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This is another thread idea from MT. Use it to talk strategy and gameplay with your fellow Pirates players!
For me personally, I’m definitely going to focus on campaign game play for a while. After playing a TON from 2011-2017, 2018 and beyond will finally see some much lower games/year numbers for me. I’d like to concentrate on The Hourly Campaign when I’m not involved in CG4 and The Caribbean Game.
My Turtle Mania game featured a bizarre and extremely niche new gameplay idea.
And that is where a new (?) concept or game idea was born: chain capturing. At the upper right, the Floating Stone of Tsai’s fleet was able to capture the remaining two ships of the other Jade fleet by herself (Hansan Island had been recently sunk). Back and forth they went, with each fleet controlling 1 or 2 ships each turn of the three pictured. Eventually Tsai’s fleet was able to chain together enough successful moves, and the captured Dragon’s Talon was within capturing distance (S+S rowing distance in this case) of Tsai’s own ship, the Proud Tortoise. The PT was reclaimed for his own Jade fleet (this is hard to even put into words because of how confusing it is lol), completing the chain of captures that led to the elimination of the other Jade fleet! XD This is one of those bizarre occurrences that would only happen in a very similar situation, with lots of oared ships that are “capturable” (aka no oarsmen) and moving amongst each other and jockeying for towing position on just about every turn.
Relevant post: Gimmicks For The Win – Unorthodox Strategies for Success
Since CG1 it’s become somewhat of a norm in my campaigns (and the ones that I play with you) for the Spanish to use as many of or all of their ships with the +1/+2 gold bonus ability. I’m not sure if you’re the first person to figure this out for a campaign or not, but it does represent a sound strategy that few factions can match, since the Spanish have the most of those kind of ships and crew.
I’m not sure if you’re the first person to figure this out for a campaign or not, but it does represent a sound strategy that few factions can match, since the Spanish have the most of those kind of ships and crew.
I think that’s where the “publicity” aspect of “modern” campaign games comes into play. It’s quite probable that someone played a campaign style game with the Spanish using a lot of gold bonuses, but they either didn’t write about it, or they did but the reports have been lost to the impermanence of internet forums/sites/etc.
It’s possible (or even very likely) that many more hours were spent in the 2000’s playing campaign-style games than in the 2010’s due to the sheer volume of players and games happening compared to today. It’s just that today, you and I record and publish nearly every turn of a campaign game that sees action. XD
How the heck are you supposed to make use of the Fear keyword? Since it happens at the start of your turn, the canceller ability isn’t as useful. You can’t protect yourself by cancelling a captain on a ship that’s going to attack you for instance. And the S-move result isn’t that good either, because again it happens at the start of your turn. You have to be within S of a ship already to do it so you’ve already caught it. If it happened at the start of every turn then it might be playable.
How the heck are you supposed to make use of the Fear keyword?
Moved your post here since it’s appropriate.
It’s not a good ability, but it can be better while submerged. In that case it could be combined with other abilities that work while submerged, such as cancelling or Marines. Other than that, make sure to always remember to roll for it when you have multiple enemies in range. If you can roll for it 3+ times in a turn, there’s a solid chance it will actually affect something. Though that happens more in crowded battlefields and campaigns than most 1v1 action.
I would suggest a reroller, but EA/SAT/etc are better abilities to pair a reroller with anyway lol. Those are the best ways I can think of – try to scare a bunch of enemies at the same time in a crowded space, and/or submerge it so it can possibly survive longer to have more of an effect. The latter is one of the reasons (along with cost) that Squalo is the one shark I do try to use on occasion.
Didn’t even know this thread existed lol. Well I’m still tracking down the Terror. Otherwise I don’t have any way in my collection to combine fear and something submerged. I’ve thought about putting the Unblinking 99 on board the Fallen Angel, since she’s very fast and can’t be shot at by most ships, but then I remembered ramming is a thing. Fallen Angel + 99 + low cost Cursed crew saved by Devil’s Maw would be super gimmicky but in theory gets you a way to quickly move a fear crew into the middle of a fight on a ship that would be very hard to hit I suppose.
