Version 1.20.0 · Tronsoft Games
You command one side of a naval action between 34 × 24 hexes of open sea. Every ship fills two hexes, bow and stern. Your object is to beat the par printed for the action: the margin two equal captains are expected to reach with those ships.
A turn to larboard, W one hex ahead, D turn to starboard, Backspace take back the last order, Tab next ship, Enter make sail or fire. Drag to pan the chart, wheel or pinch to zoom, + - 0 for zoom in, out and fit. Click one of your ships to select her, a hex to steer there, or an enemy during gunnery to lay a broadside on her.
Captain's Aid proposes editable orders for the selected ship. It can suggest a course and watch bill during movement or targets, aim and ammunition during gunnery. It never advances the turn or changes another ship's orders. The Full screen button expands the chart to the available display.
The sea chart expands automatically in 12-hex bands whenever active ships approach an edge. Expansion can occur north, south, east or west. Newly charted water is open sea; existing positions and shoals remain fixed. The chart dimensions shown in the header are stored with saved battles.
The navigator in the lower-right corner shows the complete chart: friendly ships in blue, enemies in red, the selected ship ringed in gold, charted shoals in tan and the visible portion of the main chart as a dashed rectangle. Click or tap the navigator to recenter without changing zoom.
The battle dashboard compares both squadrons throughout the action. It reports fighting, struck and lost ships; hull and crew strength; loaded broadsides; fires and leaks; current points; scenario par; and a projected result. The projection is an estimate until nightfall because later damage, striking and prizes can still change the score.
Orders are written as in the log: L1R2 is turn to larboard, one hex ahead, turn to starboard, two hexes ahead. A turn pivots on the bow and costs no way, but a ship must make a hex between turns; a ship of the line may turn once a turn, a frigate twice, a sloop three times.
How far she runs depends on her point of sailing: Broad reach is fastest, Beating slowest, Running between the two, and a ship whose head comes into the eye of the wind is in irons and makes no way at all. Each row of rigging shot away costs a hex of way. A ship that makes no way for two turns drifts a hex to leeward; a ship that runs off the chart has left the action.
A broadside bears only on its own beam — the tinted hexes on the chart, red to larboard and green to starboard. The return shows the whole calculation: guns (carronades count in full at 1–2 hexes and half at 3–4) × range × shot × first broadside × rake × crew × quality × 0.18, and then a two-dice spread from ×0.4 to ×1.7.
| Shot | Reaches | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Round shot | 10 | ×1 |
| Double shot | 3 | ×1.3 |
| Chain shot | 6 | ×1.2 |
| Grape | 3 | ×1.4 |
The guns are served by the hands you leave at them: every party told off to another duty (below) thins the broadside, and a crew cut to pieces serves them slower still. Ships built around long guns tell at a distance (×1.2 beyond four hexes); ships that carry more carronades than long guns are murderous alongside (×1.15 at one or two hexes) and little use beyond it.
Your first broadside of the battle was loaded with care and counts ×1.25; hold it until the range is short. Firing down a ship's length is a rake: ×1.4 through the bow, ×1.7 through the stern, and the shot goes into guns and crew. Double 6 — or 11 and up when raking — may start a fire, shoot away the rudder, bring down a mast, kill the officers or hole her below the waterline.
Gunnery Readiness inspects the whole squadron before you fire. It warns of invalid fire orders and carefully loaded first broadsides spent at long range, and notes held batteries, weak shots, available rakes, boarders away and badly undermanned guns. A danger pauses the volley for review; Fire anyway deliberately carries out the plan.
Fire Signals apply one editable doctrine across the squadron. Order batteries to seek their best effect, engage the closest ship, seize raking opportunities, concentrate on the weakest enemy, or hold every first broadside. A battery that cannot obey keeps its current order.
The live Fire Control Board groups your laid broadsides by enemy ship. It shows how many batteries and rakes are assigned, their combined expected effect, and how many loaded batteries still hold fire. Red emphasis indicates that hull-directed fire may be over-concentrated on one target; it is advice, not a guarantee against the dice.
Her crew is told off into three stations, which damage wears down separately: gun crews, topmen and marines. Round shot sweeping a gun deck kills gunners; shot high in the rigging kills topmen; a melee on the deck kills marines first.
Each turn you may send parties of hands away from the guns to three duties:
| Duty | Who | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Knotting and splicing | topmen | Re-reeves the rigging shot away — a chance each turn of putting a row of rigging back, and a hex of way with it. Dangerous work in a strong breeze. |
| At the pumps | any hands | Works the pumps against leaks. Every unattended leak costs a hull a turn; a manned pump holds one leak and may fother and plug it. |
| Fire party | any hands | Stands by with buckets and wet blankets: a fire aboard is put out far sooner with a party told off to it. |
A party is roughly an eighth of her full complement, and every party away is a party not at the guns. Leaks are sprung by hull hits taken at one or two hexes — the closer the action, the more water she takes.
Ships that end a turn alongside may throw grapnels; grappled ships cannot move. Boarders may go over half-handed or all hands, with marines and crew quality counting. A crew overrun, or outnumbered three to one, is carried, and the ship becomes a prize. A ship that has already struck and lies alongside an enemy is taken into possession.
A struck ship is worth her value to the enemy, half as much again if she is carried as a prize, and damage short of striking counts for a share. Compare the final margin with the action's par: beat it and the verdict is a victory, beat it handsomely and it is decisive.
Fall short of par and the action is lost, whatever the butcher's bill. A ship of yours that sinks, blows up, strikes or is carried costs you her full value, and a ship driven off the chart takes her guns out of the fight.
New Battle in the header opens the action list at any time, and the battle report offers Fight it again, which replays the same action with fresh dice.
The game saves itself after every phase into your browser's local storage under tronsoft_wooden_ships_iron_men_save in save format 2, and offers to resume when you come back. A save written by version 1.0.0 is in the older format and cannot be resumed. Starting a new battle replaces the save. If the browser refuses storage — private windows often do — the game plays normally but remembers nothing.
Scale, for the curious: a hex is roughly 100 yards of sea and a turn something under two minutes of action.