Battleship Chess Makes Waves Over Tradition

Sinking Ships Sinks Time
Battleship Chess Makes Waves Over Tradition

by Dr. J

Neither Hasbro’s trademark Battleship in playing style nor merely a chess board using naval platforms as the traditional pieces, Battleship Chess is a fascinating challenge that combines some elements of miniatures battles with a few strange mechanics that creates a bizarre stylized form of play. In terms of naval tactics, Battleship Chess models some aspects more realistically than the Strategy Light Series (1939: Battlefleet, Battlefleet: Pacific War, and their space battle counterpart, Space General: World War IV). Yet, there are some overarching strictures that undermine any sense of verisimilitude and force one to think in terms of artificial tactics rather than realistic ones. So, Battleship Chess has this capacity for pulling you into a fascinating, stimulating game and then, jarring you out of your suspended disbelief with certain extremely artificial mechanics.

CLOSE ACTION: The "map" for Battleship Chess shows all friendly ships, enemy ships that have been spotted (along with possible target squares), and upgrade squares.

Battleship Chess begins in the pre-Washington Naval Treaty days and allows would-be admirals to command small fleets for both the pre-dreadnaught and post-dreadnaught eras. The game spotlights the great era of surface combat prior to the introduction of naval air warfare. (Yes, there were aircraft carriers in WWI, but they didn’t dominate like they did in the WWII Pacific Theater.) Then, one is upgraded to the era of battlecruisers, challenged to use destroyers wisely, and finally, to the tactics involving submarine warfare.

Each campaign features five chapters: early years, era of dreadnaughts, evolution of battlecruisers, deployment of destroyers, and years of submarine warfare. There is some marvelous naval detail within the game to be cited in my Commendations section, but as will be detailed in my Reprimands summary, there is also some very frustrating abstraction and limitation. At times, one feels some of the flavor of playing General Quarters or Command at Sea miniatures. At others, it seems more like playing with a toy in the bathtub. After all, the “chess” in the title refers to the fact that you can only move one ship per turn. This restriction actually provides for some really interesting tactical trade-offs, but it simply doesn’t allow for authentic doctrine or maneuver.

Each turn, you have the option of playing a card from your strategy hand (if you still have any in inventory), moving one ship, upgrading (if you land on one of the upgrade squares), repairing (if you land on a repair square), or resupplying (if you land on an ammo square), and then, firing the moving ship’s guns. The only exception to the latter is if the moving ship is out of ammunition, out of range, or if a friendly ship is directly adjacent to the moving ship. The last exception does allow for some combined vessel action, but it is a definite challenge. Players earn points for causing damage to enemy vessels and bonus points for sinking ships and guiding merchant ships to safe harbor (random waypoints).

When a player sinks enough tonnage, the player is promoted. With each promotion comes more power to upgrade ships between chapters of the campaign and more power to assign ships from the larger fleet to the active battle fleet prior to each battle. In addition, the ratings for each ship’s commanding officer factor into the ship’s effectiveness in combat, so it is significant that your captains get promoted when you sink a lot of tonnage, as well.

Commendations

Frankly, I’m impressed with the actual firing functions of the ships from the animating turrets and algorithm for armor penetration to the firing angle of the torpedoes. Battleship Chess rewards you for crossing the T (positioning your ship horizontally across the bow or stern of an enemy target so that your shells run through the length of the ship rather than attempting the narrower landing across the width of the ship). I appreciate knowing both the probability of hitting the target as well as the probability of penetrating.

TURRETS SYNDROME: The ships may look alike, but the broadsides animation looks credible.

It is great that the ship has to be in a broadsides position (where all the turrets have an angle to fire upon the target) before the full effects of one’s full firepower can be felt. It is even better to realize that a ship can split its firepower between the forward turrets and the aft turrets at times when it cannot perform broadsides fire. Not every game allows for splitting the target.

I was intrigued to see (when playing U.S. versus Japanese) that the torpedoes acted realistically in that U.S. torpedoes were extremely inefficient until the middle of WWII. It was great to see destroyers using a deck-based launcher to fire their torpedoes and that submarines fired from forward and aft tubes. The game even simulated the extra reloading time for torpedoes over the proverbial “nine yards” of normal ammo.

It was amusing to hear the non-naval breech of an ordinary shotgun whenever the ships were reloaded on the ammo squares, as well as to hear the sound of a household ratchet wrench whenever a repair was being attended to via a repair square. The bubble effect representing the diving and surfacing of submarines was also a clever, but not very realistic touch. The musical score was reminiscent of “Victory at Sea” (the theme to an old television series produced by the U.S. Navy) crossed with a college fight song and the sound effects definitely added to the atmosphere.

Ironically, one of the most artificial game elements in Battleship Chess adds significantly to its replayability and sustainability factors is the use of upgrade squares. Normally, war at sea is about overall naval superiority. One needs to control the sea in order to be able to move troops, munitions, supplies, and naval squadrons from one location to a more strategic location. Once we were past the era of fighting sail where gaining the “wind gauge” was a primary tactical consideration, tactical decision-making was largely reduced to range, deflection angle, armor, and speed considerations. Battleship Chess adds an intriguing wrinkle to the map—even in an open sea encounter—by giving both sides mini-objectives—special upgrade squares with a colored background. If one can get to the propeller icon first, the warship can gain a speed upgrade. The first warship to get to the shield icon gains an armor upgrade. In the same way, reaching the binocular icon adds to a ship’s spotting capacity; the compass icon allows a weapons range upgrade; the earphones elicit a sonar upgrade, and the turret icon provides a weapons upgrade.

