A few months back brettb45 mentioned a game called “Water World” that one of his friends came up with.
I love this idea, and I love it even more now that I’ve tried it out! For my first Water World game, the game would again feature seven 10 point fleets. However, things were changed up a bit, and the fleets went in the opposite order:
Proud Tortoise + captain
Golden Peacock + explorer
Tiger + helmsman, oarsman
Sea Crane + oarsman
Bazana, El Raton
L’Eroica
Sea King + captain, oarsman
The setup was very unique, with no home islands in the Water World setup. In addition, I don’t have any forts with me, so all the gold would have to be stored on ships!
The fleets started out in the center in a ring, with four wild islands and 16 total coins. In order to avoid cheesy tactics of running away, it was ruled that strict flat earth rules were in effect, and the islands marked the corners of a square boundary. It was going to be an interesting game!
The Golden Peacock was the only ship able to explore on the first turn, but she quickly lost a mast to the Sea King.
The Golden Peacock began the process of running away, and the Sea King began a process of bad dice luck! In the meantime, each of the other three islands had two hostile ships docked at them, with things inevitably turning ugly immediately after.
The Sea Crane dismasted the Raton. The Proud Tortoise dismasted the Tiger. The Sea King hit the Golden Peacock again. The Bazana missed the Eroica.
Now things got really interesting. The Proud Tortoise, with a cargo hold already full, didn’t want to chance losing her captain in a failed boarding attempt to kill the Tiger’s oarsman and then capture the Tiger on the next turn, so she simply sunk the American galley and both her coins.
The Sea Crane captured the Raton, giving the Pirates a decent amount of gold. However, they were soon in the middle of a chase, with the Golden Peacock still running from the relentless Sea King.
The Bazana landed a hit on the Eroica after the Eroica rammed the Bazana and stole some of her gold.
With no gold on them, the two western islands sank beneath the waves. The Golden Peacock tried to distract the Sea King with the allure of the Sea Crane’s gold, but the Sea King was hot on her tail. However, this brought the Sea King in range of the Sea Crane, who simply stayed put and shot off the mainmast. The Proud Tortoise sailed into the middle area, looking for more combat. The severely damaged Eroica took the Bazana in tow.
The Proud Tortoise finally left the Golden Peacock derelict, and the Sea Crane knocked the English out of contention by hitting the Sea King. The French were sneaky good in this game, with the Eroica getting an SAT as she made her way towards the southeastern island.
At this point, the weakened Sea Crane was content to sink the Sea King and wait for the rest of the game to play out. She wouldn’t be able to compete with the Proud Tortoise for gold, as the PT took the Golden Peacock in tow. Only two coins remained in play.
The Proud Tortoise attacked the Sea Crane, but it failed! The Sea Crane then tried to ram the Proud Tortoise out of the game, but also rolled a 1! Bad luck with the dice resulted in a draw, but the already rich Golden Peacock returned to her island she had visited as a Corsair ship, dumped her explorer, and filled up her cargo hold to make herself even more “Golden”.
This left only one treasure left in the game, and the Eroica was already docked there.
The Proud Tortoise sunk the Raton, but her 1 wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The Sea Crane tried to capture the Golden Peacock, but it was too late, as the Eroica loaded the final treasure to end the game!
The Golden Peacock turned out to have a lot of gold on her, giving the Jade Rebellion the win in this first Water World game!
Jade Rebellion: 17 gold
French: 13 gold
Pirates: 7
Everyone else: 0