There’s a couple of threads I suppose this could go in but I’d love this one to be more active so I’m putting it here now.
One of my favorite fleets is a hybrid French fleet using ships from PotR. I’d long used La Belle Etoile as the flagship. But recently I got Le Soleil Royale, and I’m wondering which ship people would think is better. Both are 13 points with 5 cargo. (Side note, can someone summon volt here because he’s also a Francophile who loved the French faction if I remember right.)
LBE: S+L move, 3S-3L-3S guns, cargo killer, schooner.
LSR: L-move, 2S-3L-3L-3L-2S guns, once per turn crew kill.
La Belle Etoile has a speed/agility advantage and even a more devastating potential. Le Soleil Royale is sturdier with better guns.
I’d love this one to be more active
Same here!
… though it’s hard to provide feedback when the information given out is incorrect. Check the cannons. I like both ships a lot but I like the Soleil Royal better.
Should be fixed now.
In a test game against a similar pirate fleet led by Don Gilbert and the Panda, LSR’s extra durability came in big because Panda was able to swoop in and get two shoot actions off. But then again, LBE is faster than Panda so it might have avoided being hit in the first place so :shrug:
What pieces would you put on L’Hercule (22 pts, 3 cargo) to deck her out the best? Overall fleet build total isn’t important here. I’ve been thinking maybe
Guy LaPlante (F&S) 7 pts, Captain, S-Board
Capitane Arazure (F&S) 5 pts, choose two of destroy mast, eliminate crew, steal a treasure
Amiral Dupuy (CC) 5 pts, EA
Mademoiselle Josephine Godiva (DJC) 0LR reroller
Oarsman
Or perhaps
Jordan Dumas (OE) 5 pts, Reroller, crew of any nation can serve on this ship
Hermione Gold (ROTF) 5 pts, Captain, Helmsman
Calico Cat (OE) 6 pts, EA, +1 cannons vs non pirates
Gentleman Jocard (PotC) 3 pts, +1 cargo
Shipwright
Oarsman
My thoughts on the Hercule:
Amiral Louis Cartier (+1 to boards, Extra Action, 7 pts.), Guy La Plante (FS), Mdm Josephine Godiva, helmsman, oarsman.
What pieces would you put on L’Hercule (22 pts, 3 cargo) to deck her out the best? Overall fleet build total isn’t important here.
I personally would actually want to prioritize the cannons over boarding, mostly because they can keep firing as the ship takes hits. There I’d want Barbinais (4 point World Hater) aboard.
Are you opposed to using RtSS pieces? If not, I’d probably go with:
Lady Roimata (6 points for Captain+SAT)
Barbinais (World Hater)
Godiva (0LR Reroller primarily for SAT)
Helmsman
OarsmanOnly uses 13 points of the 22 point cap, but here we can have 8 shots at 2S/1L regardless of any masts missing.
Keep in mind that Jocard’s “doesn’t take up cargo space” ability text is subject to the No-Stacking rule, so the oarsman would have to go to make that setup work.
I’d rather use pieces I could get physical copies of, though I do like that setup. Without Romiata, France doesn’t have the 3 point SAT options England/Spain/Pirates have :/Arathiel could serve a similar purpose but he’d have a limited amount of crew to work with.
Why cheerleaders aren’t useless. If it works out right, it’s like adding extra gunpowder or cannonballs to all the shots of an entire line of gunships! 😀
Inspired by Tilorfire27’s video…
31 point Hai Peng combo: Captain Jack Sparrow (common version), Jonah, Anamaria, LE Griffin, helmsman. S+L+S+L+S speed. Probably coming to a UPS fleet near you someday. XD
Trying to think of the fastest 10 master. Even including Zhanfu is an option doesn’t really help since she can’t crew combo like other factions.
Delusion + DJC Davy Jones (copying Hai Peng’s +L captain bonus), captain, helmsman, Cavendish, LE Griffin gets her to L+S+L+S, which is only S slower than the Hai Peng’s potential max. Only 26 points worth of crew so there’s additional opportunity for maxing out the setup overall – maybe OE Fantasma for Sac Captain, or go wild with Nemo/etc….
