UBOOT Gameplay Runthrough

Hey, everybody, today righto. Run through you, vote the board game which, is a. Real-time. Cooperative. World War 2 era submarine. Simulator, and I'm gonna be doing a quick run-through today so you can see it's all about because it's on Kickstarter, right now and you might be deciding whether you want to back it or not now before, you go on I strongly, recommend, you, turn your subtitles, on to the Klingon channel so they don't make any rules goofs you know if they are but otherwise are you ready then, welcome. To our, u-boat. Look at this thing, this is an absolutely. Lovely. Little. Replica of, I, forget the model number but apparently a very. Famous very deadly very common. German. Sub from World War two this, is actually entirely, to scale I think it's like, 170. To 1 by 72, or something like that you can see how big our miniatures, are when, they are assigned, to their posts, so the, you. Know the the sense of place the verisimilitude is through the roof this is absolutely, stunning, to look at and, if you're looking at you saying wow that looks like it'd be a real pain to set up everytime I want to play don't, worry it's just three, simple pieces that. Just pop apart and just all fit in the box so it's super, duper easy to. Put back together unless, you're trying to do it one-handed which, of course I'm now trying to do actually, I see. Even. One-handed, it's fairly easy to, put together although. One, thing I should say that you don't necessarily get if you back the game on Kickstarter, is this nice board, that. At. A glance shows you what, the different actions are you can do in the bow the officers quarters the control room the crew quarters. Needs, and room and the aft section instead, if you get the regular game they're just gonna be a set, of cards, playing cards here they remind you what the actions are but I think it's, either a stretch goal or, it's like some kind of bonus add-on, to be able to get this board that, the sub, sits on uh-hum but, let's. Stop talking, about the components let's actually start playing the game now in this, game players, are working together like I said it's cooperative, and each member each, player controls. A, certain portion of the crew there, are actually, 32, crew. Members on this ship or this boat that we're responsible, for which i think is a bit light I think the official, crew complement, of the real one was 44, but even still we, play, errs are, responsible. For the lives of 32, Souls and they, are represented by, these little miniatures, if, I am the captain player, the blue player that, means I've got a, captain. This little blue, guy with a hexagon, and a, chief, and a. Sailor and another. So you can see they match the icons. On here and now these characters are good at different things the captain can run the periscope, you can also get on the intercom and try to help, boost the morale of, the, of the crew by handing, out reprimands. Oh actually, I would lower the morale, but let you work harder or give, them pep talks or. Chocolate, or beer. Sweet, sweet beer, really, oh yeah you get the idea so, those, are his two things mess with the morale or. Get. On the look on the periscope once they're submerged the chief here, he.

Can Target, the torpedo, computer or reload, torpedoes and both of these soldiers can reload, and fire torpedoes. So you might think oh if I'm the captain player I'm responsible for these four guys not, quite I'm responsible for eight because, each one of these miniatures. Represents, two potential, members of the crew these, four captain, chief sailor sailor and also. These. Four the Master Chief senior, sailor and two other sailors, so, depending. On what watch it is this, little blue. Guy with the yellow standee, is either. Watch. A the better one is this Pentagon, or this, yeah. This is Pentagon guy is either the captain, or. The Master Chief and they have different abilities both, the captain and the Master Chief can, get on the intercom and hand out you. Know morale stuff but the Master Chief can, use the targeting computer whereas, the captain can use the periscope and over on the other side the, senior sailor can use the periscope as opposed, to the chief okay so you know this is an example of a couple of slight changes, that your, miniatures. Will go through depending, on whether, it's you. Know the first or second launch of the day or, the third or fourth launch there's four watches every, six hours the watch changes, so it changes four times over the course of a 24 hour period now this is true from each true for all the characters the first officer has four characters, a first officer radio, officer a sailor a sailor but also the petty officer another. Radio officer in two different sailors, and again their. Abilities. Mix. Up quite a bit depending on what. What. You call what watch it is so, anyway, we've all got our miniatures, and we. All have the resources we need to take care of our responsibilities, like, I said the captain is responsible for torpedoes, but he's also responsible for monitoring the overall, commands. Of the. Crew, every, time the captain gives an order which means the rest of the crew can do something if the captain doesn't give an order no, one else can do anything, when the captain says move everybody else figures out how to do it and every, time it gives an order the, order track goes up until it reaches the end and then you know you can be a hard medium or easy if you need more orders. Once. If you try to keep giving orders once you've reached the end of the order track then, you start climbing the morale track, to give more orders and every time you hit these spots a bad, morale, event happens so you don't want to be pushing them into, overtime, by hurting, them around every. 12 hours this. Will reset, so. You. Know basically given in a 12-hour period you don't want to give more than eight commands, in a normal game nine commands, in an easy game seven, commands, in a hard game but if you have to win because you're being chased well, you're gonna have to start hurting morale with, these normal.

