Age of Sail (Talonsoft) (writes Seaman Staines, our Naval Correspondent) Avast behind me hearties a rather jolly micro-game about sailing ships for those of you wanting to simulate the famous battle between The Black Pig and The Jolly Stupid (or any other of the many many battles to found herein). Unlike Talonsoft's ghastly Waterloo game this is an intuitive game using the best of computer gaming. You order your vessel to do things (load different shots, bear to starboard or port, lower/raise sails) and then watch it happen ooooh sooo slowly as your opponent (or AI) come up with their responses. No real turn structure, just come (about) as you are. So it really is possible with the right wind and positioning to fire one broadside, bear about and give them the other!
I did not see any evidence of carronades in my brief bumble through the game. Although squadron sailing is possible it looked to me that the main aim of the game is sailing the ships individually and that we do not have the problems of real battles (making sure your people in other divisions follow your orders). However, the reality of squadron combat has been less the subject of film and novel than the epic battles between frigates and the game imitates art rather than life.
Although the speed of the game is (correctly) slow you can use faster speed settings to "cheat" and after 30 minutes game time without combat you are asked if you would not rather watch paint dry. I thought the detail was not bad, I doubt it would fully please your naval buff but for the intelligent amateur for ship-to-ship it was pretty good. (And for a complete idiot like me more than adequate).
The problem is one in common with many of these aircraft card games. In these combat is very quick and once the trumping has gone pear-shaped one side is either down or running. This means to retain an interest you need to have a context for the combats and I found that missing here. Unless it was well hidden the entire game had no land at all, yet most (many) actions take place close to land or influenced by some form of sea-terrain (the shoals of the Anglo-Dutch Wars). As a result the game comes down to learning how to work with the wind and to timing your shot. These are valuable truths about naval reality and many a game has not done them as well as Age of Sail but this is where the game stops. You would not want to fight Trafalgar under this system.
Battles of Alexander The workings of the Hermann-Berg Alliance made flesh on the PC (Richard is working on a Super-Mario version for Nintendo - he can do the voice-overs at the same time). The design is "figure" orientated in that the wee men look and are numbered pretty much as in a DBM game. Thus Alexander does not lead 1,200 brave companions, but 6 of them (I jest but not by much). The Elephants viewed behind remind one irresistibly of fat men in grey trousers bending over, but that is pachyderms for you! Somewhat faster than the original I would imagine this will have strong appeal, and at £29.99 (retail) is better priced too. The animation rendering can take an age without poptastic PCs, the history looks ropey but it is obviously the boardgame and to it I shall return.
Sam Grant (Columbia) Another chip off the old block. This time it's off to the Western theatre to free the Mississippi from those Rebel scum (commanded by me, why do I always get the Rebels?). The system is, as ever, ingenious, thorough and playable. It is also of much less historical value than might appear. I find it hard to believe you can achieve the historical rate of activity without changing the rules (remember to get the errata off the Web). The whole feel seems more like 1914 than 1862 with seamless fronts stretching across the map, and the periods of R&R of the real campaign strangely missing. Its a solid piece of work but is it about Sam Grant?
Fox One (Competitive Edge): A neat card game on jet combat building on Luftwaffe and Eighth Air Force the concepts are well thought-out but the rules need to be longer to explain (for example) how G-forces are used. The upside is a tight system, quick play and excellent cards. The downside is the essential nature of such combat. It is quick and violent and you can soon be spiralling earthward. That means you need the campaign structure which GMT has so cleverly used to glue together the dogfights. I am not an expert but I thought this game had more to offer than Luftwaffe but without the context it presently will not succeed.
Byzantium (Joe Miranda for S&T) Joe has taken to putting together simple game essays that combine a number of features of a historical topic and some clever insights and chucking it into publication. The result is sadly not very satisfying because it has become too simple. In this game once your empire starts to succeed and the others to fail you will prosper as the green bay tree. The reality that in time your "fat" dynasty will fall to a leaner one is completely forgotten. Establish imperium and the rest of them are locked out.
The Hundred Years War had a similar system where one side could get the drop. The Random Events need more ginger and the cyclical nature of kingdoms needs to be incorporated. I also could do without his new "Big Idea" that attackers can disregard defenders numbers unless they get a counter-attack. I see his point, I do not think this rule models it.
The simplicity of many of the mechanisms deserves applause. Joe has brought a lot of good stuff in to play without undue complexity. The importance of kings (but not enough here, most empires would be lucky to have two major pushes a year not the whole army as we have here), the "rebel" status to cover related kingdoms, the idea of raiding and shock-based armies are all good. The naval control made some sense. The accounting side is a bit boring, especially when many empires were not this attached to tax revenues, armies being paid for other than by the taxes of the peons. The names are evocative enough without being unduly scholarly. The "sides" are cleverly done with the Moslems picking up sundry Turks and Arabs (mostly raiders), the Franks being Italians, Franks and Normans (mostly charging cavalry), and the Khazars being sundry Steppe races from Hungarians through to Bulgarians. Must try harder.
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© Copyright 1997 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
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