Basic Rules (.docx file download, with the Windlass font)
This is my attempt to combine the Start Here rules and Complete Game rules into one document, while simultaneously changing a few things that I believe are the best house rules, and also keeping the overall document relatively short by saving space where practical. These are the basic rules that I intend to teach new players with. I talk about some of the changes in the video below.
Custom Board Game Pieces – Ships, islands, and more!
In my vast experience with Pirates CSG, I have made a LOT of custom board game pieces. By “pieces” I mean both physical and “virtual” items that help me enjoy Pirates Constructible Strategy Game to the fullest. This includes custom made islands and terrain for the game, in addition to game pieces that can be proxied into the playing experience or used easily on the VASSAL module.
Islands
Making custom islands for board games can be pretty fun! There are a variety of building materials to choose from, not to mention the variety of supplies and accessories to consider. I’ve had some success with various types of foam (not all of it will melt under spray paint, but be careful!), along with various cardboard chunks and molds.
Here’s an example:
Custom island I made for Pirates CSG
For this island, I took a thin flat piece of somewhat weak foam and modified it in various ways. I cut out a shape that I liked, then added a coat of black spray paint (some more porous foams may melt when applying spray paint, so test outside or simply avoid using spray paint in general if you plan to make your own islands). Some grasses and sands (found at Hobby Lobby; Amazon has similar) came in handy for the realistic layer above the paint. I applied the powdery grass and sand with spray glue (glue and water in a small spray bottle that came in the kit I bought), and then added some rocks or “boulders” as well. You can see them on the shore at the bottom of the picture. Towards the top (where the action is happening) I added some bushes for a more 3D landscape.
Custom game pieces for use
I’ve made a LOT of custom ships, crew, and other game pieces for Pirates CSG. There is nothing wrong with creating your own stats and abilities for your very own creations. I am consistently working on a historical custom set (Pirates of the Age of Sail) that I hope will eventually encompass nearly all known ships and historical figures (crew) that played a part in the Age of Sail time period. I also sporadically work on my custom fantasy set, Pirates of the Epic Seas. This is where my creativity shines more (though I’m not normally a very creative person), as I make all sorts of interesting stuff.
The first handful of historical customs in my first set, Pirates of the Age of Sail
If you like playing Pirates CSG, I highly recommend experimenting with making your own custom board game pieces. Both islands and customs (shorthand for custom ships/crew/equipment/etc.) are fun to make and very rewarding to use in games. Although I haven’t made any of my customs into physical form, there are various ways to do so if you’re inclined (stickers, marker, 3D printing, etc). If you still feel hesitant to get started, you could watch a tutorial or buy some islands, not to mention using other people’s custom sets!
You can check out the My Custom Stuff page for even more details on my personal contributions.
This has already been posted in the forum, but occasionally I plan to convert larger posts of mine there into general posts as well.
Lately I’ve been going through Pirates of the Epic Seas and doing one game piece per faction (or UT/etc) at a time. I’ve gotten down to the SE’s again, and there are so many “unreleased” that I like, it’s tough to know what to reveal! XD I made some more fantasy customs today, some of which are rather amusing. For today, I’m in the mood to go out of order and reveal something I just created today. I’ve wanted to make something with a “Ring of Fire” theme for a while now, somewhat based on the real life volcano chain.
Ring of Fire (Islands)
Place these 5 Mysterious Islands in a circle during setup. These islands cannot be chosen as home islands, and should be placed 2L or 3L apart. When a ship docks at this island, roll a d6.
1 – Catastrophic Eruption: All ships docked at this island have all of their masts (including eliminated ones) replaced with fire masts. All ships within 3L of this island receive 3 fire masts; this effect can sink ships. Eliminate all crew and forts on this island.
2 – Violent Eruption: All ships docked at this island receive 3 fire masts. Ships within 2L of this island receive 2 fire masts. Eliminate all crew and forts on this island.
3/4 – Eruption: All ships docked at this island receive 2 fire masts. Ships within L of this island receive 1 fire mast. Eliminate all crew on this island.
5/6 – No effect.
*Game pieces that are submerged are not subject to receiving fire masts.
Ring of Fire (Canoes)
Faction Affiliation: Mercenary
Rarity: U
Type: Ship
Point Value: 14
Number of Masts: 1
Cargo Space: 1
Base Move: S+S+S
Cannons: 3L
Ability: Mercenary. Native Canoe. Captain. Fire Shot.
Flavor text: Hailing from the most volcanic region in the world, these tribal natives have preyed on worried sailors for centuries. They have learned to detect when an eruption is imminent, and then use the chaos and death of such a cataclysmic event to pillage both victims and survivors. Named after the devastating region they sail around, there have been reports of canoe”rings” surrounding enemy ships and lighting the sails and rigging on fire with flaming arrows, watching from afar as the crew are burned alive and the ship is burnt to the waterline. They are known as perhaps the most clever and secretly evil tribe in the Pacific, and use the speed and agility of their canoes to avoid being wiped out by the frequent eruptions.
Kinda overdid the flavor text, but it really helps give context to their background and the fleshing out of the “Ring of Fire” concept, especially with Epic Seas having a more Mercenary/tribal/Pacific slant the past few months.
The last piece of the “saga”, at least for now….
Ring of Fire
Unique Treasure
Ability: When discovered, assign this game piece to a named crew on this ship. If this ship isn’t assigned a named crew, place this treasure face down on a random wild island without revealing the treasure to any players. Once this treasure is assigned to a named crew, it is treated as equipment and cannot be removed from this ship unless the crew is removed. If the assigned crew is eliminated, eliminate this game piece. When this ship shoots, up to 3 hits may be fire hits instead of regular hits (you must declare which cannons are shooting fire shot before rolling). If this ship is within L of a Volcano island, you may eliminate one crew on this ship – if so, one enemy ship within L of this ship cannot move on their next turn.
