[Ben]

I ranked the Gaule ahead and although I stand by that, it’s very close actually.  Charlemagne is a little better as a hybrid (1 more cargo) while the Gaule is a little better as a gunship (1 more 2S vs 3S cannon).  I like S-boarding better than boring boarding bonuses, but it’s risky.  It slightly enhances the Gaule’s overall striking range (up to 4S with a helmsman and S-boarding ahead of the bowsprit), and can be used with a variety of crew (Nemo, etc) to capture or eliminate enemy cargo without getting pinned.

[Ben]

I think the Cursed make the game more interesting, I wasn’t a fan for a long time but I’ve just gotten used to them.  I just wish they had gone less crazy with the sea creatures and pokeships.

Banshee’s Cry moves L+L+S with a helmsman with 3 cargo spaces open for 5 points.  There are counters but she’s as OP as it gets.  One thing that frustrates people trying to critique fleets is that you can easily make a fleet vastly more competitive by just dumping the BC in at the end with a 0LR +5.

I would much prefer seeing the BC get banned before the SC.  She is far cheaper, easier to use, and pretty much ubiquitous in meta fleets.  SC is great but even has some competition from HMS Grand Temple and perhaps a few others.

[Ben]

And, taking sealed events into account, thereby pretty well locking in the booster pack/box distribution format. How they think Pirates CSG may have been different should it have been released in a customizable game format, or any other format for that matter, instead of as a collectables game/product.

Could you explain this further, or put it into a question format?

@Rick, Jack: Thanks for the additional questions!

[Ben]

This has been discussed at length in one of my favorite threads from MT.  My initial response is here.  Beyond events, I can agree that banning the Banshee’s Cry makes sense, but beyond that I think it opens a can of subjective worms that would just piss off the player base.

[Ben]

Well there goes literally the only reason to use a Smokepot Specialist besides fog hopping.

Actually, my favorite usage of them is with the Reverse Captain ability.  Shoot a bunch of cannons at an opponent, reserving the last one for the fog/smoke bank.  Then dart into it to protect yourself from the return fire.  The Muninn and original Grand Temple are good ships to do it with, though there are others that work well.  (some crew with RC of course but they’re pretty much never worth the points)

Also I guess Smokepot Specialists are 3 points, not the 2 I have on my card soooo

They are the overcosted one.  At 2 or 1 point they’d be far more intriguing; I find it bizarre that the non-damaging specialist type is the most expensive.

[Ben]

I’m hoping to live stream this on youtube tomorrow 4/8 a little after 7pm EST, so get your quetsions in!  😀

[Ben]

The idea was that the Mobilis might have to free Matuku from its pin by firing a smokepot, or otherwise use the smokepot to protect Matuku on its way back

That first part isn’t legal the way I’m thinking of it:

-The smoke (fog bank) cannot be placed under or in contact with any other game piece.

(Pirate Code)

[Ben]

A helmsman is important for any gold running ship but on gunships they can be lack luster unless you want to make retreat non viable for your opponent

I disagree strongly with the second part.  Gunships often need helmsmen MORE than gold runners because their base moves are slower on average.  Speed is the main determinant of who gets the first shot, which is important to any engagement.  Gunships also pretty much always need helmsmen to catch enemy gold runners, which can sometimes be more important than their actions against enemy gunships.

For example one of my most competitive fleets involves Belle Etoile with a helmsman, Capitane Arathiel, an Oarsman and LeNoir. Meaning that at it can go S+L+S+S+L+S to catch a ship and will eliminate crew with every successful shot.

Perhaps you’ve thought about using F&S Lenoir to add another oarsman.  I just much prefer having at least two sac-specific crew in a sac setup.  The helmsman is somewhat expendable between the S+L base move and extra actions, but I like to have at least 2 turns of saccing without making a tough decision on whether to eliminate the helmsman or not.

[Ben]

Very crucial.  Speed is often the most important thing in the game, and more speed will pretty much never hurt your fleet.  You pretty much cannot have too much of it.

But beyond S+L or S+S+S speed, is that kind of buff needed?

It’s not always needed, but it’s almost always a good idea.  L+S is the minimum speed required for every ship to be adequately fast, but in reasonably competitive games or outright “meta” situations, it’s often too slow.  S+L+S and 4S is best, especially if you can double it with extra actions.

I’m asking because I had the option of taking the HMS Greyhound to tug the Gibraltar, and it seemed absurd to me to have a double L flotilla flying around. I settled for the HMS Hound in the spirit of fairness, but it got me thinking.

I would actually go with the Hound in that situation since she’s a much better ship overall.  Though the Greyhound could work just as well if gold was very low on the priority list.

Once you reach S+L, how necessary is that extra burst of speed? Has anyone played with that speed and found it lacking, or was it just right? Feel free to comment and share your ideas!

Again, depends on the level of play.  Facing off against great fleets, you may need it to stay competitive.  However, I’ve played with ~L+S speed on many ships in the past and it can work fine.

[Ben]

Fantasma del Barón
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Spanish
Rarity: C
Point Value: 12
Number of Masts: 3
Cargo Space: 3
Base Move: S+S
Cannons: 3L-3L-2S
Ability: This ship ignores terrain when given a move action. When this ship is docked at your home island, you may eliminate one treasure. It becomes a 3S cannon that can be eliminated only when the ship sinks.

