What happens when two ships collide?
Is this still actual?Originally Posted by The Royal Hajj
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What happens when two ships collide?
Is this still actual?
The largest ships moves first, than all remaining ships (in order of size) move as far as they can, stopping when they touch the base of another ship. Friendly ships that collide take damage. Enemey ship do not take damage, but might get entangled and can board.
Surely enemy ships, which collide, should still suffer some damage and what about a deliberate ramming attack?
I see this is where house rules will come into play. If the rules do not address ramming, that, too, I am sure will be developed here. It is one of the reasons I am not too worried about the official rules. Even tournaments can employ house rules as long as they are disclosed early enough for folks to adapt. I really enjoy the house rules folks created for WoG, and we're suing some in the OTT campaign, and using them to good effect.
David, I agree with your sentiment about enemy ships suffering some type of damage. The entanglement result should be possible regardless if enemy or friendly ships collide.
House rules. Off hand, I would say if ramming (collision where the entirety of the front edge of your base would overlap the enemy at any point during the completion of your move (using normal collision resolution).
Then, attacking ship does damage in long range ball counters (can't remember what letter) equal to its burden to itself and the enemy. If it is ramming the side, treat as raking for recipient only, if the rear, treat as raking the rear for recipient only. This would be if using standard movement or at 2 sails. If at 1 sail setting, no damage (just normal resolution). If at 3 sails, add 2 damage to both ships.
If there was a head-on collision ships would each damage themselves and the other, so massive damage all around.
I think the damage only when colliding with friendly ships is there to dissuade players from using ramming as a standard tactic.
I think you are right David and I support that rule 100%
...and we're not playing with Roman or Greek galleys.
I'm not the one who want to try to ram an enemy 3rd rate's broadside with my ship.
To what degree does ramming have historical support in the age-of-sail? Such a question should determine if ramming is a legitimate option in SoG. I remember a similar discussion on the Aerodrome. If memory serves me correctly, there was some leaning towards ramming, at least by several members, due to historical precedent.
Fire ships are an example of deliberate ramming, however this tactic was largely abandoned by the Napoleonic era. If there is some precedent for ramming I would think it is a one off event rather than a tactic per se. The object was to try and capture the enemy ship and collect prize money, etc. Deliberately damaging both ships runs counter to the prize system anyway. Although laying alongside the enemy ship did often result in entanglements so that rule should certainly apply to both sides.
Eric
The other possible reason for this rule could be to keep friendly ships from lining up in base to base contact. I could see that messing up some scenarios. And another thought... it could also give players pause for just piling a bunch of ships into an entanglement or boarding action.
I think all battles started with nice lines or tried to. I know of jibs being lost by running into the ship in front. Bad seamanship, weather and damage. The British did end up just piling in at Trafalgar. Locked ships did happen as did using one ship as a bridge to get to the next one. In the end a number of battles ended up as lots of melees between two or more ships.
Be safe
Rory
Starting out or sailing into a line is great. Blocking a section of the playing surface off completely by being in base to base contact with your ships is quite a different story I think. Think of a cutting out mission where there is a narrow entrance leading to the harbor, if the optional rule Surrendered Ships is in play, it could be possible for a player to make the mission unattainable by the other side.
And breaking jibs and such would be reflected by the friendly ships taking damage.
Some paintings of the era plus hex based board games such as WSIM tend to give a false impression of the quasi linear nature of AoS combat. As with many wargames the control that players have over their ships is pretty absolute. In reality it was far from true, with ship speeds varying on a minute by minute basis due to variations in wind strength, local blocking, wave action, etc. In FLoB and some other sets of rules there is a certain randomness within the movement rules that means players aren't entirely in control, and so a sensible spacing between ships and some linear displacement is advisable - as it was in real actions.
Depends on the period -- early in the period, when guns were neither numerous nor reliable, ram-and-board was still used; by the period the game covers, rams were few and far between, save for accidents or when someone figured a boarding action beat a gunfight (see the coverage of John Paul Jones's famous battle at Flamborough Head elseforum). Oddly, the advent of steam power allowed ramming to make a (brief) comeback, as one was no longer dependent upon being upwind; look at the naval battles of the American Civil War, and note how prominent ramming was in them (esp. note the infamous "Ellet's Brigade", which consisted of a brace of unarmed ram-equipped steamboats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Ram_Fleet ).
Frankly, I see this rule as a serious, if not game-breaking, flaw.
How so? What are your thoughts?
If ramming, for the time period covered, does not have historical support, I could exclude it easily from games I run. As for the piling up and boarding, again, I would ask the same question about historical precedent. It is unclear to me why that would be a prohibited tactic, and I readily acknowledge I am speaking out of a lack of knowledge. All of this does not apply, though, to what-if scenarios. It could be interesting to see how ramming works when trying to break a blockade, for example.
I think this is compromise we have to make for WoG and SoG.
If planes collide in the air, the party is normally immediately over.
Due to my historical interest I try to avoid such situations like "deliberately ramming another plane" to bring it down.
To ram a ship does not belong to Napoleonic maritime warfare tacticts, but Ares Games needs to cover this section somehow, because you can't avoid it sometimes on the table.
Historical in Napoleonic maritime warfare, it was a great danger to ram a warship in battle.
Normaly you were not able to sink for example a frigate with a 3rd rate by a ram maneuver. The hulks of the ships were solid enough to resist a ram attack.
!Don't get me wrong! I'm not talking about a 1st rate that crushes a sloop (by mistake) or about an anchored frigate that is rammed by a full rigged 3rd rate in a 90 degree angle with full speed!
To ram a warships means always a risk to get heavily damaged by yourself or to loose your ship or great parts of your crew.
- You can be entangeld with the rigging, giving the enemy the chance to board you.
- Damages to the bow had influence on speed and maneuverability.
- Damages to the rigging have influence on speed and maneuverability, too.
- Carronades are that effective on close range.
- There is a high risk to catch fire or get heaviliy damged by fire or an exploding gunpowder magazin.
- The time you need to ram another ship gives the enemy the chance to give a lot of full broadsides on your vulnerable bow parts and you can not return fire in an effective way.
- Also smaller ships with smaller cannons can can inflict heavy damage in such an situations.
- As long as the enemy has sails and the possibility to maneuver he can easily avoid to be rammed
- etc...
This is not a complete list, there are many other points.
So you always try to fight the enemy down with broad sides, try do demast him, damage his rigging do decrease his speed, try to fire into his vulnerable stern (or escape) instead of raming him.
Apart from sporadic desperate situations I can not imagine a situation when an intact Napoleonic warship tried to ram an enemy.
Last edited by Comte de Brueys; 09-25-2013 at 01:14.
You find galleys in the Napoleonic aera. I think the Spanish or French used them in Mediterranean harbours.
But I don't know about ram attacks.
Normaly the had guns in the front section as the most dangerous threat.
Galleys in this era (and for centuries before) definitely not desigbed for ramming. Most were of very light construction and would have been highly susceptible to self damage if they rammed another vessel.
One tactic I've found is pretty effective is to entangle an enemy with one ship so it can't move and then have a second ship pull around back and rake the heck out of it.
From Andrea:
The thread seems to be very correct. And true, the rule of damages only to friendly ships is to avoid collision tactics. Home rules are possible, and of course if unarmed ramming ships will be introduced we will do special ramming rules. For the moment, as in Wings of Glory, avoiding collision tactics seemed better. But in WGF and WGS too we could admit ramming rules in special cases (mostly with Russian planes, but I remember several more cases including Italian and Greek pilots).
All the best,
Andrea
Great comments Sven!
I think it is also important to emphasize the difference between ram attacks and collisions. A captain might collide with an enemy ship in an attempt to grapple and board, or their rigging may become entangled leading to a possible boarding action. However this type of collision was not meant to deliberately cripple the enemy ship, whereas a ramming attack, i.e.; ACW rams or classical galley warfare, was designed to sink the enemy ship.
Eric
Well, most of my concerns have been addressed by others above. Collisions happened often enough -- read through the historical encounters listed in the Historical Discussion conference. However, as was pointed out by Sven: There were a myriad of problems associated with it -- getting tangled up with the opponent; increased effectiveness of cannon at close range; the chance of fire on the opponent spreading to one's own ship; and so on.
What I would have preferred to see is rules for collisions which address these matters -- preferably to the extent where deliberate rams become a case of "the game ain't worth the candle". (Someone mentioned ram-attacks in _WoG_: I allow them, but have them arranged such that at best it's a 1:1 exchange, as was the case historically; this means that some ram-happy nitwit is never going to be able to achieve better than a no-score draw unless he also uses his guns. In a campaign, the ramming pilot may survive; if memory serves, there were a few Soviet pilots who scored multiple ram-kills -- they just never scored more than one per mission, as the act of ramming forced a landing shortly afterwards.) Having ships "just bounce off" is going to generate from Portland laughter audible all the way back to Italy.
