Amikor a kapitány kiadja az irányt, az első tiszt egy tetszőleges eszközön tölt egy egységnyit, ezzel közelebb hozva őket ahhoz, hogy aktiválásra készen álljanak. A mérnök pedig ugyanekkor ikszel egyet a tengeralattjáró áramkörein. Ezek bizonyos kombinációban elromlanak, amitől a hajó sérül, más kombinációban megjavulnak. De az egyes rendszerek már egy iksztől is leállnak, így a mérnöknek okosan kell egyensúlyoznia, hogy a megfelelő rendszereket a megfelelő pillanatban aktiválni lehessen, ugyanakkor a jármű se tegye fel a kezét egyhamar. The game is set in an age of economic war where there is a battle for the control of the ocean’s depth.

The next defensive system is silence. With this system, you can move four spaces without announcing it to the hearing of the other team. You can make it known to your team members by either showing them the map or giving them directions. When this is done, the engineer and the first mate can cross out the symbols on their sheets: the first to repair any breakdowns, and the second to charge the systems. Well, why didn’t you say so! In that case, head east! Load up those torpedoes, and lets keep our engines running. Enemy in sight! The captain is responsible for setting the submarine’s course as well as dictating which of the vessel’s various weapons and surveillance equipment to deploy. They will shout commands and then use a dry erase marker to plot out their course on the map. The sales pitch for Captain Sonar is ridiculously compelling. A real time game about battling submarine crews? Sold. Who doesn’t want to play that? Submarine battling is, as a game concept, inversely as awesome as I imagine real life submarine battling to be.

Surfacing

That’s really too bad, because there’s something entirely enjoyable about being part of a team, but still getting a solid sense of competition that pure cooperative games don’t give you. Engineers and First Mates, workin’ together The feeling of suspense and focus grew over the game as both subs took damage and it became clear the next hit would kill either Each time the enemy Captain announces a course, the Radio Operator draws it on his transparent sheet (beginning anywhere, since he does not know the enemy's starting location).

In case, if all is clear and no system has a breakdown, all teams must place their markers down for you to announce your intention.

The weak points: Operation Dragon does not solve the issues of the base game like it not being a party game but a crowd game, or how mistakes can cripple the game if people are not attentive. Even worse, it seriously exacerbates the problem faced by the First Mate and the Engineer whose input remains trivial in games where the captain is allowed to dictate to them what to do. The captain has even more responsibilities now, including the Expert cards as well as the movement of the helicopter and the Cruiser in Armada mode. Like I said in the review of the first expansion, being a cog in a well-oiled machine is one thing. Being a muppet in someone else's game is another. And games are short, anyway. If I really screw up, I just want to try again. Team games lend themselves to challenges and replays, because you’re not just winning ‘the game.’ You’re beating the other team. The more the Radio Operator is able to listen to the enemy Captain, the more easily he will be able to determine the enemy's route and position. He will need to regularly update his Captain with information on the possible location of the enemy. The Captain cannot drop a mine in a space on his route (with a line drawn in it), and a submarine cannot move into a space with its own mine. Teams are divided into four roles, each armed with only a dry erase marker and a special laminated sheet. The captain’s job is in some ways the easiest: the main task is just to move the sub around your mapped grid of dots, avoiding islands and disguising your location and path as best you can. On each move, you have to announce the direction journeyed (north, east, south, west) but not your location.

But don’t fall into the temptation. Nobody wants to play a group variant of Battleship any more than they want to play a group variant of Candyland. Instead, tell people that Captain Sonar is a great submarine-themed party game. Gamers will go in thinking of Subterfuge. Gen-Xers will launch into their worst impression of Sean Connery’s “Russian” accent in The Hunt for Red October. That one guy in every game group will start arguing that Kelsey Grammer’s 1996 Down Periscope was superior to Das Boot. The Engineer MUST inform the Captain of breakdowns. The Captain will be able to decide to surface when he thinks he is safe and far from the enemy (though only the Radio Operator can guarantee that!). This will allow for uninterrupted repairs and preparation for a new route. The directional systems can self-repair, however, other systems can only be fixed by surfacing. Other Abilities of the Captain Which brings me to the role of the Engineer. The first three jobs I described in more detail above are all decent approximations of actual submarine duties. The Engineer, on the other hand, is the representation of the fact this is a board game, and is a job that means every action a boat takes is balanced by something breaking, which they’re responsible for mitigating and assigning. Silence – Move up to four spaces in a straight line without announcing the direction (other rules for movement still apply).He can move the submarine up to four spaces in a straight line without crossing an island or his own route.

The classes and engine types feel balanced. They may or may not perform better than the game's basic submarine depending on the scenario but also the predisposition of the captain. A straightforward captain who likes exploding things is unlikely to share the same preferences with a sniping captain that plays it safe, or a captain who enjoys speed and maneuverability. The Radio Operator will be able to narrow the enemy's position down further with the help of drones and sonar, which will be activated by the Captain or the First Mate. I am not happy with the campaign outright eliminating the weapons included in Upgrade One. I would have wished for a thoughtful, inclusive design that allows every one of the game's modules to be combined with the rest. If you buy and use this expansion, you will be partially shelving your other expansion, and vice versa. Which leaves the problem of player count. You can play this game with two, or four, or six. But something is missing unless you’re in real-time and at the full eight players. The problem is that any more is impossible and any less is less than ideal.

Setup

Again all end decisions lie with the captain, but only a correct MCC (multi-crew cooperation) and proper use of CRM(crew resource management) Captain sonar is a two-eight-player board game designed by Roberta Fraga and Yohan Lemonnier. It is real battleship warfare where you have to destroy the other team’s submarine. It’s recommended you play with eight players because there are four roles in the game: the captain, radio operator, first mate, and engineer. We had a bigger than usual game night last night and got eight willing participants for this game. We had a blast although I'm pretty sure many rules errors were made.