Battleship alternative rules?
Superfly
and I spent many an hour playing with friends.
Unfortunately this game just doesn't seem as great as it used to be.
Does anyone know of anywhere that I can find alternative rules to this
classic game to spice it up a bit?
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to make this a more
exciting, strategic game? Come on, there must be some good ideas out
there somewhere!
Bill Cousert
"Superfly" <empireb...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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Strip Battleship?
Insane Ranter
"Bill Cousert" <wrco...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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You took my bra and panties!
Bill Cousert
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Jeff Abramson
empireb...@yahoo.com (Superfly) writes:
I don't know how many folks on this group read the Knights of the Dinner
Table comic book - but I still crack up when I read about one of the players
playing battleship by moving one or more of the ships after every move :)
So there's a variant for you.
(note that email-reply to this post will FAIL - use emailID below)
Jeff Abramson, co-owner
Rainy Day Games - Aloha Oregon
503 642-4100
http://www.rainy-day-games.com
in...@rainy-day-games.com
Darin McGrew
> Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to make this a more
> exciting, strategic game? Come on, there must be some good ideas out
> there somewhere!
If you're looking for a more exciting, strategic game, then you're probably
better off playing something else than trying to convert a guessing game
into a strategy game. But since you asked...
The main rule change I've seen is that your shots at the enemy must be
within n spaces of your own ships. The value of n can be either:
+ the size of the ship doing the firing
+ the number of unsunk ships you have
Either way, you'll probably get to a point where neither of you can sink
any more of the other's ships. You've fired all the shots you're capable of
firing, and your opponent's remaining ships are out of range. At that
point, the game ends and you determine the winner according to one of these
rules:
+ the most unsunk ships
+ the most points worth of unsunk ships, where the point value of ships
that have been hit but not sunk is:
- full value
- half value
- full value minus the number of hits received
HTH
--
Darin McGrew, da...@TheRallyeClub.org, http://www.TheRallyeClub.org/
A gimmick car rallye is not a race, but a fun puzzle testing your
ability to follow instructions. Upcoming gimmick car rallye in
Silicon Valley: Marker Reloaded (Saturday, July 5)
Steven Sharp
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to make this a more
> exciting, strategic game? Come on, there must be some good ideas out
> there somewhere!
My family used to play a homegrown game similar to Battleship in
many ways. Perhaps you could borrow some ideas from it.
We played on home-made paper grids, with more than 2 players. You
could presumably use multiple Battleship games instead for more
than 2 players. Everyone is assumed to be on the same grid, unlike
the normal Battleship game. So a shot could actually hit ships from
multiple players at the same time (these are clearly stealth
ships, since they don't even notice that they are overlapping
each other). Sometimes you might have to shoot at your own
ship, to sink someone overlapping it. One person's ships could
not overlap each other.
The main difference was that you didn't fire one shot at a
time and then get a result. Instead, you fired a salvo of
shots at once, one shot from each of your surviving ships.
After the salvo, you would then get a report of any/all
hits from each player (e.g. "one hit on my cruiser and
sank my destroyer"). You would not know which individual
shot caused a particular hit. Instead, you would have to
deduce the locations of ships by combining information about
hits from multiple salvoes (both yours and others). The last
one with any surviving ships was the winner. A draw was
possible if the remaining players each had one remaining
ship square on the same location.
We played on a 10x10 grid, with one battleship (4 squares),
one cruiser (3 squares), one destroyer (2 squares) and
one sub (1 square), per player. These were each positioned
in a line, vertical, horizontal or diagonal.
Gertjan Davies
"Steven Sharp" <sh...@cadence.com> wrote in message
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> empireb...@yahoo.com (Superfly) wrote in message
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> >
> > Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to make this a more
> > exciting, strategic game? Come on, there must be some good ideas out
> > there somewhere!
We have a bi-montly Braintwister puzzle magazine here in the Netherlands
(Breinbreker) and one of "standard" puzzles is that of Zeeslag (Dutch
translation of Battleship). There are variations but the main puzzle being
they give at the edge of the grid the number of filled squares of the grid.
The boats cannot touch each other (even diagonaly the boats cannot touch
each other) and you can deduct where the boats are.
This puzzle gives the idea of spicing the game up:
Instead of firing a shot you may use a sort of radar ask a row or column how
many filled squares there are in that particular row or column.
This way you can deduct more easily where the ships are.
You can play with a variation on the rule. If you want radar throw a dice if
it's on a particular number which is agreed on before the game (6 for
example) the player who answers may give a +1 or -1 answer from the real
thing (ie. if its 3 he may give 2 or 4 as an answer), just like in real
there can be some static or lost signals on the radar.
I must admit i never played Battleship since ages and never played it with
the "radar" variation, because i find the regular Battleship too much lucky
guessing. But if there were a server with this radar variation, heck i may
even play this game. I hope you may find it interesting.