In the standard and advanced rules they don't just bounce, they cause damage or can be entangled/boarded. As in life, nothing is for free.
Having your ship halted and having to re-start is quite a tactical drawback. If you're even more unlucky, your physical position may require you to back up, stop, then start going forward. If you're even more unlucky, you're entangled. Simply colliding with an enemy ship could easily end your tactical ability to maneuver for a major portion of the game and likely the latter half when things get crazy.
If it's really chapping someone's hide they can't cause ram damage on top of this, then work within the system. Use the friendly ship damage rules as well and then you can play Phoenecian ram ship to your heart's delight.
Much better.
Checked the rules for collisions and I'm ok with this rules.
I like the penalty for collision with friendly ships, too.
This can get nasty if you have to take as much damage tokens as the ship's burden value, you collide with.
In general I like the "right of way" for the bigger ships.
If we get French 1st rates some days, nothing can stop my course. (Maybe a few broadsides from the RN, but we're talking only about maneuvering here.
What we did in our last game is use the "Friendly Ship" collision rule and then added the "Entanglement" rules for indicating collision with enemy ships. Because of the size of the playing area it seems collisions could be a common occurrence. After all you are trying to stay in fairly close to get the best effect with your cannon fire.
True, and thats a feature of the movement system rather than "real life". Unlike the fairly regular examples of bumping ships which we seem to be experiencing in games our real life counterparts were actually quite good at manoeuvring and fighting at close quarters without running foul of other ships unless and until one side or the other wanted to do so. I suppose its a feature of the card based manoeuvre system (I've noticed that unintentional collisions are more prevalent using the Standard/Advanced system but still are a feature of the Basic system as well), and also that there is no option for our 1/1000 commanders to take the kind of evasive action that they would do if they were in some of the situations in which they find themselves on the tabletop.
I wouldn't say that. The ships only collide if their end positions overlap. That allows for a lot of evasive action.
I don't think tight space is problem generator. Even when you play on 12' x 4' table, there still would be the problem. And it usually occurs when melee starts. Also, if first ship colides, whole line has problem... I'm even thinking of adjusting (or even ignoring) collision rules.
Well, sailing with real sailships, I will play a collision like it is...no different between friendly and enemy...in both cases you will get the damage, and, if an enemy ship, more action (rifle fire and so on) will follow.
Thinking about only one little houserule: ramming in 90 degrees or face to face is special: think in that case the rigg (mast and sails) will come down and makes a heavy damage. That is the imported reason not to do it. There I will give special damage points.
By the way, running aground can have the same effect..
I believe so. But, I also believe that game designers wanted to avoid deliberate ramming between the enemies (and to save ramming for Oars of Glory
(I believe so. But, I also believe that game designers wanted to avoid deliberate ramming between the enemies)
Yes , of course, you right.
But I find it is not reality, so it is fantastic the the game allows houserules.
The mean thing is to have fun; and this game is one of those ones who did it well.
You are quite right.
General problem with wargame rules is - fast rules aren't detailed; detailed rules aren't fast. And I find ?oG rules well balanced. You also pointed well, they stand house rules implementation fine. And certainly are fun
My son Will and I played as a team, French, in a game recently. We had an accidental bowsprit to bowsprit frontal collision, became locked, unable to back sails. Do we drift, do we remain locked? We decided to allow the larger ship to push aside the smaller ship. The latter was forcibly backed away from the entanglement and missed its move turn. Both ships drew one chit of damage. We were playing our second game only and using basic rules. Is this covered in the Advanced rules? Any other suggestions?
After the initial collision stops them, the ships can sail right through each other on the next move. Read through the collision rules again. One thing you might notice is that, per rules, they will only collide if their end positions would overlap.
If their end positions would overlap, you basically do a collision with movement in progress.
If their end positions do not overlap, you ignore the in progress movement and only worry about their end positions that they then move to.
Think of this mechanic as the huge bases being a vague representation of threat area and the ships can actually make minor emergency corrections to avoid. There has to be some way to actually collide, so the rules provide the lessened chance of at least the end position to determine that this was the case where the ships failed to make said minor emergency corrections.
Greetings Gentlemen,
Please forgive this question, but what page in the rule book lists damage for collisions (friendly OR foe)? I was unable to find the method for determining how many chits from which bag need to be drawn (of course, under the stress of a "live play test"!)
Thank you,
Lance
There is a "Collisions" rule in the standard rules section page 25th, Lance.
The funny thing is there are no collisions between enemy ships...only the friendly ones.
