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Command the Fleet Intro (generously compiled by The Colonel)
Banners provided by Kelly!
The Situation
Command the Fleet is a role-playing-game (rpg) concerning the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II. Each player will take command of a main ship and assume command of a number of supporting ships (dependant upon command/victory points). Players will give general (or not so general!) orders to Ryder who will plot out all players' and non-players' (npc) moves. Enemy fleets moving in proximity to each other have a chance of engaging in combat. Players gain victory and command points for winning battles. The winning side of the game will be determined by most accumulated victory points(convoys worth a few: depending on size, helping/supporting ground forces worth a few, sinking enemy ship in encounter worth a lot, etc... ) Since a great deal of the game is simulated off these boards after Ryder receives players' choices, the game has a nice random feel, since he's not just arbitrarily deciding winners. The story and choices go by Ryder and the players, but results are out of Ryder's hands.
RPG Characters
As for characters, it is really optional how in detail you go with them, you're more or less playing generic human commanders, it's the decisions you make with your fleet more-so than your 'guys' details, but feel free to elaborate as you wish, just remember think 'human' & 'ww2'.
You'll be making a lot of decisions, but the combat part is more or less generated off-site. So, no-one has to log-in for a whole afternoon to do fifty back-in-forth 'turns' to resolve a fight. The game would be way too slow that way. You do get to choose some options about what you want your ship to do in a fight beforehand though, among other options.
Your Fleet
Every player will have the same starting budget, so guys who started with the big ships will probably put to sea with one or two destroyers in the wings and little else besides their prize battleship. Cruiser players might get off with three or more medium sized cruisers in their fleet and have leftovers for a destroyer or two. Ships are bought off the master list.
You can use parts of your budget to tweak what a ship is outfitted with, but the emphasis is can. Most ships are pretty decently outfitted at the start. Sold items yield nothing, including starting sets. So, buying a ship and changing everything will be costly, especially since you pay for all its starting armament too.
Turns/Rounds/Moves
A turn is your set of orders for, say, a week. The orders will be a list of choices spanning about ten rounds/moves. You give a few orders, waypoints maybe, activities, etc. Each will take a certain amount of rounds. You set up a few in a row with some conditions, like perhaps "cancel planned activity and steam for friendly port if damaged notably in a fight". When I get everybody's for the week, the rounds go in order (off-site handling) and a 'turn' is done. Results are PM'd!
Sample Turn
Leave Hamburg Port/enter German Waters (1 round) German Waters to North Sea (1 round) North Sea to Straight of Denmark (2 rounds) Straight of Denmark to Eastern North Atlantic (2 rounds) Remain hunting in Eastern North Atlantic for all remaining rounds, assuming no serious damage is taken (4 rounds).
That'd be orders for all ten rounds of a turn, they might not all get executed because a fight on the way to the Eastern North Atlantic might cost a round or two, but assuming all goes swimmingly, orders for all ten are given. Let's say the axis player really wants to get to the relative safety of the Eastern North Atlantic. Well now he could also PM me this, ignore all fights en-route. So now if he spots a little British convoy in the North Sea, he'll pass it by, so as not to waste an extra round in the North Sea. He can't stop fast Allied units from drawing him into a fight, but at least he won't start any of his own now. If he wanted to, he could get more specific (e.g. ignore all pithy convoys en-route, but if a nice juicy fleet smaller than mine strays my way, then engage).
So basically, how complicated this game gets is largely in your hands, it really depends on how detailed you make those instructions for me each week (we could go faster than once a week, but only if everyone did, and not 'till I've had a breather after finishing these endless little subtleties). So that's how a turn goes, roughly! There's more to do too, but that's the basics.
Fleet management doesn't have to be done once a week. You have, say, three ships, for which you describe their behavior with a few quantitative questions and a few qualitative questions. Like your cruiser the HMS ExampleShip, likes to close distance to range 2 on smaller ships, to range 1 on battleships. It will fight without attempting withdraw to roughly half damage or half the weapons lost. These kind of questions are quantitative. Also, some all purpose questions that cover situations too varied to pre-plan like: in general, the battleship Vanguard is a prize to protect, so withdraw anytime she's threatened. My cruisers are her expendable escorts; if we're doing well in a fight then don't quit on one of the cruisers account. These kind of qualitative questions will help me ALOT when compiling a fight.