Shui Xian can do this with Brother Virgil, but since she’s only 25 points you have to add Robinson to make it work.
Finally got around to writing my Strategic Elements post that I was looking forward to for a while. 🙂
Lots of thoughts and reflections on the weekend marathon of multiplayer games. Would rather post it than have it sit in my mind haha. Curious if you have any thoughts, or opinions based on your own experiences. None of it is a condemnation of any of the people I played with; I definitely consider all of them my friends. I think bringing up these topics could further some interesting discussions about the game. 😀
Questions
Are ban lists and house rules just a knee-jerk reaction to something that players see as unfair, OP, broken, or “unfun”? Have adequate counters been considered, and if so, are they too much of a chore to include to justify not banning/house ruling things?In a game called “Pirates”, how justified is it to bring external morality into the game? Should players get upset when they lose by legal combos? In a brutal game like this (crew killed, ships captured/stolen, plans ruined in round 1, etc), should players be annoyed with each other, or at the game itself? (or their own gameplay/fleet choices?)
Is the pursuit of winning honorable regardless of the means used to obtain it? I think for players that can separate the game from real life, I would say yes. Of course, if the objective is simply fun and to keep your game group happy, you could argue that the pursuit of winning takes a backseat and the competitive nature of the game (that some players find more fun than others) gets watered down in the pursuit of a (likely subjective) ethical standard.
Should implied moral judgment be applied more to specific aspects of the game than others? For example, being “ethical” (again, at least partially subjective in this case) in fleet building but then “evil” during gameplay? (or vice versa/etc. Ex: bribing a player before the game with a game piece they don’t have, or making pre-game alliances/etc.)
Is it wrong to use game pieces that are not on a ban list if players deem them “bad”? (especially during/after their usage in the game vs. before starting play)
If one player wants to continue playing but another doesn’t, should the person who leaves the game be considered a forfeit regardless of their actual gold score at the end of the game?
Is it wrong to bring grievances from outside the game into the game?
What is the best way to establish “last round”? (ex: game with a time limit) Ex: someone has to leave by 7pm. All players need an equal number of turns, AND all players need advance notice of when the last round starts so they know if they need to take their ships out of fog banks/etc to have the gold count. Solution? 20 minutes (?) before the time deadline, regardless of which player is the current player, all players understand that when the next round begins, it will be the last round of the game.
Lessons I Learned:
-I hate “asterisks” (game not finished properly/etc) to the point where I need to stop playing games where they might happen. However, I realize this is a symptom of me sometimes caring too much about winning and not just enjoying the game for what it is. I suppose that this year especially, my enjoyment of the game is tied to the game being played properly by the rules. I think this is driven by my agony over the “what ifs” that simply don’t matter as much (if even applicable) if the game is played to true completion.
-Big multiplayer games are a bit overrated. Lots of time in between player turns. More players means more risk that someone will have some emergency or time constraint where they suddenly have to leave. Often not enough time to play the game out before a meal interruption occurs (playing at someone’s house can alleviate this). Games with 6+ players at 60 or more points should generally be the only game scheduled for that day.
-I personally find the game less enjoyable and less rewarding when players don’t want to play things out per the normal endgame rules. (ex: “calling” it) I recognize that real life factors sometimes have to play a role, but I think my love for the game overrides most of those. (whereas it doesn’t for many other players, which is fine and more normal than me haha)
-So much luck involved that I can’t wrap my ego/energy up in winning. (ex: one treasure coin being on a different island during the coin distribution to islands could change the winner, let alone dozens of other luck-based things that happen during the game)
-I think it would be useful to establish different “game modes” of Pirates for the community, such as Unlimited (100% normal rules), “Fair Seas” (ban list to eliminate “fun killers”/unfair game pieces, and house rules to enhance fairness, address rule annoyances, and possibly shore up underpowered game pieces), and maybe more. This is something I plan to work on.To sort of respond to your post as whole, I think the more I play the game the more it seems obvious to me that the game isn’t really balanced at all and a lot of rules and game pieces weren’t play tested as much as they probably should have been.
