Battleship Iterations

Battleship is a two-player guessing game. Each player will have two grids, normally a 10x10 grid, as shown below:

The players each have 5 ships, of the following size, and arrange them all on one of their grids before the game starts:

Ships: a patrol boat (2), a submarine (3), a cruiser (3), a battleship (4) and an aircraft carrier (5)

The aim of the game is to destroy all of the opponents ships, by taking turns in attacking one of the opponent's spaces. The opponent responds with "hit" or "miss" accordingly. The grid with your own ships is to keep track of where your opponent has attacked, and the second grid is to keep track of the attacks you make against your opponent. Also, when a ship has been sunk, you must declare it to your opponent.

After playing the game, the following iterations were made:

1) Introduction of extra weapons:

Normally, your attacks can only be made on one square at a time. Sometimes a player can get unlucky and not hit an opponent's ship for quite a while. So for this iteration extra methods of attack were added:

Now attacks can be made in a row of two (in any direction), or in a 2x2 pattern. To prevent overuse of these new attacks, the 2x2 pattern can only be used twice per player per game, and the row of two can only be used four times per player per game. Note: the original single square of attack can be used indefinitely.

This gives players a few chances to boost their attacks, in case they are falling behind their opponent.

2) Adding colours to the extra weapons:

After playing the game again, it quickly became evident that players could often forget how many of the extra weapons they had used throughout the game. To rectify this colour was added to the extra weapons. When a player marks an attack that has been made (either by the player or against the player), the attacks that use more than one square are outlined as above. This way it is easy to keep track of how many 2x2 attacks or row of two attacks have been used.

Row of two attack outlined in pink; 2x2 attack outlined in blue

3) Adding an Admiral:

Battleship is quite largely a luck based game, and sometimes a player can get completely trounced through their own bad luck and the opponent's good luck (Once a ship has come under fire tactics come into play, but until that first ship is found the game is completely luck based). To add a chance for the player that is losing to turn the tides, The Admiral was added to the game:

The Admiral is placed on the player's board before the game commences, as are the original ship pieces. If at any time during the game, a player's Admiral is attacked, that player instantly loses the game. This gives the player that is losing a very small chance to turn the tides of battle, because if The Admiral is defeated, then there is no one left to order the ships to attack.