I've been thinking about doing a naval sim set in an ATL. Anybody else feel that this is a good idea?
Naval sim
- Thread starter Archangel Michael
- Start date
Archangel Michael said:
Absolutely! And I'd love to help!
I suppose you are familiar with Enigma, Rising Tide, which is set in an ATL in which Imperial Germany won the first world war in a landslide and is now involved in a 1930's 3-way cold war leading to hot war against the USA (which stayed out) and Japan (which is bolstered by an alliance with the "Royal Navy in Exile" and Britain's former empire). Not really a simulation in the classic sense, but kind of neat.
When I was much younger, a friend and I worked on a set of naval rules (based loosely on a combination of Fletcher Pratt and board game systems developed by Avalon Hill and Strategic Simulation for an early 30's naval war between an alliance of Germany/USA vs Japan/GB. In the early 1990's the SSI sim "Warship" allowed fairly easy creation of "never-were" ships and any kind of AH options you wanted to play around with (presuming you didn't need to be too picky about details).
I've always been particularly interested in the whole Washington Treaty era and would love a good general strategic/tactical simulation of 1900-1935 naval action which is detailed enough to be an accurate reflection of individual ship capabilities (no and calibre of guns, armor, protection, speed, etc) but open and generalized enough to allow "design" of AH scenarios, hypothetical ships, and fleets. A hypothetical "Plan Z" WW2 AH is also interesting.
Archangel Michael said:
Well I do this about once a mo . Its called naval minitures you can get a nice fleet for 99 Lbs from navwars . this is the philipine sea battle fleet . for both the japanies an americans at the battle .
They have 1/3000 size ships from 1900 to today including those that were only planed .
Check them out . and get a set of there rules .
A 1930's sim would be interesting. For ship design I suggest Springsharp, which I already have and use. Maybe a timeline in which Germany won would be interesting to play. Maybe we could do one set in the late 1920's or early 1930's in which the ARW happened later and the US is a monarchy and in which the Bonapartes rule. Now wouldn't that be interesting.
Ward said:
I presumed he was talking about computer sims and perhaps a game which combined the battles with a totally ATL strategic backstory. Of course, you are right. There are all kinds of published rules which allow one to fight just about any naval battle you might in any scale. The problem with a lot of miniature rules is that they are not "one player" games, and some require large teams and referees. My favorite of these is "Cordite and Steel" which is best played with 1/2400 or 1/1200 scale ships at true scale and is based on actual visual ranging estimates by players - meaning you sometimes need a basketball court.
Archangel Michael said:
Yes, it would. I like imaginative ATLs like that. One major game I worked on with my friend years ago was a "future history - post apocalypse" war between two civilizations redeveloping industrial technology, allowing us to play rather fast and loose with particular weapons systems and their capabilities. I've visited the Springsharp site several times but never downloaded it and played around with it. It looks awfully detailed, which might limit it to only the most detail-oriented gamers. Plus, is it copywrited?
zoomar said:
Springsharp is detailed, but after you play around with it for a while, you can handle it. Why would it be copyrighted?