The Roots of Warships

[Seadog_Supreme]

Like every genre of wargames (except air combat), naval battles had a tabletop equivalent before the internet and MMOs. Early PCs lacked the memory to do the math, so in place of what we have now, ship battles, mech wars, Star Trek, tanks, what have you, would use result tables and dice to generate random results. For this, the rulers you see are marked off in knots per turn. This is Seekreig 5, in 2004. The small but enthusiastic community was very informal. When I had a question about the game, I called the guy who published it, and he answered the phone, explained the game.

[Ramsalot]

It all started like this:

[Fishrokk]

55 minutes ago, Seadog_Supreme said:

Like every genre of wargames (except air combat)

I can assure you, this is not correct.  I have seen the table top air combat games, complete with posts to move your planes up and down it to track altitude.

---

Sorry, this came off as a jerk comment.  I didn't mean to 'neener, neener, you're wrong!'.  I just meant to set the record straight.

[khorender_1]

Love table top games whether it's historical or fantasy been a player since 88 or 89..

[Seadog_Supreme]

10 minutes ago, Ramsalot said:

It all started like this:

Yup. When the MechWarrior model I wanted to play didn't exist, I made it myself from cardboard and plastic. Then I got to play it!

[Ramsalot]

3 minutes ago, Seadog_Supreme said:

Yup. When the MechWarrior model I wanted to play didn't exist, I made it myself from cardboard and plastic. Then I got to play it!

I was born in coastal city, actually a naval base.  As kids, we used to make crude mock ups of ships from driftwood (well, more like wannabe mock-ups), let them float out to the sea, and bombard them with pebbles.  Best naval combat simulator ever before wows.

[TangledThorns]

Remember Starfleet Command? Loved that game on PC. I'd pay money for WG to make a Star Trek game  that is just as fun as WoWS.

 

 

[HazeGrayUnderway]

4 minutes ago, TangledThorns said:

Remember Starfleet Command? Loved that game on PC. I'd pay money for WG to make a Star Trek game  that is just as fun as WoWS.

 

 

I loved SFC, the first two ones were also very in-depth.  SFC3 with the TNG-era was arcade mode.  As I understood back then, the SFC games had roots also with the old Starfleet Battles tabletop game.  However, SFC3 was the last of the series and some time after it received a bunch of mods.  There was one I played, DomWars (Dominion Wars).  The mod creator had a server where a bunch of us players ran a campaign and he set the alliances up differently for each new multiplayer campaign.

[SgtBeltfed]

28 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

I loved SFC, the first two ones were also very in-depth.  SFC3 with the TNG-era was arcade mode.  As I understood back then, the SFC games had roots also with the old Starfleet Battles tabletop game.  However, SFC3 was the last of the series and some time after it received a bunch of mods.  There was one I played, DomWars (Dominion Wars).  The mod creator had a server where a bunch of us players ran a campaign and he set the alliances up differently for each new multiplayer campaign.

About the only differences between the first 2 SFC and good old Star Fleet Battles was they doubled the damage a box could take, and the rate of fire of the weapons went up some. It pretty much used the miniature rules for movement. Ah, those were the days.

[ReddNekk]

1 hour ago, khorender_1 said:

Love table top games whether it's historical or fantasy been a player since 88 or 89..

I played board games a lot in the 80s and 90s. Games like Panzer Leader, Squad Leader, Ironclads, Wooden Ships and Iron Men, Bismarck, Axis and Allies, and Gettysburg.

50 minutes ago, TangledThorns said:

Remember Starfleet Command? Loved that game on PC. I'd pay money for WG to make a Star Trek game  that is just as fun as WoWS.

 

 

That game was/is excellent! Something like that as a online game would be great. How well did you do in the Kobayashi Maru scenario?

[Nhi_Vanye]

Actually, ship battle games go back much further than this.  I still have a copy of the Avalon Hill game Jutland from around 1970 or so.  It used cardboard counters with overhead view drawings of the capital ships with range rulers and complex rules about visibility.  AH also had a Bismark game that recreated the campaign to intercept and sink the Bismarck.  These games were a lot of fun, but it was hard to find folks to play with.  I find this the coolest aspect of the computer MMO games is that there are always willing opponents.

[Rangestalker]

55 minutes ago, TangledThorns said:

Remember Starfleet Command? Loved that game on PC. I'd pay money for WG to make a Star Trek game  that is just as fun as WoWS.

 

 

One of my all time favorite games. I wish someone would port it to windows 10.

i remember downloading mods for higher definition ships and new ships. 

 

[mushmouthmorton]

Played Avalon Hill games across the Pacific and back during the '76 Westpac on the Enterprise

 

[HazeGrayUnderway]

My extent of tabletop gaming time wayy back in the day:

AD&D 2nd Ed.

West End Games' "Fire Team" - My Dad got me this game for some reason.  It was nothing alike from what he had gotten me before as a teenager.  But I learned to like it a lot.  Fun stuff playing the Soviets!

Spoiler

 

And the most mainstream of this kind of stuff, "Warhammer 40,000."  I started in the Rogue Trader days (back when a box of plastic 50 space marines cost $30 USD, a metal terminator squad cost the same amount) and played thru 2nd edition.  Back when the Dark Angels wore black and the idea of Space Marines wearing camo wasn't crazy.

Spoiler

 

Yeah brah, that's a Ultramarine wearing camo!  This was from the Rogue Trader rulebook.  I loved the game so much that I wore the hell out of the rulebook and the spine eventually split.  I had to put the pages into a binder to keep going.  I shudder to think of what happened to my old WH40k figures after I graduated from high school and left home for service.

[Black_Jack_Honour]

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3670/battlewagon

 

Battlewagon!

[VannKraken]

2 hours ago, Seadog_Supreme said:

Like every genre of wargames (except air combat), naval battles had a tabletop equivalent before the internet and MMOs. Early PCs lacked the memory to do the math, so in place of what we have now, ship battles, mech wars, Star Trek, tanks, what have you, would use result tables and dice to generate random results. For this, the rulers you see are marked off in knots per turn. This is Seekreig 5, in 2004. The small but enthusiastic community was very informal. When I had a question about the game, I called the guy who published it, and he answered the phone, explained the game.

Hmmm, that line of battle to the North looks like a five ship lemming train to me.

I wonder if the younger guy on the left (with all the hair) is about to shout down his teammates for acting like a bunch of Noobs?  Back then, you probably got whacked with the yardstick if you did...