I bought this rule set from Wargamer's vault very much attracted by the Computer Assistance programe that comes bundled with it.
( link )
I am not a mathematically minded sort of person and when i looked at the rules half an hour before we were due to play the game I thought i was going to be in a lot of trouble – this was no Victory at Sea!
Fortunately, one of our members who has an encyclopedic mind for understanding rule sets had trialed a solo game before that night and was prepared.
As it turned out by using the computer Assitance programe this game proved to be very easy and enjoyable. In fact we never looked at the rulebook once all the required data is asked for in the programe. After the first couple of rounds everyone knew what data was required: Bearing, range, target aspect, ships turned or not etc. The data was soon quickly put into the laptop and hey presto – you've hit my battleship! ( or not!! ) . It made for a fast flowing game with players simply concentrating on where to move their ships and what to shoot at.
The programe held up for the entire game ( it had crashed once during a trial run – which effectively would end the game ) . I have created a senario of my own – took 5mins to put the ships into the editor.
We tweeked the measurements for moving and firing and although it may seem unorthodox we decided that for gunnary range 0.5 inch = 1000 yrds = 1DU and for movement 0.5cm = 1knt = 1DU. It worked for us and kept the maths simple.
In conclusion: A straight forward game that anyone who can use a ruler and a 360 deg. protractor ( for working out bearing ) will be able to play. I suggest that each turn you input the data for the ships in the same order each time ( less confusing ) .
My only criticsm is that the Turkish navy is not included but it is the only one that is not, out of the major players.
I hope you this short review will encourage people like me ( not very good with complex rules ) to think about giving it a punt. I definately think it has lots of solo play potential.
Richard
scratchbuilds another Victorian flying machine.
