuvering learning process right there.
- first game I had a ship catch 3 fires. Because you can only put one out at a time and because it takes 2 turns for each one, I ended up drawing a MASS of damage from the fires alone
- boarding parties pretty much decimate the crews, which I guess is realistic but this happens in ONE turn
- never had a need for doubleshot or chain, or firing high, because regular broadsides (or half broadside and a rake) do enough damage to maul the opposition. I've never seen a ship that can handle 2 broadsides.
- last night this was the damage from the above round:


The fire and the leak finished this ship on the following turn.




BTW, we are running the advanced rules. We're not using exploding magazines and in one game (last night) we used the "first salvo," otherwise we're pretty much stock.

[Diamondback]

Apropos to nothing other than your registering right before the site tried to go Keel Up, a belated "Welcome Aboard!" :)

[AlyssaFaden]

Apropos to nothing other than your registering right before the site tried to go Keel Up, a belated "Welcome Aboard!" :)

HEY MAN! There you are! Yes, last month this site seemed to be struggling so I walked away for a bit. I was reminded of it today so it's utterly great to see you here.

[7eat51]

The games I ran at two cons ran a decent time. Ryan mentioned about one set - two hours each using a basic/standard rule mix without wind changes. Fairly straightforward games. The other con was a bigger game - 4 on 4 with merchant ships and some respawning. It lasted well over three hours. Both of these games were with played and run by newbies. I imagine by fall of this year, the times on each game would be trimmed some. The only devastating instances, if my memory is correct, were SoLs firing upon frigates, and in one game, one of the sides engaging in self-abuse by perpetually sailing into each other.

[AlyssaFaden]

Hm, okay. So when I have witnessed in all 4 games I have played any ship typically not being able to withstand more than 1-2 broadsides, this is an oddity? Game turn-wise things seem to be on peg with what everyone else is saying here, it's the ships inability to withstand any level of damage that has me going "hmmmm."

[Andy Blozinski]

Were you only using one mat? I'm looking at the game photos and those ships are all right on top of each and there are hardly anything other than B tokens. I ran a pretty big mat at Millenniumcon and there was a lot of A token firing.

[Diamondback]

Alyssa, this is also why frigates generally did not engage SOL's in reality--as seen by the example of Serieuse at the Nile, stepping up to engage Nelson's line alongside the big boys and getting blasted into toothpicks by a single broadside for it.

Maybe try an SOL-on-SOL with a frigate circling and harrying? Then you'd have to give the SOL-only side a bit of a handicap, like say that ship takes one less point of damage than printed on the chit, or something, but it might be more balanced than the equivalent of trying to take on an Abrams tank with a couple of Jeeps. :)

[AlyssaFaden]

Diamond - we did this (last night). The images posted are all SoL and three SoL were taken out with ONE salvo.

Andy - I think you might be onto something. Being new to the game we've been using one mat, but this may well be constraining us to close quarter action. It may be time to play on a bigger area.

[Drkangell]

I don't think it plays quickly. I think what you have run into is where your maneuvers have brought you so close that everyone is getting off full broadsides, and that WILL end a game quickly. That being said, I have not played yet with fires and leaks and everything else, perhaps those make the game end that much faster as well. But I do believe it is a game dependent on your maneuvering and strategy, trying to get a good shot on an enemy ship while taking less or no damage from them, doing things unexpectedly, etc.

[Bellerophon]

The ships are fragile damage-wise, yes, but they also maintain the ability to dole out punishment to the bitter end. In my games so far, we noticed that the high high burden of most SOLs meant that killing their crew was in fact the most effective way of defeating them.

[The Mad Hatter]

I'd say I've had a bit of different experience....

We had one game where a ship had been depleted to just about zero guns (I think it was a frigate) and all it could do was get close and try to hit it's enemies with musket fire! I don't know what the percentage was, but I think it was a very small number of engagements where ships actually were sunk. Typically crews surrendered and ships were captured. Most sinking of ships I've read about happened when a vessel was too damaged to be repaired and scuttled by the victor.

I know there are the one or two instances where a power magazine exploded, but overall I think true sinking like we think of in modern terms happened very infrequently. This would add historical credence to your statement Bellerophon - often times it was defeating the crew that meant victory versus truly sinking an enemy vessel.

[Cpt Kangaroo]

Ok, I know this is going to sound strange, sorry...

Have you been following the firing method closely, for instance, you keep using the highest chit until one box is filled, then go to the next. Looking at your chits and not knowing the order they were picked, the game should not have been over that quick.

