Huge cargo on Treasure Ships with simple links

[Ben]

The Baochuan and Guichuan (found in the Master Spreadsheet) are truly two of the most unique ships in the game.  Captain Vendari and/or Godmason have brought up the possibility of increasing their large cargo holds with linked crew.  I often forget that because of the Treasure Ship keyword, their mandatory linked crew automatically give them 1 more cargo space that is not actually filled by that crew.  In other words, the Baochuan essentially starts with 11 cargo, and the Guichuan with 8.

Treasure Ship

If this ship is linked to a crew, it must begin the game with that crew aboard.

Crew do not take up cargo space on this ship, but their combined point costs can never exceed this ship’s point cost (their values cannot be reduced).

Once per turn this ship may move S after loading or unloading cargo.

(From the MKL)

This of course makes these ships awesome hybrids by default.  Huge cargo, massive durability, and a nice bonus that helps them run gold more efficiently.  I think that using the massive cargo holds of Treasure Ships is somewhat underutilized, especially because the Cursed and Jade Rebellion both have crew that link to any ship of their own nationality that work well on these 10 masters.

The Jades have Shap-‘ng Tsai, who gives SAT and a cannon bonus against the English.  With him and Zheng He aboard, the Baochuan would start with 12 cargo, which doesn’t decrease after you add essential crew such as captain and helmsman.  You can also go crazy with some of the other linked combos to increase it even more.

Even more perfect is OE Davy Jones, who links to all Cursed ships.  He can board the Guichuan to increase her starting cargo to 9, not to mention making the ship far more powerful and dangerous.  (and almost essential in some cases since the ship usually only moves at S+S with extra actions)

I’m hoping to use both of these Treasure Ships in a large game sometime this year, and they’ll both be hybrids in a way.  Really looking forward to it.

[Author]

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