Fleet Rules - input welcome!

Hey guys,

As mentioned in another post, I was hoping to see a set of SoG fleet rules that would allow for larger games. So, you should be able to do a 5 on 5 with two players pretty easily. Since it doesn't look like a set has been made and now that we are Corona-bound, I would like to start the process of creating a fleet ruleset. If you have any ideas, let me know. That said, here is what I have so far:

1. Ships are organized into squadrons. Each squadron uses a single maneuver deck of the slowest ship in the squadron. Boards are organized by squadron and are placed in an inverted order above the console. The lead ship in the formation is in the console itself. I attached an image of a squadron board. Now, each ship still has its action tokens. Luckily, there is enough space to fit them with the ship boards stacked.

2. The squadron has the option of either:

a. following the lead ship in line including turns at a single point on a later turn to maintain formation.
b. performing a simultaneous turn and coordinated maneuvers with a single maneuver deck.
c. or split the formation and create a new squadron with a separate maneuver deck.

The tricky part comes in when it comes to broken masts, collisions and getting the formation caught in irons. I would only think that if ships get caught in irons that after that maneuver the squadron is split between those in irons and those still under sail.

What are your thoughts?

-Eric

Pretty much the way I play it Eric, excepting that all ships coordinate with the Commodore's ship until the disruption starts and then every ship that can't comply for whatever reason does its own thing from that point onward.

Rob.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bligh

Pretty much the way I play it Eric, excepting that all ships coordinate with the Commodore's ship until the disruption starts and then every ship that can't comply for whatever reason does its own thing from that point onward.

Rob.

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Rob,

Where do you normally place your Commodore in the squadron, in the lead or in the middle? Just curious if this affects the interactions between the ships in the squadron.

Thanks,
James

Also, Eric, thanks for the post and getting this thread started! Looks good to me, thanks for the ideas.

Thanks.....I hope that we can get enough inputs that we can have a go-to set of rules that work.

-Eric

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JimBlkHwk

Rob,

Where do you normally place your Commodore in the squadron, in the lead or in the middle? Just curious if this affects the interactions between the ships in the squadron.

Thanks,
James

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Depends very much on the senario circumstances, but from preference usually second in the line or in the middle if a large force is in use, and with a repeater Frigate standing off upwind of the flagship if you want to be totally authentic. If you use that method you need to give a preparitory signal and then an execute one card later. An example would be tack in succession. First ship in line chooses that as his next card, plays the one he is on. moves the card up, and executes on the next move. rest of the ships progress to the same point and then tack as they reach it. As all ships have slightly different sailuing and turning speeds, I try to get all my ships with the same deck up front, and any slower ones astern of these, then any jockying to get back into position can be done to the rear and won't much up the approach of the first ships into action. I assume that all captains are sensible enough to take in a reef to avoid running aboard another ship without orders, so all the Commodore needs to signal is if he wants ships to make more sail, or adopt fighting sails.

Rob.

Since the reproducing of the feeling of sailing is what draws me to SoG, I have been considering a simplified damage system that might work well for keeping track of multiple ships while maintaining the focus on sailhandling.

I will try to quantify my thoughts and post them here later.

Sweet! Looking forward to hearing what you got!

-Eric

Here's a quick knocktogether of what I have in mind. The ship's Burdens are converted to the Adjusted Burden Value. Any time a ship can fire (AI) or chooses to fire (player) it inflicts the number of points of damage shown on the upper table. I haven't considered any means of doing boarding or critical hits. This was just something I came up with to place a tactical value on maneuvering.

Attachment 48627

Thanks for sharing! Will will check it out.

-Eric

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dobbs

Here's a quick knocktogether of what I have in mind. The ship's Burdens are converted to the Adjusted Burden Value. Any time a ship can fire (AI) or chooses to fire (player) it inflicts the number of points of damage shown on the upper table. I haven't considered any means of doing boarding or critical hits. This was just something I came up with to place a tactical value on maneuvering.

Attachment 48627

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Dobbs,

Does the Adjusted Burden Value represent the total amount of damage a ship can take?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bligh

Depends very much on the senario circumstances, but from preference usually second in the line or in the middle if a large force is in use, and with a repeater Frigate standing off upwind of the flagship if you want to be totally authentic. If you use that method you need to give a preparitory signal and then an execute one card later. An example would be tack in succession. First ship in line chooses that as his next card, plays the one he is on. moves the card up, and executes on the next move. rest of the ships progress to the same point and then tack as they reach it. As all ships have slightly different sailuing and turning speeds, I try to get all my ships with the same deck up front, and any slower ones astern of these, then any jockying to get back into position can be done to the rear and won't much up the approach of the first ships into action. I assume that all captains are sensible enough to take in a reef to avoid running aboard another ship without orders, so all the Commodore needs to signal is if he wants ships to make more sail, or adopt fighting sails.

