In Lost Admiral Returns, you design your own fleet of Battleships, Destroyers, Submarines, Carriers and other ships to battle your enemy for control of the oceans by capturing and keeping vital coastal cities.  Over time, you also earn customized flagships with powerful abilities that give you an edge in crucial battles.  You will need this edge when undertaking intense missions to help Save the Admiral from his plight.  These missions complement the background battle for Victory Points from cities with a wide range of challenges and tasks that must be accomplished quickly for total victory.

Examples of missions are “Trouble Next Door”, where you must send vital reinforcements to nearby oceanic battle zones while still holding out against the enemy forces in your own sector.  “Secrets” will have you escorting sensitive cargoes for Intelligence Operations, sometimes right under the noses of the enemy.  “Rescue” involves finding, picking up, and bringing home previously presumed lost crewmembers scattered across the waters.  Fail to rescue them quickly enough, and the political forces back home will be very upset with you.

These special missions are often assigned to you when you undertake the extended Save the Admiral Campaign.  But first a story to help understand this extended campaign…

You have all heard of him, the famous Admiral that has protected our worthy country for so many years.  His fierce victories and determination in the face of overwhelming odds is world renown.  But recently every battle has gone wrong, and the enemy has gained the upper hand.  The worst has already happened, and the Admiral was disastrously defeated in a huge naval battle just a few weeks ago!  As the Admiral’s own flagship sank beneath the waves, his mind retreated inward trying to seek answers and solve the puzzle of how victory could have been pulled out of these devastating defeats.  Although we were able to rescue the Admiral’s body from the wreckage, his mind is lost to us as he wanders inside a mental landscape of abstract naval battles, trying to solve over and over the best ways to overcome our enemy.

He has literally created a mental “naval chess” game to work through these battles.  Your job is to work with the Admiral, enter this mental landscape, learning how these games of his work, and lead him in a successful search for his answers to victory.  Lead him to accept that he can defeat the enemy, and that he is welcome back to the real world to fight for our homeland before all is lost.  Overcome all obstacles, whether straight from the real world, or from the whims of his imagination as he seeks approval and the ways to winning perfect victories over our enemy.

To help the Admiral, you will need to convince him that he has the acceptance and support of the homeland.  Do this by persuading the political powers of individual states to support his cause.  Each state will usually have a special political agenda of where they want a battle to be won (what type of map) and the special mission they need completed.  Choose a state to start with, and undertake their special assignments.  Succeed in winning the battle, and you will earn rewards from that state, along with its support for the Admiral!  Lose, and the state will tend to resent your failure, and make future battles for it’s support tougher…

States are grouped in regions, and you will need to persuade all the states a region to support the Admiral before moving on to the next region.  Fortunately, you can influence nearby states when you are victorious for one state’s special mission.  Swaying one state may sway other adjacent states to your Admiral’s side if you have influenced them enough.  So planning ahead can speed up your political conquering of a Region.

Now all of this struggle and conquest is taking place in the Admiral’s muddled fuddled mind as he battles with inner madness after those disastrous defeats for his homeland.  As a result, you never know just what will come out of his imagination for challenges during battles, or what his worst fears will create.  So be alert, and expect the unexpected over time!  We need the Admiral to believe in himself again, so persuade those states to convince him of worthiness by any means possible.  And press ahead to lead our Admiral back to us, as he is desperately needed to help defend our homeland from the Enemy.

LAR, at its core, is a turn based naval strategy game with a core unit interaction reminiscent of the game rock-scissors-paper.  Maneuver your Battleships to find and kill Destroyers in one shot.  Have your own Destroyers seek out and sink submerged Submarines in one shot.  And Submarines are able to damage Battleships without risk to themselves as long as they are submerged.  Add to this ballet dance the process of finding and hunting down the enemies forces through scouting operations by Carriers and Patrol Boats.

The actual battle is won or lost by how well you control the cities located on the current battle map.  Occupy these cities with Transports or Armed Transports to keep control of them.  These cities are worth Victory Points that accumulate throughout the time span of the battle, and you need to outscore your opponent by a certain ratio of Victory Points to win that battle.  As a result, you will sometimes find yourself in a doomed fighting retreat, but winning the overall struggle for Victory Points if you can hold out long enough for the battle to end, and ceasefires to kick in.

The AI opponent in LAR is vicious, and you can choose from 11 levels of difficulty, one of which will be just right for your play style.  Defeating higher levels of AI will reap you more rewards in the long run, but any level is great fun.

Actual battles vary immensely in size, layout of cities, tactical challenges, and the strategic positioning of your starting forces due to the unique 9 classic Battle Maps, and endless random maps that can be created.  Some battles will give you an almost unfair advantage over the enemy in terms of starting cities and forces.  Other battles will make you the underdog.  In all cases, the side with the upper hand is usually expected to outscore their opponent for total Victory Points by a significant ratio.

Once a specific battle map is selected, both sides choose what types of ships they want to use this time round, and place these ships in their assigned start cities.  This is when you will also be able to buy customized flagships, spending any special points or modules you have earned during previous battles.

After both sides have chosen their starting forces, the Red side will get to move first.  They may move all their ships, or none as they wish.  Players will want to quickly move out of the start cities towards nearby un-owned, or even enemy held cities to claim those cities as their own.  Only two ships may stay in a hex that is not a city’s actual harbor.  Keep a transport in every city harbor you can reach over time to keep earning that city’s Victory Points each turn, helping to win the battle.

Red will also be able to build new ships during their turn.  These ships are built using various resources earned from the cities that they currently own.  The more cities you own, the faster you may be able to build new ships.  Only cities worth a lowly 200 victory points are able to build new ships, and 2 turns are needed to complete construction on smaller ships.  Larger ships take 3 turns to be ready for use.

Once Red is done moving, combat will take place in all hexes where both Red and Yellow sides have ships.  Both sides will be able to pick a target for each of their ships involved in combat.  As each hex is resolved for attacks, you simply pick a single enemy ship to shoot at for each of your ships, one after another.  With a bit of planning, Red will be able to sink several enemy ships while avoiding heavy casualties in return, although sacrifices must be made sometimes.

After Red moves and combat is resolved, the Yellow side moves.  Then combat is resolved again, and then that turn ends.  Ownership of cities is computed at the end of the turn, and Victory Points plus new resources are earned at this time.  A new turn then starts, until the time limit is over for that battle, usually between 12 and 30 turns.  Victory goes to the side that has enough Victory Points compared to their enemy’s total Victory Points.

So what are you still reading for?  Go play the game!!!

Download LAR now and try out the game yourself!

Questions?  Suggestions?  Email thurston@fogstone.com with your feedback, questions, and suggestions!

This manual is broken up into sections explaining how to play the game, how the program menus work, and other details of interest to players of Lost Admiral Returns.  Start at the top to find the different sections.

If you have questions, please visit our forum and look for help there.

If you find an error or omission in this manual, please email us at support@fogstone.com