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When I told you about my playing of Atlantic Fleet I explained how I never tried the Battle of the Atlantic dynamic campaign. Now I have and, as it turns out, it’s this feature that gives the game some (sea) legs. It seemed my duty to wrap up from where I left you hanging at the beginning of November.

The strategic level adds substantial play value

The full campaign involves building up a fleet for either England or Germany and then deploying it to the Atlantic. Each turn, representing half of a week, allows the opportunity to move any ships from one area (the light-blue squares, above) to an adjacent area. If that area contains a port, those ships may be sent for resupply or repair.

After movement, combat may take place in any of the squares which contain both friendly and enemy ships. The combat is essentially the same as the individual scenarios but you determine makeup of your side through your strategic-map movement. Each new battle also starts with the carrying over of any previous results (minor damage or expended armaments) from previous turns. Any ship sunk or severely damaged is lost while the remainder live to fight another day. Damaged ships that make their way back for repairs can be refurbished and resupplied, coming back in as good as new a few turns on.

Sinking of unescorted merchant ships happens automatically

Your own fleet is maxed-out at 30 ships. Victories give you “renown” and renown can purchase you more ships. Once you’re topped off, you can use those points to trade up to a better fleet. The enemy fleet is entirely unknown to you. The total makeup is a mystery and the locations of individual ships are only revealed if there is some kind of combat (see the blue ship in the first screenshot). The time between turns means that it rarely works to chase down a thus-spotted enemy. The “fog of war” means that just because enemy squadrons share the same space doesn’t mean they’ll meet each other. If your ships don’t engage the enemy then you won’t even know he’s there. That is to say, most potential meetings with the enemy never take place; squadrons pass each other, unaware, in the night.

Another nice feature is that “uninteresting” encounters – attacks on escorted convoys or interdiction by land-based aircraft – are automatically executed an summarized in a very pretty splash screen (see second pic). In this way, there seems to be a bit more to the war than the battles that you fight.

In the end it isn’t all that different from the random campaign I played earlier, although both the fleets and the squadrons are bigger here. Managing your fleet by moving about the Atlantic is far more engrossing than just managing a list. The persistence of victories, losses, and logistics provides a sense of purpose. Historically speaking, Atlantic Fleet is still an ultra-light wargame no matter how you slice it. Beer and pretzels, as we used to say. The scenarios are good for a 10-20 minutes distraction before moving on to something more important. Building this “story” of the Battle of the Atlantic, however, makes me actually want to return for another episode the next night.