Maintaining the Objective

"Maintenance of the Objective" is one of the principles of war; it means that you decide what you need to accomplish and then stick with it instead of getting sidetracked.

I was invited to take over a position in a naval game set in the Spanish Main, after the original player dropped out.  This game had eight players, each controlling a squadron of four ships. There were two players for each nationality, with English allied to Dutch, and French allied with Spanish. In this sort of game, the usual result is that the fleets go after each other and fight to the death. However, when I read the briefing material, I saw that the way the gamemaster would determine the winner was which faction had the most gold; and the way to accumulate gold was to transport goods from the Spanish Main to the island ports such as Port Royal. 

In the few turns after I took over, my Spanish squadron was to the west of the main action. I saw my allies were fully engaged with the scurvy Anglo-Dutch, and doing pretty well. 

My inclination was to swoop in and go for the kill--but that wasn't the objective. So....I disengaged and sailed west, potentially leaving my allies in the lurch. I captured one port, and thought about occupying another at the same time. In order to do that, I had to split my squadron, which meant that if an enemy had sailed over the horizon, I'd be in deep

 trouble--it would be his four ships facing only one or two of mine. On the other hand, I'd be making money twice as fast, and that was the point of the game. I decided to go for it. 

  My ship sailed in and took control of Cartagena...and the gamemaster announced, "The Spanish have taken control of the two most profitable ports on the map and have taken a commanding lead in revenue. The French are not allowed to dislodge their allies, and the Dutch and English squadrons are hors de combat. The Spanish win."

  And today the mail brought a prize, shown on the left in the photo: a 1/1200th scale ship of the line, painted and rigged.