Ships Don't Lie: Battle Fleet 2
Boat simulator
I've spent far too many weeks of my life moving armies around maps and spaceships around galaxies. Give me a turn-based game full of tanks, planes, infantry, monsters or gods, and I'll most likely spend a couple of hours poking at their stats before I even start playing. If there's one obvious weak point in my steely strategic hull it's in the naval area. It's not that my bellybutton is my Achille's Heel, that would be ridiculous, but I do have a blindspot when it comes to sea-based warfare. My knowledge of Silent Hunter* is as shallow as a puddle on a Miami sidewalk and my knowledge of ship classes comes from Battleship. Milton Bradley's Battleship. Perhaps the upcoming Battle Fleet 2 will tempt me into the water? Trailer below.
Yeah, the slab of coast near the end there looks like a big piece of dirty soap but that doesn't bother me. It's not the most attractive game, sure, but looks aren't everything. Here's a list o' features:
Turn based fleet gameplay
Aim and fire each ship’s entire complement of weaponry, including torpedoes and high explosive 14” guns
3D models of WW2 era ships from US and Japanese factions
Ship customization and weapon layout
Single player US campaign
Hotseat and online multiplayer
Strategic Commands including airstrikes, minefields, sabotage and more
Fog of war with line of sight hidden by islands
Island defenses and airfields
The Greenlight page also mentions a random skirmish mode. I like that I can watch the video and understand what I'll be doing. Positioning ships, calculating angles of attack and trying to stay out of the killzone of huge weapons. Reckon I could get on board with this, but which naval strategy games should I be playing? Fill in the blindspot for me. Fill it with flotsam and seamen.
Battle Fleet 2 is coming to portable devices as well as PC and Mac, and it's due sometime this summer. Someone will have to email me and tell me when summer arrives because there's no evidence of it here yet at all, unless the two days of sunshine last week were the sum total of it. Is it autumn now? I don't know anymore.
*I wrote Silent Scope and had to correct myself. This tells you everything you need to know about my knowledge of maritime law.