18+ Only. Play Responsibly.
I had four shots left.
Six blue squares were still covered.
Somewhere underneath them were three ships I had failed to find.
The targeting panel gave me no smoke.
No wake in the water.
No suspicious captain leaning out of a hatch.
Just six identical blue rectangles.
I clicked the upper-right one.
Water.
Three shots left.
The screen had already informed me that five ships were hidden across fifteen blocks.
One large.
Two medium.
Two small.
I had found one medium ship and one large ship.
The other three selections had apparently been expensive military operations against the ocean itself.
This was where Battleship Strike had taken me after fifteen paid spins.
I had started with €250.
The stake was €1.25.
Twenty-five fixed paylines sat across five reels and three rows, surrounded by enough steel, radar equipment and surfaced submarines to suggest subtlety had already left the harbour.
Warships filled the higher symbols.
A battleship.
A submarine.
A fast attack boat.
A landing craft.
A, K, Q and J occupied the lower ranks in glowing blue and purple.
The sea behind everything was full of vessels.
This made the first few spins strangely reassuring.
At least the ships were visible there.
The actual reels were less cooperative.
A couple of Js returned something small.
Three landing craft produced another modest result.
A Wild landed on reel four and helped an A line reach across.
Nothing lasted.
Fourteen spins cost €17.50.
€6.25 came back.
Balance:
€238.75.
The Progressive Jackpot sat in the corner throughout this, occasionally reminding me that it could randomly appear after any game.
It felt less like a feature and more like a battleship stationed somewhere beyond the horizon with no intention of joining us.
The Super Bet button offered to double the stake to €2.50.
It promised a more aggressive war.
I left it off.
There were already enough ships.
I was struggling to locate the ones directly in front of me.
Spin fifteen cost another €1.25.
The reels stopped.
Strike symbols appeared.
The normal sea vanished.
A targeting panel replaced it.
Fifteen covered blocks.
Seven attempts.
Five hidden ships.
Apparently the navy had taken one large vessel, two medium vessels and two small ones and concealed them behind something resembling a wall of blue bathroom tiles.
The first choice was mine.
I picked near the centre.
Nothing.
Six attempts.
Second block.
Medium Ship.
The panel lit.
€25.
And because I had actually hit something, the attempt came back.
Six attempts again.
This was an extraordinary ammunition policy.
Fire at empty ocean:
ammunition gone.
Locate several thousand tonnes of hostile steel:
complimentary replacement shell.
I clicked again.
Water.
Five attempts.
Lower-left.
Water.
Four.
At this point I had uncovered one ship and three portions of the Atlantic.
The remaining blocks were becoming personal.
I picked one near the top.
Large Ship.
The silhouette appeared.
€12.50.
Another attempt restored.
Four remaining again.
The large ship was worth half as much as the medium one.
This was not the last unusual fact in the fleet.
The small ships were worth vastly more than both.
A two-cell ship carried the biggest award.
Apparently the most financially dangerous object in this war was anything capable of fitting into a marina.
The panel remained.
Six covered squares.
Four attempts.
That was the point where the session opened.
I chose upper-right.
Water.
Three.
Middle-left.
Water.
Two.
Bottom-centre.
Water.
One.
There were now enough revealed empty blocks to begin questioning whether the enemy had quietly moved during the feature.
Last attempt.
I stared at the remaining choices.
Three small ships were still hidden somewhere in them.
One of those could have been worth €75 at my stake.
I chose the lower-right square.
Water.
Finished.
The panel disappeared.
One medium ship.
One large ship.
€37.50.
Three surviving vessels remained safely hidden from a man clicking blue rectangles on a monitor.
Balance:
€275.
I had entered the feature at €237.50.
The navy had failed to reveal most of itself and still paid me enough to put the session comfortably ahead.
The reels came back.
For a while, the sea settled.
A submarine passed through reel three.
No line.
Two battleships appeared on the left and then stopped one reel short of becoming useful.
Two Scatters landed on another spin.
Three would have started ten Free Games.
The third reel contained a Q.
I looked at the Q for longer than the Q deserved.
No Free Games.
The next ten paid spins cost €12.50.
They returned €3.75.
Balance:
€266.25.
Still ahead of where I had been before Hunt & Destroy.
Still no Free Games.
Still no sign of the three ships I had failed to uncover.
I paid another €1.25.
The reels stopped with a small win.
€2.50 before anything else happened.
Then the radar screen above the reels came alive.
A submarine was selected.
The target outline locked around it.
Radar Strike.
Beams fired across the reels.
One hit the target submarine.
The symbol flashed.
It stopped being a submarine.
Wild.
A naval vessel had been located, struck and immediately promoted into the most useful symbol on the reels.
The hit carried x3.
A second beam hit another ship.
Wrong target.
That still contributed x1.
The original multiplier began at x1.
x1 plus x3 plus x1.
x5.
The Wild replacement opened the line again.
The spin recalculated.
€12.50.
Balance:
€277.50.
The submarine had been worth less while functioning as a submarine.
Radar destroyed its entire professional identity and improved the payout.
This fleet had now established two strategic principles.
Small ships were more valuable than large ships.
Enemy submarines became useful only after radar converted them into stars.
I kept the stake at €1.25.
Eight more spins.
No Complete Damage.
No ten Free Games.
No second Hunt & Destroy.
One Wild appeared on reel two and helped a K line return €1.25.
Another small line produced the remaining €1.25.
Everything else was sea.
The Progressive Jackpot continued sitting in the corner.
Unmoved.
The war had apparently not met the threshold for outside intervention.
The balance worked down from €277.50.
€276.25.
€275.
€273.75.
Eventually:
€270.
I had started with €250.
Profit:
€20.
The final spin stopped without a win.
A landing craft sat on reel one.
A Q appeared beside it.
Another low symbol broke the middle.
And on reel four there was a submarine.
No Radar Strike.
No Wild conversion.
No missile.
No Complete Damage.
Just a submarine sitting perfectly visibly in the middle of a game that had spent the previous half hour claiming to possess advanced naval detection technology.
I left it there.
After fifteen hidden blocks, nine shots, two discovered ships and one radar-assisted conversion, the last submarine survived by using the most advanced defence available.
It appeared on the reels.
Inside John Hunter Nell’Antica Roma I found a locked safe labeled "Hope".