There are several things such as even the 40 points fleet limit that leave me wondering what the original idea was for how they thought the game would be played. Did they want fleets with only 2 ships? Did they think people wouldn’t use crew as much? Did they mean for players to be able to stack loads of Unique Treasures and only have a few actual treasure coins?
Because of these things I don’t really see the game as being competitive and only really play for fun as despite its flaws I do still think the game is enjoyable at a base level. I mostly play with my brothers who would definitely find things like UPS not fun to play with or against and as such I’ll avoid building fleets with ships or crew that might be considered questionable or too strong.
I think when it comes to disputes with fleets and rules the problem is that the only ruleset we have is the original rules of the game, which in my honest opinion aren’t really up to par and could use a large overhaul. In this sense I agree that there should be some sort of different “game modes” to the original game, but then who decides what these are and would people want to go out of their way to learn and follow them?
For example, I personally avoid ships or crew that give extra actions as I think they make certain ships capable of doing too many things before your opponent has a chance to respond. Most of these abilities are also on a die roll, which can lead to lucky streaks that can almost auto-win a game. For a lot of people extra actions are a key part to the game though so probably wouldn’t agree with me if I said I wanted them gone.
Another problem is that the community for the game isn’t very big so it’s not actually too easy to find people to play the game with. This means that for people that want to get involved in playing the game, but don’t have as much experience/knowledge or as big of a collection they can turn up and just get stomped by people playing higher level strategies as the gap between casual and competitive in this game is massive.
I think for me, if people want to play ultra competitive and use all the high end strategies these people need to create a space for themselves to play at this level (maybe an online league on VASSAL or TTS) and learn to give some leeway to players that just want to enjoy the game with fellow players at a meet-up.
In my opinion, I think that the game wasn’t really ever designed to be played super competitively and as more sets were added unintended combinations, stacking effects and abilities crept in unmonitored that lead to certain things being at a power level way higher than was expected, which is why I personally avoid some of these things.
I’ve thought about making a rules set basically from the ground up and also making fleet lists for each of the factions that would be somewhat similar to the army codices that you see in Warhammer 40k, but I don’t really play the game enough to justify spending the time to do this. I do think that something of this sort will probably be necessary if people want a fair and competitive version of the game though.
I’m not too sure what to say on resolving unfinished games as I’ve never had this problem personally, but I only ever play games with 2 or 3 players and usually max out at 60 point fleets.
Lots of good points for discussion – this could almost be a thread entirely on its own.
Questions
Are ban lists and house rules just a knee-jerk reaction to something that players see as unfair, OP, broken, or “unfun”? Have adequate counters been considered, and if so, are they too much of a chore to include to justify not banning/house ruling things?It can be a mix of those things, and can vary a lot from group to group. If a certain venue bans a few specific items, it could be because they had recurring problems with it in the past, maybe from players abusing particular strategies, or just because it was getting used so much that the players in general got sick of seeing it.
In a more general sense, I’m not a fan of ban lists, but sometimes a game will include something that is broken to the extent that any player who has or uses it will have an insurmountable advantage over any player who doesn’t do the same, or go well out of their way just to counter it. It can happen with almost any game, but collectible games are much more prone to it because of the sheer amount of extra content that keeps getting added makes it exponentially more difficult for playtesting and design to address every possible nuance and weird combination possible. It’s no so easy to get the genie back in the bottle once it’s out, so when something problematic does slip through, sometimes drastic action is required.
In a game called “Pirates”, how justified is it to bring external morality into the game? Should players get upset when they lose by legal combos? In a brutal game like this (crew killed, ships captured/stolen, plans ruined in round 1, etc), should players be annoyed with each other, or at the game itself? (or their own gameplay/fleet choices?)
Is the pursuit of winning honorable regardless of the means used to obtain it? I think for players that can separate the game from real life, I would say yes. Of course, if the objective is simply fun and to keep your game group happy, you could argue that the pursuit of winning takes a backseat and the competitive nature of the game (that some players find more fun than others) gets watered down in the pursuit of a (likely subjective) ethical standard.
