Fleets 2025

East China Sea

Fleets Series #1

With the sailing of Fleets 2025: East China Sea, Victory Point Games launches you on a Chris Taylor designed blue water adventure of high-stakes ‘political poker’ centered on daring air and naval engagements between the modern fleets of the United States and China as the Taiwanese flashpoint of the East China Sea ignites into a crisis on the brink of spinning out of control. Here, player nerve and skill are required to hunt the opposing forces and inflict sufficient military damage to break their political will and get them to “blink first” and back down!

In this low-to-moderate complexity wargame, the great concerns of modern naval warfare are handled with fine design elegance to highlight the asymmetrical forces, systems and tactics used by both sides through the lethality of modern weaponry. With deep strategic puzzles and wild military and political action simulated by the simple use of fast-action card play and lots of dice, Fleets 2025: East China Sea is a nautical thrill-ride through tomorrow’s headlines for budding Admirals.

Game Data:

Number of Players: 2
Ages: 12 and up
Playing Time: approximately 1 hour
Complexity: 4 on a 9 scale
Solitaire Suitability: 1.5 on a 9 scale
Scale: Each unit is 1-2 major ships & escorts or 1-3 squadrons of planes; each turn half a day.

Game Components:

Game Components:
•    5 pages of color Rules: Basic and Admiral Level
•    2 pages color Example of Play
•    1 page of Notes
•    1 page of Scenarios
•    80 color, die-cut 5/8” two-sided game pieces
•    60 ‘Activity’ cards
•    One 11” x 17” color game map
•    2 Player Aid Sheets

Player Comments:

"Both games [Fleets 2025 scenarios] took about an hour and a half each to play. This is a really fine game which should see regular play by me. The card dynamics really keep both players active in each others turns and makes for little down time. Well done to all involved."

"The US attack failed to score any damage and the last Chinese attack saw their aircraft skimming in at wavetop and they managed to sink 2 American DD's and as a resul the US Politcal Will dropped and in the ensuing phase, becasue the US lowers their Political Will first, the Chinese pulled off a win by the narrowest of margins. What a roller coaster ride this is!! Definitely want to play it again."

"First impressions are very good. The game is highly interactive, fast playing and fun. You have enough options to chose from and looks like that some plays are needed to exploit game tactics to the full. The components are nice, with counters easy to read and to punch. (no super-professional knife needed)."

"Excellent gameplay that has layered strategy elements due to a card deck that can multi-task (Events, Search, Orders, Battle Dice). Easy to learn and lots of dice, too."

Credits:

Game Design: Christopher Taylor
Documentation and Game System Development: Alan Emrich
Art & Graphic Design: Alan Emrich
Map Graphics: Vince DeNardo
Playtesting: Nick Chartier, Allen Doum, James Fung, Chris Janiec, Ken Keller, Charles Locke, Stephanie Newland, Dave Schueler

Price:

Regular Price: $35.95

VPG Sale Price: $22.95

Game Resources:

(Rules require a PDF viewer installed in your browser, or right-click to download and open with a PDF reader)

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