Her Majesty's Ship

[Huw the Poo]

Nice!  I've blown my budget for the month but I'll pick it up when I get paid next week.

[Jarhead0331]

At only $9.99, I'm not expecting a very detailed or authentic experience.

[Grim.Reaper]

At only $9.99, I'm not expecting a very detailed or authentic experience.

Even if it was a higher price, I never expected it to be realistic and nothing more than a potentially fun time waster:)

[Huw the Poo]

Heh.  Carrier Deck at the same price and by the same dev is neither of those things but I've played more of it than most of the games in my library!  I think HMS is going to be an excellent game.

[Grim.Reaper]

I hope your right, but their other games haven't grabbed me yet..but I like the concept and fully expect to pick it up for this cheap price regardless.

[Jarhead0331]

At only $9.99, I'm not expecting a very detailed or authentic experience.

Even if it was a higher price, I never expected it to be realistic and nothing more than a potentially fun time waster:)

True, but these guys also did Vietnam '65 and Afghanistan '11, which although not overly complex, were extremely deep and nuanced.

[Grim.Reaper]

At only $9.99, I'm not expecting a very detailed or authentic experience.

Even if it was a higher price, I never expected it to be realistic and nothing more than a potentially fun time waster:)

True, but these guys also did Vietnam '65 and Afghanistan '11, which although not overly complex, were extremely deep and nuanced.

Yep, I picked both of those up in the last few months....haven't really grasped them yet but likely haven't give them much time either.  I do hope this is a diamond in the rough.

[Jarhead0331]

At only $9.99, I'm not expecting a very detailed or authentic experience.

Even if it was a higher price, I never expected it to be realistic and nothing more than a potentially fun time waster:)

True, but these guys also did Vietnam '65 and Afghanistan '11, which although not overly complex, were extremely deep and nuanced.

Yep, I picked both of those up in the last few months....haven't really grasped them yet but likely haven't give them much time either.  I do hope this is a diamond in the rough.

I'll be happy if its just a diamond...without any of the rough.

[Huw the Poo]

It turns out I was able to fit this into the budget, so...bought! O0

I will give it a good go over the weekend and will, of course, post impressions as soon as I'm able.

[Huw the Poo]

OK very brief impressions after a couple of goes.

Headline: Is it worth a tenner?  Absolutely, yes.  There's loads of replayability with bags of atmosphere and lots of fun.

Slightly more in depth: Starting as commander of a small ship, your job is to complete missions given to you by the admiralty in order to increase your rank and eventually become admiral of your nation's fleet.  The catch is that you're competing against at least one other player (AI or Human), so it's a race to complete missions, capture forts, build your own forts, and even sabotage the enemy's missions by getting there first.

It's not exactly frantic but there's always plenty to do.  Slightly reminiscent of Bomber Crew, you always have a full view of your crew and you are constantly assigning men to various stations.  They might be carrying out repairs, manning sails, or forming shore parties to recruit new crew, etc.  You're bombarded with little tasks all day and night.  Completing the tasks will grant a small bonus, failing them will incur penalties.  All the while you have to manage crew morale by not having them work at night, winning battles, completing missions, feeding them well (there are four levels of rations to set), and keeping them healthy.

You have a limited amount of cargo space, which is taken up by food, gunpowder and rum.  It's clear enough how food and gunpowder are used; rum is a sort of emergency morale boost.

Taking to the map, you plot a course to your next mission, a shipwreck, a beach laden with food, enemy ports and ships, etc.  As long as you have at least one team manning sails you'll clip along fairly well, and you have total freedom to decide where to go.  When night falls you're better off striking sails and cancelling all ongoing jobs (like hull repair) because your crew hate working at night.  As day dawns you get underway again, hopefully to complete your admiralty mission or grab some food from a convenient beach.

It's quite tough.  The AI opponents waste no time in completing their objectives and destroying ships.  In fact it's so efficient I wonder whether it cheats; I must ask the dev about this (he's active on his discord).  I just played my first full game while knowing more or less what I was doing, and the enemy AI wiped the floor with me - gaining the rank of admiral before I'd even gained a single rank of my own.

To begin with your ship is small and puny.  You can harass the Dutch (always good fun) for supplies, and comb beaches and shipwrecks too, but you're better off staying out of any real engagements until you have a full crew and plenty of gunpowder - and even then, you should be wary.  As you progress you will gain a small fleet of your own - and if I understand correctly, can even order the ships separately.

Anyway, I don't feel qualified to say any more just yet.  But I will say that I definitely don't regret spending ten quid on this.  It certainly seems to have legs.  Also it seems like there's a multiplayer community forming already.

[Staggerwing]

You can harass the Dutch (always good fun)

Hey now! 

[Gusington]

Harassing the Dutch, always good for a laugh :)

[Huw the Poo]

It's my favourite hobby, I've always wanted a game that lets me do it too!

[besilarius]

Gotta be careful if the Dutch are led by de Ruyter.  He had no sense of humor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_the_Medway

[JasonPratt]

Note that in US paper money not backed by silver or something useful like that, it's a little less than $15.

I've only played the tutorial so far, but I agree as far as that allows me with what Huw reports!

Something he didn't mention but which could be a no-sell for a lot of people: the game is a timed turn-based boardgame, basically.

So on one hand most of your actions are distinct: every station has crew requirements and generates blah de blah results, so you click on the station in the ship and then click again to assign the crew, and their little figures go over and do it.

On the other hand, it takes gametime for the figures to go do whatever you ordered. Which wouldn't be so bad except that gametime sort-of keeps running when you're just sitting around thinking about what to do, too. So you have 15 seconds in combat to decide how to position your crew, and then the shooting starts. Which if I recall correctly involves some subtle dice rolling! -- the gfx just show the results in a colorful way.

Fortunately there are some shortcut commands up on the steering deck, including everyone man the guns (or everyone man the sails, or everyone go to the galley and eat, iirc.)

I spent most of last night puttering around with FoG:Emp, but I liked what little I saw from the tutorial for HMS.