{"id":38795,"date":"2017-05-24T03:24:49","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T07:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=38795"},"modified":"2017-05-24T03:28:29","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T07:28:29","slug":"nan-o-war-ch11-riding-the-seasaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=38795","title":{"rendered":"Nan o’ War CH11: Riding the Seasaw"},"content":{"rendered":"

It doesn’t matter if you’re learning to play the piano or how to blast a smoking hole in the breastplate of empire; Practice Makes Perfect. <\/em>And just like the quickest way to learn piano is to try playing two of them at once:<\/p>\n

Ave! True to Keezer!<\/div>
Ave! True to Keezer!<\/div><\/p>\n

The best way to learn naval craft is to engage two enemies at a time. What good fortune I stumbled onto this smuggler flotilla!<\/p>\n

Okay, maybe I wasn’t looking where I was sailing. Doesn’t matter! I am about to learn some incredibly important lessons about naval combat. Ideally these will consist of the ninja strategies that let me snatch a victory out of these hungry chompers, but I’ll also settle for a simple, “Never do this again.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Before I can break out any of my higher level strats (firing my cannons, steering my ship, etc) the nearest vessel sails right up and boards me. Once again, my crew of more than twenty men musters a defensive party small enough to agree on a restaurant. Fortunately, I have a secret weapon:<\/p>\n

I don’t completely <\/em>suck at this game.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

Happy sails, dumbasses.<\/p>\n

I get the same parade of postbattle screens I usually get when I take a ship: here’s who died, here’s what was on the ship that you can fit in your tiny hold, here’s what you’ll have to throw overboard, incidentally would you like to keep the ship you’ve emptied out. And then, once that’s done with…<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

…right back to the battle. Pretty sporting of the Julius Ceasar<\/em>[sic] to hang back while we inventoried their friends’ bloodsoaked crates of bananas. But now that we’ve squared away the plunder and collected the wounded and appointed one of the lieutenants to temporary captain of the Dutch name I can’t be bothered to scroll up and check<\/em>, it’s time to get back to heavy blasts and loud balls. Just call us the Ides of March, punks, because we’re about to give you the same thing we gave your friends!<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

Three, uh, men.<\/p>\n

Tactics time! I’ll open with my first pistol and take out the nearest guy on the gangplank. That’ll even things out to three versus six…<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

Bam! Then I’ll retreat back to my men on the aftcastle, which is…<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

…occupied by three enemies, so I’ll just…<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

…die.<\/p>\n

Et<\/i> voila .<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, that sucked. I came to bury Ceasar[sic], but it seems I only grazed him. Next time I’ll have to work on directing my men’s placement on the…<\/p>\n

…uh…<\/p>\n

…why is this battle still going?<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

I’m steering that ship I captured a minute ago.<\/p>\n

Uh. I think I’m…on it, now?<\/p>\n

So, connecting the dots here–I was hit by a bullet. And then I fell over, gushing blood, completely incapacitated. And then I just started rolling. I spasm-rolled past the bemused clogs of the enemy up and over the railing and straight into the water, which, apparently, refreshed me so much that I breaststroked to my other ship in the middle of the battle. <\/em>The ship in question having, if I’m reading this interface correctly, zero crew. <\/em><\/p>\n

So…now that I’ve flopped aboard, I’m piloting it. And it’s actually maneuvering pretty okay? You have to wonder why this apparently took twenty goddamn men to do a minute ago.<\/p>\n

You know, besides the fact that I’ve downgraded from a large sloop to a small, I guess I broke even? Oh, right. I lost my awesome totally irreplaceable crew of well-missed model citizens. I’ll have to remember to send some sympathetic cards back to their stable family units.<\/p>\n

So I could cut and run and not have much to be ashamed of. But screw it, I’m going back in. Boarding party of one injured grandma, your last stand is now available. Ramming speed!<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

Two troops ready for—now where the fuck did he come from?<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m not sure where they got these numbers, but I can actually work with this. While it’s obviously too much to ask that my teammate contribute anything to the battle before going diving into a musket ball like a circus seal…<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

…my magic fingers, plus one magic pixel, carry me to victory. Whereupon I get, you guessed it…<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

So it looks like I’m crab-sprinting alone through the corpses and gunsmoke, one hand on my bleeding ribs, the other gripping a meathook of corned beef, desperately unloading the cargo from my new ship off of my old ship and onto my new ship. And then the moment I’m satisfied…<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

Let me be frank. I’m up against five dudes here. My own crew consists of a sailor that, best as I can figure, is a member of the enemy crew who went skins out of sportsmanship. Anywhere I stand on this stupid deck is going to become “the thick of the action” because these guys have nothing on their to-do-list but killing me.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

Right out the gate my companion makes Caribbean(!) history by successfully killing an enemy. I mow a few more down with my cutlass. Two enemies left! Only, the deck is clear. Where are they…<\/p>\n

Splinters fly up from the deck.<\/p>\n

Oh. Right. The sniper nests.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

I’ll do you a favor and skip the next ten minutes of hugging a mast and trying to score headshots with a colonial pistol. Bottom line:<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

We win. And suddenly I am rich.<\/em><\/p>\n

All very interesting. You’d think a fleet would be useful because you’d be able to muster larger boarding parties, control the pace of battles, or pulverize enemies with sustained cannon fire. In fact, they’re mostly just there as a kind of Mario Bros lives system. Guess I learned that ninja strat after all.<\/p>\n

And speaking of subtle techniques for overcoming one’s enemies…<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

“Oho,” I muse over my tropical cocktail. “I think this rinky-dink island chain is about to learn…what sharp teeth <\/em>grandmother has.”<\/p>\n

“Ahaha,” I add.<\/p>\n

“Ahahaha,” I conclude, and accidentally quit without saving.<\/p>\n

NEXT WEEK: THAR SHE BLOWS<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It doesn’t matter if you’re learning to play the piano or how to blast a smoking hole in the breastplate of empire; Practice Makes Perfect. And just like the quickest way to learn piano is to try playing two of them at once: The best way to learn naval craft is to engage two enemies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}