As I'm still waiting for my first game, I thought I'd ask the assembled crew:
How many ships, realistically, can one player manage during a game? As a ballpark kind of number...
Thanks!:happy:
Chris
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As I'm still waiting for my first game, I thought I'd ask the assembled crew:
How many ships, realistically, can one player manage during a game? As a ballpark kind of number...
Thanks!:happy:
Chris
I would say 3 max and that would slow the game down quite a bit. I would try to never have more than 2 per person, and personally, would only want to sail one. That is going to change of course depending on what level of rules you are playing with and how many optional rules you add on top of that.
I'm like you in preferring the sailing of just one ship. The few times I've play WoG I've only flown one and that was plenty. The rules for SoG when supplemented with Standard, Advanced, Optional rules will be more than enough for one person, one ship.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Royal Hajj
I let my group fly up to two planes in WoG. The game moves along nicely. I am going to start them at 1 ship as there are more decisions to make with SoG. Then I may give them two. They are good players and have done age of sail before but I am going to wait a while before trying three each.
In Wings, I don't have too much of an issue flying multiple planes, but when I do, I lose the personal connection that I have when I fly just one. When it's the one, it's me flying that baby and I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone shoot me down. When I have two or more planes, I just don't get that same feeling.
It's the same with the ships, but even more so because there is so much more to track as a player that I get further and further removed from the ships and their crew.
Great! Thanks for the input! :thumbsup:
Yeah, I think a lot depends on the level of rules being played. When you are playing with everything, I think anything beyond one or two is going to drive you nuts!
I will prefer players to run one ship, with the possibility of respawning. I think Keith is spot on regarding the personal connection. I want the players to feel like captains, not admirals, if you will. If I ever run a large and long game, I assume i would be doing so with a unique set of players who are more interested in exploring a situation than playing a fun, relatively quick game. In the large-game situation, players can run two ships because it is the overall battle that is the focus, as opposed to how well a given ship is doing. I hope that makes sense.
I'm in the one ship per player camp. I think you could practically control 2 or maybe 3 ships per player but, especially with the
2 card movement (which i still dont like) you are on the way to player overload. And I think that one player per ship is more appropriate anyway, given the essentially skirmish nature of the rules (especially if using an exxpanded stat set for frigates and smaller ships) . There are much better sets out there for playing bigger actions
But you know once there are the appropriate ships, someone will try to do Trafalgar.Quote:
Originally Posted by David Manley
David,Quote:
Originally Posted by Coog
Sounds like a challenge for your next event in Portsmouth! Getting Sails of Glory players from around the UK and Europe to play a super size game!
It does, but I was thinking the Nile may be a better one to try at Gosport; for a start, with the Wave 2 ships coming we can cover more of the OOB.
I've done Trafalgar several times using FLoB (usually takes about 4 hours, although with the basic rules only, good preparation and with experienced players we fought it to a conclusion in 2 once), although that was with 4-6 players. The big Close Action games I've played in the US had 40-odd players, one (maybe two) players per ship. Grand affairs, took about 8-9 hours. Great fun as long as you didn't get killed early on, and if your side were well disciplined and had practiced a lot (if not it would descend into chaos that had more in common with the early battles of the Dutch Wars or the Armada rather than the well drilled fleets of the Napoleonic Wars!)
Oh yes, I'm just waiting for the "we've got the record for the biggest game" posts to start appearing :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Coog
I have seen some of those Close Action games run by Mark Campbell on the floor. Players sat around the perimeter of the room and called out their movement to Mark or someone designated to move the ships. Never looked like much fun to me. Using Fire As She Bears rules players can control a squadron of 4-5 ships.Quote:
Originally Posted by David Manley
Eric
Maybe in a one v one game with experienced players you could control a squadron each, or maybe I just have X-Wing on the brain at the moment!:dazed:
Looks can be deceptive - they were gripping affairsQuote:
Originally Posted by DeRuyter
As long as you don't use the crew management aspect of the rules, a good player who has reasonable decisiveness should be able to handle two ships and keep the game at a brisk pace. Three, I think, crosses the line into risky.
DeRuyter I have x-wing on the brain as well haha. But Sails is a different beast. I am used to two planes in WoG and so when I first played Sails I ran 2 ships and didn't have any issues, maybe to the point of preferring 2 to 1. However, more than that and I think it would get out of hand.
I know I am not nearly as experienced as most here having not played many miniature games or Wings, however I think two would be about the top of what I would recommend. To be perfectly honest I would really think one would work better, but on occasion jumping up to two to be able to play different scenarios would probably be welcome in time.
If you are going to go multiple ships per person I would advise if possible making them different classes (at minimum) or different ratings just to help keep which is which straight in your mind. In the demo game I played with two frigates it got a bit confusing trying to remember which was which.
That said I do think options with the ability to respawn would make things better in case one has a quick exit. Also I think scenarios where maybe the vanguard frigates arrive on the scene first and in x many rounds the SOLs start to show up might be fun, that way you will often have just one ship in the real thick of it, since realistically the survivor of the frigate battle will add a little but probably exit quickly from the SOL fight.
The question I think might be interesting is which optional rules will be introduced before the multiple ships are. To me if you were going all out with the optional rules for example I would no way want to play multiple ships, so where is the happy medium of using multiple ships and optional rules.
I have only played twice, both times with the basic rules. first time with the big guys, second with the small ones. the rules are coming together pretty good and we only play with one ship apeice. I am going to keep it that way until we get thru all the rules then become comfortable with the rules before going to more that one ship.
We expect to be able to handle 3 or 4 a piece using the grease pencil ship logs. Without having to move chits around, it's going to clear a lot of confusion off the playing surface and keep record keeping concise.
By the way David, I agree with you about planning the second movement card. WoG turns are seconds in length, a turn in SoG is at least a minute if not more. Hard to say without the actual game scale. Accidental collisions were few (I'm sure they happened), because the battle developed slowly enough, that reaction time is increased. This will get house ruled here, I'm sure.