Gertjan
The Maverick
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to make this a more
> exciting, strategic game? Come on, there must be some good ideas out
> there somewhere!
I recently got ahold of a game called Checkpoint: Danger which is a
"secret agent" twist on the Battleship theme. In that game, "probes"
are used to detect the location of the hidden enemy agents. The player
making the probe calls out a location, and the other player states a
number representing the number of agents that lie in a straight line (in
all eight directions) from the probed location. Also, if there are two
agents in the same direction from the probe, the closer agent "blocks"
the second so that only one agent is reported for that particular direction.
I don't see why you couldn't work up a similar "probe" (or air recon,
etc.) style rule for Battleship - maybe by calling out a row or column
and having the player state a number indicating how many ships (or
segments?) touch that row.
the Mav
--
"Never give up -- never surrender!" Commander Peter Quincy Taggart
Glenn Kuntz
> Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to make this a more
> exciting, strategic game? Come on, there must be some good ideas out
> there somewhere!
There was a series of games called Album Games (because they were packaged
like a vinyl LP record) by Yaquinto that played very much like Battleship.
One that we liked quite a bit was Superiority.
The Maverick
Actually, Superiority was the only "Battleship-like" game in the album
game series. The others ranged from light family fare to introductory
wargames to full-fledged wargames.
the Mav
P.S. My apologies to the "r.g.b. debating society" for once again using
"quotation marks" around something that is not a direct quote of
something that somebody "said". It's one of those limitations of
ASCII... deal with it! ;-)
Glenn Kuntz
The Maverick <thema...@volcano.net> wrote in message
news:3F005366...@volcano.net...
> Glenn Kuntz wrote:
>
> > There was a series of games called Album Games (because they were
packaged
> > like a vinyl LP record) by Yaquinto that played very much like
Battleship.
> > One that we liked quite a bit was Superiority.
>
>
> Actually, Superiority was the only "Battleship-like" game in the album
> game series. The others ranged from light family fare to introductory
> wargames to full-fledged wargames.
Then it appears I was misinformed/mistaken. Nevertheless, Superiority is
(IMO) a fun little game, and I'm not a particular fan of either 2-player
*or* war games. ;-)
But now that you mention "light family fare" (direct quote ;-) I'm
inspired to correct my mistaken impression.
The Maverick
> Then it appears I was misinformed/mistaken. Nevertheless, Superiority is
> (IMO) a fun little game, and I'm not a particular fan of either 2-player
> *or* war games. ;-)
>
> But now that you mention "light family fare" (direct quote ;-) I'm
> inspired to correct my mistaken impression.
The Yaquinto album game series included a simple stock market game
(Market Madness), a very simple horse racing game (Neck and Neck), a
family style board game of the TV series Dallas, and a multi-player
gangster game (The Roaring Twenties). There were also sci-fi, fantasy,
and historical titles in the series. All in all, it was a pretty
diverse set of games in innovative packaging. For more information on
the album games:
http://www.volcano.net/~themaverick/alb.html
the Mav
angiolillo
> http://www.volcano.net/~themaverick/alb.html
Here I read:
APACHE
An oddball game of settlers vs. Indians in
the old west. Strange events like UFO's
make me wonder what the designers were
thinking when they came up with this one.
"Apache" was quick and enjoyable, even if the UFO detail was a bit
weird.
I think that their inspiration was the great miniature wargame "Pony
Wars", where all the player were on the 7th Cavalry side and tried to
save civilians from huge groups of Indians that moved on their own by
morale checks. It was a humorous wargame, that had fun of all the
Hollywood classics. "Apache" had the same feeling, but it was not a
solo-group game (if I remember well there was a player building the
railway and up to three Indian players) and was less strict on the
Hollywood point of view...
Bye!
Angiolillo
The Maverick
>
> "Apache" was quick and enjoyable, even if the UFO detail was a bit
> weird.
I should probably update my Yaquinto page with the capsule description I
wrote up for Simulacrum:
"Simulation fans, beware! Event cards like 'Visitors From Space',
'49er's vs. The Redskins' and 'Indian Love Call' should give you the
idea that this game relies more on Hollywood than history. Although
potentially suitable as an introductory game -- it has a hex grid map
and an odds ratio CRT -- Apache is more likely to end up at the bottom
of your beer and pretzels game pile (or perhaps under the pizza.) Even
Rodger MacGowan seems to be clowning it up with the Burt Lancaster and
John Wayne look-alikes on the cover. Is it any surprise that this may
be the only Yaquinto game with no designer credits listed?"
Walt Mulder
with torpedoes, radar, aircraft, harpoon missiles that have different hit
patterns, destroyers with sonar, and a few more things. Ultimately it boils
down to the same fair, but the process of getting there is much more fun.
Neat sound effects as well.
Walt M.
