Carrier is a
solitaire board game from
Victory Games. The main focus of the game is (
surprise, surpise)
aircraft carriers in
WWII, and the player controls up to three
US task forces in the
Pacific campaign.
The Japanese forces are kept track of with "intelligence counters", representing how much information is known about each force. This system gives a feeling of suspense, in that you never know as much as you would like about your enemy. The important thing is to find the enemy carriers before they find you.
The rule system of this game is very complicated, with special rules and exceptions for everything. The reason is that the rules are built on actual experiences from the war. Under almost every rule, there is a "Design note" of why this rule simulates the conditions of the war as well as possible.
Personally, I find this game very enjoyable and replayable, even though the threshold for learning the game was too high.