Toggle Background Color
Thread title: Naval War: Spectator and Recruitment Thread
Inspired by Grey Hunters wondrous wargaming threads, as well as his and Saros' "War in the Pacific" threads, and by the various "Rule the Waves" threads popping up in the last few months, I want to begin my very own sea adventure. This will be played by one team of players against the spectator thread, or if enough people for two teams show up, against each other. Each player takes command of at least a single ship to several squadrons.
The time period starts from the pre-dreadnought era 1890s to the 1940s in a slightly different universe to ours. If you're interested to participate either as reader or player, let me take you with me to this magical world of diplomacy, planning, and taking away the toys of others.
What type of game is this?
This game is a strategic naval miniature wargame in screenshot format.
It is based on a mixture of rules from various existing naval wargames - Naval War, Victory at Sea and Axis&Allies: War at Sea.
Two sides manage the navy side of their country and try to establish themselves as the major dominating power on the board. Each side gets to choose from a hand of missions each phase, which may or may not bring them in direct confrontation with the other team.
How many of these missions they accept or how they divide their existing fleet is the key in this campaign. At first we start off small and increase the complexity as the campaign progresses.
The game consists of two distinct parts: the 'consensus decision-making' part and the 'send your ships to battle' part.
In the first part, the group decides on the missions, the research category, using the 'construction point' currency to hire more research teams, build more ships or build up the dockyards.
Once we're in the actual mission zone we switch to direct control of the fleet, this is the second part of this game. Battles right now are on 60x60 hex maps, with gunnery ranges in the single digits at first and increasing steadily as the campaign progresses.
More or less what a battle will look like. Two squadrons engaging, the one at the bottom reacting to their bad positioning too late.
Turns are simultaneous and based on action priority. There is a limited amount of active actions possible each turn, which take priority over passive actions. Moving can be either active or passive, while the active form allows turning and more control of where to go, the passive one is automatic and costs no active action.
Gunnery can be active when acquiring new targets or passive when the target has been hit before. Actively moving comes before a passive shooting from an opponent and maybe moves you out of harms way.
What are the rules based on?
The rules are based on "Naval War", a free naval miniatures wargame made by H.J. Seijmonsbergen. I've adapted the rules crudely to a hex based system, to make it easier for players and me to organize everything.
Further inspiration came from "Axis & Allies: War at Sea" (2007-2011), an arcadey wargame, made by Avalon Hills/Wizards of the Coast and set in WW2, focused on destroying enemy ships and capturing victory points.
Its selling point was to combine relatively simple rules with actual pre-painted miniature figures to start playing quickly in a set as starter and booster packs with a set amount of random miniatures to get you to spend more money to eventually get that precious nazi battleship.
There is no real need to know any of the rules as I'll try to keep the relevant parts and mechanics simple and understandable, and don't want you to feel the need to read every last bit.
Naval War rules from official site, further documents requires registering
A&A: WaS Rules (.zip from official site)
What rules did you change? What did you add? What does this do? I want to have all answers, find the best combinations and then calculate probabilities with my TI 84 plus!
I changed the playfield to hexes, included the necessity for spotting/finding enemy ships (fog of war) and changed damage tables. I'll explain mechanical details when we get to them but my goal is to keep the complexity for the players simple. Right now I don't feel it's helpful to explain everything to a technical detail (i.e. rolled die results), but rather want it to be told like a story. What does this technology do and what is the best to choose next, what is a 4 on the critical chit damage table? Sometimes you just don't know.
I want to participate, what will I be doing? What is the goal of this game?
You can either stay here in this thread and influence the governments/board and comment along or you can choose a side and then transfer over to the appropriate thread.
As a member of the "Naval Council" of the country you will take on management roles and decide on what kind of ships to build, that includes the supposed role, the armament and protective measures and systems, and where to set the focus on the research and understanding of new technologies.
In battles you will command your ship/s and lead them to the bottom of the sea, also you will stare at a hex map for a while. Give orders where to move, scout out the enemy, move up the rest of the fleet, select the best target, coordinate with your team mates, bring damaged ships out of danger and back to a safe port.
