Thinking about Naval and Space Games

[Easy E]

Most of you folks know that my first game ever was a wet-Navy game set in the Warhammer 40 universe called Aquanautica Imperialis.  Therefore, Naval and even Space combat games have a place close to my heart.  However, I also find the genre challenging to design miniature wargames for. 

This post explores why and some potential approaches to getting around it.  It is a little rambling, think piece, and I hope it sparks some discussion. 

You can find it here:

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/06/wargame-design-thinking-about-naval-and.html 

Here are some of the key thoughts:

Challenges for Designing Naval/Space Games
1. Where are all the battles at?
2. Re-fighting WWII
3. Few Naval Powers
4. Problem of Scale

Some ideas to "Fix" these issues?
1. You don't have to lean into Historical battles
2. Re-fight WWII but with FOCUS!
3. Look at someplace else rather than WWII!  D'uh!
4. Simulation is not the only approach to a game
5. Scale is what you make it

The audience here seems to have a lot of thoughts and ideas in this area.  Hopefully, you can help spark some creative juices for me.

[ithoriel]

Interesting read, thanks for posting the link.

As one who sees no point refighting battles we already know the result of I prefer to avoid the simulationist point of the triangle, though I do like my wargaming to be within the bounds of the possible (for a certain value of possible) if the setting is historical. So, no Tiger tanks in 1940, no Sumerians with iron weapons, no U-boats in 1890. That said I have no problem with counterfactual games involving Weird War 2, giant mecha, or elves.

For space combat I have long preferred my spaceships to be more submarine than aircraft carrier. More The Expanse and less Star Wars.

The older I get, the worse my hand/ eye coordination, the more I am drawn to smaller scales. 2mm Romans, 3mm Samurai, 6mm Sumerians, 10mm WW2 but also 1/1200 triremes, 1/2400 Armada period galleons, 1/4800 Napoleonic sailing ships, 1/3000 scale WW2. The latter only because 1/6000 scale WW2 ships weren't available when I started my collection.

Wargames, like life, are all about the compromises one makes, IMHO.

[Easy E]

Yes, there is that eternal question of submarines, battleships, or carriers when you approach Space gaming.  That is why Space games often feel like WWII "n space!". 

Perhaps, as we see this era of drone warfare developing designers need to read more sci-fi and go even further afield.   

[Elbows]

I've played a decent handful of naval and space-naval games and never found one that really got me excited about it.  This is one of those categories where I generally relegate it to "if someone else wants to run it, I'll play it...".

I own a decent chunk of Star Wars Armada simply because it's "fun enough" and quick compared to many other games - and everyone here likes classic trilogy Star Wars.  I don't think it's a particularly great game, but it's simple and quick.

I played some Victory at Sea and just found it...rather boring.
I played some Battlefleet Gothic and just found it...really boring.
I enjoyed A Billion Suns but it felt more...manipulative than combat focus'ed.  A neat idea I guess for an 'adjacent' style game.
I played some of the Warlord littoral combat game (Cruel Seas?) and it was rather boring.  It seemed to end really fast the second someone with a decent gun landed a hit.
While I never played it, I liked a lot of the concepts I saw coming from Dropfleet Commander(?).  The justification for why ships in space would even fight was nice.

I like the idea of the "more submarine" idea of space combat.  I also like the idea of the victim drawing concealed damage.  I like the idea of unidentified ships with the need to locate/identify/inspect opposing ships, etc.  I like science fiction systems with very limited "folding" or "hyper-space" options.  Stuff like Battletech where the dropships need to attach to gigantic jump ships, etc.  I liked Dropfleet Commander's use of "signature" which is boosted or reduced depending on what you do.

I think I want a naval/space game to be either small scale and very crunchy (lots of detail of your crew, ship status, engine status, weapon status etc.), or grand scale...more hex based where you're deploying fighters, missiles, torpedoes at empty hexes in the distance based on sensor readings, etc.

[vodkafan]

I think I want a naval/space game to be either small scale and very crunchy (lots of detail of your crew, ship status, engine status, weapon status etc.),

This. But large enough scale to actually have crew figures for space boarding parties. so 10mm to 28mm for me and a really big room to play it in 

[jon_1066]

Interesting post.  I think there are two aspects you didn't really touch on.

The first is Age of Sail.  There are lots of naval engagements and many peer on peer wars without one side or the other having a total advantage.  The key thing there is the wind and how you handle that aspect of movement.

