From: jd@nai.net Subject: Age of Sail Guys, I casually moseyed on by and happened to see this game in CompUSA while I was there looking at Nintendo 64 systems.... My bulbous ass I did!!! I heard it was out and RAN out to my car... RACED to the store... and MELTED half the numbers on my credit card from the friction of yanking it out of my wallet too fast! And it just might have been worth the effort at that. Initial <2 hours> impressions are good... unlike my first 10 minutes with WS&IM. This might just be something close to the real deal. It does squadron/division/fleet manoeuvring, it does the usual weapons loadouts, it does the usual sail configurations, etc., etc., etc. What's GOOD: * It executes in modified real time... ie, normal time or accelerated time, with the ability to pause and scope out the situation and issue orders at your leisure. This is definitely not a CC style click-fest. This means that the biggest problem with WS&IM... the inordinately long turn length... is not even a consideration here. * It has a facility for issuing manoeuvre, sail, or fire orders to just one ship at a time, or to a squadron, division, or fleet. The multi ship manoeuvring orders can be given as "all together" or "in succession". * They fixed the "crows nest" style graphic... it's now a rectangular fighting top. * There are two damage reports for each ship. There is a quick look type thing that shows you the total damage as a percentage to things like sails, hull, etc., which is always available on the status bar at the bottom of the screen. Then there's the detailed status report for each ship which shows damage to each mast individually and the hull, as well as the current status of the crew, the marines, the guns , the rudder, &c.. The damage to the masts in this display is still given as a percentage, but it has a direct relationship to how much of the mast is still standing. For instance, after hammering away at one ship as it tried to cut my line, I saw where the status of it's foremast was 7% >. When I zoomed in on that ship I saw where there was nothing left but the stump of the lower mast. So I checked on a few other ships. At around 75%, the Topgallant is down, while at 50% the Top mast is down. There doesn't seem to be an exact point where this occurs... ie, it's not like at 51% it's standing and fully functional, but at 50% it's down and non-functional. I haven't had a chance yet to evaluate the effect that damage to a specific mast or group of sails would have on manoeuvrability. * The game comes with like 100+ scenarios, including some famous but oft neglected ones like Camperdown, St Vincent, Cuddalore, Madras, and The Glorious First of June. It also has a scenerio editor where in you can create from scratch or edit existing scenarios. Unlike WS&IM's editor however, this one doesn't seem to suffer from an unreasonable restriction on the number of ships per side. Apparently, it's limited only by the amount of memory you have available. With 16 meg, I can load all of the existing scenarios, although I will admit that Trafalgar runs slow. I'm not sure how much this has to do with memory, vice processor speed though. What's NOT SO GOOD: * The ships manoeuvre in 45 degree increments. Much better than hexes, but I would prefer more flexibility. * There doesn't seem to be any way to specifically order or set up one side to favor shooting at rigging vice shooting at the hull. However, when you select the type of shot to be fired, the AI seems to do the right thing with it . * They did NOT fix the 3D graphic which shows a Course bent to the Cross-jack yard. Gawd a-mighty! * There are some scenarios which are conspicuously absent. I didn't see Chesapeake, Aboukir Bay, any of the W.I. actions between DeGrasse and Hood, or Ushant . Also, I don't see why they did not enlarge to scope to cover the 7 Years War. There doesn't seem to be any reason why Quiberon Bay or Minorca wouldn't fit comfortably into this system. But unfortunately.... * ... The editorial functions do not extend to the ships themselves. In fact, there is a database of ships already created that you must work with in building or editing scenarios. This then begs the question... what happens when you want to create a scenario dated 1775 using HMS Victory for instance? Which Victory do you get... the 1805 version with the 68lber Carronades or the 1756 version with the spritsail top mast? > If Talonsoft doesn't release some kind of editing utility, I can only hope that some enterprising afficianado out there will find a way. Hopefully, this won't be a case of there being just so many slots available in the data file. * I don't see any land here either >. * The manual is really quite skimpy but to be fair it does have a decent on-line help facility. Anyway, there's a lot here to like. The game play feels much more... fleet-ish... than WS&IM, which feels more like you're chasing a bunch of disconnected ships around >. I might have a few more words on this game after I've played some more, but so far it seems worthy of a trip to the store. As always, get it where you can return it though . Regards, JD -------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====----------------------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet From: robear@access5.digex.net (Robear) Subject: Re: Age of Sail sighted at Comp USA In article <575vaj$apm@dfw-ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>, pnatta wrote: >Age of Sail sighted 30 degrees off the starboard bow at Comp USA. $45 American. From the >documentation so far, it looks fabulous! Well, got it and played a bit. Here are the highlights. Pros: Scenario designer with 10 countries and 2,000 ships. Campaign game with promotions yielding squadron and fleet command. Time lags in appropriate ways for maneuver, sail changes and reloading. Freeboard affects 2-deckers or larger. Angle of wind affects speed. Sails can be luffed to slow down for