Mare Nostrum

[Cyrano]

The skirmish actually appears very robust.

[MengJiao]

The skirmish actually appears very robust.

  I was trounced really fast in this skirmish.  The ram-crazy world of biremes and tremolous was beyond me.  Ships get flipped over and sunk (you see them go down), catch fire, shoot arrows, throw grapples and lose crew markers.  I just noticed that the command banners blow with the wind.  Oh and in this image it is raining and I left the bases on for some reason.

[gabeeg]

I'm Biased as I am a sucker for naval warfare.  First off I am happy that it is WEGO and I can play another human being in a PBEM type manner!  Most tactical naval games are real time (or strat like WitPAE...a major investment in time).   So far I really like the game, I was afraid it might be one that you play a week or two and there's little to bring you back to it, but I don't think that's the case.   The game is basic but has some depth...simple but effective tactical depth and has varied play options.  I also think its a good palette for future updates both in additional function and DLC, I hope they do both. For the price I think its a two thumbs up!  Now only if NWS would release its next title...oh and someone make an age of sail PBEM capable game...and a PBEM capable WWI-modern naval warfare game...so many wants...

[jomni]

I also think its a good palette for future updates both in additional function and DLC, I hope they do both.

Having worked on a Lepanto mod in Pike and Shot, would love to see renaissance galley battles in this engine.

[Destraex]

I am unhappy to say this is a game made verbatim from it's parent board game rule set.

Can anybody confirm that ships travel any faster physically over a short distance? From what I saw speed was a constant but distance travelled seemed to be further or less according to rower effort. So speeding up to ram a ship in close proximity does not appear to be possible. In other words can I beat you to a hex or just go further than you in  a turn past the hex?

Their seemed to be no impact on physics, because their is no physics model? It's all dice rolls with a chance to do things. Their is a chance to rake oars but no opportunity to ship oars. Raking is only a chance for ships in grappling mode? Or is it ramming mode?

It's all rock papers scissors according to the rules. Combat and boarding are pretty much just dice rolls as well.

The graphics of the ships are very late 90s. Looking more like age of sail 2 than a modern game. Again. No real excuse for this in this day and age.
No banks of oars depicted either. Just one bank of oars for everything. Everything seems simplified to the max. I know the excuse will be that so many ships need to be shown at once. But in this modern age we live (LOD, draw distance model changes etc) in this level of graphics is simpler than stylised graphics that just use shapes. The sea looks fine but the ships are really just good as silhouettes.

This could have been so much better. I have wanted a WEGO game for galley warfare for sssoooooo long. There is in reality not much you can do with this game but watch. You have very little control over what is going on other than to set a direction for the ships and whether they are in ramming or grappling mode. (I think you may be able to raise and lower sails as well?). Other than that you control distance travelled which will make your rowers tired or keep them rested. You do not have any fine control over ramming angles or where marines are stationed. No way to help win a boarding action.

As far as I could see the battles are set piece tabletop battles as well. The approaches so close that the setup phase is fairly redundant. Would have liked a world map with a little campaign manoever to setup the battle in a more interesting way.

This has some really good features but is mostly let down by ancient board game mechanics. Hexes and such. The way the corvus animation is done is good. I have not seen firepots in action.
For all my whinging this is a decent tabletop wargame representation. But not the advanced galley warfare simulation wargame I wanted. I will be grabbing it though in all likelihood. Because their is nothing else. Unless I can find a realistic rome2 galley warfare mod.

P.S. Who is the guy in the review talking about slave rowers? Perhaps he has seen Ben Hur too many times.

[MengJiao]

I am unhappy to say this is a game made verbatim from it's parent board game rule set.

Can anybody confirm that ships travel any faster physically over a short distance? From what I saw speed was a constant but distance travelled seemed to be further or less according to rower effort. So speeding up to ram a ship in close proximity does not appear to be possible. In other words can I beat you to a hex or just go further than you in  a turn past the hex?

Their seemed to be no impact on physics, because their is no physics model? It's all dice rolls with a chance to do things. Their is a chance to rake oars but no opportunity to ship oars. Raking is only a chance for ships in grappling mode? Or is it ramming mode?

It's all rock papers scissors according to the rules. Combat and boarding are pretty much just dice rolls as well.

The graphics of the ships are very late 90s. Looking more like age of sail 2 than a modern game. Again. No real excuse for this in this day and age.
No banks of oars depicted either. Just one bank of oars for everything. Everything seems simplified to the max. I know the excuse will be that so many ships need to be shown at once. But in this modern age we live (LOD, draw distance model changes etc) in this level of graphics is simpler than stylised graphics that just use shapes. The sea looks fine but the ships are really just good as silhouettes.

This could have been so much better. I have wanted a WEGO game for galley warfare for sssoooooo long. There is in reality not much you can do with this game but watch. You have very little control over what is going on other than to set a direction for the ships and whether they are in ramming or grappling mode. (I think you may be able to raise and lower sails as well?). Other than that you control distance travelled which will make your rowers tired or keep them rested. You do not have any fine control over ramming angles or where marines are stationed. No way to help win a boarding action.

As far as I could see the battles are set piece tabletop battles as well. The approaches so close that the setup phase is fairly redundant. Would have liked a world map with a little campaign manoever to setup the battle in a more interesting way.

