GWAS: Remember the Maine
A Preview
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
October 2010

In the year 2000, according to the copyright line on the box, we issued a game called Great War at Sea: 1898: The Spanish-American War. It came out when we were gripped in the madness of putting hard-mounted game boards in all of our games; a mistake in this particular case but even so, the game eventually sold out.

We're been asked to bring it back ever since, and some time back chief developer Doug McNair suggested doing so in our new game-in-a-book format. We're struggling mightily to come up with a better name for this type of product, by the way. Anyway, our new head of marketing, John Phythyon, jumped on this idea and we're working to make it a reality.

Great War at Sea: Remember the Maine has, in addition to the title the old game should have carried, a 96-page book, two 11x17-inch cardstock maps, 70 "long" counters and 100 square ones. It's a complete game, just without a box. Everything you need to play, except a bunch of dice, is tucked right inside the book.

We're excited about the new format, because it will allow us to issue many more games that we know gamers want. Boxes take a very long time to produce, and a large investment of capital, and both of those commodities are hard to come by. Plus, the new format answers the demand for "something the customer can take into the bathtub with him." Just don't expect to use the counters more than once (they do float, by the way).

So what do you get in this new game? Here's a look.

What About the Toys?

Yes, there are toys — some more "long" ship counters than the old game, and because of that, not quite as many "small" pieces. We originally printed the 1898 game's ship pieces alongside some Napoleonic game — I'm not sure which one, probably the first time we printed Eylau counters, the ones I idiotically allowed to be thrown out.

The 70 double-sized ship counters include all of the American and Spanish warships that took part in the campaign in the Caribbean as well as some that did not: the squadrons that fought in the Philippines are all there, plus Admiral Cámara's Spanish squadron that vacillated between Atlantic and Pacific commitments. Several Spanish ships present in the old game on "small" counters get promoted to long ones, with their own lovely ship drawings of course. Ships like the light cruiser Reina Regente and the ancient coast defense ships Numancia and Vitoria; having drawn a lot of armored frigates lately, these were pretty easy. And there are a handful of new Spaniards: the sister to Pelayo projected for construction and the pair of more capable follow-on ships.

The Americans get all the ships that took part, plus all of their pre-dreadnought classes up to the Connecticut class; those appear in Black Waters. There are two more pre-dreadnoughts, Idaho and Mississippi, that have never appeared in a Great War at Sea game or book because they were sold to Greece in 1914. But they're here now under the Stars and Stripes.

What About the Map?

It's not exactly a new map, as this is the fourth time we've covered Cuban waters in the Great War at Sea system (1898, Plan Black and Plan Gold being the first three). But the artwork is new, because the area covered isn't quite the same (just "cutting out" the desired area from the large Plan Gold map is actually more work than creating a new map). It's not identical to the Plan Gold map, going further north to get more of Florida in the playing area, but there is substantial overlap since both Cuba and Puerto Rico need to be fully covered with some sea room around them for maneuver. Physically, it's twice the size of the old 1898 map, on a pair of heavy cardstock maps like those in Pacific Crossroads or August 1914.

What About the Scenarios?

The centerpieces of course are the historical scenarios: four battle scenarios and six operational scenarios, plus a campaign game. We thought hard about including more, using pieces from other games, but hard experience has taught us that this is a bad idea. While some gamers appreciate the extras as a way to have more fun with their game, others will decry the "incomplete game" they have been sold and will do so in a most angry fashion. And so the "Fulda Rule" applies here as well: Every scenario of the game must be playable using only components included with the game. Anything extra must be cut out.

I find that kind of sad. I like to jam as many scenarios into our games as we possibly can, and then a few more. But I've gotten the furious e-mails, and Lys had it right. The extras have to go, and we can always put them in future book supplements.

What About the Book?

We're going with a larger book than we originally anticipated: 96 pages instead of 64. There are the things you'll need to play the game, like rules and scenarios and ship data. And as you might expect, the historical background of the war, the tale of its naval operations and of the ships that fought the campaign. Plus something sort of new for us but long overdue, we'll have strategic and tactical suggestions for how to play the game well.

What About the Rules?

Since they have to be laid out again for book publication, Doug McNair is revising them up to current standards. This set will cover only the Great War at Sea game system, not Second World War at Sea (given the book format, it would confuse many gamers to have rules for torpedo planes and radar and such). And some concepts we developed later that were not included in the old game will make an appearance: a number of ships will have the "1-plus" speed introduced in the now out-of-print 1904: The Russo-Japanese Naval War. That helps make the battles more interesting and historically accurate.

Overall, it's a very nice package, with a lower price than a boxed game of the same approximate size and extras that wouldn't be in the box. We're looking forward to many more like it.

Click here to order GWAS: Remember the Maine NOW!