a bit. Raking and firing high are modeled. Fouling, grappling and boarding can be done. Realtime and faster speeds. Cons: No land. 8-point movement system. All firing is by broadside. No chasers; not sure about carronades. All sails controlled together. Only 3 sail settings (no detailled reefing). Scenario editor crashed on first attempt. All ships have the same best point of sail - according to the docs, and it is dead aft. Oops. I hope that's patchable. :-) Oh yeah, 100 canned scenarios too - a definite Pro. I'd say this one is well worth it. The battle I fought was fun. Haven't tried multiple ship stuff yet. And the cons are mostly nits, except the last one - I think changing it might affect the AI, but different rigs should have different points of sail, and most of them will be 6 points or more off the wind, according to the books. Dead aft would allow only one set of sails to work, for the larger rigs, and would be difficult at best for the sloop rigs that did work better. Hmmm...With only 8 possible headings, the wind could be 22.5 degrees off the stern in either direction. I think this would include the best point of sail of most ships - but it then loses the distinctions between the types in terms of maneuver! Speed seems modeled well. Could the game possibly go to 16 or 32 or (gasp!) 64 points of sail? That would show the various maneuver differences very well. Any Talonsoft guys want to comment? Overall, I like it, although I wish the music was period instead of generic. Music was a big part of life in the period, from what I've read, and some chanber music and reels and stuff would be entertaining. David Pipes . From: John Beaderstadt Subject: Re: Age of Sail sighted at Comp USA Robear wrote: > Pros: > Scenario designer with 10 countries and 2,000 ships. Actually, this is a little bit of a "Con." The ships are listed alphabetically in a small, scrolling dialogue window. You cannot, for example, hit "C" on the keyboard and go to the "C" ship names, but must scoll through all the names until you get there; god help you if you're looking for a ship named "Valkyrie!" > Sails can be luffed to slow down for a bit. You can also issue a single order that will have all ships in a squadron adjust to a common speed (that of the slowest vessel in the squadron); this avoids a lot of non-essential micromanagement. > Realtime and faster speeds. This is a *big* plus! Granted that most of these battles happened in super slo-mo, anyway, the ability to go to super-fast helps slower computers keep the game at a bearable pace. > Cons: > No land. Neither does WSIM. This is just something we have to put up with, I guess. I heard a long time ago (about a year) that SSI was going to do a sailing game, so maybe... > 8-point movement system. Probably another inherent "feature" of the genre. I have a couple of sets of miniatures rules that do the same. > No chasers; not sure about carronades. Carronades are there; in the extended unit list, look for something like "2x36c" meaning "two thirty-six pound carronades." I'm not sure what effect they have on the game, though (I didn't like how WSIM used them). > Only 3 sail settings (no detailled reefing). Well, the thrust of the game seems to be at the operational level; the player is *not* a ship's captain, but a squadron commander who wouldn't normally bother with individual vessels. In those single-ship scenarios, you could argue that the captain would probably delegate that kind of thing to the 1st Lieutenant, so he could concentrate on the battle. > Scenario editor crashed on first attempt. I had a non-fatal GPF, that seemed to let me continue without anything bad happening. I scrapped the scenario, though, since I didn't want to trust it. One thing I definitely don't like, is the warning somewhere in the docs that you shouldn't try editing a canned scenario; apparently, merely loading one into the editor is enough to screw it up. > All ships have the same best point of sail - according to the docs, > and it is dead aft. Oops. I hope that's patchable. :-) Er, incorrect. The BPS is on the quarter (manual, p.28, sect 3.4). Given the parameters, I don't have a problem with them all using the same BPS. > Oh yeah, 100 canned scenarios too - a definite Pro. Yes and no. The quantity is good, but I question the quality. Flamborough Head (#007, I believe) gives the B. Richard a better-quality ship and crew than the Serapis. This certainly doesn't match SE Morison's account of the battle. > I'd say this one is well worth it. The battle I fought was fun. Definitely! I agree that there are a few niggles, but haven't seen anything off-putting. Some people might prefer the micro-management of WSIM, but I like AOS miniatures' style of play (actually, I had the uncanny feeling that my 1:2000 fleet of Valiant ships was out of the basement and on my computer). > Overall, I like it, although I wish the music was period instead of > generic. Music was a big part of life in the period, from what I've > read, and some chanber music and reels and stuff would be entertaining. I think they borrowed from "Captain Blood," etc. There's a definite Hollywood lilt. OTOH, my 2x CD can't quite keep up with it, so I shut the music off, anyway. Still, it wouldn't have been any more trouble to use period shanties and hornpipes. BTW, I'm playing in W3.11, with 8 MB RAM, on a 486DX2-80. The game supposedly runs best with 16 MB RAM, and a few features are apparently disabled on 8 MB systems. I haven't yet noticed that the lack of anything has hurt my enjoyment; in fact, I re-enabled the super-zoom view (normally disabled for 8 MB), only to find that the area covered was too small for me to tell what was happening, over-all (even in single-ship engagements). Super-zoom is only useful for admiring the gorgeous graphics, and should probably be avoided in most cases. -- "The fortunate man knows how much he can safely leave to chance." -- Lady Barbara Hornblower