Rob.

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Thanks Rob,

Great stuff as always.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JimBlkHwk

Dobbs,

Does the Adjusted Burden Value represent the total amount of damage a ship can take?

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Yes, it's an entirely arbitrary number with a vague attempt to accurately represent ship strengths.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dobbs

Yes, it's an entirely arbitrary number with a vague attempt to accurately represent ship strengths.

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Makes sense to me. Just wanted to make sure I was tracking.

What distance do you all try to maintain between your ships when sailing in formation?

I try to maintain at least a base length or more between ships, but I have tweaked the combat rulers and made them longer. I had two thoughts on that; first, that 7" equates to 600' or one cable in nautical measurements, and second, that longer rulers mean less collisions.

Thanks Dobbs, that makes sense. Of course, everything in a 1/1000 game would be 1/1000. It's been a long week...Haha. Appreciate your idea on expanding everything.

I try to leave at least time to get a card and a half inbetween each ship, that means that if things go bottoms up, you can play card one, and select a card two which will at least stand a chance of getting you out of trouble. I do, however, like Dobb's option of the longer rule firing mechanism which I feel would give a more realistic flavour to the game as well as probably a quicker one
A word of warning. Leave too much space between ships and it will be much easier for an adversary to cut through your line. Nobody wants the enemy to get a double free raking shot on two ships at once.

Rob.

Yeah, I like the longer ruler idea. It would make it more to scale. The question is, is it to the movement scale? I'm sure the game was scaled by number of volleys per distance traveled at some point. An issue? Great input guys. I didn't think of the distance between ships. I would have had that be arbitrary, but it would not have been historically of course.

-Eric

A friend wrote a rules system called Gå På. It's for early 18th century land battles. He made the round into 20 minutes, calculated the number of shots that could be fired, factored in casualties and so on. In the early versions I played, nothing happened for many turns. It turns out historical facts may not work well for a game. You have to tweak it so you get a historical feel, a fun time and ok outcomes. It just makes it hard to say what the scale is or how fast something was moving and so on.

In Sails you shouldn't calculate scale into speed, into time of a turn, into broadsides fired a turn, and start questioning why you have to reload. It wont mach up. It's a game made to have a nice historical feel and fast play.

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Originally Posted by TexaS

A friend wrote a rules system called Gå På. It's for early 18th century land battles. He made the round into 20 minutes, calculated the number of shots that could be fired, factored in casualties and so on. In the early versions I played, nothing happened for many turns. It turns out historical facts may not work well for a game. You have to tweak it so you get a historical feel, a fun time and ok outcomes. It just makes it hard to say what the scale is or how fast something was moving and so on.

In Sails you shouldn't calculate scale into speed, into time of a turn, into broadsides fired a turn, and start questioning why you have to reload. It wont mach up. It's a game made to have a nice historical feel and fast play.

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Noted!:thumbsup: Just ignore everything I said about how it applies to scale. Let's just stick with, "I think the game plays better with longer rulers. It leads to less crowding and bumper-boats.":happy:

Very wise Dobbs, otherwise someone will want to vector vertical scale in and we all know what that leads to.
At least ships are one ship = one ship and not 1 figure = 40 men. How does a stand of 20 figures representing 400 men fit behind that cottage arguement. :wink:

Rob.

:clap: That's funny! I never thought of that. I've never explored land-based table top gaming. In fact, SoG, WoG, and a game I made years ago are my only dabblings.

You will like this one then Dobbs. If that 25mm figure is six feet high why are those trees so small. The answer came back," Because if we had 60 foot high trees, scaled at 250 mm high you would find it very hard to reach to manage troops in woodland".

I was once asked about a Civil war battle, if one man = 20, why have you got 40 men in that hot air balloon.

The same reason I have got 160 men clustered around those two cannon which represent a battery of eight guns.

Purely for aesthetic reasons, because a 10th of a figure representing two men in a balloon would look silly!

We had hours of fun with the button counters.

Rob.

This reminds me of our last sloop action. We have a house rule that, in addition to decreased numerical damage, that crew hits inflicted by sloop broadsides are halved. During play, some folks felt that a casualty of half a crew was actually more gruesome than a whole crew casualty!

:shock: :happy: