Collision rules

[John Paul]

In most Age of Sail games the authors generally make the resolution and results of collisions, or fouling, so onerous as to "encourage", (force) players to avoid such conditions at all costs. After all, in reality collisions were extremely rare, though they did happen at times. Thus the rules attempt to encourage behavior and fore thought in the player in moving his ship about the gaming area. The limitation of the game design though actually limits the player to the choices of maneuver available to him in the course of the game. In SoG you have a finite number and type of movement cards, and in a hex based game the player is limited by the points and/or the sides of the hexes. Also, in a game the player is limited by the actual playing area.

I remember shortly after getting my SoG game running a demo at a show. I had 6 players each running a frigate. On the table next to ours an American Civil War Ironclad game was being run. During the course of our game we had two collisions involving 4 of the 6 six ships in the game. In the Ironclad game a Confederate ram made about 4 attempts to ram Union vessels and was successful only on one attempt, which resulted in a glancing blow and little or no damage. At the time I thought what a difference in concepts where in one game the reality was to avoid colliding with your opponent we had two collisions, while in another where ramming was a tactic it was nearly impossible to occur!

Anyway, rethinking the subject of this thread I came to a simple solution that at least makes things easier. After revealing maneuver cards if two, or more opposing ships are likely to collide each player must discard his selected maneuver card, then select the opposite maneuver card if making a turn, if the original card was a straight move the player must select a Damaged Mast card to execute. If the ships are friendly each owning player rolls a die, or selects a damage chit. The player with the higher number can then execute his selected move, while the lower number player must select a Damaged Mast card to make his move. The card selected must take his ship away from the other friendly vessel. The basic idea is to force the ships to turn away from each other! If a collision should still occur after the ships turn away from each other then the idea Pete suggests above could apply as well! There might need to be some finer detail added, but that was my basic idea to streamline the whole Collision exercise!

I believe the current Collision Rules have the greatest of intentions, but in the attempt to urge players to avoid collisions they kind of over do the actual results.

[Jason]

Anyway, rethinking the subject of this thread I came to a simple solution that at least makes things easier. After revealing maneuver cards if two, or more opposing ships are likely to collide each player must discard his selected maneuver card, then select the opposite maneuver card if making a turn, if the original card was a straight move the player must select a Damaged Mast card to execute. If the ships are friendly each owning player rolls a die, or selects a damage chit. The player with the higher number can then execute his selected move, while the lower number player must select a Damaged Mast card to make his move. The card selected must take his ship away from the other friendly vessel. The basic idea is to force the ships to turn away from each other! If a collision should still occur after the ships turn away from each other then the idea Pete suggests above could apply as well! There might need to be some finer detail added, but that was my basic idea to streamline the whole Collision exercise!

I believe the current Collision Rules have the greatest of intentions, but in the attempt to urge players to avoid collisions they kind of over do the actual results.

I was thinking about this thread since yesterday and someting very similiar was going on in my mind, although I as unable to fully formulate my thoughts. But the obligation to discard planned manouver and play an avoiding one instead was definately the conclusion that I was coming to. I will try your proposition Paul next time I play, it seems very promising, discouraging wanton manouvering, and forcing some realistic outcomes. It also complements very well the original idea of Pete, that seemed to me somewhat lacking, (backing sails every time on collision course seemed to me as troublesome in regard to smoothnes of movement under sail, with skilled crew and captains - as our shipps are supposed to have, even if the admirals that command them do sometimes issue silly orders )

I am now inclining to start to think about players commanding ships in SOG somewhat rather as commodores and admirals who issue general orders, but are not supposed to interfere with direct handling of the vessels and their captain's responsibilities, rather than to be actual captains (who would be more skilled in handling the ship, i pressume )