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Hi,
I played this game way back in 2005 for about a year and recently stumbled across some Revolution and Barbary Coast 36 pack boxes. I am going to have some friends (4-5 people) over to play a few games. What would be the best option for setting up a game so my friends have fun? I want to add rules so that just getting the most gold isn’t the only way to win and that encourages combat.
I was thinking some kind of buccaneer rule set similar to what is listed here but if you have any additional rules or advice please let me know. I was thinking players would roll and then pick ships in order until they are out of points. Also should I enforce national fleets or do multinational fleets?
I used to play games with multiple objectives that had points per objective you completed (ie. Explore All Islands, Steal Gold from 2 ships, kill sea creature, lose no ships, etc), but you also recieved points for each ship sunk (most often points were based off of ship cost which painted targets on bigger gunships), and then of course points for Gold. Things like that encouraged all kinds of play, add in some whirlpools, icebergs, fog banos, sunken ships with treasure, round earth rules, and even a small roaming mercenary fleet or sea creature that’s movements were determined directionally by dice and would attack whomever was in range are always fun. I also love the custom wind rules I have seen in some of Bens videos!
I also am definitely one of those GMs that enforces Nationality, with the exception of Mercenary ships as realistically any faction could hire them. I am planning on doing a game here in a few weeks with random dice controled Barbary Corsair and Cursed fleets since I dont have enough of them to offer full competitive fleets. Instead Im thinking of the Corsairs being roaming pirates, while the cursed will be guarding an island with the most Gold, fight thru their small 3 ship fleet to get access to the gold or try your luck on the other islands ?♂️
@Vax: Welcome aboard! Glad you’re back into it!
You could try Points in play + gold for the win. Emphasizes captures and combat.
Assuming your friends have not played before, I would keep the build total to no more than 50 points. (30 or 40 might work better for their first game) With teaching, rules questions, and building ships/fleets, it could take a while.
I like sticking to nationality-based fleets, but it depends on how you build fleets. Based on the draft style you describe, I think mixed makes more sense so people aren’t forced to choose lesser ships based on the faction of their first ship. I also recommend allowing generic crew to use their abilities on ships of any nationality.
Have fun!
@daddygarand: I’ll have to add the objective-based points system to the Game Ideas page if something like that isn’t already there. Thanks for mentioning my videos.Thank you for the advice! One last question for now. I was planning on changing the ramming rules because they never made sense to me. Instead of galleys not being able to ram I was going to change it to only galleys can ram. It seems to make sense to me thematically and for gameplay reasons, makes 1 masters better. But does this make the Barbary pirates too powerful?
Instead of galleys not being able to ram I was going to change it to only galleys can ram. It seems to make sense to me thematically and for gameplay reasons, makes 1 masters better. But does this make the Barbary pirates too powerful?
I think all ships should definitely be ABLE to ram, because it’s historically accurate and boarding should be part of the game. Perhaps you mean ram damage, which I like to do away with as well because it makes less sense and can be too powerful.
If this is a house rule you use with players, just make sure that you say “ships cannot do damage by ramming”, because within the context of the regular rules “can’t ram” also means “can’t board” (for the most part) which affects a lot of other things and even makes towing seem difficult.
Reversing it so only galleys do ram damage is viable. I think it would be reasonable to increase the point costs of galleys by 1 point as a result, but I think you could test it with regular point costs too. You could see if players like it and make adjustments from there.
Can anyone advise me the best place to get islands for terrain to make my ocean more realistic? I like the idea that Pirates provides islands, but I want something more 3-D.
Here are the islands made by Ross in AZ. I have used some of them in my own games and highly recommend them! I also recommend making your own, though it can be messy and time consuming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7nYi7sdJ4U
He also does trades with them, naturally depending on what you have to offer.
Ahoy Ben!
Thank you sir. I will look into it. In reference to your question as to which pirate games I have played on PC. The answer is too many to count. I generally prefer a pirate game that has a good balance of land and sea combat and exploration, but those dynamics are hard to come by. It is almost like playing two games in one or choosing one over the other.
Anytime you are near Savannah, Georgia, look me up. The Pirate’s House is a restaurant that is said to have been a haven for Blackbeard and has some Treasure Island lore. We also have a Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum here as well.
Pirates is argh-uably the best tabletop version of any digital pirate-themed game I have ever played.
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