I suspect you are applying the damage incorrectly to where the impact is much more severe.

Did I guess right?

If not then I dunno!

I will say that after running a bunch of games at Hurricon, with many ships in a large area, they gave out and took a lot of punishment, except in one instance where an SOL monstered a Frigate using a bow rake at close quarters. That was on the ugly side.

I hope this helps.

[Berthier]

except in one instance where an SOL monstered a Frigate using a bow rake at close quarters. That was on the ugly side.

As it should be!

[David Manley]

The lethality of the damage system and hence the speed of play and typical duration of game were one of the talking points during development. As I recall at one stage it was even more deadly! the resulting level is part of the "history vs playability" argument; the rate of damage can be reduced simply by applying a blanket adjustment to burden at least for basic damage) if you really wanted. The advantage of course of a "fast" system like this is that (like Wings) you can probably get two or three games into a session rather than just one, and that those games are going to be decisive.

[kelsith]

I can't say for certain because I am not there but it looks like the Goliath took 20 chits of orange "B" chits in one round.

I haven't received my game yet but do both of the French SOLs have a 10 for full broadside? From the layout there should not have been any raking shots, and from the picture it appears the left most SOL may not have had a full broadside. Is it possible that you are firing from every firing arc that could hit the ship on that turn? Maybe firing with the port aft arc on one ship then with both the starboard mid and aft arcs on the other French SOL. If so that may be part of the problem. You can only fire the broadsides on one arc per side each turn. If you are firing from multiple arcs per side (esp at close range) then I would imagine the game would be very dramatically sped up.

[tmon]

The ships are fragile damage-wise, yes, but they also maintain the ability to dole out punishment to the bitter end. In my games so far, we noticed that the high high burden of most SOLs meant that killing their crew was in fact the most effective way of defeating them.

Of course the the killing of the crew represents making the crew completely ineffective to handle the ship not actually the killing off of all of the crew.

[Beowulf03809]

One of my favorite reads on the time is Seize the Fire which deals with the Trafalgar engagement but covers so much more than just the movement of the ships. Anyway, that gives an amazing, personal perspective on just how deadly these engagements really are. As mentioned above loss of crew to the point that the ship could no longer be properly manned was one of the biggest factors in victory, rather than actual sinking of the ships. In fact, sinking a ship meant no prize money. But the utter destructive firepower of an SoL is something that is hard to comprehend. I imagine when we have some First and Second Rate ships in the mix you'll see the mechanics work out better for longer but no less deadly encounters, but with these smaller ships...

[AlyssaFaden]

Thank you all for your musings and thoughts.

Rather than quoting individual people I'll just respond in a blanket manner:

- I re-looked at the applying damage rules last night and re-read them twice. I'm definitively applying damage correctly and filling a space before moving to the next.

- In the example posted the 20 damage chits comes from two french broadsides delivered at close quarters using the optional FIRST SALVO rule. This was the first time that we had used this rule as I felt there was historical precedence.

- We are definitively not firing all three arcs! =D

- We are using the advanced rules (basic and standard seemed too ... um ... basic, lol) and fire and leaks are pretty deadly in that. Fire especially. I had a ship once get three fires in one broadside and while the damage wasn't that bad, the fires MURDERED the ship a few rounds later.

I think a combination of the small playing area (one mat) plus quick rules (noted that this way you could get a few games in) are contributing to my experiences. Because we use the advanced rules and several optional rules, running 3 ships each it takes a small amount of time to set up and get ready. A very quick game is therefore out of balance with this. I think if we make our playing area larger (commensurate with the setup time and rule depth we're using) and tweak damage a little (we're thinking of upping bulk per ship, making it so two fires or two leaks have to be caused in order to cause that effect, and reducing the time it takes to extinguish a fire (1 round versus 2)). This would then be our house-ruled 'one session this evening' type of game. If we want a quick, murderous game and get in a few of them, we'll drop the house rules.

[HMS Lydia]

Some Thoughts:

Its way to easy cause damage to yourself through accidental collisions. No historical precedent that I can find on this. This is caused by sticking to the 2 card planning rule. A single card already causes a severe lack of maneuver flexibility. Sailing ships were slow but had very large rudders. We will not be using the 2nd Planned Movement card even with advanced rules games. It just doesn't seem to work right, for airplanes where turns equal seconds sure, sailing ships no way.

