Here's a very generic battle trying my modifications to the Flying Colors system with a little influence from the Close action system. There is an additional sail state (two full sails) and changing sails takes a crew check.
Guns can be fired twice at any time, though the second shot requires a crew check and has a potential self-inflicted hull hit.
Here the French in 1780 mode have good crews and are larger and better-gunned. The RN is just trying to slip by and even has the advantage of an unexpected change in the wind. But the RN flagship has just taken two broadsides, lost half her rigging and has a fire.
Very nice. Are you considering publishing the rules, or putting them out in some fashion?
Love trying Age of Sail rules if the game play moves nicely.
Quote from: besilarius on October 03, 2013, 07:20:22 AM
Very nice. Are you considering publishing the rules, or putting them out in some fashion?
Love trying Age of Sail rules if the game play moves nicely.
Flying Colors -- the basic rules make an excellent game. However, the designer says use Close Action if you want more detail.
I changed the Flying color rules only slightly: added a sail state, made it uncertain if you could get in or out of any sail state and allowed two broadsides of any kind -- with the second being only possible after a crew quality (also represents quantity) and possibly inflicting a hull hit on the firing ship (more kick from hot guns, more accidents etc.)
That's about it.
There are a few other points worth considering:
1) Flying Colors simulates actions earlier than 1794 better than Close Action because -- Flying Colors explicitly includes earlier type ships (such as the rather flimsy RN 74s Orion, Hercules and Invincible in the above action) in the Ship of the Line expansion.
PS: I checked on this and Flying colors has pre-1794 ships in the base game -- but they are there and Close Action doesn't really cover pre-1794 stuff very well ,whereas Flying Colors not only covers it but has an expansion to cover more of the 18th Century
2) Flying colors has some oar-power rules ( much bigger in the next expansion which will show the Swedish and Russian galley war in the Baltic)
3) Flying colors has a less definite time scale and I'm stretching it to get more speed in the top sail state and one extra broadside
4) Fleet control was much more chancy than either game allows -- hence the crew check for sail state changes which can result in formations coming apart even faster than the games allow -- so I probably need some kind of more complex ship-out-of -command rules