Review Summary: More maps and asymmetrical weapons for your Captain Sonar games.

Blurb from the publisher: 'The silent war that rages beneath the waves intensifies and takes a radical and... strange... turn.

The engineers at Archer Inc., the most powerful weapons conglomerate in the world, have discovered new, innovative materials and heretofore unknown energy sources in the deepest and most secret of oceans.

Thanks to tremendous research and development progress in recent months, the submarines now carry unstable weapon prototypes.

On the fringe of this abyssal war, exploration vessels take advantage of these emerging technologies to dive even deeper and find new navigational routes.'

What you get: Your Eur 14,99 or equivalent will buy you Captain Sonar: Upgrade One, the first expansion for the Captain Sonar game line. It is reminded that Captain Sonar, the base game, is a 45-minute, 2 to 8 player communication-based boardgame that since its release in 2016 it has shot in the top 150 of Boardgamegeek. The base game amassed an impressive number of nominations and awards in 2016 as well as 2017.

The present expansion contains the following: 20 large Role Sheets (5 Captain Sheets and 5 Operator Sheets per team, or one Sheet per scenario), 2 Weapons Sheets, 2 Scenario Sheets and 8 erasable dry marker pens. You read that right; there is no additional rulebook in the game.

The game continues to be fully language neutral when played. It is of utmost importance however that the players fully understand one another.

Gameplay: Upgrade One is a modular expansion that offers new options for Captain Sonar. The only rule that it adds in all of the game's maps is that one radiation should be crossed out in any of the control panels, if a captain activates a system that cannot be activated because of a system breakdown. The damage is of course loudly announced by the Engineer.

There are five new maps in this set.

Golf has two bases in diagonally opposite corners of the map. Each submarine may use each base once, in order to either repair one damage or reload all their gauges. Both actions are announced.

The Hotel map has three dots on the board. Whenever a submarine visits any of them, the First Mate can fully load the two coloured gauges of the matching colour on his sheet. There is no restriction on the amount of times a submarine can visit these spots.

India is a map where its islands are surrounded by shallow waters. When a Captain announced a course from shallow waters (not into, from only), in addition to crossing a symbol corresponding to the announced course, the Engineer also crosses out a symbol in the reactor in any of the control panels.

Julia does not introduce any new special rules. It hosts however over fourty (!) islands of different sizes and shapes, effectively creating a small labyrinth.

Kilo is ravaged by oceanic currents. When moving with the current (i.e. between two spaces with an arrow towards the direction of the arrow) the captain must move the submarine two spaces in a straight line, not one. If that makes the submarine collide with an island, the sub takes one damage. A submarine cannot travel against the current.

The six upgrades are the expansion's biggest innovation. Each team secretly chooses an upgrade at the beginning of the game. Upgrades are revealed simultaneously. Every time a submarine resurfaces, its team may change the upgrade for another one. Each upgrade has a slow or a rapid activation, each of which is activated when a number of spaces of the scenario gauge are marked. All marks are erased after an activation. The upgrades are the following:

The Kraken Missile can be fired anywhere on the map. It however causes only one damage, and does not cause indirect damage to adjacent spaces.

The Kaos Polarizing Mine works like a regular mine, it however detonates in a shockwave. It causes one damage to all the spaces in its column and row before hitting an island or the edge of the board.

The Asgard Super-Cavitating Torpedo can only be launched in a straight line and only up to six spaces away. It causes 2 damage, both in its direct and indirect impact.

The Trident Computer Hacking System can choose any of the red or green systems. That system's gauge is reset to 0 in the enemy submarine. A system can only be hacked once per game.

The Minos Countermeasures System cancels all damage when an attack is declared and before the enemy captain announces the coordinates. The submarine that uses it does not have to declare if it was actually hit or not by the strike.

Finally, the Ulysses Repair System allows a captain to repair one damage on the submarine by permanently putting one of its systems out of service. The scenario system can never be put out of service.

The strong points: ...and this is how a game gets fully refreshed. The maps are not simple rehashes of the ones in the base game. Each is built around a single idea that alters the game adequately enough in order to make it challenging again. Experienced players will perceive a noticeable difference in tactics from map to map. Some maps make the game end quicker than others (Kilo hosts faster games than Hotel, for example), allowing you to better plan your plays. The end-result adds up to the entertainment that Captain Sonar provides. The base game was already highly replayble; with Upgrade One however its replayability shoots to infinity. Games continue to be different depending on the number of players you have around the board.

The game's newly found asymmetry deserves a lot of praise. I am not only talking about each ship having a different upgrade on it at any time, but about the ability to alter this upgrade when resurfacing. This in itself increases the game's tactical depth, since one now has more reasons to resurface. You'd better have a captain that thinks fast.

If you know Captain Sonar already it will take you less than a few seconds to incorporate this expansion into the base game. There is only one (obvious) new rule to learn. All the rest is scenario or option-specific.

The production values are as high as those of the base game. No complaints here.

Captain Sonar is well-supported. This is not the only expansion out there. We will visit Operation Dragon, the game's second expansion, shortly.

The weak points: Why weren't these options and expansions in the base game already? The concept of asymmetrical ships as well as having new maps is a rather obvious idea, and the game could have benefited from even more diversity at its beginning. The expansion is objectively cheap, yet it comes out as rather expensive for what it offers. One pays EUR 15 for a few maps and some double-sided sheets. The markers are an obvious afterthought in order for the product's price to make some partial sense. Needless to say, if one doesn't play Captain Sonar that often, all these options and maps will not prove to be as useful.

Don't expect the expansion to solve any of Captain Sonar's initial issues (e.g. not a party game but a crowd game, mistakes can cripple the game, trivial input from First Mate and Engineer etc). The expansion is rather offending when it comes to that last aspect. The Captain has now even more things to meaningfully decide on, while the First Mate and the Engineer only get one extra tick on their boards. The game should have gone in exactly the opposite direction, not this one! Being a cog in a well-oiled machine is one thing. Being a muppet in someone else's game is another.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that the expansion introduces power creep into the game, yet some of the maps in this expansion make the initial maps look and feel rather simple. Don't be surprised if your usage of the initial maps declines. The maps in this expansion (as well as the other one) may feel more challenging.

Matagot is a French publisher and some of its games have been plagued by poor translations. The one here is rather innocuous. In the Hotel Map the Radio Operator is renamed 'Detector', a faux-ami of 'détecteur', the French word for Radio Operator. I wish the editing was more meticulous.

Conclusion: Dedicated Captain Sonar players will enjoy the new options that Upgrade One brings to the base game. The asymmetrical upgrades and the new maps are worth it. On the other hand, and even at this rather cheap price, it still comes out as rather expensive for what it offers and raises the question of why these options weren't included in the base game.

To find out more about Captain Sonar: Upgrade One and Matagot, take a look at http://www.matagot.com.

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