What do you want to see on game mats?

[Beowulf03809]

So you just want to duke it out on the high seas until someone sinks?

At the tactical level, I don't believe the time scale of a game would include repair/refit.

But could be good in terms of a campaign. Then it could also turn into a scenario. Remeber the Hornblower book where the ship sails into the harbour to destroy the four French ships that are laid up awaiting repairs or supplies. A nice scenario based on that has the potential to be very challenging and interesting if done right.

For a scenario, absolutely. That sounds like a good one. Like I said, having ports as places for activity is great. One player can be trying to get as much of his fleet into port as possible before a certain turn, or a French player can be trying to break out of an English blockade, etc. Or some ships can be in port for repairs and able to make sail at the end of certain turns and the opposing player needs to come in, damage as much of the ships as possible and escape with his raiders. All that I think are great tactical missions that can be played out around ports.

And if you are playing out a campaign then any ships you get into port can be repaired, etc. over the course of whatever campaign time scale exists.

But the though of playing a tactical game where if a player can dock their ship and leave it docked to repair one damage box per turn, for example, just seems too 'video game' and not very realistic. Some repairs are tried to be made at sea in the heat of battle but that's a different scope than what you would do at a dock and fit within the time frame of a couple hours of in-game time for a battle.

Just my preferences. Others would find port 'repair stations' to be a fun addition to the game.