The advantage of these special upgrade squares is that they entice you to risk a capital ship in order to gain the particular advantage. The squares are like hills in land battles with advantageous lines-of-sight and defensibility. And, as the hills provide objectives in a land battle, so do these squares in Battleship Chess. So, you find yourself asking if it is worth breaking a battleship out of its line abreast formation to fortify its armor or expand its firing range. It bears no authentic resemblance to naval tactics, but it sure works in the game.

In addition, the use of “permanent” (at least for a given battle) squares (with no colored outline) for reloading ammunition, providing a temporary speed burst, allowing a one-turn boost in spotting range, or repairing one critical hit (the wrench icon) gives additional tactical options. Do I maneuver to put out that fire or get reloaded? Can I move such that I improve my spotting range and allow multiple ships to fire?

And, a ship atop a special or permanent upgrade square must move on its next turn. This means that taking two turns to repair a ship and then, move it on may allow an ailing enemy to slip away. It may mean that reloading one ship’s ammunition may keep you from having other ships fire on the appropriate turns—even if your other ships are in optimal positions.

What was particularly worthwhile to me was the upgrade path in ranks. As one began one’s progression toward Fleet Admiral, more and more decision points were added. Each promotion allows you to specifically designate which ships will get individual upgrades and eventually, you get to select which ships you want in the battle fleet. You’ll need to know something about your enemy’s tactics, as well as where you are in the five chapter campaign, in order to create the most effective fighting units.

PICK UP TRICKS: As you rise in rank, you can improve your ships with upgrades at the start of a campaign and select ships for the battle fleet for each scenario of the campaign.

The card deck (you get additional cards as you progress in the campaign) is also a nice wrinkle. The “Ammo at Sea” card lets you reload all of your ships simultaneously. The “Repair at Sea” card lets you repair critical systems without having to actually go to the square with the wrench icon. When you have the enemy forces trying to flee, it’s wonderful not to have to surrender momentum and let them go. The “Clear Skies” card lets you see the position of every enemy ship for one turn. Another card lets you salvage a sunken ship and another card gives an extra ship.

Finally, there is a merchant ship card in the card deck. If you play this card, a merchant ship appears at the base line of the map on “your” side. A waypoint will appear at the base line of the map on your opponent’s side. Like maneuvering a pawn to get a queen in chess, if you can wend your way to the waypoint without allowing the enemy to sink you, it’s worth extra points for you. Again, I like this addition to the game’s strategy because it gives you “escort missions” in the midst of a battle.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE: The wagon wheel represents the waypoint that the merchant ship must reach in order to gain bonus points. Here, a U.S. merchant ship is ready to move into the waypoint.

Reprimands

The biggest problem with Battleship Chess is tied to the very mechanic that makes it unique, the movement constraint. It is exceedingly difficult to move ships in Line Ahead or Line Abreast formations when you can only move one ship per turn. Yet, it is of optimum value to do so because it means that when one ship encounters the enemy, there are other ships in range to close on the enemy. In Battleship Chess, there were many occasions where I simply left all formations to the four winds in order to prosecute one combat or another. Realistically, it would have cost me. In this game, it did not.

Of course, some gamers may prefer the role of frigate commander (even when commanding a battleship or battlecruiser) over the discipline of flag rank. Yet, there are significant tactical problems with the way this particular game works. For example, you only get to fire multiple ships if the ships are adjacent to the ship which has moved. You can have the enemy blocked and surrounded, but if you move a ship somewhere else on the map, you won’t get to fire those ships which are at close range and prepared to fire. Part of the challenge of Battleship Chess is the ability to place your ships so that you can continually move the phasing ship into adjacency with one or more other ships. In this way, you can fire multiple times at the same target. Otherwise, you won’t sink much tonnage.

V FOR VICTORY: Here, the battleship Oregon moves onto the ammunition square, reloading in time to fire at a German capital ship. The other two warships in the V will get to fire, as well, because the Oregon moved into adjacency with them on this turn.

After Action Report

Frankly, the game is a challenging, unrealistic, delightful, frustrating, experience. I love the idea of facing the Dresden, Emden, Gneisenau, Leipzig, and Scharnhorst of Germany’s famous Kreuzergeschwader (WWI cruiser squadron in East Asia) as well as playing the pseudo-history of naval warfare as the five chapter campaigns unfold. If you had asked me about the game before I played it, I would have said that it could never hold my interest long-term. Yet, I’ve played it and played it and played it some more. Like the old Solitaire’s Journey from QQP, I’m afraid Battleship Chess has become one of my guilty little pleasures with a “just one more game” component to it.

Reviewer’s Overall Snapshot: 7

Graphics: 7 (nice animation, crude ships)
Realism: 5 (strange mixture)
AI: 6 (opponents occasionally surprise)
Game Design: 8 (hate the mechanic, love the game)
Replayability: 8 (just can’t stop playing it)

Reviewer’s Bias: 4 (prefer realism, like this weird mix)