Medium And really terrible, cards by the way if you push them around all the way to the breaking point and then you would have to give another order the crew straight, out mutinies, and it's game over all right so that's what the captain is all about the first officer, well, one. Of his guys is the, the medic so if anybody gets injured this is the guy who has to do something about it he's also the radio officer the one who operates, I forget what it's called but the precursor, to modern sonar. So, when you're submerged, in you can't, use your periscope, you, can get on the I forget the word I'm just gonna call it sonar, with the radio officer the first officer, he command the 88 millimeter, cannon, if you're above, surfacing you're trying to shoot down planes and you can also run the Enigma machine if commands, come in from you, know from higher-up and then two sailors both of whom can run and both. Of whom can actually, steer the ship which is kind of important, then, you've got over here you've. Got the navigator most. Of your guys are good, at observing, they've got this binocular icon which means if they get up on the bridge while, you're, on, the surface they can look for enemy ships one, of them can use a sextant to figure out where you are and a, couple of them can use another gun and one of them is a cook which, is handy because you got it eat every day or your morale will drop and then finally one player can be the engineering, officer. Which means you got chief engineer I'm a cat and three mechanics, or a, senior. Engineer in mechanics, and these. Guys they focus on running the engine. Dealing. With the ballast, tanks for submerging. Or you know diving or climbing, and also. Just, repairing, stuff because stuff will break down like crazy so, under normal circumstances, you're playing a four player game and everybody takes all of these roles they've got they're in NBC's, that got their stuff you know the the, engineering players got two toolboxes. Which. Are in the bow section and the officer's, quarters and that player has to choose was, he keeping the toolbox I've already chosen to keep the really important, high emergency, stuff the fire extinguisher and the gas masks in this box it's over here in the bow and the, smaller stuff the the pump, if we get a small leak or the, replacement lights, or the electrical, stuff is in the other toolbox, which is in the officers quarters the, navigator. Who keeps, eye out he also keeps, track of where. We are relative. To enemy ships and the, Navigator by the way since I said that one of them is also the cook the. Navigator player has to give us food and, maybe. You've been wondering hey wait a minute what's your smartphone doing on the table well the, first officer, in addition to sailing and medics, and you're, running the sonar also. Runs the app yes this is a game that needs an app the, app basically. Runs. The simulates. The Allied, English, ships that we are hunting and trying to destroy but, it will but, occasionally. The hunter becomes the hunted and they chase after us the, app takes care of all of that and the first officer one of his job is to communicate to everybody else what's happening, because.

