Kaptajn Kaper i Kattegat

Kaptajn Kaper — how to play

Denmark, 1801. The King has given you a letter of marque. Take British ships, deliver the prizes to Copenhagen, and make your points target before you run out of moves.

Sailing

• Arrow keys or the numpad 1–9 move one square, diagonals included.
• Running aground costs 3 repair points and the move is undone.
• Every move burns grain: crew × difficulty ÷ 800. With no grain left, a tenth of the crew dies every move — starvation, not combat, is the real clock.
• Open water carries a 25% chance of an encounter. A square where you have already won is safe forever.

Fighting

• Gunnery — put the crosshair on her with the arrow keys (or the numpad, diagonals included), F to fire, 0 to break off. Breaking off costs nothing and re-rolls the range and her position.
• The ball lands where you aim, carried the way the wind arrow points: up to 5 clicks in a force-10 wind. A dotted line shows how far your last shot drifted, so aim that far the other way. A ball square in her middle does the most damage.
• Boarding caps your losses and never sinks the prize, but the exchange rate is clamped: even a huge crew advantage is worth at most 1.67 enemy per man lost.
• Incoming fire scales with her guns and ignores yours. Board when outgunned.

Morale

Every time you flee, all incoming damage rises permanently. The first flight alone costs about a third more damage taken. It decays as you fight more, so fleeing early is far more expensive than fleeing late.

Prizes

• A captured ship needs a prize crew of 5 + half her crew, deducted at once.
• The prize only reaches Copenhagen if difficulty < random(16) — 13 in 16 at first, worse at every promotion. The crew is gone either way, so sink rather than capture once you are senior.
• Prize money and its points are only paid out in Copenhagen.

Weight

The ship sinks under more than 30,000 taels, 500 men, 150 cannon or 700 sacks of grain. Shops will not sell you past the line — but loot will carry you over it.