Nantucket

[tgb]

Thar she blows!

Deep sailing/exploration/whaling sim with turn based combat and a campaign modeled on Moby Dick?

More, please.

[jztemple2]

Thanks for posting about this game, it looks very interesting and something different. And having spend part of my youth in Cape Cod and visited various whaling museums and read books about it, I'm very interested in the subject matter.

[Holman]

I heard about this one months ago and then forgot it.

MOBY DICK is the best. I'll be watching for reviews of this one.

[jztemple2]

OK, a bit of an update. First, the game released on January 18th. Second, in news released today, the price will be £13.99 / €17.99 / $17.99. I'm not sure how much that is in ducats, doubloons, or drachmas , but is sounds reasonable to me.

It will also be available on GOG.

tgb, are you going to update the title of this thread on release so folks can search for it?

[jztemple2]

Sorry, forgot to add this, YouTube poster thehistoricalgamer has uploaded several in-depth looks at the game, starting with a first look video.

[jztemple2]

So as expected I picked this game up when it was released via Steam, as I have a couple of dollars from selling PUBG crap

I've got in only 78 minutes so far, but initial impressions are very good. I've almost starved the crew to death, got killed by pirates (and loaded a save ), lost a crewman to a whale, found a missing mystery ship and visit Honolulu.

It has an excellent tutorial and lots of tooltips. I do have a couple of items I'm not sure about, but if I don't figure them out I'll post to the forum as the developer has been answering question already.

There is some nice period background music and when you sail there is usually a cool sea shanty triggered. Graphics are excellent, very polished and professional. So far no bugs, not even a typo.

And for those who might want to bone up on their whaling lore, I found a website that provides an annotated version of Moby Dick.

[tgb]

It is very good, although I find it hard to read the small font. Then again, I'm using an old backup monitor while I wait for my new rig to arrive.

[Sepiche]

Picked this up and played a little last night. It's got potential, but I'm not sure how well everything is balanced.

For instance, at the start of my first voyage I only had enough prestige for a handful of level 1 sailors, but because your captain gets +1 prestige for each whale caught, after my first voyage my captain was only about halfway to level 2, yet I had enough prestige to recruit a boat full of level 5s, or a level 10 in addition to my existing low level crew. That almost makes your captain a liability as he's going to lag far behind the crew pretty quickly. That also had the side effect of making it kind of pointless to level up lower level crew... why bother when you'll be able to recruit a much better sailor soon?

I'm also not sure how well some of the battle elements are balanced. I'm *am* sure there are things I don't understand yet, and things probably get more interesting with later battles as I was mostly hunting baby narwhals, but right now it seems almost pointless to take anything but hunters in your boats. For instance, in combat my level 2 hunter has a 66% chance of making a roll that will kill or severely injure a whale, while my level 1 sailor has a 66% chance of getting a 33% chance of blocking an attack, and my crafter has a 66% chance of giving someone else on the crew a re-roll. Why would I want anything but hunters when in addition to more reliably contributing, they deal over twice the damage of any other class?

I understand non-hunter classes also give benefits out of combat that can be useful, but I'm not sure yet that outweighs the massive advantage multiple hunters would give you in fights.

I intend to keep playing as there's a lot to like in here as well, but I'm not convinced yet that all this has been well thought out by the developers.

[jztemple2]

Picked this up and played a little last night. It's got potential, but I'm not sure how well everything is balanced.

For instance, at the start of my first voyage I only had enough prestige for a handful of level 1 sailors, but because your captain gets +1 prestige for each whale caught, after my first voyage my captain was only about halfway to level 2, yet I had enough prestige to recruit a boat full of level 5s, or a level 10 in addition to my existing low level crew. That almost makes your captain a liability as he's going to lag far behind the crew pretty quickly. That also had the side effect of making it kind of pointless to level up lower level crew... why bother when you'll be able to recruit a much better sailor soon?