We Have no idea what's going on outside of our little tin can here the, first officer has to tell us by letting us know what the app says right. So, we, can go on ahead we can do some options organs go ahead and play and. This. Version I got this prototype by the way I should say everything. You're seeing here today is prototypes, it, comes with one mission just a standard patrol hey, it's our first mission out of the, Naval, Academy watch. Out for mines along the British coast well then there's escort activity, basically. Get out there and show the Brits what we're made of we have four days we, start in. Wilhelmshaven. Which is a n95. On the map I'll get to that in a second and we have four days to prove our worth by sinking, as many Allied, ships as possible. Now here's the thing as soon as I hit mission start it's, starting, this is a real time game there, is a timer that will go and I at this point the app does not allow pausing, which makes my life kind of difficult to film so, before. We get going and the timer goes I'm gonna actually issue. A, few, orders normally, I would start mission and then I would start issuing orders I would tell everybody all these little guys to get to their stations, I would, tell them to lay in a course because this says we should what's. It say all, right, and sending about that we should we, should, patrol. The north border of the a in, area of the map so we have to lay in a course to go there we have to you, know it turn on the engine to go full speed ahead we have to get observers, on them, on the bridge to look, for enemy ships we, have to eat if we don't eat our morale will drop if things. Break down we have to repair there's a bunch of stuff we have to do once, the mission starts as we talk for me to explain so I'm, gonna pretend OOP, I've just hit mission start right and so the things going the timer's going I as, the captain am going to issue some. Orders first order, mobilize. Now mobilize. In fact actually here's a list of all the orders I as, the captain can give I can tell the crew to mobilize and that means all of the players who are in control of their own little individual minis will send, them to whatever station they want to and, then once everybody's done the, captain give another order the other orders are I can, basically. Give, a new course new depth, the new speed dive, resurface, I can tell observers, to watch their sectors I can use the periscope or the hydrophone that's what it is instead, the sonar it's the hydrophone, underwater, I can. Fire. Up the targeting, computer I can flood torpedo tubes fire or torpedo or reload a torpedo and also. I can issue orders to repair lend medical assistance somebody, use the sextant because we don't know where we are we're lost again on the surface prepare, meals or dress crew I don't do any of these things except. For addressing crew I just order them to happen on the back side of my card is the things that I can do like flooding, up torpedo tube or a. Fire, entropy loop shows me which icons my, characters have to use and how many of them reloading. A torpedo takes, a lot of work, it's three, actions. Worth to, reload, a torpedo as an. Example anyway and all the players have their own little summary, of you, know to go, to a new depth or set. A new course, the. First, officer has to have two, of his sailors, do, the Sailor action to use the hydrophone, he has to have his radio operator use the radio etc, etc the. Other characters they have their own cards, as well anyway I have issued mobilization, and when I do that I can also let the crew know what, it is I'm planning because the captain player, is always, supposed to be thinking three, or four moves ahead he's, supposed to anticipate where. People need to go so, he can give the orders at the right time with the most efficiency because again if you just waste orders, and you know just oh one, guy has to move one room okay well I'll do a mobilization pretty, soon you'll be out of orders you'll have to hit morale so you have to be very very smart always be thinking about where, everybody.

Is All 32. Crew anyway. So we issue mobilization, and he also says, I'm. Gonna want to get underway in under an hour we're gonna be full speed to sector. Let's, see well it's said to report, for to patrol, the North Zone of, am. Here, is the map of our operating. Theater we, are going to go let's say we're gonna go to an. 23. So I'm just telling everybody all right everybody to mobilize we're gonna be setting a course for a in 23 and. Getting. Underway and, and. I'm hungry I'm gonna lob some food now I have it none of those are orders, yet so far the only orders mobilized but I've kind of clued everybody in where, they should send their people because I'm, not as the captain I'm not responsible for the engineer sends his engineer, that's entirely up to him but now everybody kind knows what, I'm thinking so with that in mind let's start mobilizing everybody, does this at the same time I'll. Put my captain, on the command room because that's where the periscope, is if you wants to use the periscope he's got to be there and I'll, have my chief who, can use the targeting computer I'll have him be in the control room as well because that's where the computer is. I'll. Have one of my sailors, be up front actually, I could just have both of my sailors be up front so that if we do get into trouble we need to reload torpedo tubes they can work together to load the two torpedo, tubes in the front you can actually see the tubes right there or I could put one of them in the rear and just in case we get surprised from behind we need to fire a rear torpedo, or. You, know what even. Though this sailor is particularly good at torpedoes, I think. I'm not really worried too much about running into enemy. Hostiles right, away let's go ahead and put him on the bridge because, the more people who are up on the bridge and looking, for bad, guys the more likely we are to spot them before they spot us so, I've deployed mine everybody, else is doing the same thing the first officer, says hey the radio officer in the first to get, to their machines they, both need to be in, the officers quarters where the, hydrophone. And the Enigma machine are so. They are in position and then we've got these two guys oh these are the two sailors we're actually going to steer the ship which, means they, need to be in the control room as well a control room is getting kind of full alrighty, the meanwhile the navigator says well the main thing the navigator can do is spot, so the. Pentagon won the square, one and the triangle, one they'll, all go on the bridge to, be spotters, as well, to. Join my guy up there but the circle one who's the cook since the captain mentioned hey he's gonna want his meal, soon we'll put him down here in the crew quarters where, he can get, ready to once, he gets the orders he'll make dinner and then finally the engineer right two, guys can run the engine the Pentagon, and square guy let's put them in the engine room so we can get underway the captain wants us to get underway and let's, put these other two guys well these guys can, repair or they're good for ballast if we have to dive suddenly, because, say an enemy, plane spots us we're, gonna need to have guys to work the ballast very quickly so, let's put them in the control room as well they might have to move later if we have some repairs but for now we'll just put them all in there and. By, the way if I was playing with more players I'd be other players the other side screen half the players would put their stuff over here and a half over here I'm just kind of squeezing them all in right now um right. Everybody. Is mobilized everybody says aye aye, captain, everybody puts their guys in place my, first order is done time, is still ticking although.