This has some really good features but is mostly let down by ancient board game mechanics. Hexes and such. The way the corvus animation is done is good. I have not seen firepots in action.
For all my whinging this is a decent tabletop wargame representation. But not the advanced galley warfare simulation wargame I wanted. I will be grabbing it though in all likelihood. Because their is nothing else. Unless I can find a realistic rome2 galley warfare mod.

P.S. Who is the guy in the review talking about slave rowers? Perhaps he has seen Ben Hur too many times.

  The review is chock-full of misinformation of all kinds, starting with a weird restaurant-special delivery of latin, going on through sails and oarsmen (I'm sure there were slave oarsmen somewhere, but not so much on Athenian triremes say or even on Venetian galleys...even in Livy there is a story of Rhodian oarsmen being talked into risking all on a difficult battle when they all had the flu) to how crippling works.
   Beyond that, my experience of the game has been different mostly because I wasn't expecting much and partly because I have some other things to gripe about:
1) How about an editor
2) what's up with the ships the AI picks (I think some editing would help the AI)?

Yet...I don't really see the combat as excessively simplistic.  One odd thing is that if the average AI expenditure on ships heavier than a quinquereme excedes yours you will almost certainly win big.  The bigger ships just get horribly oar-raked.  I'm not sure this is realistic -- but -- it is interesting and it does make intuitive sense.  So for that alone the game seems to have a slightly more complex dynamic than what I was expecting.  The Ai (of course) has lots of odd problems BUT thing of all the easy fixes this game has:
1) editor
2) campaigns of some kind
3) improved AI
4) improved historical parameters (so you can't get relatively large ships relatively early)
5) improved oar and speed options
6) expansion to later periods and technologies.

Anyway, overall I remain happy and hopeful.

[Destraex]

I agree. Slaves were only recorded a few times in ancient history. Usually when freeing them to serve on ships in emergencies! The rest of ancient history they were free well trained skillful rowers in most fleets. Later on in renaissance times and later they did use slaves though which is probably why people get confused.

[Destraex]

Oh and you will also notice that their are no ships bigger than one square in the game. Which negates many small ships attacking a large one or perhaps visa versa.

[MengJiao]

Oh and you will also notice that their are no ships bigger than one square in the game. Which negates many small ships attacking a large one or perhaps visa versa.

  A ship can definitely be attacked by multiple ships, either sequentially or at the same time, plus you can use small ships to box in big ships while you unfoul your ram and line up to ram again.  Ships over the size of a sexterces are a problem for the AI as far as I can tell in that the AI builds them for skirmishes far too often and far too many.  I have experimented with a few ships as big as a hepterces but the poor AI will happily build massive fleets of 8s and 10s surrounded by swarms of triremes and tremolas.  In some ways this plays to the AI's strength in that it can coordinate masses of ships and that alone gives them a certain level of fighting power, though it also guarantees that the AI will block itself a lot of the time and have a lot of ships that go out of control (whereupon preservation trumps all apparently to the point that Uncommanded AI ships will more or less run themselves aground or go far from any hope of returning to command...I guess my uncommanded ships would do the same under the same circumstances).  Still the skirmishes are interesting and I don't win many historical battles.

[MengJiao]

Oh and you will also notice that their are no ships bigger than one square in the game. Which negates many small ships attacking a large one or perhaps visa versa.

  A ship can definitely be attacked by multiple ships, either sequentially or at the same time, plus you can use small ships to box in big ships while you unfoul your ram and line up to ram again.  Ships over the size of a sexterces are a problem for the AI as far as I can tell in that the AI builds them for skirmishes far too often and far too many.  I have experimented with a few ships as big as a hepterces but the poor AI will happily build massive fleets of 8s and 10s surrounded by swarms of triremes and tremolas.  In some ways this plays to the AI's strength in that it can coordinate masses of ships and that alone gives them a certain level of fighting power, though it also guarantees that the AI will block itself a lot of the time and have a lot of ships that go out of control (whereupon preservation trumps all apparently to the point that Uncommanded AI ships will more or less run themselves aground or go far from any hope of returning to command...I guess my uncommanded ships would do the same under the same circumstances).  Still the skirmishes are interesting and I don't win many historical battles.

And things can even turn out worse than "Crippled"  -- you could be immobilized (oar-raked on both sides, evidently)...if you are crippled you can still turn in one hex in one direction.  You'd think some kind of repair would be possible.

[jomni]

Is there capturing and towing?

[Staggerwing]

If you get oar-raked can you eventually move some oars from the undamaged side to the other and get some directional balance restored, albeit at reduced speed?

[MengJiao]

Is there capturing and towing?

  A captured ship becomes yours, though with no marines or firepower.  It can still ram and do blocking.

[MengJiao]

If you get oar-raked can you eventually move some oars from the undamaged side to the other and get some directional balance restored, albeit at reduced speed?

   No.  The game has lots of odd limitations.

[Boggit]

I mostly agree with Destraex's and MengJiao's views. I think they gave a pretty fair assessment of pros and cons. Overall, I am broadly happy with it too so far.

However, these are my first impressions. I've only had the game a short while, so am still getting used to it.

I do think the game would be much more user friendly if the developers updated the game controls to allow a "snap to combat" preference, and to polish up the UI focus with regard to zoom and moving round the map, as I found this aspect jerky, and not particularly user friendly when the action heats up.

On the plus side, it covers all the basics of galley warfare, and while the graphics might have been more inspiring what you do get is functional and clear.