I've got in eight hours so far, seven last night and an hour or so today. I'm still using the same ship I started with but have lost several crewmen due to drowning, accident and the whatnot. I've got a Prestige of 37 and a level of seven. I've got three crewmen, one of whom is a scientist I recruited as a level 10 and is still there. The other two are eight and eight, but started off as a five and a six. I'm almost at the point of upgrading to a medium ship so I can have two whaleboats. That means I have eleven Prestige points to spend on three guys, so I'm going to be a bit limited. I've also lost a number of Prestige points in quests and random events.

The advantage I can see of keeping existing crew is that some of them pick up very useful traits, like Teetotaler (no grog) and gourmet (eats only half of what others do), that you may not find among those you wish to recruit.

Out in the Pacific you won't be pulling in as many whales since they fill up the hold quicker and it is farther to the nearest port to sell the blubber and oil. I think it might be too easy to grab a lot of narwhals near Nantucket and build up there, but if you are focusing on quests you'll be all over the map a lot of the time.

I'm also not sure how well some of the battle elements are balanced. I'm *am* sure there are things I don't understand yet, and things probably get more interesting with later battles as I was mostly hunting baby narwhals, but right now it seems almost pointless to take anything but hunters in your boats. For instance, in combat my level 2 hunter has a 66% chance of making a roll that will kill or severely injure a whale, while my level 1 sailor has a 66% chance of getting a 33% chance of blocking an attack, and my crafter has a 66% chance of giving someone else on the crew a re-roll. Why would I want anything but hunters when in addition to more reliably contributing, they deal over twice the damage of any other class?

You haven't gotten that far then. Narwhals are indeed fairly easy prey, except for the Old Narwhal, which can launch an ambush attack which causes damage over thirty. Pretty much every other whale you run into are going to be harder, plus of course there are sharks. Narwhals otherwise are a fairly easy, but pretty slow, way to make money.

And of course on some quests you'll be going after much, much bigger game

I understand non-hunter classes also give benefits out of combat that can be useful, but I'm not sure yet that outweighs the massive advantage multiple hunters would give you in fights.

Multiple hunters are a benefit when the game you are hunting can't hurt you very much. As you hunt other whales, you'll find that you'll need a sailor who can heal, and the sailor who can grant a re-roll to another character or give immunity to anyone in the whaleboat.

I intend to keep playing as there's a lot to like in here as well, but I'm not convinced yet that all this has been well thought out by the developers.

In my estimation, the developers intended that you hunt whales as a way to make money to upgrade your ship and buy supplies, but the intended focus was to play through the quests. I think that this is why I've been seeing reviews that mention that the gameplay is repetitive. I've been feeling that repetitiveness at times, but then I go off to the Pacific to hunt bigger game and that opens up the game.

[em2nought]

Watched a few youtube preview and gameplay videos. I find it embarrassing that I know the words to these songs...

[Holman]

Man, I'll have to get this. I re-read MOBY DICK every couple of years. It's the indispensable American novel.

[jztemple2]

I re-read MOBY DICK every couple of years. It's the indispensable American novel.

You're weird. But in a good way

[Holman]

DICK is awesome!

I'm constantly trying to persuade people that the problem is teachers who treat it straight.

MB is an epic, but it's a parodic and satirical one. It runs fast and loose where people presume it's heavy and serious.

[tgb]

I've only fooled around with it a bit but am about to start my first "real" game. One strategy I saw in a video is to hire only two people at the start, leaving the third spot free. Then once you've gained some prestige, you can hire a much better hunter (or whatever) than you normally could right from the start.

[jztemple2]

I've gotten 11 hours in on the game and I'm hitting a few things that have made me feel "meh". I was kinda stuck getting money, but just by chance, as I was leaving Honolulu, three days out, I came across a blue whale hunting area. This was the first one I found that I didn't find via a quest, I just happened to be running through the area when it became active. So I'd do a whale hunt, fill the hold, run back to port, sell, go back, repeat. I made several thousand that way. Was it fun? I guess so... I did reload the game once after losing my main character. I wasn't about to go repeat ten hours of play . Honestly, I don't think this game will have that much appeal for another play through.

