Scramble for the Unknown Southern Islands

 For a number of months, I have been contemplating an imperial overseas fantasy campaign.
So far Mat and I have played land campaigns with cross border incursions and invasions.

  As a recap, my country is the Germanic Beerstein and mat has two countries interlinked, one, Fezia, being similar to the Ottomans and the other being the Slavic, Bogavania. Given the historical parallels the alliance will sound counter intuitive. However, after Bogavania lost most of its territory to Beerstein it needed a big and powerful friend, even if it was of alien culture and religion. Beerstein had early on, intervened to assist Bogavania and now Bogavania had become a client state.

  Other nations that had formerly been involved in hostilities with our countries were, Necrolia (Undead and vampires) and Fritzerland against Beerstein, and Aztecia and Patra against Fezia, and indirectly against Bogavania. For those who have only recently begun following the campaigns, Aztecia (obviously) consists of pre-Columbian types, notably Aztecs but with the occasional aid of large dinosaurs! Unlike, on Old Earth, the Aztec lands are continuous with those of Fezia and Patra. The Patrans are based on Anthony and Cleopatra, who contrary to established wisdom, 'escaped' Octavius' clutches - actually they were kidnapped by uber aliens, along with a great many other humans and others. The land of Patra preserves some ancient Egyptian religio n and dynastic customs. Their people consist of the Greeks and Romans at the upper levels and the native Egyptians below. The Fritz are basically the Swiss and are at a similar level of development as the Beersteiners and Bogavanians. There are a number of other nations, human and non-human that have not yet entered into combat with our countries.

  The maps are very basic, but it took a long time to number all the hexes. I am dimly aware that there are better computer-generated ways of depicting this, but my computer skills are not there yet. It is probably the case that a letter and number grid reference would have been more sensible!

 Unlike my previous maps, I have not shown physical features on the islands other than marking, in red, where suitable landing places for deep ports, are available.

  I didn't want an endless supply of screw drawers for this new land so what I intend is for each of us to write down the hex numbers our ships are located in each map move. We can show a third person the location on our maps, and he can tell us if we are in contact. If a battle or series of battles are likely on an island, then I'll make more detailed maps of those islands and employ some new screw drawers for land campaigns. Any sea battles we will most likely conduct on the lawn.

  Bogavania and Fezia are presently not at war with Beerstein. If they find themselves in the same sea or land hex, then there will be some dice rolling to see if peace is maintained. Similarly, the reaction of natives will be diced for.

  Speaking of natives, the inhabitants and resources of each island are unknown. Some of the smaller islands might even be inhabited. Our own countries are currently at a late 18th century level of development but with options to use earlier weaponry and troop types. Magic also plays a part.

  The possible inhabitants include something similar to 18th century China, 'prehistoric' types, Aztec types, Ebons (black African tribals), medieval, ancient Romans or Greeks and also non-human types, such as giant apes, dinosaurs, dwarves, giants, orcs and so on. They might or might not have magic.

  There are also around 150 random chance happenings that can include anything from a death of a king's wife or an alien abduction (again)!

  I have been doing my head in how to represent sailing ship movement given changes in wind direction. In the end (except perhaps, for a naval battle) I am just going to say each map move they move x number of hexes (probably four) but each player rolls a die and on a 'one' they are becalmed and on a 2 their movement is halved. (The chance rolls also have a shipwreck outcome).

  

Our ships will begin either in port, or a dice roll will be made to give them random positioning at the start of the campaign. The Beersteiners' two ports, not present on these maps, (one at the capital) are further away than Bogavanian and Beersteiner ones so their chance positioning is limited to the Northwest part of the first map. Bogavania and Fezia will have a chance roll that could position them anywhere on the two maps.

  Beerstein has somewhat more territory than the other two nations combined so has more credits for buying ships and troops. Each ship can transport a unit of men plus supplies and cannons.

  The most fun part of the campaign will be that neither I nor mat will know who we will be fighting or what chance events may occur. We would also be unwise to put all our resources into the overseas campaign. That is because, if war breaks out between us a cross-border invasion or incursion could occur. Third party nations might also threaten our frontiers and even our capitals.

  Our last campaign ended last year and this new campaign will, hopefully be organized by the end of next month. We still have to calculate our funding for our armies.