Wind As Cost to Enter Hex
A comprehensive system for age of sail adventuring is surely my white whale. Laud and loot Enthusiastic Pirate Boi, Counter Colonial Heistcrawl, and Pirate GLOG
Nevertheless, these very fine efforts fail to capture the technical sophistication of a sailing ship that one reads about in O'Brian. We shall try to offer a subsytem for wind to make lee shores dangerous, the weather gauge desired, terrain decisive. What island can be ducked around with what wind? Do you dare to attack the harbour when the wind may die, knowing it may disgorge galleys that can manoeuvre in the accursed calm with impunity?
Your ship is in the centre hex. She must spend the same amount of 'budget' to enter a given hex: 4 to move close hauled, 3 to move at a broad reach, and 2 to move downwind. She cannot sail into the wind. She must also spend a quantity of budget on 'station keeping' each turn or drift downwind. The amount that must be spent varies by whether she is large, medium, or small: For example, in strong wind, a large ship must spend 0, a medium ship must spend 1, and a small ship 2. The hexes drifted are always the same: 1. The ship can of course be warped at an appalling crawl. Damage to rigging or rudder enhances drift, or impairs wearing/tacking.
The station keeping cost for a given wind strength and vessel size is also its danger of taking on water, which will lead to it foundering.
Integrate with weather systems: Winds change over the day. Prevailing winds change by season. A harbour impracticable to attack one month may be vulnerable to drifting hellburner the next. Know of offshore and onshore winds, of funneling and wind shadows, and implement these details to taste.