Points of sail on a square grid

Normally for gaming, I prefer hex grids for tactical movement, but with a 32 point compass rose as the main guide for which ways you can sail, a square grid is so much easier.  Even if you have to remember to multiply movement in the diagonal direction by 1 1/2.

I think everyone understands the cardinal directions pretty well.

And everyone knows the ordinal directions too.

So the half winds aren't that hard to work out.  To go North Northwest, you travel one square North, then one square Northwest.  Same goes with all the other directions here; alternate one square orthogonally, then one square diagonally, going in the orthogonal and diagonal directions implied in the half wind's name.

The quarter winds get a little trickier.   First of all, they come in two varieties: the ones between a cardinal direction and a half wind, and the ones that come between an ordinal direction and a half wind.  For the first group, just one point off the cardinal winds, ships traveling in those directions will move three squares in the main cardinal direction and one square diagonally.  So a ship moving East by South would go three squares East and one square Southeast before repeating the pattern.

 For the quarter winds that are one point off of an ordinal direction, you would travel two squares diagonally and one square orthogonally.  Moving Southwest by South would have you going two squares Southwest then one square South before repeating the pattern.

 And because these quarter winds are a little bit tricky, it might not be a bad idea to use a temporary marker to show where the vessel is headed. I'll write up another post in the next few days to illustrate this.

So now we have the full 32 point compass rose for ship movement.  This opens up some interesting tactical situations in the game, given that some sailing vessels are able to sail closer into the wind than others, and some are much faster downwind than upwind.  Since sailing into the wind requires a very precise balance of sails and rigging, as they are damaged, the vessel is forced to turn away from the wind more and more, giving its opponent in a sea battle more options to flee or to board.  These are the kinds of situations I hope to facilitate more by developing these fiddly rules, and I hope when all is said and done they aren't too fiddly to actually use at the table.