Seems that authors didn't want to leave space for ramming, so they probably decided to exclude collisions between the enemies.
In the conversations I have had, it seems like many people are dropping the damage from collisions with friendlies. The amount of damage done is just too harsh. I have seen two 3rd rates severely damaged by a single collision that really took away from the game.
The most common house rule for collisions I have seen is:
1. Both ships drop to Backing Sails to represent speed loss
2. No damage in a collision unless at Full Sail (in which case take 1 "C" damage token)
3. Check for entanglement as normal
Original discussion here: http://www.sailsofglory.org/showthre...mage-too-Harsh
After two "firts" games without collisions, I think it's a good educational effect to reward friendly collisions with a penalty.
Maybe A damage instead of B damage.
In my second game I had a situation were my opponent blocked my SoL between his frigate and SoL because he caused a collision betweeen his ships with his maneuvering.
I know it was no purpose, but I want to avoid situations were gamers use collisions the wrong way. (...like it's possible in the X-Wing game)
Here was a new one on me. Two ships plotted moves that would end with them overlapping. Per the rules, the heavier ship moved first, and slid along about 80% of its movement until it hit the smaller ship. Now the smaller ship not only *could* complete its move, but ended up about 1/8 inch away from the larger ship. So technically it was a "collision," but it didn't really make sense to see if ships that weren't even touching were entangled. I guess the big ship swerved out of the way to make room for the smaller ship?
Wish you had a photo of that? From your description it sounds like it would be a good example of how burden and collisions work.
Were both ships still overlapping when completing both their own movement?
Sounds like they arent, and when they dont overlap in the end, its not a collision...
They just slipped past each other
Yeah, they *would* have overlapped if each had done it's movement. But after the first one moved as far as it could, the other could end its movement without overlapping and without even touching.
It seems like every time there's a "collision" it works out differently, with seemingly arbitrary and sometimes odd results.
Could you post a picture resembling the situation with both ships before their movement? And with the movement cards they are going to use.
Seems impossible that the second ship didnt touch the first ship when it moved, since the first ship had to stop its movement when it was touching the second ship?
It seems like this was a situation where the heaviest ship (with the highest burden) was stopped by a lighter ship and the lighter ship could move normally?
Seems like a odd situation?
I have a situation like you mentioned above in mind but dont know If its the same situation as you had...
This issue and question has come up for me in some of the solo games I've played, but tonight I took pictures in hopes of getting a better handle and/or opinions on resolving this type of collision.
Ship A (right side and top, USS Philadelphia) has the larger burden and would move first.
Ship B (Royal Fortune) is going to be taken aback, but because Ship A moves first it collides with Ship B before it can execute the first taken aback maneuver.
(overlap occurs even if both move)
On the next turn Ship B is still taken aback, but because it did not put down a maneuver card for part 1 of a taken aback maneuver, would it try to use part 1 again, or move to part 2?
Regardless if a part 1 or part 2 taken aback maneuver card is placed there's going to be another collision, seemingly the ships stay locked in this position until one or both plays a card the moves them apart? What I decided to do was move both ships incrementally until the next collision took place. In effect the Philadelphia pushes back the Royal Fortune for the next turn. Does this seem appropriate?
As an added note. The Philadelphia is AI run and does not plan out 2 maneuver cards. I was playing the Royal Fortune and using 2 card planning, so I have to plan a regular maneuver card that I hope will execute as a taken aback card that will move me away from further collisions. Ironically, although it's hard to see, the last movement lets the Royal Fortune take a shot on the Philadelphia, which has no reciprocal shot at all, outside of musketry.
You should move to "Part 2." The determination to use the two sandglasses maneuver on the taken aback card is based on the number of consecutive turns taken aback (in this case 2 or more), and has nothing to do with whether or not you were actually able to execute the one sandglass maneuver ("Part 1") in the previous turn.
They are not "locked" per se, but it may take some time for them to clear. In turn 2, Ship A will not move (since the maneuvers of both ships would result in overlap again, it moves first, and it is already touching Ship B) and Ship B will then move second and slide back with the taken aback card. In turn 3, depending on maneuvers selected, Ship A will move up and collide with Ship B again and then ship B will move back a little more. Eventually they would clear, depending on how the maneuvers work out.
You can also take the common sense approach here and rather than having ship A draw randomly, let them continue making the sharpest starboard turn possible to get the bow rake, which is likely what a real player would do and then once clear go back to random movement.
Last edited by Zarathud; 09-05-2014 at 04:47. Reason: fix mistake
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