The second is real world physics and that you can actual model things reasonably accurately.  eg the Western Approaches Tactical Unit developed a wargame for escort captains to be trained in the best tactics for convoy defense.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Approaches_Tactical_Unit  That wargame used ship speeds, turning rates, etc to plot the movement of the escorts and subs.  A 20th century naval wargame with a handful of ships per side can quite closely model the actual performance capabilities of the ships. This lends itself to a very crunchy wargame on the simulation side of things. 

I could definitely see a Wings of War/Glory style plotting game being effective for 20th century naval combat.  ie you have a deck of maneuvers your ship is capable of at various speeds and players secretly pick a card for each ship.  You could combine that with fog of war so ships are face down cards until fully spotted.  e.g they start as smoke on the horizon. Less maneuverable ships could have to plot more moves in advance with perhaps subs selecting theirs after others are revealed.

Also I would point out that whilst there were fewer Dreadnaught vs Dreadnaught fights in WWI the ships were fundamentally the same in WWII (even to the extent of simply being the same actual ships).  Whilst the propulsion had changed (oil instead of coal) the fundamentals of the battleship hadn't (armoured, big guns in turrets).  Things like radar controlled gunnery obviously came in during WW2 but there is enough data to go on to extrapolate backwards.  There are also still plenty of smaller naval actions featuring cruisers, armoured cruisers, battle cruisers and even old style battleships and the like.

[Macrossmartin]

Something which always infuriates me with naval rulesets is the under-representation (or complete absence) of mechanics for psychological factors.

Ships almost always behave as obedient, mindless drones, blindly obeying the precise orders of their Admiral (the player), rather than as a collective of thinking, feeling people, who don't much fancy getting shot to pieces, burned to death, thrown over the side into the hungry waves, etc. The overwhelming majority of rules seem to obsess with rivet-counting technical differences between ships, regardless of who is crewing them.

The problem seems to become more pronounced as the subject enters the Industrial Age, and by the time WW2 is the topic of simulation, differences in crews and leadership are given less weight than an extra inch of belt armour, or the number of barrels in a gunhouse.

Also, this predilection toward technical detail often slows a game down, thereby forcing the system to become limited in scope. I think we're all familiar with rules which struggle to resolve a skirmish of 5-10 ships per side within roughly 2 hours. We dream of Jutland, but usually can only fight River Plate.

I've been wondering if it is possible (and desirable?) to create a system which 'zooms out' to make a Squadron of 3-6 ships the smallest unit, with an emphasis on each Squadron's commander, their personal leadership style, and the psychological qualities of their crews.

I have some ideas for a game which places psychology as central to the outcome as is commonly the case in land-based wargames. Ideally, the game will easily handle fleets of 20+ per side, and achieve an outcome within 2 hours. Its a little nebulous right now, but I am doing some sculpting for some small-scale fantastical pre-dreads to give my ideas a go.

Does anyone know of a naval system which has such an emphasis?

[jon_1066]

Something which always infuriates me with naval rulesets is the under-representation (or complete absence) of mechanics for psychological factors.

Ships almost always behave as obedient, mindless drones, blindly obeying the precise orders of their Admiral (the player), rather than as a collective of thinking, feeling people, who don't much fancy getting shot to pieces, burned to death, thrown over the side into the hungry waves, etc. The overwhelming majority of rules seem to obsess with rivet-counting technical differences between ships, regardless of who is crewing them.

The problem seems to become more pronounced as the subject enters the Industrial Age, and by the time WW2 is the topic of simulation, differences in crews and leadership are given less weight than an extra inch of belt armour, or the number of barrels in a gunhouse.

Also, this predilection toward technical detail often slows a game down, thereby forcing the system to become limited in scope. I think we're all familiar with rules which struggle to resolve a skirmish of 5-10 ships per side within roughly 2 hours. We dream of Jutland, but usually can only fight River Plate.

I've been wondering if it is possible (and desirable?) to create a system which 'zooms out' to make a Squadron of 3-6 ships the smallest unit, with an emphasis on each Squadron's commander, their personal leadership style, and the psychological qualities of their crews.

I have some ideas for a game which places psychology as central to the outcome as is commonly the case in land-based wargames. Ideally, the game will easily handle fleets of 20+ per side, and achieve an outcome within 2 hours. Its a little nebulous right now, but I am doing some sculpting for some small-scale fantastical pre-dreads to give my ideas a go.

Does anyone know of a naval system which has such an emphasis?

Once you get to 20th Century then how is the crew psychology really that different across the combatants.  If you look at a Royal Navy ship the crew generally did follow their tasks and orders as best they could.     If you do want to run - where are you going to run to?  It's not like on land where it is possible to slip away or tarry at the back.  When you are a stoker in the bowels of the ship you have no idea what is going on in the battle and the only thing you do know is that the better you do your job the better chance you have.  Ditto pretty much any position in the crew.  You keep doing your job until it becomes impossible you ordered not to or the order to abandon ship is given.  I would therefore argue that a warship in action in WW2 was one of the few times that individual crew psychology was fairly moot except for the commanding officer.