Should implied moral judgment be applied more to specific aspects of the game than others? For example, being “ethical” (again, at least partially subjective in this case) in fleet building but then “evil” during gameplay? (or vice versa/etc. Ex: bribing a player before the game with a game piece they don’t have, or making pre-game alliances/etc.)
Is it wrong to use game pieces that are not on a ban list if players deem them “bad”? (especially during/after their usage in the game vs. before starting play)
It’s not so much morality, in a good vs. evil sense, but very much plays on the concept of good sportsmanship. If most of the players are there just to have a good time (which is largely the point of board games), but there’s a player or two that needs to win at any cost, it’s going to put a damper on the entire event. Maybe the gotta-win players crush everyone else without mercy, maybe the other players band together to stop them, or any number of other things in between can happen, but if not everyone is on the same page when it comes to the expected level of competitiveness, someone is going to go away having had a bad time. At the extremes, it can lead to players not wanting to return for future plays or events, and possibly even specific players being banned.
There are appropriate times and places for high levels of competitiveness, so the important thing is to establish expectations ahead of time. Don’t bring a Norvegia fleet to casual game night.
Is it wrong to bring grievances from outside the game into the game?
“Wrong”, maybe not, but it’s definitely not a good thing. Wanting a rematch from a previous play is one thing, and agreeing to settle their differences with a direct 2-player game is fine too, but if two players are mad at each other for some reason that has nothing to do with the game they absolutely should not be dragging their issues into a game with other players. They need to deal with it elsewhere, or find separate tables or something so they’re not ruining things for everyone else present.
If one player wants to continue playing but another doesn’t, should the person who leaves the game be considered a forfeit regardless of their actual gold score at the end of the game?
What is the best way to establish “last round”? (ex: game with a time limit) Ex: someone has to leave by 7pm. All players need an equal number of turns, AND all players need advance notice of when the last round starts so they know if they need to take their ships out of fog banks/etc to have the gold count. Solution? 20 minutes (?) before the time deadline, regardless of which player is the current player, all players understand that when the next round begins, it will be the last round of the game.
It depends a lot on the situation. If you know ahead of time that a player can only stay for so long, the group as a whole should do their best to account for it somehow. That could mean purposely playing shorter games (or smaller fleets), picking a good time for a “last round” in the current game, or figuring out a way to continue playing after the player steps out.
In a tournament setting, where the rules and times and such are all established ahead of time, the player who has to leave early might just have to accept the forfeit, whether that happens due to an emergency or a pre-planned time limit.
Lessons I Learned:
-I hate “asterisks” (game not finished properly/etc) to the point where I need to stop playing games where they might happen. However, I realize this is a symptom of me sometimes caring too much about winning and not just enjoying the game for what it is. I suppose that this year especially, my enjoyment of the game is tied to the game being played properly by the rules. I think this is driven by my agony over the “what ifs” that simply don’t matter as much (if even applicable) if the game is played to true completion.I struggle with this sometimes too, at least when it comes to time restraints. Often a game I want to play doesn’t happen because it seems like there won’t be enough time. There’s usually something else good that can work in its place, but it still gets frustrating to not be able get your first choice, especially when it happens over and over again. It’s even worse when you finally reach the time constraint and realize there would have been time for that other game after all.
-Big multiplayer games are a bit overrated. Lots of time in between player turns. More players means more risk that someone will have some emergency or time constraint where they suddenly have to leave. Often not enough time to play the game out before a meal interruption occurs (playing at someone’s house can alleviate this). Games with 6+ players at 60 or more points should generally be the only game scheduled for that day.
Excessive downtime between turns can really kill the mood no matter what the game is or how enthusiastic the players are going into it, and long game times (no matter how many players) always run the risk of interruptions or the need for breaks.
Making sure all players are aware of what they’re getting into definitely helps, but it’s just as important to tailor the game choice (or game mode) to suit the larger group. Some games deal with larger groups by having simultaneous actions or by keeping individual player turns/actions as short as possible, and many others have variables or adjustment that happen on the board or with components to adjust for different player counts. Some games, like Pirates, don’t do anything to address higher player counts at all, and leave it entirely up to the players. Just because it can be played with a dozen people, each with a massive fleet, doesn’t mean it should.
Again, it’s all about setting expectations. In general, the more players you have, the smaller builds should get, in order to offset for the extra time that will be needed.
-I personally find the game less enjoyable and less rewarding when players don’t want to play things out per the normal endgame rules. (ex: “calling” it) I recognize that real life factors sometimes have to play a role, but I think my love for the game overrides most of those. (whereas it doesn’t for many other players, which is fine and more normal than me haha)
I usually prefer to run games to completion too, but when it becomes clear to everyone that a certain play has “won” the game and there’s nothing much the others could do to change that result within the remaining time, I’m fine with ending it there. Ideally that gives enough time for a reset to play the game again, or to switch over earlier to whatever game was going to be played next.
A player “resigning” because they feel like they fell too far behind is definitely a downer, especially when there’s a significant amount of potential game time still remaining. Even more so when the game has a lot of random or semi-random elements that could very easily tip the game back in that player’s favor.
-So much luck involved that I can’t wrap my ego/energy up in winning. (ex: one treasure coin being on a different island during the coin distribution to islands could change the winner, let alone dozens of other luck-based things that happen during the game)
The degree of luck in this game is something I always really liked. A better player or a better fleet is still going to win more often than not, but there’s enough randomness involved that the game should never feel like it’s over before it even begins.
Those moments where someone takes a low-odds chance and succeeds, or fails miserably at something that should have been a sure thing, are always the most memorable. No one ever remembers the times where players are just grinding through the actions and nothing unexpected ever happens.
-I think it would be useful to establish different “game modes” of Pirates for the community, such as Unlimited (100% normal rules), “Fair Seas” (ban list to eliminate “fun killers”/unfair game pieces, and house rules to enhance fairness, address rule annoyances, and possibly shore up underpowered game pieces), and maybe more. This is something I plan to work on.
I’m curious to see what you come up with.
There are several things such as even the 40 points fleet limit that leave me wondering what the original idea was for how they thought the game would be played. Did they want fleets with only 2 ships? Did they think people wouldn’t use crew as much? Did they mean for players to be able to stack loads of Unique Treasures and only have a few actual treasure coins?
In the original set, the standard fleet size was only 30! Two-ship fleets and treasure pools with just 2 or 3 UTs (total) were pretty much the norm, although back then it mostly worked just because there wasn’t a whole lot available, and what was available was relatively well-balanced across the three nations (Spanish, English, and Pirate).
In my opinion, I think that the game wasn’t really ever designed to be played super competitively and as more sets were added unintended combinations, stacking effects and abilities crept in unmonitored that lead to certain things being at a power level way higher than was expected, which is why I personally avoid some of these things.
That’s not even an opinion – that’s exactly what really happened. The original game was just meant to be a once-off “beer & pretzels” game to see if it worked, and the rules were purposely written loose so players could easily modify it to however they liked. Even Wizkids was blown away by the game’s immediate success, and they had to rush extra printings early on because it sold out so quickly.
There were no tournament or organized play rules for it at all, and nothing was even planned, but there was so much player demand that they had to quickly pull something together, largely by modifying the tournament rules from their other games like Mage Knight, Mechwarrior, and HeroClix. The problem is that there’s always been a large disconnect between the precise, formal rules necessary for a competitive tournament setting and the game’s inherently flexible nature, and not enough effort was put into it (especially in those early days) to close up that gap, which is why all these years later we have a 50+ page FAQ to deal with everything.
In the original set, the standard fleet size was only 30!
Wow, I didn’t know about this! Makes ships like El Garante feel even more strange.
That’s not even an opinion – that’s exactly what really happened.
Well there we go then. The work on the FAQ has definitely done a lot to tighten up many of the loose ends, but I think it would take quite a lot of work to make the game “fair” at this point in a competitive sense.
Lots of good points for discussion – this could almost be a thread entirely on its own.
I thought about it, but realized how much of it applies to this thread’s topics and wanted to keep it here.
Thanks for your extended answers, I always love hearing your perspective on these topics.
