|
Post by ding73ding on Sept 3, 2009 0:20:58 GMT -5
Ok this is MY thread. Not sure if anyone but me would contribute, but if you read it and post some ideas, I'd appreciate I think you're going more for a simulation... That's it, Admiral. Well ok maybe not 100% simulation, simulations can get out of hand and easily kill the fun of it. Again I refer back to chess. I hope to get a game (note I'm happy to get it, not invent it myself) that balance thinking with fun. So first thing I want to get rid of is the 50 page rule book (referring to the current semi-official Pirates Code FAQ) and IIRC the rule book doesn't even include the complete stats and abilities of all units. I am looking for a game that can be FULLY described, rules and stats included, in under 10 pages. And really 5 pages would be better still. Ok I challenged you to work out your core idea. So here is mine: Create a table-top game of the high sea that can be fully described in 10 pages or less, that evoke the feeling of the age of sails. 5-6 ship types? Does that mean 5-6 ship keywords (junks, longships, square-riggers) or generic ships? No, there will be no keywords and no special abilities. All ship types are generic and have the same abilities. But the stats of each type will assigns each a natural role. E.g. some ships will have lots of cargo space: treasure ship. One type will be fast and low cost, one type will be ship-of-the-line. That aspect of may end up making the game more like Age of Empire. So for example, one of the ship types is treasure ship: move: S+L, masts: 3, cannons: 4S, 4S, cargo: 4. Yes in this game, generally the number of masts (HP) is different from the number of cannons (damage). Actually I am quite tempted to eliminate the individual cannons, and replace with more typical attack/defense/damage/HP stats. Just one roll of die to resolve a shot action, not 5 rolls of die for a 5-mast ship. Speed up the pace of the game. Ok get back on track. So I just gave the complete stats of the treasure ship type, each and every ship of this type would be identical in game play, same stats, same abilities. In the spirit of "evoke the feeling of..." I would say having unique ship names, sails, flags and decorations would be a good idea. But as far as game play is concerned, each treasure ship is identical to each other, each blockade runner is identical to each other etc. At this point, I actually like to consult the resident historian. How fast were ship-of-the-line in the real world? Are they as fast or even faster than smaller ship? If they are fast, powerful (attack) and armored (defense) than what's stopping everyone just throwing them out in the sea? high construction cost? Or they may have maneuverability problem? In that case, we may have to figure out some way to simulate the maneuverability deficit of big gunboats. Pirates already have a rule about turning so that's not too tough to implement. Oh one more crazy idea: sea monster is an NPC. NPC in a table-top game you say? Yeah, I think it's possible to make up a action rule set for sea monster so it can roam the sea and randomly attack player-controlled ships. Kind of like iceberg in the official game actually, but more dangerous. I always think that making sea monsters controlled by player and/or nation is kind of odd. Anyway, long enough for now.
|
|
|
Post by Swift Nic on Sept 3, 2009 4:06:32 GMT -5
Historically, a warship might have up to ten times as many crew as a merchant ship of the same size. Getting enough crew is what makes them more expensive to operate.
A sailing vessels speed is dependent on wind speed and direction. This is modified by various factors, chiefly the ships design, the crews skill and the sail efficiency. A very good sailing vessel might reach 70% of wind speed. 50% is more typical for most vessels. Without magic, no one sails faster than the wind.
You might consider four basic classes of vessel:
A) Boats: Lightly built, small - medium open vessels operating close to a coast. They are pretty agile and sail well in light weather, many will have oars which can make them very quick over short distances. These might have a relatively large crew for boarding but are unlikely to have much firepower. Where they do mount cannon these are likely to be pointing forward over the bow. e.g. fishing boats, galleys, smugglers, buccaneers, natives, etc.
B) Merchants: seagoing vessels of all sizes and types carrying cargo. These have minimal crew and weapons. They are generally good sailors but can be very variable in quality. A clipper is likely to be a much faster sailor than a collier, for example. Obviously Merchants are not going to do well in a fight, so they should get victory points for delivering cargo. Trade is the lifeblood of nations!
