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How do you guys usually pick your game types or fleets when going into a new campaign? Usually, I will have an idea for a crew or ship synergy and build a fleet using that concept. Sometimes it is as simple as wanting to use specific types of ships, specific factions for thematic purposes, or even terrain set up ideas. What gets you excited to build a fleet??
If I’m playing with my bros it’s usually a deathmatch, since we like having the ships shoot at one another. 😀 Even if we don’t play a deathmatch, its usually personal collection to collection. So I’d only use ships that were my own, and they would use ships that were theirs as well.
My fleetbuilding sometimes depends on my mood. If I want to ave fun and be slightly obnoxious I’ll build a fleet around a Sea Monster or two or something like that. If I want to win I’ll usually use “Power Pieces” to try and win.
when going into a new campaign?
Could you elaborate on that please?
Hahaha you pretty much got it. I wanted to open up to all different play types, Econ games, standard games, scenarios…just going into a “new game” could have been a better phrase!
If I’m playing solo, ti is much easier to be creative with monsters and such. Usually if I’m playing with my roommate we do a draft prior to the game. Each pick one game piece at a time until our point allowance is met. Those tend to be the “power piece” games.
heh, when my brothers and I do start a campaign, we usually go faction pure. So someone has access to all the Spanish, all the English, and so on. Typically the one off factions like the Jades, Vikings, Corsairs and Mercenaries are refereed to as privateer factions. They’re basically all hired help for whoever can afford to get them first.
I like that rule myself. We do the same with those factions, except for Jades. They get slightly screwed on basic crew because the set only gives one of each of some things, but they do very well. I like when each person has access to all of one faction. I am big for keeping fleets faction based unless we are doing econ games.
The Jades have the best selection of Named Crew out of all the “minor” factions, and they have every generic crew up to that point; so I’m not sure what you mean when you say that they were screwed over. They’re difficult to find, true, but they do have them. In a pinch for gameplay you can make crew cut-outs with paper to stand in for crew that you don’t have for them. It’s what I do.
Yea they wouldn’t be as screwed in my household if I had multiples of the basic crew. I have one complete set of SCS so the Jades only get one of each basic crew. I should probably be more willing to make proxy pieces …we talked about this actually haha. Their named crew are definitely the saving grace, though as you pointed out.
I do not play campaign games usually. So my game types are small 100 point games. So when I am designing a fleet it typically revolves around a few key ships I want to use for a given game. On occasion if the game type is unique or my opponent has been using a winning strategy over and over that will also dictate how I design my fleet.
100 point games can get pretty big!! I’ve been thinking more about how many islands should be in play as the game points go up. How many wild islands do your 100 point games usually have?
100 point games sound big, but they’re not as big as you’d think, at least in my experience. In the 100 point games I’ve played, I’ve used around ten islands, sometimes a few more.
Going off standard game rules, I’ve been adding an extra wild island per player for every 20 points over 40 we use. Sometimes it is fun just to make an ocean and not worry so much about balancing islands for thematic reasons or whatever. Most of my small games are 60-80 points..I think I need to step up the games! 😉
You could try this, instead of several wild islands, have only one massive island with a ton of gold on it, and the only other islands are home islands. Another possibility is to purposely make all the gold UT’s and see what madness ensues.
I do like setting up a large island with lots of treasure!!! lots o fun! I did a Columbus Day game where we did UT’s only and it was amazing. I think I will take your advice and do some UT only matches soon!
My 100 point games don’t have a typical island set up. Since I play primarily with just 1 other person we like to make our maps more eccentric with lots of terrain or island patterns. Probably we often have 8-10 islands and lots of terrain say 4-10.
Our fleets for these games are usually faction pure. The only exception is with generic crew where we will use other factions if we need more captains ect. Mercenaries and minor factions we use as mercenary options so those can be used in faction pure fleets.
When I do play regular games with my brothers, we tend to use around 10 islands as well, but vastly much more terrain. We’ll either place it so that it touches islands and forms “chains” or we literally will close our eyes and toss a terrain on the table and play it where it lands.
How do you guys usually pick your game types or fleets when going into a new campaign?
Game type as in what ruleset you would use for a campaign game? (now I see your response to Xerecs’ similar question haha) I don’t usually think too hard about starting fleets for a campaign game – it’s usually about 30 points and everyone just runs gold/resources for the first chunk of turns.
Usually, I will have an idea for a crew or ship synergy and build a fleet using that concept. Sometimes it is as simple as wanting to use specific types of ships, specific factions for thematic purposes, or even terrain set up ideas.
I’ve done all of those as well! Love the creativity a house rule or restriction can spark.
What gets you excited to build a fleet??
Depends on my mood sometimes. Nowadays it’s usually as crazy/gimmicky/complicated as possible. If I’m feeling hyper/focused, serious, or “competitive”, it might be a flurry of ideas full of OP stuff and slight variations on them. If I’m feeling amused or more relaxed it will more likely be gimmicky or weird, such as focusing on something like Kraken Gong or using Parley or whatever in a “new”-ish way.
On occasion if the game type is unique or my opponent has been using a winning strategy over and over that will also dictate how I design my fleet.
@Jeremiah: Can you recall if your opponent(s) had a particularly effective 100 point fleet they won with multiple times?
Sometimes it is fun just to make an ocean and not worry so much about balancing islands for thematic reasons or whatever.
Agreed, I tend not to worry too much about island ratios compared to the # of points or players involved. It’s tempting to start adding a lot of stuff, but more islands means less competition for the gold/resources. I learned from a few games when there were too many islands and almost no action as a result. It’s very easy to just stay in your local area, collect what you can, and see who ended up with the most gold (a problem exacerbated when playing with new players that tend to not be too aggressive).
Most of my small games are 60-80 points..I think I need to step up the games!
It can be a ton of fun! 🙂
You could try this, instead of several wild islands, have only one massive island with a ton of gold on it, and the only other islands are home islands. Another possibility is to purposely make all the gold UT’s and see what madness ensues.
Indeed, or both at the same time! XD
or we literally will close our eyes and toss a terrain on the table and play it where it lands.
Sometime I need to do that without any adjustments. When I’ve attempted that in the past, I always end up getting annoyed when there’s a bunch of terrain in a big clump or how the setup looks silly. 🙂 In a future game I’ll have to just let it go and play it where it lands regardless. On a big enough table this could be combined with the islands too for a “frisbee setup”. XD
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