-----Original Message-----
From: owner-g2-list@rt.com On Behalf Of Mark Hendrickson
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 1998 10:04 AM
To: support@pbm.com; g2-list@pbm.com
Subject: Wither Trafalgar?
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