Flavor text: This mysterious ring bears an inscription that starts with a “V”… many scholars have attempted to decode what the name means, but they always end up murdered for the ring’s power. Multiple “giants” have been seen wielding the ring for evil purposes in the Pacific, leaving a trail of smoke in their wake….
So there you have it. Pretty convoluted already, and it might get more wordy and complicated if I add things to the concept. Funny enough I already have an epic volcano-based 10 master with linked crew combo, so if I get them involved… yikes…. O_O
Man, sometimes I find it surprisingly easy to create a lot of fantasy customs. So many things to draw inspiration from, either just a simple word like “dove” or some complex convoluted backstory of chaos. XD Just looking up “cursed art” in google images gives me plenty of random ideas! Epic Seas is about to reach 700 total game pieces, and it’s inevitable that someday I will break 1,000 on that set, and eventually many more I hope. In times like this I have to consciously try to stop staring at what I’ve created or plan to create, just so I don’t spend many hours a day doing it! XD
~~~~~
Historical Custom of the Day #248
John Watling
Pirate
Crew
3 points
Ability: Captain. This ship gets +1 to her d6 rolls against ships with the Chieftain keyword aboard. This ship gets -1 to her d6 rolls against forts.
Link: Bartholomew Sharp
Strange abilities, but read his brief and strange story for why I gave them to him. Almost some weird parallels with Captain Jack Sparrow.
On this page you can find my customized “things” for Pirates CSG. This includes my custom game pieces, my Basic Rules, and custom islands, terrain, and structures I’ve made.
Basic Rules (.docx file download, with the Windlass font)
This is my attempt to combine the Start Here rules and Complete Game rules into one document, while simultaneously changing a few things that I believe are the best house rules, and also keeping the overall document relatively short by saving space where practical. These are the basic rules that I intend to teach new players with. I talk about some of the changes in the video below.
Please disregard the Explore Action part of the “Start Here” snippet at the bottom of the first page of my Basic Rules. You should always play by the full exploring rules where ships look at the treasures on the island and choose which to take.
–Pirates of the Age of Sail (PotAoS, or AoS) is my first custom set, which I started in 2011. I have since been modifying and adding to it. The set is entirely historical in nature, encompassing a huge number of ships, historical figures (as crew), forts, and equipment from the real Age of Sail. The total number of game pieces is therefore only limited to the amount of historical knowledge that is available on the topic and can be discovered. The current Custom Ships thread has some of my daily “releases”. This set will continue to undergo changes and additions, and due to the sheer number of game pieces still to add, it may never be “complete”. Any suggestions are welcome. You can find the set on the 2nd sheet of the Customs Database, with keyword abbreviations on the 1st sheet.
–Pirates of the Epic Seas (PotES or ES) is my second custom set, which I started in 2018. It is the complete opposite of the Age of Sail set, containing only fictional game pieces. The set is based on “epic” things and a general theme of global war, or at least the grand threat of it. Just like Age of Sail, the set is currently “under construction”, though much more complete than Age of Sail. You can find the set on the 3rd sheet of the Customs Database, with keyword abbreviations on the 1st sheet.
Custom Islands, Terrain, and Structures
Normally I would leave out the structures part, but I’ve found myself building an increasing amount of man-made things that cannot be classified as islands or terrain.
–My entry for OTC3(details the stuff I made in 2017 – a lot of my cooler stuff!)
Also, feel to reach out to Ross in AZ; many of the islands you see in my battle reports were made by him!
Here is the video I made for my OTC3 entry:
Grand Shots
Some pictures showing more than one of my creations at a time. These really show how large and dominant the pieces are, and how fun and “commanding” they are during gameplay.
The Sea of Allost, showing the Roost, Tunnel, Kingdom, and part of Broken Horn Island.
Tunnel and Roost! (island in foreground made by RossinAZ)
Here you can see the Tunnel, Kingdom, and Pirate lighthouse:
Kingdom and lighthouse:
With fort:
Kingdom of Heaven?
The Sea of Karkuda, showing the Castle, Hideout, and Harbor.
Along with the lighthouse:
Another angle focusing on the Castle:
Top left: Pearl Island Bottom left: Fish Island Top right: icewreck
Custom Lighthouses – idea by vixenishcoder66 of Miniature Trading
Some of my older stuff made in 2015!
Some of the islands and terrain I’ve made. The arches are quite fun. In the middle is a large sandbar. White foam looks perfect for icebergs. Custom shipwrecks (often on reefs) can make the game look really neat.
The Duke shipwreck. I put a few drops of metallic gold paint down the center of the hull to create the spilled gold effect.
My version of “shipwreck cove”, inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean and created with lots of glue, reefs, and shipwrecks.
A busy Franco-Spanish military port atop one of my custom islands during Economy Edition.
The Lagoon, which was used for the Economy Edition game. This is a fun concept, especially if you only make it accessible to submersibles (submarines and sea monsters).
The Arch. This is a triple archway with 3 different levels for clearance height. The highest arch is passable by almost all ships, while the smaller two can only be traversed by ships with lower mast height. The low are was a perfect spot for gold. This was created with two chunks of styrofoam from a keyboard box, spraypainted black, which were glued together at an angle (you can still see the remains of some glue on top of the right archway).
This gives an idea of the main middle archway, as well as the height of the entire arch. As you can see, it’s also the perfect spot for a well-positioned fort!
You could probably add physical Bow Chasers with a variety of different pieces; here I’ve used spare Bombardier cannons and attached them to the bow of a ship.
