AAR: Treasure Islands

[Uthoroc]

Alright, freshly back from GenCon I tackled the August solo mission. Lt. Commander Alan James Ball, commanding the frigate HMS Terpsichore, sailed out into the Caribbean to search for reported pirate treasure. This is his story...



Click on the link above to go to the Google+ gallery with the AAR in pictures, then come back here.

...

...

...

Damn, 15 turns is short. I managed only to search at 4 spots, fired only one broadside at the enemy frigate and still didn't quite make it off the board! I'd have secured one measly treasure if I had made an inch more distance.

I ran into a couple things that weren't clear to me for this scenario, but it was easy to just keep playing. Here's my thoughts on these.

1. If a treasure marker is the AIs target, how do you determine it's facing towards the AI ship? I assumed them treasure markers as facing straight towards the setup area, but in retrospect it might have been better for the AI if they had faced the other way.
2. That's because The movement AI doesn't seem to be very good at approaching a stationary target. If you roll high, it will turn away and takes ages to get closer. I believe this scenario would profit from special movement rules for moving towards treasure markers. Or was I doing something wrong?
3. If the AI goes for the treasure, does it target the closest one each turn? Or does it choose one in the first turn and stick to that, even if through manuevering it gets closer to another one?
4. What happens if the player flips a treasure marker currently targeted for by the AI? Does it roll again for intent?
5. Who goes first in searching if both are in range of the same marker?
6. The victory conditions mention points for 1-2 treasures and for "all" treasures. How many do I get when I find 3?
7. Once the AI decides to go after the player ship, does it ever go back to treasure hunting? If so, how?

When the AI decided in my game to go for treasure first, it became quite clear that it would take quite long to get there. To keep it more interesting, I rolled for intent again every time a treasure marker got flipped, even by me. That way I couldn't be sure what the AI was doing too far into the future.

Still, an awesome scenario, Jim. It was great fun to try it out and failing to escape on turn 15 was horrible! ;)