I agree with you about some luck in the game being a good thing for sure. My lesson learned on that is more in regards to caring too much about the result when one d6 roll or playing the game to proper completion would have swung the winner. When the standings feel flawed as a result, I simply enjoy the game a bit less. On one hand maybe I should get into a less luck-dependent game, but I think I’d rather just separate some of the recent games I’ve played from the more competitive 1v1 standard games I miss.
@CrazyIvan: Thanks for your input!I think it would take quite a lot of work to make the game “fair” at this point in a competitive sense.
Probably a difference in perspective, but I think fairness is less important at the competitive level, because competition inherently means trying to gain some kind of advantage (whether fair or not) over the opposition.
From a different angle, I see your point in terms of making a competitive environment fair for a lot of people, especially newer players or people who have small collections lacking competitive game pieces.
Probably a difference in perspective, but I think fairness is less important at the competitive level, because competition inherently means trying to gain some kind of advantage (whether fair or not) over the opposition.
From a different angle, I see your point in terms of making a competitive environment fair for a lot of people, especially newer players or people who have small collections lacking competitive game pieces.
When I say “fair” I don’t necessarily mean that any average player should be able to rock up with any fleet and expect to win a properly competitive game, I more mean that fleets shouldn’t be able to win a game before an opponent even has a realistic chance to respond. In my opinion, a lot of the game should be decided on the table and players have a chance to display their skill at commanding their fleet. The power level of certain combinations and fleets seem so fast that this doesn’t look to be as much of a factor as I would prefer it be from my own rookie perspective.
Obviously I don’t mean to say that these fleets take no skill, but a slower paced game will always give you more decision making and chances to outplay your opponent which in turn makes you feel like your choices have more of an impact on the game.
Building your fleet should definitely still be an important factor, but with the poor balance of certain ships, crew and abilities it feels like the pool of realistically viable ships is somewhat limited if you actually want to keep on par with the power level of the best combos in the game.
The “Altar Meta”
After another game where the Altar of the Loa UT affected various plays and strategy, I think there’s even a chance that if Pirates saw competitive play on a large scale again, an “Altar Meta” could emerge based on the UT. Through a combination of treasure trading, spying/Maps of Alexandria, and extremely fast ships with explorers, one player can optimize their fleet for finding or using the Altar first. They can also put other UT’s into the distribution that result in additional sacrifices, such as Abandoned Crew and Castaway.
In the multiplayer games this year where it saw usage, neither fleet that used it the most ended up winning the game. It helped their prospects of winning, but mostly by hindering a few opponents (only 1/5 enemy fleets) rather than directly helping themselves.
However, in a 1v1 setting it becomes far more brutal, and monumental in importance. If a player can begin an “Altar Loop” where they sac crew to control the enemy, the first turn of control makes it more likely that they can then get more crew to the island to continue the mind control on subsequent turns. I would estimate that in a 1v1 game, two turns of consecutive control early in the game would be nearly impossible to come back from, simply due to the sheer amount of logistics and enemy sabotage the controlling player can pull off. Two rounds of full control would essentially amount to 5 consecutive player turns for the controller.
Building a fort on the Altar island is a high-level trolling move. It prevents the opponent(s) from docking at the island, effectively meaning the player with the fort is the only one that can use the Altar. When combined with the potential to build forts extremely early in the game, this could be a devastating double whammy for an opponent – not only are they locked out of any Altar shenanigans, the other gold on the island gets protected and the fort player has bought themselves likely another turn or two of Altar “security” they can use to ferry sacrifices to the island while the fort soaks up hits.
Multiplayer introduces additional Altar dynamics that can make for a confusing strategic landscape. If eliminated players are skipped, it changes which player the Altar would grant control over. This could affect alliances, suicide plays, and players racing to the Altar as fast as possible. The Altar can be used as a weapon for making threats against other players, such as “do what we say or we’ll run your ships into reefs”.
However, perhaps recent examples of Altar usage not resulting in wins should be a cautionary tale. Getting tunnel vision on using the Altar might distract a player from getting enough gold to win, or cause them to control a player that was not contending in the first place.
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