I've played one game of Atlantic Storm, and it was obvious to everyone that there are far too many things to deal with regarding the cards in your hand. First, you must check the years of your cards against the year of the current Convoy card, and the backgrounds of your cards (Arctic, Atlantic or both) against the Convoy card. Then you can check for a "fated" card against the Convoy card.

This is all you can really do while waiting for your turn to come around. At that point you must check your strength in the named suit for each side (German or Allied), examine your cards again for possible "fated" kills against cards which have already been played, weigh the chances of a fated kill against a card that you may play, add up the total points played for each side in the named suit, decide if you can be the ultimate winner in either side, decide which side you’ld like to see win if you can't get any VP's, whether or not the play of a Special card would be a good idea, whether or not you might want to save a good card for later instead of playing it now, and whether or not just playing a discard would be the right thing to do. (Have I missed anything?) Only then can you make your play

Multiply all this by five (or six) players times 20 Convoys, and well the game dragged on interminably, and any dreams of an "excitement level" or even fun simply vaporized. I'm working on a variant (available at: http://www.dynanet.com/gifts/astorm.htm) that will remove some of the game's tactical decision-making, but it will speed up play considerably, add an element of bluff, create some excitement and hopefully make playing the game fun. As one guy in the game in which I played put it: "this is a light game. Light games should be fast, relatively mindless, and fun." ...