Modern Naval Battles Developer's Notes

The rather unimaginative title of Modern Naval Battles is of my own devising. The only redeeming feature it has is that it really says what the game is about. One problem that it caused was when the words "Card Game" were left off the box. This was an omission that no one caught until 3W's largest foreign distributor pointed it out to us! (Talk about embarrassing...)

The thought behind the graphic utility of the game was a real team effort. Rodger MacGowan, Dan Verssen (the designer) and I are, simply, a hell of a team. Rodger is a great guy to work with because he really listens to creative ideas and suggestions that will help the graphic utility of a game. The Action card sidebars and symbology were my idea, but they'd mean a lot less if I wasn't working with Rodger. He really knows how to translate a raving developer's graphic "vision" into a fine working product.

The Rules

I take full responsibility for any complaints about the first edition rules. I did them all, and it was my fault! This being the first complete set of rules I'd ever written (Dan tends to give me rules orally or, at best, in a sort of outline format), I used another set of rules as a guideline. This was probably a mistake, but not as bad as it could have been.

The rules format I emulated (or "ripped off," depending on who you work for in this industry) was from Avalon Hill's Enemy in Sight (the Napoleonic naval card game). I like the bold rules numbers and the capitalized-italic headings. Even most of the organization I could handle. Unfortunately, this created rules written for wargamers, and not "the people." Still, a lot of the great unwashed learned Modern Naval Battles despite the wargame-style rules, so maybe some good will come out of this when they move on to their second wargame.

By the time the second edition of MNB came out, it was too late to change the rules organization. Volume II in the series (The Campaign Game, which really is a wargame) builds upon the rules, progressing them in sequence from Rule 15 to Rule 30. Volume III (The Expansion Kit) goes even further -- from Rule 31 to Rule 47. In other words, there's a "big picture" here that the Basic Game rules had to conform to. The method to my madness becomes clear when seen in the light of the complete trilogy.

The Deadline

I would have loved to put a glossary of symbols into the rules book, but that's not how things worked at 3W. You see, with their production schedule, the finished components (not the playtesting, thank God), were rushed out at the last possible second to meet an Origins '89 release deadline. The game had been ready for months, mind you, but we all know how, if it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done. Modern Naval Battles is a classic example. The finished stuff lingered around the office before 3W finally got them off to the printers. Oy!

Anyway, the rules were finished before Rodger MacGowan ever had a chance to complete the final artwork on the cards. Yaquinto (yes, the Yaquinto), who did the printing of the cards, rushed us some B&W shots so we could paste up what illustrations we had in the rules, again, at the last possible second before they were sent off to the printers. If you ever want a lesson in "haste makes waste," Modern Naval Battles' production management would be it. We could have put a lot of nice graphic touches in if only management hadn't kicked into gear just a few days before everything had to go to press.

Number Crunching

Dan Verssen had a formula for creating the Point Value of a ship. As I recall, it went something like this: