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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenjib" data-source="post: 180324" data-attributes="member: 530">Hi Donatello,I wasn't one of the folks that promised a review but I was one of the folks eagerly awaiting a look at the book.  Finally it came into a local shop here and I compared it to Seas of Blood and Seafarer's Handbook.  The result....ballot please...I bought Broadsides.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I haven't read it yet, but here's why I got it based on thumbing through/previewing each book.  I liked the fact that it seemed more grounded in research than the other books.  The ships were especially interesting to me.  I like how they were organized roughly into different tech levels, which makes it very easy for me to pick and choose which to drop into my world and decide which cultures have access to which ship types.  The mighty Dorian Empire and their naval oriented island vassal state will have a fleet of Carracks level ships.  Some mercantile based city states will also have them.  Many other nations will mostly only have galley level ships.  Some of the other cultures in more remote areas will remain at the longship level.  That was a great little touch.The nice detail given to accurate navigation, combat maneuvering, naval equipment, provisions and repair, and the nice PRCs (surgeon is very cool!) also lend more toward a lower magic, gritty, campaign that draws on sources like Melville and R.L. Stevenson.Now I just can't wait to read it more thoroughly!A couple of things that I thought were really nice in the other books and I would have liked to see in Broadsides as well:Seafarer's:  Info on costs of hiring/retaining a crew and crew hierarchy (what's a boatswain and what does he do? how are the duties of the master and captain divided - which one is in charge? etc. - note that Seafarer's was a little bit shakey on this one too but at least it was there); a classic sea serpent type monsterSeas of Blood:  Info on trade, the mass combat system for boarding actions & crew-to-crew combat</blockquote>

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