Mare Nostrum

[Pete Dero]

Starts at around minute 52.

[IronX]

It's pretty much like AH's board game, Trireme, which is a good thing. 

Doesn't look like you can play individual scenarios unfortunately. Historical battles are only accessible by playing them in turn through a campaign.

There is a skirmish mode with plenty of maps (not just all sea, either!).

Lots of options to trick out your ships and all your favorite features are here, including raking oars, boarding and fire weapons.

Skirmishes/battles don't have a time limit, but end when accumulated ship values exceeds half your fleet cost.

When out maneuvered, the AI likes to retreat to the edges of the map, which means battles can gravitate to there. It can be annoying having a lot of ships bunched together as if someone just tilted the map board.

The ship control is good, with point and click, but the game interface is, let's just say, utilitarian. I had an issue with the game fitting on my ultra-wide screen, but fortunately there is a screen resolution setting so smaller resolutions can be selected. Not ideal, but it works.

Multiplayer is PBEM via the Slitherine server.

So far I'd give it four sweaty oarsmen out of five.

[Zulu1966]

Any hot seat?

[Zulu1966]

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/726630/manuals/Mare_Nostrvm_Manual.pdf?t=1509644729

Manual. Looks good. For the price will be picking this one up.

[Jarhead0331]

Is there anything other than battle? Recruitment? Ship Building and/or repair? Do crews gain veterancy/experience? Do leaders improve over time? Is there any difference between having ships crewed by sailors and marines as opposed to slaves, etc.?

[Tamas]

Is there anything other than battle? Recruitment? Ship Building and/or repair? Do crews gain veterancy/experience? Do leaders improve over time? Is there any difference between having ships crewed by sailors and marines as opposed to slaves, etc.?

There is no carryover between battles. In skirmish, there are a lot of customisation options, including a variation of extra equipment depending on the ship type. Crew quality is a key attribute of a ship. It is set for historical scenarios, but can be adjusted (for a point cost) for skirmishes.

[MengJiao]

Waiting for opinions.  :-\  Still waiting. Still waiting. Waiting......

So far pretty fun,  You can put up sails and with better crews you can do oar rakes or put towers on your big ships and set the enemy on fire with ballistae.  There are lots of configuration options.  I've only played skirmishes so far, but they are pretty entertaining.

[Sir Slash]

Thanks Meng.  :clap:

[MengJiao]

Thanks Meng.  :clap:

   I had an interesting skirmish at the 600 point level.  With my trusty Etruscans, I set up behind a promitory  and placed the wind so as to drive the seaward wing of the Carthegenians into a gulf on the wrong side and keep them out of the battle.  My fleet had nothing heavier than a sexterces -- big enough to carry lots of projectile weapons, but not so big as to be an easy oar-rake -- my three commanders were on improved triremes and the rest of the fleet was basic triremes for lots of oar-raking.  Plus I put sails on the sexterces to allow them to run away quicker if needed.  And oh woe unto the Carthegenians.  Their central force was nothing but heptereces and Octerces -- easy oar-rake meat.  And lo, the Carthegenia center moved right into the kill zone without any support for one wing went into the gulf beyond the promitory and the other was scattered by a sextercian raid.  So into the kill zone went the Carthegenain heavy ships where they were oar-raked by light triremes, rammed by improved triremes and set on fire by sexterces.  I was pretty surprised at how my set of fairly simple strategies (or more like strategems) worked out.   Lovely game really.

[MengJiao]

Geez...ANOTHER ancient naval combat game. I hope they do a WW2 version

Agreed.  I think galley combat in WW2 was far more interesting.

Nearly suicidal even.  Which reminds me: to avoid any snoozefestive atmosphere in the game you can run the turns at high speed and then rewind to see if you missed anything important.

[SirAndrewD]

Nearly suicidal even.  Which reminds me: to avoid any snoozefestive atmosphere in the game you can run the turns at high speed and then rewind to see if you missed anything important.

Good to know.  Field of Glory II has been such a snoozefest that I've been playing it until I pass out in the wee hours of the morning.   Hopefully this will be the same.

[Jarhead0331]

What kind of visual feedback is there for the state of your ships and crews?

[Toonces]

Pass. 

[Cyrano]

They need to figure out a way to make it clearer with the smaller ship outlines, but, looking at right, that's crew strength at top and then, left to right, CRUISING SPEED, MAXIMUM SPEED, QUALITY (Seamanship), HULL, RAM

They can decrease depending on the nature of the damage taken, obviously.

So far, enjoying it a great deal.  Folks will correctly observe that it's another graphical step down from even FoG2, but that's not why I wanted in.  The battles in Trireme are far too small and take for flipping ever to resolve...even War Galley has always struck me as too much effort for what it is.  This is fun.

[jomni]

Waiting for opinions.  :-\  Still waiting. Still waiting. Waiting......

So far pretty fun,  You can put up sails and with better crews you can do oar rakes or put towers on your big ships and set the enemy on fire with ballistae.  There are lots of configuration options.  I've only played skirmishes so far, but they are pretty entertaining.

Good to know there is skirmish. I though they're all historical scenarios.