Re: Wither Trafalgar?

Colin (C.I.Cavanagh@qmw.ac.uk)
02 Feb 1998 09:10:45 +0000

In <34D48EC7.340C@sprintmail.com>, Mark Hendrickson wrote:
>greetings fellow Olympiads:
>
> I just had a thought about ship to ship combat. As we all know, the
>naval side of this game is an underplayed side. Let us introduce a new
>skill:
>
>604, researchable shipcraft skill: Admiralty. Four weeks. A noble who
>learns Admiralty, who is the captain of a ship, will allow other ships
>to stack with his.
>
>To go along with this we have a new command: stack ship xxx, &, of
>course, unstack ship xxx.
>
>If a ship captain orders "stack ship" he will "look outside" his ship
>for the ship specified (xxx), & try to stack his ship with the specified
>ship. If the captain of the ship he's trying to stack with knows
>admiralty, & if the admiral has an admit for the stacking ship, the
>stack succeeds.
>
>The stack of ships operates just like a stack of nobles: they attack
>together, they defend together. The stack moves at the speed of the
>slowest ship. The stack follows the admiral's sail commands.
>
>It seems to me that this would take out a lot of the randomness of sea
>combat, which is a lot of what makes me not want to do it.
>
>That's the pith. But if you're ready for that, I thought up some more
>neat ideas.
>
>We got rid of rams because nobody used 'em, right? I mean, if you could
>only add a ram to a galley & if because of it's size a galley is
>probably gonna' loss a lot of fights, then of course nobody's gonna' add
>on that ram. However, if you can stack that ship-sinkin' galley with a
>roundship full of pikemen, all of the sudden the galley makes some
>sense. Imagine, grappeling with the hordes aboard the roundship, the
>hapless prey never even sees the sleek galley coming in from the other
>side, ram poised, read to send her to the bottom.... muhahaha!
>
>So, we can now bring back the add ram to galley, & maybe it would even
>be used!
>
>But that's not all!
>
>Historically, even the largest ships had rams, & tried to use them.
>Now, a ram on a cargo ship seems stupid. So, what we need is a large
>warship, right? So:
>
> ship effort material
> ---- ------ --------
> galley 250 worker-days 50 wood
> roundship 500 worker-days 100 wood
> warship 1000 worker-days 200 wood
>
>A warship combines the capacity of a roundship (25,000 lbs), but adds
>the maneuverability of a galley. Thus it can have a ram, & it has a
>defense of 25, like the galley, but a bit better.
>
>But that's not all!
>
>We know you can't use siege engines at sea right? Too difficult. But
>why not have a ship designed to use them, as, historically, happened. &
>what better ship than a warship?
>
>So, a warship requires not only 200 wood, but 1 catapult as well, & the
>1000 worker days. We'd have to lessen the effectiveness of these
>catapults at sea so warship v. warship attacks don't always end with two
>sinking ships.
>
>This means that during any sea attack the ship could have a catapult & a
>ram with which to crunch enemy ships. muhaha!
>
>Finally, it seems to me that these rules wouldn't in fact unbalance the
>game. If you see how it would, let me know (I'm sure you will!). It's
>nothing like speedcast or beastmastery or anything like that. I imagine
>we could add this without any detriment to balance. & it would be
>pretty fun.
>
>best wishes,
>Mark
>

Yes Please

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