About Battleships, the game
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Battleships is a two player board game. Each player has their own board
which cannot be viewed by the other player. Each board represents an area
of an ocean, where a battle is taking place. The players place their ships
on their board and then take turns guessing where their opponent's ships are.
The player whose turn it is nominates a co-ordinate in a 10 by 10 matrix
and repeats it out loud, then the opponent informs the player whether it was
a hit or not, and if so what type of ship they hit. If the player made a hit
they then marked on their own board where the hit was, while the opponent
marks their hit ship. Once a player has had all ships destroyed, they lose
the battle. Some ships are longer than others and therefore take more than
one co-ordinate on the board. If a player hits one of these ships, then they
know the length of the ship, and can guess which direction the ship lies
to hit the rest of the ship. Each co-ordinate of a longer ship must be hit
before the ship is sunk.

Trying to find a consistant set of rules for Battleships was a task, and
no two sets of rules seemed to be the same. The author has therefore decided
which was the most appropriate for TBBS. This version assumes that each player
has the following ships/aircraft.

1 Aircraft carrier, 5 units long
1 Battleship, 4 units long
1 Cruiser, 3 units long
2 Destroyers, each 2 units long
2 Submarines, each 1 unit long and
2 Planes, each 1 unit long.

The ships are placed on the board so that no two can occupy the same
co-ordinate. Some rules seem to say that when a hit is made, the player
who is hit must state what type of ship was hit, and other rules say that
they only have to report a hit. This game uses the former rather than the
latter, although future versions might allow the players to choose which
way they would like it. Some rules also say that when a player gets a hit,
they have another turn straight away. This game does not allow this although
future versions might.

Placing your ships before playing requires technique which cannot be
explained here. Suffice it to say that grouping all your ships in a very
small area will alert your opponent fairly quickly.

See the <H>elp file from the Main Menu of how to use the TBBS version of
Battleships.

Future versions might also allow one or two special functions. One thought
is that each player has one special 'cluster missile' or whatever you would
like to call it, and it would then destroy the co-ordinate it was aimed at,
as well as each adjacent co-ordinate.  Many things are possible!