Seems like it should be easier to knock masts down. This seems to low probability in the game. there is only a 3.33% chance of a mast hit on the A and B tables. Of course there is only a 3.33% chance of fire, sail or rudder as well. There is almost a 7% chance of Mast on the C table. Flooding and crew are two most probable special damages (almost 17% for crew in A, 23% in B; and 7% for Flooding on both A & B). Now I realize rudder and sail damage can cause a broken mast, but not sure yet how this increases the probability of loosing a mast, haven't played enough yet. Will have to play way more games before I can comment further.

Bob

[AlyssaFaden]

The % breakdown is interesting. Because we're pulling out fire, rudder, mast damage seemingly in every slavo I'll have to take a look at my chits, because it sure feels like I have higher percentages!

I an intrigued by your removal of the second maneuver card and completely agree with the damage caused through collisions. We actually removed that particular rule and do not use it (between friendly ships).

[HMS Lydia]

I don't have the sets in front of me. But I believe there were 3 fire chits in A, 3 fire chits in B. Out of 90 chit sets my percentages should be correct.

[Diamondback]

OT, Historian's Observation: This shows you why the SOL was the Weapon of Mass Destruction of its day, feared on the same level as the modern ICBM. "Global Power and Global Reach", pre-modern-technology style... LOL

[Eldil]

I've seen this in all 4 games now: ships of the line destroyed in one go or sinking 1-2 turns later due to fires or flooding.

I've had similar experiences--the raw damage is lethal enough in the game, but adding fire or leak damage, and ships can die really quick. I think this is intentional, but if you're unlucky on the draw and pull two fire chits in a single blast, it's a huge blow--that's at least six full boxes of damage, regardless of ship type.

If you wanted to slightly lessen the impact of special damages, you could consider allowing repair and extinguish fire actions to be planned even when there is no damage or fire (thematically, the action would represent assembling the fire or repair crew and keeping them at the ready), and allowing those actions to be renewed (left face-up in your action box) when unused, turn-to-turn (they would still count as an action). I'm seriously considering implementing this as a house rule in my own games.

[Berthier]

Historical damage:

"Victory's 50 double and even treble shotted port side guns fired into the French flagships flimsy stern....dismounted 20 guns and killed and wounded hundreds of her crew"




So under perfect condiitons (double shotted stern rake meaning more than 2000lb of lead flying about) the damage inflcited can be catastrophic. The rules are if you get close dont get raked and dont pick fights with the big boys unless they cant fight back. The damage for the same broadside delivered side to side would have been telling, but nothing like the level of this.

[Bellerophon]

I think it's important to remember too that much of the game is balanced around standard rules, where surrendering through losing enough boxes is the only way to lose. Fires and Floods add a lot of deadliness - if you want to extend your game, play with no special damages.

[The Royal Hajj]

The % breakdown is interesting. Because we're pulling out fire, rudder, mast damage seemingly in every slavo I'll have to take a look at my chits, because it sure feels like I have higher percentages!

I an intrigued by your removal of the second maneuver card and completely agree with the damage caused through collisions. We actually removed that particular rule and do not use it (between friendly ships).

Would this be the Alyssa Faden of Torn Armor?? I'm pretty sure it has to be... I backed your KS as well.

[AlyssaFaden]

Would this be the Alyssa Faden of Torn Armor?? I'm pretty sure it has to be... I backed your KS as well.

it is, it is! Small world! (a) thank you for beinga backer, and (b) really glad to meet you here as well as now we are gaming friends on two fronts!

[AlyssaFaden]

On the subject of special damage and such: we personally like the special damage chits, but we are thinking about any combination of the following:
- doubling ship burden
- having fire/leaks only take effect when the second card of that type is drawn and allowing for the '1/2 fire' or '1/2 leak' to be put out/fixed before it becomes a full fire/leak, thus before it actually does telling damage.
- allowing crewmen to fix fires/leaks in the same turn, thus minimizing the catastrophic effects of multiple fires/leaks

Playing on a bigger mat is the first order of business though as this will doubtlessly lead to firing at greater ranges.

[The Royal Hajj]

it is, it is! Small world! (a) thank you for beinga backer, and (b) really glad to meet you here as well as now we are gaming friends on two fronts!

Well, welcome to the site then!

[csadn]

So under perfect condiitons (double shotted stern rake meaning more than 2000lb of lead flying about) the damage inflcited can be catastrophic.

More specifically: _Victory_'s carronades carried a "normal" 68-lb. ball, followed by a canister round filled with ~500 musket balls. The ball made a Big Hole; the canister flew through the hole, and disintegrated.

Do. The. Math. >:)

[Bellerophon]

I feel like the game is abstract enough that Victory's carronades will be factored into its "normal" broadsides rating.

