Admiral

Admiral is an abstract, hex-based strategy game with a rock-paper-scissors mechanism.

The theme hinges around a French/British conflict about the South African colonies shortly before World War I. In reality the conflict was averted by the French need of British support against German aggression, but in Admiral it blooms out with a major naval engagement around southern Africa.

Each player controls three ship fleets, consisting of submarines, destroyers and cruisers. Each fleet has a command ship and a command base. If the command ship is sunk or the base is invaded the entire fleet is destroyed and its ships removed. Each player also controls a battleship which commands the entire fleet, and a corresponding fleet base. Sinking the opponents battleship or invading his fleet base wins the game.

On his turn a player may move one ship from each fleet or forgo moving one fleet in order to move the battleship instead. Ships move along the corners of the hexes, submarines in the hexes. Subs can sink cruisers and battleships, destroyers can sink subs, cruisers can sink destroyers and battleships can sink both cruisers and destroyers.

Admiral plays out similar to chess, a chess with four kings, an action point allowance system and a rock-paper-scissors capture mechanism.

The publisher claims Admiral to be playable by 2-6 players but in reality it is a pure two player game.