It's Not yet remember I died this. Is all something you would do within 30 seconds but I'm having to explain as I go and I don't want 8 hours of game time to pass while I'm explaining things so time, is going on I'll issue my second, order, navigator. Lay, in a course for and. I confer. With a navigator let's say am. 23, now the, the mission says we start at a and 95 so what the Navigator has to do just like a real navigator. He marks where we're starting he, marks where we're supposed to go he. Takes his. Ruler. Which. Is kind of difficult for me to do but I'll go and do anyway draws, a straight, line, it'd. Be easier with two hands so if I had two hands I'd draw a straight line but it's kind of a crooked line but still good enough and he, figures out what, is our course. We have based on this line is what we want to do we take the compass we, line, we align it with the. Grid and then we, look, and set way this got put down here so I can see, like. That okay we see that okay of, course captain. Course 350. 350. Is the course to get there so remember, this was all the order he said lay in a course for 3/4. And, 23 the Navigator fix out that means we have to go at 340, degrees the, navigator, and, you can put a stuff away the. Navigator might also make note of what time it is that would be pretty handy because we, know how fast the ship goes and if. We're underwater and we don't have the Stars to use a sextant we might lose track of where we are so if he mentions. That say we're gonna leave here at 9:15. In the morning, you, know when, it's 10:15, he can anticipate how far along here we've gone he, got a might also right in that we're going at 340, degrees you know just as a note to himself because, maybe we'll have to change course later anyway, 340. Degrees is, our, bearing, captain, and, it's. Not done now remember. The. Navigator. It's. Actually the navigator had to figure it out but he, did not actually take the order it's the first officer. Who. Types, that on that, direction into the app to tell the app which way we're going so. It's a two-person, job this, particular, order, the. Navigator do some work and now the first officer, oh I, have to actually start the mission now to actually type that in low tech okay folks we're actually starting the timer now, and. Let's actually turn the volume up so if there's an event I didn't want to hear the music but I might want to hear events when they happen all right so you can see it's, six, oh seven time, is moving forward, on our, first of this four day mission now it's moving at this speed if we want we can slow it down so. That we have more time to respond if you play at this speed players, have enough time to discuss and, figure out what they're gonna do if you play at hyperspeed that means you're kind of fast forwarding to the next bit of action so I have slowed, us down, to.