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Walter Lai
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Chuck Fresno
a subscription to Breinbreker and Logimix? I've tried the Puzzelsport
website (puzzelsport.nl) with no success -- they have no English
translation.
"Gertjan Davies" <gda...@home.nl> wrote in message news:<bdkum1$3d6$1...@news4.tilbu1.nb.home.nl>...
> "Steven Sharp" <sh...@cadence.com> wrote in message
> news:3a8e124e.03062...@posting.google.com...
> > empireb...@yahoo.com (Superfly) wrote in message
> news:<d4ec61f.03062...@posting.google.com>...
> > >
> > > Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to make this a more
> > > exciting, strategic game? Come on, there must be some good ideas out
> > > there somewhere!
>
> We have a bi-montly Braintwister puzzle magazine here in the Netherlands
> (Breinbreker) and one of "standard" puzzles is that of Zeeslag (Dutch
> translation of Battleship).
> Gertjan
David Damerell
>Do you know how someone in the USA who does not speak Dutch could get
>a subscription to Breinbreker and Logimix? I've tried the Puzzelsport
>website (puzzelsport.nl) with no success -- they have no English
>translation.
Telephone them? Most Dutch people speak superb English.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
angiolillo
There is an English edition by Sterling ("Mind Sharpening Logic
Games", formerly "Super Sharp Pencil & Paper Games") but some games
are missing, Battleship among them. If you are interested in that kind
of games, have a look: there are 40 of them (50 in the Italian and
Czech editions by LDC and Portal respectively) with several variants.
One Battleship variant is similar to one already quoted: it is the one
where you fire 7 shots all together, and the answer is the number of
hits (not which ones are hits). You also tell which ships are hit ar
if they sink. For example: "5 misses, an hit on a battleship that
sinks and a hit on an aircraft carrier." You can also mix it wit the
variant in which you reduce the shots when you loose ships (that I
knew as an indipendent variant - you shoot one shot for each ship you
have at the moment).
Mav wrote:
>I recently got ahold of a game called Checkpoint: Danger which is a
>"secret agent" twist on the Battleship theme. In that game, "probes"
>are used to detect the location of the hidden enemy agents.
I knew "Fog over Fisher Bank", by Ravensburger. It is similar, but
with no probes. Each player puts 4 boats of one single square size on
a 8x8 grid. Then you play firing one shot per turn. If it is a hit,
the boat is sunk. If it is a miss, the answer is a number: and it is
the number of boats that lie in a straight line (in all eight
directions) from the location you shooted at. As in Mav's variant, if
there are two boats in the same direction from the square called, the
closer agent "blocks" the sight to the second so that only one boat is
countes for that particular direction. After a boat is sunk, it does
not block the sight any more. A very interesting variant indeed. Never
seen the box of the game, that never came out in Italy, nor I know the
original title: I found the rules on a French book by Jeux et
Strategie.
Bye bye,
Andrea
George Crawshay
wrote:
>
>Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to make this a more
>exciting, strategic game? Come on, there must be some good ideas out
>there somewhere!
I played a home-grown version of this in my youth which I modestly
claim is the best ever invented.
It uses the mechanism described by Steven Sharp which is surely the
only way to make the concept interesting - namely that you only know
the damage inflicted after firing your complete salvo, and you don't
know where the damage occurs - only the nature of the damage.
This version is played on a 20 x 20 grid containing tha following
vessels 1 8-square Battleship, 1 7-square Battlecruiser, 2 6-square
Cruisers, 2 5-square Light Cruisers, 3 4-square Destroyers and 4
3-square Submarines.
All ships have to be in a straight line, which can be either
orthogonal or diagonal, and no part of any ship can be immediately
adjacent to any part of any other ship.
Each ship has its quota of guns roughly proportional to its size,
allocated on a 3-square or 2-square basis, viz:
Battleship & Battlecruiser 3 guns each
Cruisers, Light Cruisers & Destroyers 2 guns each
Submarines 1 gun each.
Thus total capacity of salvo at beginning of game - 24 shots.
As ships become damaged their guns get knocked out - e.g. the
Battleship's guns go down on a 3-3-2 basis, the Battlecruiser's 3-2-2,
the Cruiser's 3-3 etc.
It is vital to mark every space you aim at, on the record you keep of
your opponent's board, with the number of the salvo, so that you can
eventually deduce (hopefully!) whereabouts his/her ships are.
Just to make matters more exciting, you each have 12 one-square mines
which also cannot touch any of your ships or other mines. 8 of these
are ordinary but the other 4 are Super high-explosive. Ordinary mines
when hit cause the opponent's salvo to cease immediately. Super mines
cause him/her in addition to lose the whole of the next turn.
We had enormous fun with this game, which generally lasted about 2
hours. The deduction and suspense involved meant that there was
hardly ever a dull moment. If Superfly (or anyone else for that
matter) has any questions or comments you're welcome to e-mail me
(geo...@crawshay.com).
George Crawshay