[fredmiracle]

Part of me says that if a ship sailed in between two enemy SOLs, both at close range, and let them each get good and ready and unleash their best broadside, you were indeed going to be seriously messed up. Are such results out of line?

Another thing it suggests to me is to use an extra counter set to create a custom pool that adds more 0, 1, 2, crew hit, etc. to dilute the critical hits some. I wouldn't want to give up the fire and water stuff altogether!

[AlyssaFaden]

I tend to concur. My experiences have been across 4 games and not this isolated incidence, but I have started to lean towards a custom tile pool for damage that throttles back on the critical hits a little.Lydia's post above eports a 3% chance for some criticals, but in all truth I am seeing them in every broadside, which has me wanting to lay out my hit chits to see if something is amiss.

[Shoot@Me]

Keep in mind, that's a 3.33% chance PER chit drawn, and when all chits are in the bag... So if you draw seven chits, well...

[AlyssaFaden]

Yeah, yeah, I get that. Still, Mast hits, leaks and fires seem to come up very often and SoLs go down and get sunk very, very quickly.

[The Mad Hatter]

Alyssa,

Nothing wrong with pulling half the special damage chits out? Or, if you have a second set of damage chits, throw them in with none of the special damage ones. Give it a whirl, can't hurt anything by experimenting and finding the right "level" that you enjoy most!

[SeaRoyal20]

I don't think it plays too fast but I could bee it ending quickly is two aggressive player move right at each other and are more about broadsides as opposed to maneuvering.

[AlyssaFaden]

Well as indicated above, this was over 4 separate games. BUT I will agree with what someone said above: the single mat is basically removing all maneuvering opportunities and keeping things at close quarters. We played on a 2-mat sized area yesterday and there was a lot more A-range shots, which certainly made for a longer game.

[Beowulf03809]

Had my first game yesterday with my 10 year old son controlling HMS Defense and I was sharing the helm of Généreux with my 8 year old daughter. My son just drove forward while we did a little maneuvering but he got the first broadside off on us as a (barely!) front raking shot as well as Musket fire. Naturally we drew more 5's and 6's on damage than I would have liked and lost a few boxes. And his musket fire was very effective as well. Our return musket shot came up with only hone hit. Next turn we got our first broadside and we saw my son pull four 0's from the bag. When he got into position for his second shot on us it pretty much sealed the fate of the French ship.

We could have maneuvered out earlier but each went with the "engage the enemy more closely" tactic and it really can be brutal. Two broadsides can take you mostly out of commission even without special damage. Of course, it's luck of the chits. A few 1's and 2's in our pull and we could have been in a better position to carry on the fight.

[Comfect]

I have one minor question about how you're doing damage, although I'm sure from the pictures it does not explain all of your damage. You refer to doing a lot of damage with "half broadside and a rake" - but I'm pretty sure you only get rake benefit if you can rake with your central (i.e. full) broadside?

[AlyssaFaden]

is that true? Really? I just through that any arc could do it as long as it crossed the front/back edge of the target while tracing a line to the center mast.

[Comfect]

is that true? Really? I just through that any arc could do it as long as it crossed the front/back edge of the target while tracing a line to the center mast.

From the Standard rules, p. 25:
"The attacking player must trace a line of sight from the dot of the central firing arc to the main mast of the target ship. If the line passes through one of the short side of the target base, the ship may fire a raking shot from its central firing arc."

Certainly seems like the raking shot must come from the central firing arc.

[AlyssaFaden]

*nods* I would have that wrong, yes. While the original picture posted above did not feature any raking shots at all, that is a rule I have been misapplying!

[Comfect]

The pictures are why I figured it didn't explain most of your damage problems! But it probably compounded them a little in the aftermath of the vicious first barrages. That is a lot of B tokens...

[AlyssaFaden]

Yeah, and those B tokens were from that one broadside pictured, lol. The "First broadside" rule definitely plays a part in that, I get that, plus the salvos from each side of the target ship. But ... still ... it basically means that a SoL can withstand 2 close quarter broadsides and that is it ... which is why I asked this question.

Now in the sake of honesty we did player on 2 mats (actually a slightly larger area) and the longer ranges made for a longer game as the A chits seems to be way less effective. But then this has only had me pondering on the lethality of the B chits in comparison!

[Diamondback]

Might address something a few of us were looking at in other ways, having the "turn ships and crews into toothpicks and hamburger" effect of close-range carronading be represented by the B pool, with the reduced damage-expectancy of longer-range (outside carronade reach) gunnery being represented by the A pool.