Maritime game apparatus involving plural ship/markers which leave and return to home port in the course of playing the game, said game apparatus comprising:
- (a) a game board with plural sides and a closed circuit, single path cruise route extending circumferentially of the board along the sides thereof and made up of a series of event positions, certain of which are marked, in a generally random manner, with "card", "mine", "collision", and "missile" event designations, and certain of which are left blank, said game board further comprising lines designating missile flight paths and each extending from a "missile" event position on the cruise route to a blank cruise route position across the board, said game board further comprising a distinctively colored home port position along each side of the cruise route;
- (b) a deck of event cards, certain of which are labeled "intercept", certain of which are labeled "mine sweeper", and certain of which are left blank;
- (c) a plurality of distinctively colored ship/markers, each in the general configuration of a marine vessel and each being equipped with a plurality cargo units which are removable for "hit" scoring purposes;
- and
- (d) a controlled probability random number generator to determine the number of cruise course positions a given ship marker is moved during a given turn of play;
- the manner of play of the game involving several persons each selecting a distinctively colored home port and associated ship/marker of like color equipped with a full set of cargo units, with each game player in sequence manipulating the random number generator to determine the number of positions the ship/marker is to be moved along the cruise route and moving the player's ship/marker along the cruise route the number of event positions determined by the roll of the generator, the game action at each event position being as follows:
- if a given ship/marker movement stops on a route position bearing a "card" designation, the player takes a card from the top of the deck of event cards and if the taken card is blank, no further action is necessary except that the card is returned to the bottom of the deck of event cards;
- if the card bears a designation "intercept" or the designation "mine sweeper", the player then keeps the card in reserve for possible use during the further course of the game;
- if the ship/marker falls on a route position designated "mine", a "hit" is considered scored against the ship/marker and the player removes one cargo unit from the player's ship/marker unless the player holds a "mine sweeper" card in which case no "hit" and loss of a cargo unit is involved;
- if two ship/markers stop at the same time on a cruise route position designated "collision", both ship/markers are returned to their respective home ports and begin the cruise route again with any missing cargo units restored;
- if a ship/marker stops on a cruise route position designated "missile", it is considered to thereupon fire a missile along the flight path leading from that position and to score a "hit" on any ship/marker stopped on a blank cruise route position at the end of the missile flight path, and such a "hit" involves loss of a cargo unit by the ship/marker "hit" unless the player having that ship/marker is the holder of an "intercept" card, in which case the ship/marker at the end of the missile flight path is considered to have avoided the "hit";
- if a ship/marker stops on a blank cruise route position, no further action is involved unless such ship/marker is unfortunate enough to receive a missile "hit" while occupying such position and doesn't have an "intercept" card to offset the "hit";
- if a ship/marker has received sufficient "hits" to have lost all its cargo units it is returned to its home port and, upon the next turn for the player owning the ship/marker to roll the die, is started along the cruise route again, with its set of cargo units restored;
- and when one ship/marker completes the full cruise route and returns to its home base while still retaining at least one cargo unit it thereupon becomes the winner of the game and the game ends.