How involved you want to be in this process is up to you - not everyone has the time to show up regularly and that is fine. Draw orders on the map for every turn, record voice orders or give me some concepts to work with and check back once in a while to adjust them, for example "ship 1 agressive and target battleships with torpedos, ship 2 wait cautiously as screen in battle line and target small advancing ships".
A regular participation, while not an absolute must, helps to keep this kind of game going - if you only want to vote, design ships or draw pretty pictures, that's fine too!
Decisions and planning will be made in the thread. Battle orders, maneuvers and communication with team mates will be submitted via email to me, this is subject to change as the game progresses. This is a huge point and I want it to reflect the limitations and confusing situations of naval warfare. I don't care what kind of email service you use, as long as you can read replies and write back to me. There will be no player to player emails or PMs requirement belonging to this game and apart from mine, no email adresses will be made available to other players, as I'll act as a sort of mail box and distribution service.
Some interesting messages may pop back up here in this thread.
The goal is to bring your nation to victory - paint the map to your colour, sink the most ships, have the mightiest fleet and humiliate the enemy team. What you certainly should not try is to bring the attention of the world to your nation.
Pre-existing flavour
To bring in some pre existing flavour to this world, these great powers already have names, flags and a certain "personality". They are found on the map on the sides and are thus understood to be a great distance away. A passage to and from these nations is to take several months.
The nation of Free Haven is a wealthy republic of freethinkers and traders. They regard free trade and flow of information as the highest good. With relative security from other nations, due to being surrounded by oceans and weaker nations, they act mostly in defense. Yet trade is seen as a vital part of this nation which needs to be defended - war disrupts trade and less trade is no option.
The nation of Kaiserlande is a confederation of regions governed by a strict autocratic figurehead. Once the hotbed of conflicts in the world, this now pacified nation still values military tradition, although deformed in a ritualistic fashion. They want to be the shining beacon of glory, beauty and honour among all nations. Prestige is the most important value, efficiency not so much. Their goal is to keep everything as is, if needed forcibly. While their armies and ships usually are existant in large numbers and well equipped with newest technology, squabbles amongst the advisers are frequent and in turn forces are seldomly dispatched in adequate numbers. Too high of themselves.
The High Imperium of Shindu is a monarchic nation of spiritualists and opportunists, of workers and the poor. Most inventions and discoveries are made here and sold to the rest of the globe. While this civilization is rapidly advancing its knowledge, the lower classes often don't benefit from these advances at all, which leads to an increasing split in society. This internal conflict is dealt with by diverting the focus to external threats and combating these with a sheer endless supply of cheap troops. Never a friend, always an opportunity.
The Tsardom of Vodstkojek is a proud and old nation lead by the benevolent Tsar. The Tsar is the embodiment of a heavenly chosen ruler for the people to bring peace and prosperity to the world. Though far from prosperous, this nations people are bound together by more than just a common ruler. The social structure is one of solidarity and cohesion and once crossed, treated unfairly or disrespected, the people will hold a common grudge and rally for a strongg reaction, even influencing other nations to their cause against a common problem. Strong, assertive, undivisible.
Now what? When do we start?
Before we start I need you to vote for a country (either green, blue, red, yellow) on the map, with the two most voted for being used, whereas the unpicked ones only play a limited role. All possible countries start with the same starting conditions, meaning none is, in theory, worse off than any other.
The black area on the other hand represents the established colonial realms, manifested interests and claimed lands of great powers. These powerful nations see you as secondary powers, mere specks of land in an unimportant area of the globe, not yet claimed but certainly not forgotten.
These nations not only act as conquerors and bringers of destruction but also as important partners in trade and commerce. You rely in a huge amount on their cooperation and your nations financial balance is dependent on the ability to freely conduct trade with these powers.
Toss in some ideas for the nations identity, a flag, some concepts to rally other people behind you while you're at it!
Starting date is 01. April 1903.
Vote for a country!
Bring in identities for your nation!
Draw crude flags!
Voting ends on wednesday