"Hooking Up"
You can travel with other players' fleets and fight together, just PM the other players (to avoid tipping your hand to the other side) and agree on a course of action/route. When you give your weeks commands, include your wish to travel with said player, then as long as the routes are the same... poof, one big fleet at large! Additionally, NPC fleets (from your side) will report their intentions to you, plan a 'hook up' route, and express your intentions to join them and you'll be in their fleet. Notes: Joining NPC fleets means following their course of action, you can try to suggest, but generally NPC fleets will do what they want to so joining them means following their course. Also, when joined with another player or NPC, RPs (Request Points) won are shared/divided, so their is a downside to traveling together.
Victory Points and Command Points
There will be two types of points to accumulate during the game, Victory points and Command points [I thought this was a more "gaming" sounding name
]. Victory points are simple, they are accumulated by sinking ships, convoys, helping support land battles, and the like. They are pooled as a team (Axis or Allied) and determine the winner at the wars end. It is possible for your side to lose the war, but win this game, this would be akin to the Allies winning primarily based on strategic land victories, but at wars end tipping their hats to the Axis for having conducted a better naval campaign than they did, or vice versa. So, the team with the most victory points at the end wins. Victory points can't be spent or anything; they just keep score, and their total is visible to all.
Command points are more like money. Command points are accumulated in much the same way as VPs, but on an individual player basis. They can be 'spent' to "purchase" upgrades or new ships. Repairs will only cost time, but upgrades will cost time and CPs. With enough CPs one could buy armor enhancements, change the secondary armaments, install better range-finding equipment, etc. With a lot of CPs one could install a torpedo-bulge armor, or even change-out the main turrets for higher caliber main weapons. With a ton of CPs one could expand their fleet with a new ship, giving the player two or more ships under their direct control.
Command Points and Request Points are the same thing/used interchangeably, btw.
Here are some of the key ships involved, feel free to reserve one!
AXIS SHIPS
Bismarck
Heavy battleship
Adm TheColonel
Gneisenau
Light battleship
no commander
Admiral Graf Spee
Pocket battleship/Cruiser
Adm Tini
Deutschland
Pocket battleship/Cruiser
Adm MarmaladePRO
Banners provided by Kelly!
The Situation
Command the Fleet is a role-playing-game (rpg) concerning the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II. Each player will take command of a main ship and assume command of a number of supporting ships (dependant upon command/victory points). Players will give general (or not so general!) orders to Ryder who will plot out all players' and non-players' (npc) moves. Enemy fleets moving in proximity to each other have a chance of engaging in combat. Players gain victory and command points for winning battles. The winning side of the game will be determined by most accumulated victory points(convoys worth a few: depending on size, helping/supporting ground forces worth a few, sinking enemy ship in encounter worth a lot, etc... ) Since a great deal of the game is simulated off these boards after Ryder receives players' choices, the game has a nice random feel, since he's not just arbitrarily deciding winners. The story and choices go by Ryder and the players, but results are out of Ryder's hands.
RPG Characters
As for characters, it is really optional how in detail you go with them, you're more or less playing generic human commanders, it's the decisions you make with your fleet more-so than your 'guys' details, but feel free to elaborate as you wish, just remember think 'human' & 'ww2'.
You'll be making a lot of decisions, but the combat part is more or less generated off-site. So, no-one has to log-in for a whole afternoon to do fifty back-in-forth 'turns' to resolve a fight. The game would be way too slow that way. You do get to choose some options about what you want your ship to do in a fight beforehand though, among other options.
Your Fleet
Every player will have the same starting budget, so guys who started with the big ships will probably put to sea with one or two destroyers in the wings and little else besides their prize battleship. Cruiser players might get off with three or more medium sized cruisers in their fleet and have leftovers for a destroyer or two. Ships are bought off the master list.
You can use parts of your budget to tweak what a ship is outfitted with, but the emphasis is can. Most ships are pretty decently outfitted at the start. Sold items yield nothing, including starting sets. So, buying a ship and changing everything will be costly, especially since you pay for all its starting armament too.
Turns/Rounds/Moves
A turn is your set of orders for, say, a week. The orders will be a list of choices spanning about ten rounds/moves. You give a few orders, waypoints maybe, activities, etc. Each will take a certain amount of rounds. You set up a few in a row with some conditions, like perhaps "cancel planned activity and steam for friendly port if damaged notably in a fight". When I get everybody's for the week, the rounds go in order (off-site handling) and a 'turn' is done. Results are PM'd!
