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Back in 2004, Wings of War (WoW) tried a new approach to 3D war gaming. It simulated WW1 air warfare with very simple rules, avoiding the massive rulebooks, charts, and tables of old-style wargames. Airplane cards zoomed on the table like miniatures, while carefully crafted maneuver and damage cards differentiated speeds, maneuvering, and firepower. I called it "hidden complexity": We didn’t give up details to make the game simpler, we concealed them in game materials so they could be handled easily. Kids and casual players could learn the system in two-minutes, while expert gamers could add many advanced and optional rule variations. Originally published in Italian by Nexus Editrice, Wings of War has been translated into 13 languages by local distributors. After its success, Nexus released a WW2 version and pre-painted miniatures to replace airplane cards. Thousands of fans gathered into communities to exchange scenarios, house rules, and additional materials, organizing events and demos all over the world.
I - and my co-designer Pier Giorgio Paglia - thought that similar systems could very effectively simulate other warfare scenarios, from ancient land battles and tank warfare, to rallies and regattas. Since WoW's release, fans developed many rethemes: from Star Wars to Harry Potter's Quidditch, from King Kong to Temeraire's flying dragons. But, we chose to concentrate on airplanes. The first official derivation of WoW only appeared a decade later: Sails of Glory, depicting naval battles in the Napoleonic era. As a co-designer, this time I chose Andrea Mainini - a famed international author and sportsman with years of sailing experience. I had met him in 2003 at IdeaG, an Italian gathering where game designers show prototypes to each other and to publishers. Being Guest of Honor at the event, I brought the mock-up of my airplane combat game. Andrea played it one evening - the next morning he showed me his elegant retheme (with a different setting), perfectly matching the simple-yet-deep style I pursued. Remembering this effort, I invited him to get involved years later when Roberto Di Meglio, production manager of Ares Games and publisher of Wings, requested the development of an “Age of Sail” game.
We studied 18th century shipbuilding, sailing, and combat techniques, and even the crew’s organization and life. We tried to account for scarcity of crew, gun’s reloading time, different kinds of ammunition, training, and morale in the process of developing a Wings of Glory-style game: easy-to-learn, quick to play, with the flexibility of handling additional, complex rule variations. It was also important to keep the same scalability — and we met the goal. 100 attendees played Wings of Glory at the same table in Florence in one hour, and 79 players fought a Sails of Glory battle with one ship each at Gen Con 2015. At Enfilade 2015, the largest sea fight of the Napoleonic era, the ‘Battle of the Glorious First of June’, was re-enacted using each of the 71 ships that took part in the historical engagement. Full-sized Trafalgar and Battle of the Nile games have also been played in public events.
Today, Sails of Glory's starter set includes four 1:1.000 ship models and all you need to play dozens of fierce games, with scenarios for up to four players, including solo play. To incorporate additional players to the count, all you need is to add more ships: these are released in waves of 12 miniature ships at a time, and the fourth wave recently hit the shelves, bringing the count of ship models available for the game to more than 50.
The game includes an extensive range of French and English ships, plus several of the most important Spanish and United States vessels. There are a couple of special packs featuring world-renowned ships: the USS Constitution and HMS Victory, the ship of Lord Nelson. These special packs also provide cards for their historical commanders, together with their skills and those of the crews.
Accessories for the line include more ships, game mats, cardboard islands and coastal batteries, captains' and crews' skill cards, and more. Further scenarios and a points system for competitive games can be downloaded from Ares Games' site (www.aresgames.eu) Over 1275 fans gather at www.sailsofglory.org and make the game even more lively with their creativity and enthusiasm: the site is called Anchorage and is the very first harbor we suggest for fans to reach out to - after sailing with the game at your FLGS.
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