Perhaps you could look at the psychology of individual ships captains but that to me takes agency away from the player at that point.  As you say you only have a few ships so your "level of command" surely has to be at the level of the Captains and Fleet admiral.

[Macrossmartin]

Once you get to 20th Century then how is the crew psychology really that different across the combatants.  If you look at a Royal Navy ship the crew generally did follow their tasks and orders as best they could.     If you do want to run - where are you going to run to?  It's not like on land where it is possible to slip away or tarry at the back.  When you are a stoker in the bowels of the ship you have no idea what is going on in the battle and the only thing you do know is that the better you do your job the better chance you have.  Ditto pretty much any position in the crew.  You keep doing your job until it becomes impossible you ordered not to or the order to abandon ship is given.  I would therefore argue that a warship in action in WW2 was one of the few times that individual crew psychology was fairly moot except for the commanding officer.

Perhaps you could look at the psychology of individual ships captains but that to me takes agency away from the player at that point.  As you say you only have a few ships so your "level of command" surely has to be at the level of the Captains and Fleet admiral.

I'd counter that with examples of the differences in morale and training of crews, and how much impact those differences had in battle. Consider the woeful morale of the Russian Pacific Squadrons at Tsushima, compared to their Japanese opponents. How about the notorious ammunition handling practices of Jellicoe's Battlecruisers at Jutland - a direct consequence of their commander's behaviour, and the pressure on the gun crews to fire as quickly as possible? In WW2, the US Navy went to extraordinary lengths with training and drills to ensure the success of damage control procedures. This was a factor of morale as well as just a smart move. (Crews are more motivated when they know all that's possible is being done to save their ship). The IJN were criminally negligent by comparison.

Even stokers have issues of morale; after all, they are not unthinking shoveling automatons. Are they properly motivated? Professionals who know their jobs, or just conscripts pressed into back-breaking labour? Have they have enough time to rest up before battle, or has a lengthy chase across the seas kept them at their work, leaving them exhausted at the moment of greatest peril? I'd argue that such considerations can be applied at every level of a ship, and the commanders above.

The interplay of different commanders also interests me. Are they Nelson's 'Band of Brothers' or do rivalries and clashes of personalities interfere with the fleet's smooth sailing? Is a Squadron's Admiral an inspiration, beloved by all, or a despotic, political todie everyone wants to drown?

Rather than robbing players of agency, I argue that these factors might add flavour and personality to naval gaming. It is a matter of taste, to be sure, but it's an angle I think is under-explored.

[jon_1066]

I'd counter that with examples of the differences in morale and training of crews, and how much impact those differences had in battle. Consider the woeful morale of the Russian Pacific Squadrons at Tsushima, compared to their Japanese opponents. How about the notorious ammunition handling practices of Jellicoe's Battlecruisers at Jutland - a direct consequence of their commander's behaviour, and the pressure on the gun crews to fire as quickly as possible? In WW2, the US Navy went to extraordinary lengths with training and drills to ensure the success of damage control procedures. This was a factor of morale as well as just a smart move. (Crews are more motivated when they know all that's possible is being done to save their ship). The IJN were criminally negligent by comparison.

Even stokers have issues of morale; after all, they are not unthinking shoveling automatons. Are they properly motivated? Professionals who know their jobs, or just conscripts pressed into back-breaking labour? Have they have enough time to rest up before battle, or has a lengthy chase across the seas kept them at their work, leaving them exhausted at the moment of greatest peril? I'd argue that such considerations can be applied at every level of a ship, and the commanders above.

The interplay of different commanders also interests me. Are they Nelson's 'Band of Brothers' or do rivalries and clashes of personalities interfere with the fleet's smooth sailing? Is a Squadron's Admiral an inspiration, beloved by all, or a despotic, political todie everyone wants to drown?

Rather than robbing players of agency, I argue that these factors might add flavour and personality to naval gaming. It is a matter of taste, to be sure, but it's an angle I think is under-explored.

I could see training being an issue for sure.  You are obviously right about the Japanese woeful damage control but that doesn't strike me as being about the morale of the crew more about the actual procedures and standards they are using.  Perhaps British Battlecruisers in WWI could have a higher chance of a magazine explosion due to poor gunnery drills, likewise the Japanese could have less chance of extinguishing fires than the US ships but they strike me as chrome layered on top of the rules in the same way Japanese long lance torpedoes will be given a bonus..