Sample Turn
Leave Hamburg Port/enter German Waters (1 round) German Waters to North Sea (1 round) North Sea to Straight of Denmark (2 rounds) Straight of Denmark to Eastern North Atlantic (2 rounds) Remain hunting in Eastern North Atlantic for all remaining rounds, assuming no serious damage is taken (4 rounds).
That'd be orders for all ten rounds of a turn, they might not all get executed because a fight on the way to the Eastern North Atlantic might cost a round or two, but assuming all goes swimmingly, orders for all ten are given. Let's say the axis player really wants to get to the relative safety of the Eastern North Atlantic. Well now he could also PM me this, ignore all fights en-route. So now if he spots a little British convoy in the North Sea, he'll pass it by, so as not to waste an extra round in the North Sea. He can't stop fast Allied units from drawing him into a fight, but at least he won't start any of his own now. If he wanted to, he could get more specific (e.g. ignore all pithy convoys en-route, but if a nice juicy fleet smaller than mine strays my way, then engage).
So basically, how complicated this game gets is largely in your hands, it really depends on how detailed you make those instructions for me each week (we could go faster than once a week, but only if everyone did, and not 'till I've had a breather after finishing these endless little subtleties). So that's how a turn goes, roughly! There's more to do too, but that's the basics.
Fleet management doesn't have to be done once a week. You have, say, three ships, for which you describe their behavior with a few quantitative questions and a few qualitative questions. Like your cruiser the HMS ExampleShip, likes to close distance to range 2 on smaller ships, to range 1 on battleships. It will fight without attempting withdraw to roughly half damage or half the weapons lost. These kind of questions are quantitative. Also, some all purpose questions that cover situations too varied to pre-plan like: in general, the battleship Vanguard is a prize to protect, so withdraw anytime she's threatened. My cruisers are her expendable escorts; if we're doing well in a fight then don't quit on one of the cruisers account. These kind of qualitative questions will help me ALOT when compiling a fight.
"Hooking Up"
You can travel with other players' fleets and fight together, just PM the other players (to avoid tipping your hand to the other side) and agree on a course of action/route. When you give your weeks commands, include your wish to travel with said player, then as long as the routes are the same... poof, one big fleet at large! Additionally, NPC fleets (from your side) will report their intentions to you, plan a 'hook up' route, and express your intentions to join them and you'll be in their fleet. Notes: Joining NPC fleets means following their course of action, you can try to suggest, but generally NPC fleets will do what they want to so joining them means following their course. Also, when joined with another player or NPC, RPs (Request Points) won are shared/divided, so their is a downside to traveling together.
Victory Points and Command Points
There will be two types of points to accumulate during the game, Victory points and Command points [I thought this was a more "gaming" sounding name
]. Victory points are simple, they are accumulated by sinking ships, convoys, helping support land battles, and the like. They are pooled as a team (Axis or Allied) and determine the winner at the wars end. It is possible for your side to lose the war, but win this game, this would be akin to the Allies winning primarily based on strategic land victories, but at wars end tipping their hats to the Axis for having conducted a better naval campaign than they did, or vice versa. So, the team with the most victory points at the end wins. Victory points can't be spent or anything; they just keep score, and their total is visible to all.Command points are more like money. Command points are accumulated in much the same way as VPs, but on an individual player basis. They can be 'spent' to "purchase" upgrades or new ships. Repairs will only cost time, but upgrades will cost time and CPs. With enough CPs one could buy armor enhancements, change the secondary armaments, install better range-finding equipment, etc. With a lot of CPs one could install a torpedo-bulge armor, or even change-out the main turrets for higher caliber main weapons. With a ton of CPs one could expand their fleet with a new ship, giving the player two or more ships under their direct control.
Command Points and Request Points are the same thing/used interchangeably, btw.
Here are some of the key ships involved, feel free to reserve one!
AXIS SHIPS
Bismarck
Heavy battleship
Adm TheColonel
Gneisenau
Light battleship
no commander
Admiral Graf Spee
Pocket battleship/Cruiser
Adm Tini
Deutschland
Pocket battleship/Cruiser
Adm MarmaladePRO
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