C) Warships: Strongly built medium to large oceangoing vessels, their main strength is cannons and crew. Maximum firepower arranged on gundecks in broadsides. Defensively they are much more resistant to damage than a merchant or most other vessels. Their large crew makes them ferocious boarders and also fairly maneuverable.
D) Pirates and Privateers: small to medium size vessels. Their main purpose is attacking merchants. Typically a Pirate is just a merchant ship with a large crew of brigands aboard. They need to be speedy so may be lightly built. They have a large crew for boarding and some firepower but not as much as a warship. Light Cannon and swivel guns are most likely used for disabling an opponent or clearing the enemies deck with grapeshot. (This class might also include whalers as a vessel type.)
If you want to include sea monsters, submersibles and other weird stuff e.g cursed, they ought to be a distinct class of their own.
Regards,
Nic
|
|
|
Post by Swift Nic on Sept 3, 2009 4:37:30 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by woelf on Sept 3, 2009 8:51:50 GMT -5
So first thing I want to get rid of is the 50 page rule book (referring to the current semi-official Pirates Code FAQ) and IIRC the rule book doesn't even include the complete stats and abilities of all units. FYI, the November 2008 version of The Pirate Code is considered 100% official. The only reason it was never uploaded to the WK site was because by that point there was no one left to upload it. I posted it at BGG after WK was shut down to make it available to everyone that needed it, but that doesn't make it any less "official". The only "semi-official" one would be the update I've been neglecting for the past couple months, but when I do finally release that it'll be marked as "unofficial". If you're cutting out abilities completely (which would also take out crew and UTs), getting the entire rulebook down to 5 pages is most certainly possible. At least 90%* of what's in the Pirate Code is there because of abilities and their interactions with the rules or eachother, both directly and indirectly. Even the few sections that would remain after an ability-purge would be significantly shorter. (*Plus, much of that 90% is there only to prevent excessive rules-lawyering, not because there are actual problems with the abilities.)
|
|
|
Post by ding73ding on Sept 3, 2009 9:43:48 GMT -5
FYI, the November 2008 version of The Pirate Code is considered 100% official. Right! Corrected my original post. Thanks. Right... rules-lawyering. Yikes. I am a scientist by profession, so (1) I like to be very precise and (2) I hate lawyers. So when I try to play the game "properly" I found myself "lawyering". How frustrating is that! Most of the ability reads fine on each card. The common crews can do some seagoing/piratey things, unique crews and treasures recreate historic/fictional themes and storylines. I opened a pack last night and got Davy Jones' Curse, yeah it reads like a fun little addition to the game, but when you start piling them on, you end up with rules-lawyering.
|
|
|
Post by ding73ding on Sept 3, 2009 9:51:02 GMT -5
Historically, a warship might have up to ten times as many crew as a merchant ship of the same size. Getting enough crew is what makes them more expensive to operate. Thanks for the explanation. I can sense that history will spell trouble for my tabletop game. Warships just seem too powerful. I suspect, historically, their limitation is cost (manpower), which can be translating into game rule easily; and fog-of-war (FOW) which is hard to include in a tabletop game (unless we jump over to Battleship(TM) LOL) This little silly project of mine needs more deliberations
|
|
|
Post by woelf on Sept 3, 2009 12:46:24 GMT -5
Right... rules-lawyering. Yikes. I am a scientist by profession, so (1) I like to be very precise and (2) I hate lawyers. So when I try to play the game "properly" I found myself "lawyering". How frustrating is that! Most of the ability reads fine on each card. The common crews can do some seagoing/piratey things, unique crews and treasures recreate historic/fictional themes and storylines. I opened a pack last night and got Davy Jones' Curse, yeah it reads like a fun little addition to the game, but when you start piling them on, you end up with rules-lawyering. I should clarify... When I say "rules-lawyering", I don't mean the "good" kind that can happen when when players run into an unclear situation and have to stop for a moment to figure out the best way to handle it. This can happen in almost any game, either because it actually is something not covered by the rules, or it's because the players accidently missed something in the rules. I mean "rules-lawyering" in the more derogatory sense, where players would actively seek out loopholes in the wording of rules or abilities for the sole purpose of giving themselves an unfair advantage. Just to throw out a few examples, these would be things like the infinite oarsman trick, Attack of the Clonahs, the sac+doctor+recruiter combo, gold factories, submersible/flying Guichuans, the move-shoot-move-shoot endless loop, and "God" ships. Most of the people around here probably don't even remember half of those, but now they're mostly non-issues because they have long since been fixed via rulings or changes to the actual rulebook, or in the case of that last one are too cost prohibitive to even matter outside of a high-point deathmatch game.
