Anyone want to help thrash out campaign rules??

[fredmiracle]

Hi Fred, I've read the rules over a few times and collected some thoughts for you. I haven't tried playing it out yet, so keep that in mind. That will be my next step

This is tremendously helpful--thank you!!!

Encounters
...
Suggestions:

• After the first round, there is no uncertainty as to the speed of the enemy fleet - which, in the case of a Merchant Convoy, might be all that you want to know. To make things a bit more tense/uncertain and to incentivize getting to Identification range, maybe each player should do a secret die roll or draw a chit from the A bag each round and add their fleet's speed?
• If you find people playing encounters too cautiously or aggressively, consider a sort of ante system (i.e. betting victory points or cards from your hand) in order to give people more incentive to bluff.

Your analysis of the cases is good. Part of the reason this is tricky to get right is because there are several different situations in which encounters might occur, and it needs to work and be fun for all of them.

Since so much of the historical flavor I'd like to include comes from the chases and fleet approaches, I want the encounter sequences to be robust, almost like little mini-games. This means they shouldn't be tedious, perfunctory, overly predictable, etc. So you're right, my intent is to have some element of poker-type bluffing and bidding. Your SOL might catch my sloop, but it will cost you a lot of precious cards (this also means that the conditions for concluding battles need to be right--if the SOL does pay the price to catch the sloop, we can't have the latter just slip off the board immediately; on the other hand it wouldn't be right to force fleets to always fight to the death--this is another thing that needs to be eyed carefully...)

I have had a random speed element in and out of the design a few times. I don't want it to overwhelm the other factors, but a bit of randomness would probably be good. Maybe there should be a random speed component that is fairly small, say 0-2.

Card Deck
The card deck can be broken down into three main card types:
...
Based on the draw/discard/pass mechanic, that seems intentional -- perhaps simulating commander initiative/logistics? Hand management seems key to accomplishing everything that you want in your turn. It makes me think of A Few Acres of Snow, except without the deck-building mechanic.

yes, the intent is that the cards constrain what players can do, pose interesting dilemmas in terms of how and when to allocate cards, and interject some variability. It aspires to capture, in an abstract way, the vagaries of luck and personality that often dictated how naval campaigns developed.

• If it becomes too difficult for players to accomplish anything on their turns, you could experiment with different hand sizes and deck make-ups. Or you could consider splitting out the cards into two separate decks, and having players draw a bunch of Encounter cards for each encounter.

yes I thought about two decks, but that started to sound more complicated than I liked. But maybe making the second deck encounter-specific would work. As you say, it may just be a matter of adding a few more cards to the hand.

Map Layout, Raids, and Combats
My main concern here is to do with campaign length. I think you left it pretty open (probably the first person to X victory points, or the most victory points after Y campaign turns). Probably not whoever can sink or steal all of the other player's warships

yes, there should be some turn or VP limit. Probably the latter so there wouldn't need to be another thing to track... Or until the deck has been consumed X times?

more responses later...