How to Play Captain Sonar in 8 Minutes

all right crew listen up we're gonna proceed north and then west and west we get to the archipelago what ask a question sure okay so I've been thinking about this and we are a separate nuclear submarine we are silent we are killers right and so are they so my question is why are we telling the enemy where we're going we're not telling the enemy but we are making sure the crew is all on board you don't want to get lost in the ocean sure I get that but I don't know if you're aware of this our radios are on everything that you say they can hear because I'm assuming they have someone like me who's listening to the radio frequencies because they're doing the same thing and I almost know where they are I'm really close so they might know where we are yeah I do the same yeah so okay my thought if it's okay sure is um what we didn't do that like well if we were just silent that we just went where we're going silence sneaky we don't announce our position or anything yeah sound good you know I don't necessarily enjoy pulling rank here like you've been doing but I am open to good suggestions let's I'll try being winded why captain torpedo on its way straight to us please that would move for not a lot of move like this rules of engagement and also it's quiet time practice see you see the New Avengers now I haven't seen it yet don't spoil good hey folks my name is Shea and this is RTFM the show where I teach you how to play a game because games are cool and you're pretty cool for applying them but I have a question for you remember battleship you know that game where you fire blindly into the ocean trying to hit your opponents cleverly placed chips if so you probably had the same thought that I did while playing that game which is don't boats usually move well here comes captain stone or bringing you exactly what you had forgotten you wanted from battleship in this game you will be playing as two opposing submarine crews who are trying to find and destroy each other without being found yourself each player will have a different job on the boat working together but performing completely different actions your team will win if the other submarine takes 4 points of damage and I'm sure this all sounds simple enough but there's one last thing and you don't have to but if you feel up to it you can play this game in real time meaning both teams are taking their turns simultaneously and this is one of the most raucous exhilarating insane gaming experiences out there and we're about to learn how to play it first thing to do is divide yourself into teams this game plays up to eight so that means you can have two teams of four with each person playing different role of course you can also play with three people on a team or two or if you really want to challenge just one once you have your team sorted out put up the dividers between you oh and if you have eight players having a long table is really gonna help you out then choose which map you're gonna play there are five in the base game and whether you're playing turn by turn or in real time now each player board has a different side for each of the two game modes and let's say we're playing in real time but I'll let you know whenever the rules are different between the two modes after that give everyone the materials that they need for their job name your submarine something stupid and after each captain secretly chooses their team's starting location they look at each other yell dive and the game begins so you want to hunt down a submarine well you're gonna need a good crew to do it so let's talk about how to operate each station starting with the captain now your job is to move the boat around the map and activate each of the systems you have available to you whenever you move loudly state the direction you go north south east or west and then wait for your first mate and engineer to say okay after they do their jobs then you can move again as you move around you'll also be marking your path on the captain's map you move one space at a time and you can't move into an island or cross your own path and that's pretty much all the captain does mechanically but you're also in charge of setting the strategy for your team as well as anticipating the moves of your enemy and as for those special abilities I mentioned well I'll talk about how they work a little bit later the next job to look at is the radio operator and your job is to listen to the other teams captain and try to figure out where they are you'll do so by taking this clear plastic sheet holding it over your map and drawing lines based on what their captain says you won't know where they started at first but by moving your sheet around the map you'll be able to narrow down the options and eventually you should be able to pinpoint their location some of the extra abilities will make things easier or harder for you so it's also a good idea to keep notes as well next we have the first mate your job is to each of the special systems you've got torpedoes mines drones sonar silence and scenario the scenario system is dependent on the map you're using and not all maps will have them the map we chose doesn't but if yours does the details for how the system works will be written on the back of the rule book and charging these systems couldn't be simpler every time your captain announces a move mark one space on any one gauge on your board once you've done so clear captain okay so they can continue if you fill the last space on the gauge you have to announce it in this case by saying mine ready then whenever that system gets activated you erase each of the marks on the gauge the captain can activate any system but the first mate is also allowed to activate drones and sonar if they want to you're also in charge of marking the damage that your sub is taken hopefully it won't be a lot and last thing we have the engineer and this board might look a little complicated and it takes a minute to get used to but the basics of it are nice and simple whenever the captain announces the direction let's say North put a mark on a symbol in a section corresponding to that direction then say okay so the captain can continue the symbols represent the three groups of systems mines and torpedoes in red drones and sonar in green and silence and special in yellow these submarines are old and rickety