I'm curious to see where the 'line in the sand' is drawn in relation to realism vs. elegant play. I know a lot of house rules will evolve to address some things but a final review of the Advanced / Optional rules is going to be very enlightening to me at least as to what to expect from SOG. I'm not nearly as well-read on the subjects as many of you, but just a few key items in addition to those above have jumped out at me during my last reading of the Trafalgar engagement.

1. The continued French & Spanish use of the slow fuse made timing of shots very difficult. As part of the "inferior gunnery" component, this technological issue is considered a big factor in why the initial shots at the approaching British columns were not very effective. In the side-rolling of the waves shots either fell short or went high just because the actual 'boom' could not reasonably timed precisely. If you play the Trafalgar charge multiple times with even matched SOG fleets I would be amazed if Victory and Royal Sovereign would make it to close engagement 20% of the time. The ships were approaching slow and would have been exposed to several turns of what SOG classifies as full raking broadsides from multiple First and Third rate ships. This could imply a rule of gunnery quality as mentioned above such as discarding highest chit or similar.

2. Although 'bumping' ships are discussed a few times not much damage is referenced from it. However, there are several situations of masts becoming tangled, effectively bonding the ships together. In many cases the ships could not disengage through the rest of the battle. This could imply a rule where a chance of tangling if ships bump, automatically reducing both to "No Sail" or such.

3. Also as mentioned above, in close quarters the British ships seemed to have a policy of reducing charge and/or aiming their guns lower to prevent shooting through the enemy and hitting a friend on the other side. This could imply a rule of 'shoot through' if cannons used at Musket Range for example.

I'm sure these and others are already factors of other AOS game systems. I'm just not sure if they will be present in SOG and if not would they even add to the game. Often a "feeling" of the game being right is all that's needed and you can filter out a lot of detail that may bog down a game without really adding to the final "feel". But if a factor is not present that actually does impact the feel of the game then I'm sure it will either be added later or various house rule options will come up. It's very hard to suggest expanded or house rules when we don't even have the full ones in hand yet, but these discussions are still healthy, engaging and keep us excited for the game.