In the last blog entry we promised to provide more information about our new project: Gods of War: Togo.

The game’s patron is the famous Japanese admiral Togo Heihachiro, called by many “Nelson of the East”. He also considered himself the reincarnation of this British admiral. Togo began his career in the 1860s, therefore, at the time of the decline of wooden warships and the advent of the age of ironclads. Sails were gradually replaced by more and more effective steam propulsion. But his greatest successes belong to a different era – predrednoughts. As a commander of one of the ships he took part in the battle at the Yalu River, and as the supreme commander of the fleet he won the battle in the Yellow Sea and the battle of Tsushima in 1905. This victory was also one of the biggest victories in the recent history of naval warfare. Admiral Togo’s ships eliminated the entire enemy fleet!

In the future we will write more about admiral Togo.

History of naval warfare can be divided into different periods. Togo will include three of them:

• Golden Age of wooden ships of the line, from 18th to first half of 19th century.
• Ironclads warships, which emerged in 1860s, and matured about two decades later.
• Predrednoughts, heavily armed battleships, which emerged in 1880s and were produced till first decade of 20th century.

When preparing the game, we focus initially on the last two periods – ironclads and predrednoughts . The first two starter sets will also be about these two eras. It is mainly associated with the production of models, ship cards or admiral’ss cards, as well as rules for individual nations. Rules for sailing fleets will already be in the main game manual.

Models for Togo will be produced in 1: 1200 scale, mostly as 3D prints. CSS Stonewall / Kotetsu, CSS Virginia and USS Monitor presented in the pictures are resin models produced with 3D printing technology, painted by Nutka maluje. CSS Sterling Price and USS Cairo are models sculpted in a classic way, cast in resin.

It’s time to mention little more about game rules.

The rules will be scalable and consist of two parts: basic and advanced rules. It will be possible to play with a single ship, then the clashes will be as fast as British destroyers ;), or with entire fleets divided into several squadrons. Advanced rules will include commanding entire squadrons of ships, formations, the influence of admirals on their squadrons, etc. They will not have to be used in a game in which only a few ships will fight.

Command and control will be a very important element of the game, which is typical for the entire Gods of War series. It has been adapted to the specifics of naval warfare and the main assumptions of the game. Players will assign two orders in advance for each of their ships (or in the advanced version of the rules – for each squadron), which means that it will be necessary to anticipate enemy moves and plan accordingly. In fact, ships have their inertia, making a turn or changing speed take a long time. The orders will relate to the chosen sailing direction and speed.

Similarly to other games in the series, we will use d6 dices, where a 4+ score will mean success, and throwing “6” will cause special effects. Armor and ability to pierce it through will also be an important factor. It’s not enough to hit the enemy, you also have to pierce through his armor.

These rules will enable Togo’s compatibility with another game (in dewelopment) from the Gods of War series – Gods of war: Grant, which will introduce siege and fort warfare. Your heavy cannons will be able to level the enemy’s fort to the ground, unless … the enemy will sink your ship 🙂

Finally, a few words about the movement of ships. It will be carried out using two specialized measure tapes. The first will be used to determine the speed of the ship, while the second will be used to determine the direction of sailing. The shape of the latter allows the use of models on stands of different lengths in the game.

Finally, we cordially invite you to this year’s Fields of Glory, which will be held on September 27-29. Most importantly, you will be able to personally take command of our ships and try who is a better admiral! We invite you to try the test version of Togo (on Saturday and Sunday).

More information about Field of Glory (Pola Chwaly) here: https://polachwaly.pl/2019/08/15/pola-chwaly-2019/

And one more interesting thing. Short clip From japanese tv series
“Saka no Ue no Kumo” (Clouds over the Hills).