More Thoughts on Game Design
This is Steven Petrick Posting.
One of the things about historical games is trying to accurately reflect complex issues but not bog down game play.
An example of his occurred in a game called "Ironclads" by Yaquinto. This was a fun game about Ironclads in the American Civil War (a later expansion visited the transition to all metal warships in other navies). During this period one of the methods of attack was "ramming". For example, the CSS Virginia (former USS Merrimac) was specifically fitted with an Iron beak on her bow for just that purpose.
So the game included rules for ramming, but the rules essentially made the goal of a side not TO RAM, but TO BE RAMMED. The problem was that for simplicity the designer had the a ship that rammed another ship (whether it was fitted with a ram or not) stop dead in the water. The rammed ship, provided the ramming did not destroy it out right or the ramming ship became lodged in its side, simply continued to move normally.
Worse, as most rams would be into a ship's broadside, the result would be a pointblank salvo of heavy guns into the ramming ship, while much of the ramming ship's battery was out of arc.
The upshot was that worst thing you could do in the game was ram an enemy ship. Doing so would result in your ship being blasted in the face at short range by an enemy's full broadside, and left dead in the water at the start of the next turn where all the enemy ships knew right where you would be for purposes of planning their maneuvers to bring their own guns to bear. And a ramming attack by itself never destroyed a ship that had no previous damage on it, and seemed to risky to be used to finish off an enemy ship that was badly damaged (because ramming a ship had a chance of the ram becoming fouled and your ship being dragged down by your victim).
Whole battles would be fought with two sides maneuvering not to ram their opponents, but trying to cross their opponent's "T" and be rammed.
That is not the way a naval battle should be fought.
Fortunately, ramming was ultimately very rare in the game, as it used "plotted movement" and trying to predict for certain how fast your opponent's ship would be going so that both ships entered the same hex was difficult. Still, I watched an English Squadron annihilate a more modern French Squadron by the simple happy circumstance that half the French ships collided (rammed) half the English ships. The resulting pointblank broadsides left the French ships disabled and ablaze.
One of the things about historical games is trying to accurately reflect complex issues but not bog down game play.
An example of his occurred in a game called "Ironclads" by Yaquinto. This was a fun game about Ironclads in the American Civil War (a later expansion visited the transition to all metal warships in other navies). During this period one of the methods of attack was "ramming". For example, the CSS Virginia (former USS Merrimac) was specifically fitted with an Iron beak on her bow for just that purpose.
So the game included rules for ramming, but the rules essentially made the goal of a side not TO RAM, but TO BE RAMMED. The problem was that for simplicity the designer had the a ship that rammed another ship (whether it was fitted with a ram or not) stop dead in the water. The rammed ship, provided the ramming did not destroy it out right or the ramming ship became lodged in its side, simply continued to move normally.
Worse, as most rams would be into a ship's broadside, the result would be a pointblank salvo of heavy guns into the ramming ship, while much of the ramming ship's battery was out of arc.
The upshot was that worst thing you could do in the game was ram an enemy ship. Doing so would result in your ship being blasted in the face at short range by an enemy's full broadside, and left dead in the water at the start of the next turn where all the enemy ships knew right where you would be for purposes of planning their maneuvers to bring their own guns to bear. And a ramming attack by itself never destroyed a ship that had no previous damage on it, and seemed to risky to be used to finish off an enemy ship that was badly damaged (because ramming a ship had a chance of the ram becoming fouled and your ship being dragged down by your victim).
Whole battles would be fought with two sides maneuvering not to ram their opponents, but trying to cross their opponent's "T" and be rammed.
That is not the way a naval battle should be fought.
Fortunately, ramming was ultimately very rare in the game, as it used "plotted movement" and trying to predict for certain how fast your opponent's ship would be going so that both ships entered the same hex was difficult. Still, I watched an English Squadron annihilate a more modern French Squadron by the simple happy circumstance that half the French ships collided (rammed) half the English ships. The resulting pointblank broadsides left the French ships disabled and ablaze.
posted by Federation Commander at 10:32 AM
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