Man O' War: Corsair - Warhammer Naval Battles (Classic)

Truth be told, I didn't like my original review. It was fine, but I was like, "Eh, that's too first-drafty, it's lacking something." So here we are. Yeah, this game was retired in 2021, but it's back, doing that zombie thing where it sits up when you thought it was dead, then shambling to its feet and coming after your brains. And... I'm okay with that, I'd let this game nosh on my skull. And that's why I felt a need to tell you about it, since I have over 200 hours in it, despite having last touched it... mm, awhile back, let's say. And thus: It's an Age of Sail game. Ships with big ol' masts of sails, wooden construction, cannonade broadsides, boarding actions, cutlasses and piracy. Except also also there's mages, giant dangler fish, and the craziness of Warhammer's Fantasy world as well. The orks do not care for your notions of ship design. Dwarves have metal ships that float, what witchcraft is this? There's at least three other fantasy races, and all four flavours of chaos besides, beyond two different human factions. Most of the nation-states have a few different ship designs, some as many as five, almost all of which are entirely unmoored from the petty concerns of practical design or even reality. I mean, if you have the magical chops to bust out a floating tower that can shoot mind-control lasers, wouldn't you? So it's a varied experience, as you may be fighting Empire ships, which are floating boxes packing cannons in all directions, and then find yourself fending off ballista-mounted catamarans or steam-powered, paddle-wheel driven "drilla killas". The ships in this game are fast and agile, at least compared to their analogues in reality. It's still slow enough to be a somewhat thoughtful game, I would never call this a twitch reflex game. These ships can't dodge cannonfire, but they can be fast and agile enough to be turning away when the enemy brings weapons to bear. Realtime positioning and good accuracy are required, standing and trading hits is the height of foolishness. This is made more complex by the fact that almost all of the ships in this game, friend or foe, are sail-driven. Keep wind direction in mind at all times, be mindful of the "wind gage" lest you becalm yourself and be an easy target. Boarding actions are also a thing, which you can do if you want, and the enemy can be quite keen to as well, the orks notoriously so but hardly the only exception. You can outfit you and your crew with better weapons and training, and you can play a large role in the battles depending on your patience and ability. I spent a lot of time at this game in the past, and much as I enjoyed it there were notable flaws but a generally smooth experience, the jankometer was in the yellow. I expect that, with the news of the rerelease and the patch that came with it, some of these issues were resolved. I'm looking forward to trying it again. While there's a plot you can follow, should you want, it's pretty optional. It's a set of quests overlaid atop the dynamic open world, much like Daggerfall but without time pressure (should that mean anything to you). Nation states form alliances and break them, trade happens between ports, and you can mess with that trade or just sack, destroy, or conquer ports if you've amassed enough manpower and have the desire to do something about it. Apart from that, it's a really big map, just exploring it will take quite awhile. And you can keep at it for as long as you desire, fulfilling dynamic requests and steadily building up wealth. When you're done with that, there's a chaos campaign for each of the four flavours, which present their own challenges. This is about where I'd talk up my own stuff: a streaming channel on Twitch, a curator, that sort of thing. It's all in my profile, I hate bringing it up but it thrives on viewership, so if you like this sort of thing, ugh, check it all out on my profile, would you? And, you know, if you want to sail a ship but wanted a little more spice than Yet Another Galleon, you could do a lot worse than this, easily. I mean, I did just say I was thinking about going back to it, and I think I'm the very essence of great but weird taste.