|
|
|
Post by admiralb on Sept 3, 2009 15:31:45 GMT -5
flying Behemoths maybe...but Guichuan...when did that ever happen? Sea Dragons can't carry crew...but yeah, those were all crazy in their time
anyway...a simplified version of Pirates could be interesting...as you compared it to chess, I'm getting it more...you have a certain number of ship types...probably like Swift Nic said...and each type has a built in thing they do and how fast they move...this way you only need to one set of pieces for each player, you'd get probably 1 warship and a few of each of the other types. One deckplate for each type, only difference between fleets would be what flag they fly.
So...for a 1-on-1 game you'd each get say 1 warship, 2-3 pirate ships, 2-3 merchants, and 2-3 small boats. the warship would be used to go hunt down ships, the pirates would be used to steal treasure from other ships, the merchants would be the ships that actually carried the gold, and the small ships would be short range hunters and could carry treasure between merchant ships and home (not really sure about the boats, but just an example). A game would end up being something like...I move my warship toward your merchants to sink them before they get treasure or capture the treasure with my pirates before it gets home. the small boats would probably be escort types...defend the merchants as they get closer to home. Not really sure how it would play out as of yet...I guess the warship speed would be a big factor in determining the pace of the game...hmm...anyway, it has potential...although, I'm not sure it warrants its own new game...maybe anew rule set on how to play the "Pirates Lite" or whatever you're calling it. plus they'd probably be faster games than normal...
|
|
|
Post by ding73ding on Sept 3, 2009 16:25:46 GMT -5
Hmm... you make it sounds so limited I am hoping to work in different variety of games. All-out war (deathmatch), gold rush, search for Atlantis (aka capture the flag), or even a full-scale colonization game (Pirates meet Risk: build a fort on every island/territory) Maybe even work it down to just 3 ship types: transport, small warship, large warship. Transport is the type that actually bring gold or do any work, small warships harass them, large warship hunts small warships (using large warship against transports would be a waste), but a whole pack of small warships should be able to defeat a large warship with only a small loss (wolf packs). That's perhaps what I had in mind when I said "5" types: transport, small warship, large warship, fort, sea monster. That's five. Hey I am starting to brainstorm an idea to implement FOW (which should prevent large warship from absolutely dominating the game) ;D
|
|
|
Post by admiralb on Sept 3, 2009 21:00:39 GMT -5
hmm...I've been playing Star Trek Armada II for entirely too long lately...anyway...similar idea I think...
basic ship types...battleship, assault, destroyer, science, other
battleship: the big, old monsters with huge offensive and defense...not the fastest, but not the slowest either.
assault: mid-size, can pack a punch in groups, variety of types, like your wolf pack idea...can take out battleships but will lose 1-3 ships. faster than battleships, but still slower than destroyers.
destroyer: small attack ships, mainly for recon and attacking undefended outposts, merchants, etc. scouts would probably be in this category...these are the fast ships.
science: probably no analog in Pirates, they carry a variety of special equipment that can be used offensively or defensively. possbily escorts. second slowest ships by type.
other: colony ships, cargo ships, mining ships, repair ships, and construction ships although boiled down the "non-combat" ships (except Klingons because all of their ships are armed, just these ones are poorly armed and should never be specifically used for combat). slowest ships.
you can add the stationary class too of course: starbases, shipyards, resource collection stations, science stations, and turrets...most of which come in a few forms...but these are the basics...Pirates this would be forts, colonies, flotillas (if any).
