I've been thinking about a way to show sail setting status during a Post Captain game. In an ideal world (that is, one with no restrictions on available time, money or lifespan) every ship would have several miniatures showing the different sail settings. Clearly, that's a non-starter, so some kind of marker may prove useful. As sail settings are clearly visible to all players, it doesn't need to be hidden, or hard to read.
As usual Litko (www.litko.net) already had a sail shaped token in stock, and they could be customized. I bought a set in blue with the word "EASY" on them, a set in green marked "FULL" and an unmarked white set for studding sails. The studding sails token is unmarked because the use of those sails should be pretty rare in a game, and the white color should suffice as a reminder. Also, you're limited in the number of letters available, and I didn't want to have to put a token marked "STUD" out on the table. I don't see a need to do one for battle sails, as that is usually the default setting anyway.
I think they turned out pretty good, as you can see in the photo. The original idea was to have easy sail in blue and full in green, so they would match the colors on the ship card. Unfortunately, in getting colors that would let the etched letters show, I think most of the color difference might not be too noticeable on the table.
IMG_20170702_225259.jpg 24.12KB 8 downloads
When running a game, I attach a label with the ship's name to the rear of her base.
IMG_20170703_135914.jpg 128.95KB 3 downloads
The tokens sit there just fine, and should serve to help remind the player running the ship what his sail setting is along with letting the other players know too.
IMG_20170703_135929.jpg 127.37KB 1 downloads
Finally, here is a shot with the Quarter of Comparison to give you an idea of the size of these things.
IMG_20170703_140026.jpg 63.43KB 2 downloads
I'd be interested to know what people think about them. Are they useful, or am I just cluttering up the table for no good purpose?
BWW