Right And and just in the time I've started, it's now 622, in the morning so. Imagine, I gave the order by 622, everybody was in position and then I gave the second order ok plot me a course I want to lay in a course for whatever. That was and the, Navigator does it and says course is 340, degrees so the first officer types in or not types in uses this little compass and puts. It in at. 3:40. Course, laid in, door. Closes, okay. All right but. There. Was an action involved with this this is laying. In a new course in. The control room we have to we have to do two or, two people have to do the steering, action because, the steering action is done in the control room so, it, could be anybody the captain could do this or you. Know the repair, guys could do it but the sailors are best at it so we're gonna have the sailors, and this is what we're saying are the crews in position, these two sailors they're, in position and they. Are both gonna do their first action of the watch done. And. You can see new course 3:40, laid in now we're not moving yet our next, step is my, third, order, is captain is a, head, full, and. So that is the engineers, job the, engineer, has to be. On the chief engineer in the Macan they're both. In the engine room and as, it says right here to, to. Basically do, a new speed while you're surfaced, in the engine room we have to do two engine actions so I will have each, of these guys do, one they have two more actions they can do this shift so, they, say aye aye captain and the. First officer oh and, they also mark here so everybody can see their word full speed the first officer puts in full, confirms. Are. Or are they in position, yes they are then boom. Okay. Engines ahead full it's now 719. In the morning we are underway, as ordered. Heading, north looking, for trouble okay. But, hey, you know what where's that trouble we've, got four, guys on deck let's, a my my, next, order my fourth order is to, tell the guys on deck to start looking for the enemy and so. There, are four guys up here we're gonna have all form to it now the captain is control of one of them but, let's talk about the three guys whose job it is because they're good at observing so, um they. Get these, were just one-time, tasks, because, you see after after dr. the end of the shift this will go away they did one task, observing. Is an ongoing task, so you mark it with these special, action markers that triangle. Square and Pentagon are now observing, because.

They're Good at it they only have to do one my, guy is observing, as well but, he is not good at it it's blue circle, he's not going observing so he's doing ongoing observing, but because he's not good at it he has to spend an extra action you can only do one more thing this shift but anyway so everybody's. In place everybody's observing, the, the. First officer types in we have four people observing and, here. We go hey folks we, can look around we can keep an eye out, there's, our front there's our rear we can zoom in don't, see anything on the horizon let's. Go on ahead and go back so. We are underway we're. Heading north it is now 8 o'clock in the morning within two hours of my initial order we are full, steam ahead looking, for trouble now, remember. Um we're. Hungry if we don't eat every 24 hours our, morale, drops potentially. Which is to say this climbs and gets worse and worse and events happen so I'm gonna issue my next order cook, let's, get some grub, so I've issued an order and now the navigator, in addition, to is plotting, and stuff he's got to play the food minigame which is he does build a food pyramid he just takes a bunch. Of these randomly flips, them up and tries. To make, a healthy, meal now, there's a couple of rules about meals first of all if any lemons, came up and it did you have to include a lemon in your meal now that means if there wasn't a lemon I could use three things to make a really big meal but as it is since there was a lemon I can only make a medium sized meal but a medium-sized meal of two types of two, items is all I need to keep morale good, now, this is a list of the recipes of what we can make and we have to take things next to each other like there's eggs next to onions which, i think is an omelet, scrambled. Eggs eggs and onions yes we're gonna make eggs omelettes are on the menu so done.