and even the slightest strain makes them break down so whenever there's a mark on even one of these symbols none of the corresponding systems can be activated and there's also a fourth symbol which doesn't correspond to any system but if each of these radiation symbols gets marked your submarine will take one damage your stuff will also take a damage if each symbol on one of the directional boxes gets marked in either case you must announce that your ship is taking damage but then you get to erase all breakdowns from your board now you can't fix damage once you've taken it but these systems can be repaired in a couple of different ways before they sink your boat first is the self repair function now you'll notice that some of these symbols are connected to each other these are self repairing systems so if you can fill up each one they'll automatically repair themselves and you can erase each of those marks the systems that aren't self repairing can only be fixed by servicing which leads me to there are a number of different abilities that the captain has at their disposal most of them have to do with systems but since I mentioned it a second ago let's talk about surfacing first it goes like this captain yells surface and then declares the sector that they're in that'll be the big number on the map after that if you're playing turn by turn the other team gets to take three turns in a row before your team can take their next turn but if you're playing in real time things are a little bit trickier and you may have noticed this blueprint here well in order to repair your systems each crew member will need to draw a line around one section without drawing outside the white outline just like those games you played when you were a kid now once you've done that initial the section and hand it to the next crew member now if you have fewer than four crew members or if one of your players is physically incapable of performing this you might have to do this multiple times until each section is complete after which your engineer hands the board to the enemy engineer for inspection if you've successfully stayed within the lines your engineer gets to erase all the breakdowns on the board and says ready to dive after this your captain can erase your old path then say dive and resume captaining if not the enemy engineer points out which sections weren't repaired and whoever was responsible has to redo it until it's right now let's talk about the systems before activating anything make sure you can actually can by checking with your engineer remember if any of the symbols corresponding to the system are crossed out you can't do it now if you're all in the clear you all stop and make sure everyone on both teams puts their pens down before announcing what you're doing after your action resolves both teams will continue as normal on the offensive side we have mines and torpedoes when you drop a mine choose a location adjacent to where your ship currently is and write em on your map at any point after this you can then detonate the mine at which point you'll announce the mines exact location if any sub is on that space they'll take to damage if they're adjacent to that space either diagonally or orthogonal II then they'll only take one damage and torpedoes are more immediate when you launch torpedo announce a point between one and four spaces away from you for the torpedo to strike and you have to be able to draw a path this point without passing through an island as with mines these will do one or two damage depending on how accurate you were torpedoes can also hurt you and destroy your own mines so be careful with them after a torpedo or mine detonation the other captain will say either all clear if they weren't damaged in direct hit if they took one damage or direct hit if they took two now let's look at the detection systems drones and sonar these are pretty easy when you want to drone choose a sector and ask the enemy captain if they're in it so like are you in sector 4 after which they must truthfully tell you yes or no when you activate sonar the enemy captain gives you two pieces of information about their location these can be the current row column or sector and one of these things will be true and the other will be a lie in this case we might say we're in sector 4 which is true and row 10 which is false and now for the sneakiest system of all silence when you activate silence your captain can move up to four spaces in a straight line again without crossing islands or your own path but the trick here is that you don't have to announce the direction to the other team let your teammates know where you're going either by showing them your map or just pointing in directions in north south or whatever and then the engineer and first mate will mark one space on their boards and lastly we have scenario and the base game there's only one map with scenario abilities but there are expansions with more in each case a section in the rulebook will tell you how it works and unless it says otherwise you can assume that it'll follow all other system related rules and that's how you play captain sonar if you need to rewatch something as always there are annotated links in the description box below thank you my rules lawyers for voting on this game if you want to help decide what games I teach during the patreon and you'll get access to the polls and pretty soon even be able to suggest what games I do next and even though the current poll isn't actually finished at the time of filming this I'm entirely certain that the next game I teach will be bloomin it's heavy um I also want to give a big thanks to the brothers Murph for helping me out with this one that green-screen beta the beginning there's some cool dudes who have their own channel that you should all check out it is unsurprisingly named the Murph and link in the description box as well either great and they are my actual neighbors so hopefully we'll get to work with each other again soon ant all that YouTube promotion BS that I do that one waste any more of your time so bye [Music]

Channel: RTFM

Views: 29,351

Keywords: board, game, rules, explanation, learn, to, play, Shea, Parker, RTFM, gaming, rtfm, rftmshow, show, captain sonar, matagot, how to play, captian sonar, battleship

Id: U2Diix5qYJo

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 23 2018