“Coburg” and “Poole” are the equivalents of the towns of Lunenburg and Chester in Nova Scotia. Simpson’s holding a serious grudge here, because if the analogy holds, those raids would have been thirty years ago.
In that sense, Dunbarton is York/Toronto, and the threat to Montreal is actually given a brief aside (that would be “Kingsmount”).
New Lothian is specifically analogous to Nova Scotia. At this point, Lower Canada (that is to say, Quebec) is a separate colony.
As for the Quebecois in the War of 1812, I think a mention might be out of the scope of the narrative, much like say, the Great Lakes campaign.
The advantage is more of a metagame-y one. It exists specifically to warn you that Delmarva’s crew is only going to get stronger over time.
I’ll probably do this. I made a conscious decision not to allow the player to modify their personal stats as sort of a recognition that the MC is a mature, veteran officer who’s set in their ways, almost.
I must have been really busy and/or really blind to have missed this. The premise sounds interesting; I’m on my way to give it a try right now.
(especially since I caught a glimpse of the historical notes snippet linked by @cascat07 above. Wasn’t that battle the one where a junior officer got cashiered for carrying his CO belowdecks to safety? Because every other officer on board were down/unavailable?)
It was. Lt William Cox, the Chesapeake’s Third Lieutenant. Part of it, I think was because the Navy needed scapegoats, but part of it was also likely to make an example - carrying away the wounded was a common excuse which soldiers and sailors of the time used to get out of the line of fire, and it’s possible that Cox’s conviction was meant to dissuade officers from doing so.
This is actually still something that is beaten out of everyone pretty regularly in training. Even if it’s not out of cowardice the impulse to stop and help a fallen comrade is a strong one, and (given the circumstances that tend to cause fallen comrades) it is usually the wrong one.
Technically it wasn’t the retrieval itself that landed him in trouble. Poor guy came under a charge of abandoning his post as commanding officer while under fire.
He was the most junior officer on board (right?); I’m not even sure if he was at all aware at the time that every one of his brother officers were down, and that he had suddenly become acting captain (all this happened in a matter of seconds, if I’m not mistaken).
The whole account sounded like an unfortunate series of circumstances that happened all too fast; would military courts today have any sympathy for the guy?
Hmmm, probably although US military court-martials are honestly pretty leaniant with regard to tactical decision even in comparison to US criminal court. On the other hand, you only need a 2/3rds majority to convict unless the offense is cotentially capital in sentencing.
That being said I think this decision would still be career ending in the modern US military. Succession of command is usually pretty clear and even junior officer really have no business doing anything but leading in combat.
Mount Royal; I should have picked up on that. I assumed Kingsmount was Kingston because that was a significant American target, and because “Kingsmount” doesn’t sound Gaulish.
I feel like patronage should be dialed back a little bit. It’s not difficult to become a baronet without an initial boost to patronage (starting 50 +10 for dispatches +25 for victory =85), and an MC who starts with high patronage (75) and chooses Pakenham (+15) can reach 100 patronage after sending dispatches, and so wouldn’t get a boost to patronage after victory.
High patronage, terrible fighting, Shannon as my first lieutenant, and sailing as one of the big crew skills. Essentially, the plan was to win the fight before the boarding began, and it pretty much worked out. I’d definitely say that I got a good ending, even though losing Shannon was a shame.
I don’t think I ran into any random events though, which was a bit odd. Maybe I just got unlucky.
Hey Cataphrak, just played through a couple of different runs, really fantastic. I’ve bought every single one of your games so far - and I’ll definitely get Burden of Command as well as the next in line for the Infinity series when they come out! Looking forward to them!
I’m a bit late, but this was a really enjoyable game. Went Gunnery/Fighting, picked Simpson as the Lieutenant, had some high well-balanced ship stats going into the battle. I don’t think I did it perfectly, but I still managed to win the fight and keep my Lieutenant alive.
I feel that you did a really good job building up the threat of the enemy ship, both before and during the battle. The fight itself was actually felt tense, and there were a couple moments where I thought my character was about to die or I was about to get everyone killed.
I don’t really have anything to complain about or criticize. Also, finding out that it was based on a real naval engagement was really interesting.
Thank you! I was a bit worried how this would go over, but I’m glad it’s turned out pretty well.
My main worry at this point is based on the fact that while I am a military historian, I’m not a naval historian. My research prep for Foraker basically boils down to “I re-read Hornblower and read a shittonne of Lavery”, so if anyone has a better handle on naval terminology (or sailing terminology) than I do, any corrections or suggestions would certainly be welcome.
I’d also offer a prize for anyone who finds the most obscure historical or allohistorical reference, but I’m not sure how to rate obscurity, and I don’t have any prizes.
Nothing wrong with “Hornblower” that’s how I got into naval history and thanks for the new series I’ve never heard of Lavery. As for most obscure reference are we talking naval or just history in general?
Genghis khan was actually a Time Traveler who has live in Manhattan for the past 5 years. After he faked his death he wanted to run a museum with Authentic Relics that he Just “happened to come across”. he is now Happily married to Amelia Earhart.