Done. Captain that order is done now the Apple eventually say when, we have to eat so but the food is prepared after, that's done we refill, so, that when the engine when the navigator is not doing stuff he can be thinking about what, meal is he gonna do next unfortunately. If the bread. Was next to the. The. Tuna we adapt tuna fish sandwich and you can you know he can use an action oh by the way he didn't use an action it costs, this guy one action, to prepare this meal all, right but he could spend more actions, to shift these around to get stuff because you have to make these ingredients. With stuff that is adjacent, plus. There's a danger of running out of stuff and food spoils, and all that depending, on how long we stay out okay, so all, the cat now the captain has three more orders he could issue today but. Everything is underway where we've got observers, up top we're full steam ahead nothing's, repaired our bellies. Are ready, to eat whenever the app says we eat so. We're good I think that. Means we, are in a position where you, know what we can just stay here and let, the clock move forward at this very slow pace players. Could be talking about stuff. We could be strategizing. Or, gonna say hey you know what let's speed the game up until we get to an event so I'm just gonna go triple speed now and, we'll, see what happens. Okay. Now, as soon as it if it happened there was a noise you heard the ring bells and it, told us second, man it's time to switch stations because six hours have passed we start at 6:00 in the morning it is now noon which, means all of these flip over and now, there. Are 16 new, people, but. Whenever. There's a change of station we, have the opportunity. To let the old people rest now this guy if I, want him to. Continue to observe I need, to keep him here and we, transfer, over this this means he's still tired because he's not good at observing we transfer over the new sailor, who is still up there is continuing, the observation, up here. These, are, continuing. So all four the these were the old guys who were observing it's transferred, to the new guys who are observing this, guide the cook though he, did want to ask and now he's, done so, he's an extern he's got three actions he can do I mean heck if I want I could order him to observe as well because he's already made food let's see over here whenever. You flip one of the tokens from the current watch when you switch to a new watch gets, removed it I think it's removed to continue the original action or gets removed because they're resting, so, everybody. So our guys, who've got the engine going they're resting and you'll notice the, guys now in the engine room square and circle they, can no longer manipulate. The engine now the, ballast, guys are in the engine room in the engine room guys, are are. Where, the ballast should be if I, wanted I could issue, a directive to have all the - everybody, move around for the new stations, which. Would make us more effective we, could have these ballast, to engineers, in, the engine room run the engine but since it's not their specialty, it would take them to actions. Instead of one to do it but, you know what everything's going fine right now I think I'm just gonna leave it alone hopefully, we don't run any trouble over the next six hours and then the watch will switch back and everybody's, in the correct space so, we're continuing, on let's, go on ahead and speed up again and see what happens. Okay. We have an issue okay and it's slowed back down torpedo, tube three maintenance, required in the bow section all right so this is a green thing which means it's a low priority problem. So PETA's will still fix but if we don't do this maintenance over, time it'll get worse and it might get to the point where the torpedo tubes completely, malfunction, when we need them so. I could, issue an order to have. Somebody, repair it the problem is the only person in the bow is this. Guy and he's. Good at loading, torpedoes, and firing, torpedoes he's not good at maintenance so, for him to do this maintenance means he, would have to do two actions to finish this now. The, first officer, no, the first officer saw this and tells, the everybody, hey we need some maintenance he, can look at the repair menu and see a little bit more three. People, and so, far no we haven't so anybody up to three people know exactly three people are needed to do this so. I think I am gonna have to issue an order orchid as the captain I could say it's not that much of a problem I'd rather wait till the shift change. B-but. Nobody probably should go ahead because so I'm going to issue an order for, another mobilization. Now this means everybody, can move around I'll, go ahead and put this guy up on deck because he's a better observer and. So. I'll have this guy come back down and I'll put him back where he really should be let's, go on ahead and.

Put. Or. Actually let's have him assist, this, engineer because this guy is going to come up to start working on our repairs and, this guy will work on the repairs and this guy will work on the repairs so if this guy has, to do ballast somebody else can help him all right so we're done with the mobilization, now I'm issuing another order to initiate repairs, so. There are green repairs brown, pentagon and brown triangle are working on it they're good at repairs so they need one but my blue, torpedo. Officer is also doing it so, and he's a blue triangle so, he's working on it as well but, he's a bit slower and we, tell you know the engineering, officer tells the first, mate that if we've done it we've applied three people and, so. It. Is underway we are working we're, at zero percent we, are at one percent it's gonna take a while and these guys are all tied up this, might continue on into, the next shift, which. Could be bad because this and I is not good, at it isn't continues next shift this guy will get tired and this guy won't get a chance to rest anyway. You can see that is continuing. So we've dealt with our first issue probably. If we speed it up, now. At this point I don't know where we are we're, on the surface if I wanted I, issue an order to one, of these guys on deck oh by the way this guy's on deck he's not observing because I have an issue in order to have him observed I'll do that later, potentially. In. Fact actually will i well worry about that later but, I could have this guy do. An action to use the sextant, to tell us exactly where, we are by you know checking the Stars and all that I could do that but, I'm not too terribly worried about it it's a long way, actually. You can tell how long it's gonna take to get up there because this ruler is also, a speaker Oh bearings. Bearings, of oh. My god three. Bearings right, okay let's, now, this is where I'd love to pause on, to, explain stuff but, the enemy has been spotted tell you what folks this, is a good place as they need to break for a little bit and I'm. When we go to the extended play through you'll see me try, to deal with these, Allied, ships, and as I try to take one up or you can go straight to my thoughts your choice in five four. Three, two. One.

2018-01-26 03:05

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