On Tue, 16 Jul 1996 10:22:13 +0200 Niek van Diepen <niekd@CS.KUN.NL> wrote
>Subject: Re: Clear for Action
>
>> Anybody played / seen Clear for Action?   I saw an ad in the Naval
>> Wargaming Review for this game...it looks like ShipBase III for the Age of
>> Sail...it is priced at 37 pounds which seems like a lot (I don't know the
>> latest dollar-to-pound conversion -- to date myself, last time I was in the
>> UK, it was just about 1 to 1....)
>
>Good to hear it's out. Langton has been working on it, but he is not
>the guy who programmed it. Haven't seen it yet so I would appreciate any
>comments too. 1 to 1 conversion rate, when was that? 37 pounds should
>be about 65 dollars now.
>
>Niek van Diepen (niekd@cs.kun.nl)

I have been playing this for quite a while now and find it entertaining and
innovative.

The game is similar in level of detail to Langton's own tabletop rules (ie
very detailed) but has one major innovative design feature. This is that the
master positions for the ships are as held on the computer, not as placed on
the table. The tabletop miniatures are moved in order to give a clear view
of where the computer says the ships are - not the other way round. I spent
a very long evening marking up a sea coloured sheet with a grid of points in
order to speed up ship movements.

There is an editor to allow all details of a fleet and the vessels in it to
be set up in advance. Ships can be broken down into individual commands for
each player if desired. This is important as it allows limited intelligence
of other friendly ships as well as enemy ships. Shore installations can also
be defined and edited. A terrain editor allows the coastline, hills and
submarine contours to b entered. If this is done the game runs slower, but
can allow for running aground. There is quite a lot of work in setting up a
game, but it gives a good result.

Each player enters orders for their ships in turn, these include
redistribution of crew, sail settings (at the sail level) and the miriad of
other tasks with the exception of shooting. The only shooting orders given
in this phase are notice of intent to "fire as you bear" on a particular
vessel with a specific broadside. Limited intelligence is given of all other
ships which can be seen. Visibility rules may leave a player unaware of
other vessels. Order can be given for boat actions - each boat lowered being
assigned to a group of boats which can be given a single order.

There is an option to allow two computers to be linked in a master-slave
configuration to allow simultaneous input. I have never used this option.

Once the orders are entered movement is calculated. An animation shows the
tracks of all vessels, and ends witha complete map of the action with all
vessels in their final positions. One flaw is that there is no table of
position and bearings at the end of this phase. The models are moved on the
table to reflect their new positions.

Each player then enters their firing. No measuring is involved as the
locations are already in the computers. The firer selects the vessel to be
fired at, and is presented witha list of guns which face the target. Counts
are given by deck and gun type of how many are loaded and can bare and the
player selects which decks and sizes will fire and what they will reload with.

Once all firing is entered the computer calculates the results and displays
damage to each players own vessels in turn. Notable major events to other
vessels are also shown.

Boarding actions and morale are also calculated by the computer, it decides
if a vessel breaks off the action or surrenders.

Overall the game plays well with small actions, but the time spent entering
orders is excessive for large actions. This would probably be better with
the master/slave arrangement. The game feels right as it plays and has had a
side effect of teaching us a lot about the mechanics of operating Napoleonic
vessels. One minor nuisance is the copy protectin system. This allows
installation (and reinstallation) on one computer only, which is fine when
it is ona home machine, but no good if you want to transfer onto a borrowed
laptop to take to a club meeting. There is a supplmentary disk with a series
of pre-edited historical encounters.

================================================================
Cheers
Nick Meredith - nickm@discover.co.uk