...fog of war is best gotten rid of by scouts and destroyer because of their speed and cheapness...so if they're destroyed you don't lose a lot of investment, but you gained knowledge of the terrain.
the game usually gives you 2 construction ships, 1 starbase, and 1 scout and a certain amount of resources to build new stuff (gold in pirates of course). of course since Pirates don't need construction ships you can switch that to something like merchant ship...whatever...just putting out the idea and how they did it...
|
|
|
Post by cannonfury on Sept 5, 2009 22:05:53 GMT -5
why dont you use the gold collected to buy ships from your reserves? it finally gives you a differnent reason to collect gold and it gives the game a conquest feel to it and its like generating an economy to build your empire. like lets say you have 5 points of treasure on your homeisalnd, you can use it to bring anything worth 5 points into the game
|
|
|
Post by lord_denton on Sept 6, 2009 12:14:11 GMT -5
Its a interesting concept, despite my initial skepticism.
This is a more of a campaign game, right? I generaly have had trouble with playing a long game over several days, but my usual opponent does not exactly have his head in the game.
RE: Ship of the line:
Ship of the lines were generaly a HUGE investmeant, having the most guns and power of any ship. However, they were pretty slow, and took a very long time to turn.
Therefore, to hunt pirate vessels, raid shipping, scout and patrol navies used frigates. These had much less guns than a ship of the line, but they were smaller, more maneverable, faster, and cheaper. Most of the 5-masters repersented in this game I like to call frigates, since Pirates fighting ships of the line was unthinkable.
Although they might of won against a lone one, frigates did not attack ships of the line either. Even if they might of had a chance they would likely be court-martialed by the admirality for risking their ship in a one-sided battle.
|
|
|
Post by marhawkman on Sept 6, 2009 18:26:15 GMT -5
How big was Blackbeard's ship? I keep thinking he'd managed to steal an actual warship instead of an armed frigate. 300-tons, 40 guns? But no, it's just a large frigate. An actual ship of the line? 2284 tons and 84 guns(the Ganges) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ganges_(1821) But the Ganges was built over 100 years after Queen Anne's Revenge sank, so it's probably not a good comparison. If the Ganges was made into a peice for this game it'd likely be a five master using the same model as the Flying Dutchman.
|
|
|
Post by lord_denton on Sept 6, 2009 19:45:14 GMT -5
Blackbeard's famous flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge (QAR) was a French slave ship (Le Concorde) when she was captured. I believe she was a English ship (Concord) before that, I can't remember what though. Her website proabably says what/so. Blackbeard did add a considerable amount of cannon to her afterwards. He had some sloops with his flottila too, as I imangine QAR would be more a weapon of power, terror and show-the-flag than a true pirate vessel. I would love to do a Blackbeard/famous Pirate expansion to the game, since it would be a new way to work with the Pirates, but it would sort of be complicated because Blackbeard's last battle (Ocorcoke inlet I think is the spelling) was fought with 3 sloops, and that would be a very boring fight in the current game. Also, wikipedia?
|
|
|
Post by marhawkman on Sept 7, 2009 16:22:51 GMT -5
Hehe.... It's a quick and easy source. Doesn't really have much data on ships over a century old. Mostly just the relatively famous ones.
I kinda think that Blackbeard was having thoughts about becoming a true power in the seas. Maybe creating his own little despot empire. QAR's part in that was to be able to outfight small warships.
|
|