And here is where the "meh" factor came in. I now had the bucks to upgrade to a ship with two whaleboats... nope, turns out I didn't. See, to do that you have to research three techs that aren't on your starter ship. And to do that you have to have a character that has that trait. I had one, but not the other two. Now I can upgrade my captain to get them, but that means I have to wait till I level up three or four more times (I'm a bit confused on that). Or, I can hire a couple of crew that have those traits and research them, but to do that I have to fire the crew I already have that I have diligently raised in levels several times. Most annoying, since once I get my larger ship, I'd have room for them. Oh well, it's part of the gameplay.

And you will need those extra whaleboats, because there are quests that simply cannot be done with just one. So I guess I'll continue along with the game, hire the new crew and get those techs researched. I just don't know who is going to explain it to the guys I'm going to fire

UPDATE: Oh, it seems that I can rehire guys I fire, at least it seems to be true right now. And that's good.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: I bought my medium sized ship and damn, I lost the two guys I fired, I can't rehire them. Oh well.

[Newcastle]

Three skills you need to get to bigger ship are:

(this is for the first upgrade with 2 whaleboats)
Sick bay - lvl 2 scientist (will need 3 points to unlock)

Caboose - lvl 2 craftsmen(will need 3 points to unlock)


**one of the higher ships**
Cabin - lvl 2 surgical (3 points to unlock)


My solution to get to the first upgrade is to train a cabin boy; while the captain will get the other skill.

[jztemple2]

I've put in fourteen hours on the game and I'm pretty much burned out on it. It suffers (or rather I suffer) from the same problem in these less complex, non-AAA titles that after playing for several hours I find myself doing the same actions on the same places in the game over and over. Now some folks are fine with that, but I've got a low threshold of boredom. So I probably won't be putting in any more hours. But I got it at 10% off, plus a couple of bucks in the Steam wallet, plus I sold off all the trading cards, so I figure I got my money's worth.

[Kraken]

While I can see the potential appeal of a fresh take on the historical sailing sim...and the Nantucket angle intrigues me as a Masshole...it's hard to imagine a more politically incorrect theme than whaling. Maybe a Cecil the Lion Hunting game.

[jztemple2]

While I can see the potential appeal of a fresh take on the historical sailing sim...and the Nantucket angle intrigues me as a Masshole...it's hard to imagine a more politically incorrect theme than whaling. Maybe a Cecil the Lion Hunting game.

Uh, a slave trading simulator?

[Greybriar]

I have put a number of hours into playing Nantucket and was very punished by it. There exists the potential for an enjoyable game within it, but it has escaped me thus far. I will play it again, but only after some fun has been patched into it (I am not a masochist!).

[Newcastle]

Its fun to dabble in, and i've enjoyed it. But for a long term game and replayability, i think it needs more uhmph. Dont get me wrong, i am still very much enjoying it and have gotten up to a second level ship. But i now have abunch of cash, and am waiting on research to move up to a higher level ship (as well as a man w/ the caboose skill).

The card combat could be a bit more fleshed out but is enjoyable.

Hopefully the sales do well and they can expand on the game more.

[Freyland]

I don't own the game, but having some questions about the industry in mind, I did a brief Google search. This was an educational read...

https://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/res ... es-hunting

[jztemple2]

I don't own the game, but having some questions about the industry in mind, I did a brief Google search. This was an educational read...

https://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/res ... es-hunting

Excellent article!

I actually grew up on Cape Cod and was exposed to a lot of whaling history. A couple of years ago we took a trip back up north and visited that museum, which has expanded greatly since my youth. Very much worth a trip to New Bedford.

For some interesting background reading on the subject, I suggest "Ahab's Trade: The Saga of South Seas Whaling" by Granville Allen Mawer and "Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America" by Eric Jay Dolin.