Flavor text: The “Baron’s Ghost” is a bit of a unique warship. Supposedly she was captured by the Spanish from another European power, though no one knows which at this point.

Historical Custom of the Day #423

Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar
Spanish
Crew
11 points
Ability: Musketeer. Gold Capture. One of this ship’s treasures is worth +1 gold when unloaded at your home island.
Link: Juan de Grijalva

You can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas

[Ben]

In the first fleet, you could use the Savage Shores version of O’Brien since she has SAT/Born Leader for the extra speed.  Not sure how the Smokepot Specialist is going to help much.

For the second fleet, the Devil Ray will struggle with HI raiding because she doesn’t have a helmsman.  In order to dock at their HI, you have to surface first, losing out on the +L bonus and thus needing to be within S of their HI.  Going back for a second coin will take an extra turn since she can’t just move away and redock on the next turn.  I love the Devil Ray, but still think she needs a helmsman pretty much all the time for maximum effectiveness.

[Ben]

So do I.. I think I may have over-complicated myself getting tubs full of ships and cards and am now confused where to start lol…

Getting yourself organized is a good idea.  My Fleet Review page may help a tiny bit.

Awesome, you can find all the main rules and additions on the homepage of the site here.  I’d recommend getting the basics down for a bunch of games before going into anything different. (house rules/etc)

I am a few episodes through your hourly campaign series…

Cool, thanks!  I will admit it’s getting slightly boring from lack of combat/developments, but it’s the type of game I love because of how long it takes.  If you’d like something far more interesting (THC will pick up, just not quickly and not suddenly), I’d recommend the campaign games listed in my Battle Reports Compendium.  It’s a collection of my best battle reports from over the years and will take less time to consume more content. (with the possible exception of Command the Oceans of course, which was just bonkers-crazy XD)

[Ben]

Welcome Chris!  That’s an amazing deal you got to get nearly all of DJC and some MI for only $16!  Look forward to hearing about your piratey adventures.

[Ben]

Peliel
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: French
Rarity: C
Point Value: 11
Number of Masts: 2
Cargo Space: 4
Base Move: S+L
Cannons: 3S-4L
Ability: Galley. Secret Hold.

Flavor text: Whether this ship was named after a pelican is not known. What is known is her ability to transport high volumes of cargo quickly and safely.

Historical Custom of the Day #422

Pedro Arias Dávila
Spanish
Crew
5 points
Ability: Marine.

You can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas

[Ben]

Seal
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: American
Rarity: U
Point Value: 11
Number of Masts: 2
Cargo Space: 4
Base Move: S+S
Cannons: 3S-3S
Ability: If derelict, this ship gains a base move of S. If this ship is within S of an enemy ship when this ship is given a move action, she gets +S to her base move.

Flavor text: The Seal is a slippery foe, always on the move. Whether under her own sail power, avoiding enemies like the plague, or getting by on makeshift oar power, she has proven a reliable transport ship for the Americans.

Palamides (“pal-uh-meed-eez”)
Type: Crew
Faction Affiliation: American
Rarity: R
Point Value: 10
Ability: This ship gets +1 to her d6 rolls.

Flavor text: After 30 years becoming a wise man in the company of the Jade Rebellion, Palamides heard of a whole new continent to learn from. He has joined the Americans in their quest to become a powerful nation of the world. His worldly expertise and guidance have already helped.

Historical Custom of the Day #421

Diego de Nicuesa
Spanish
Crew
4 points
Ability: Explorer. Musketeer.

You can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas

[Ben]

 I’d like to bring the crappy ones up to speed rather than nerfing the good ones though.

I can agree on that.  OE Acorazado is a bad 5 master and terrible compared to the original, but there are far worse ships.

I want to know what the hell they were thinking with ships like Hannah, Majestic, and La Colibri. (The “ships within S get +1 to their cannon rolls” ships that are all 15+ points)

The Solitaire is probably the worst ship in the game, although the Colibri (different ship than what you’re thinking) is quite terrible as well.

I’m fine that they made those ships extremely expensive, since they’re actually worth using in huge games with crowded battlefields.  For “regular” games I’d want the build total to be at least 100  to even consider one though.

[Ben]

I’ve thought subs and sea creatures could both be faster on average.  Though I’d much rather increase a few base moves than have Mercenary helmsmen give +L.  I think that would open a can of worms with power gaming – San Cristobal with SS Tsai could go S+S+L+L, as fast as the Hai Peng.  Not to mention 10 masters flying all over the board at comical rates of speed.

I think some of the Ex-Patriot crew just didn’t have great abilities/costs to begin with.  Between being “clones” of previous crew and the cost of Ex-Patriot, they really need something special to be worth using often. (Nemo, SS Tsai, etc)

I think they messed up relative speeds with the reverse power creep.  A lot of the 1 masted ships post-DJC could have their base moves doubled without a change in point cost.  Having the San Cristobal one of the fastest ships in the game while the Stingray and other RotF/F&S sloops move S or L is laughable.

[Ben]

Could you explain a bit more about the points system? I like that dismasting ships could be a viable winning strategy, but how do we balance it?

I think I first got the idea from here, then expanded.  I played a game (BR not republished yet) where we tested it out – one of my all-time favorite conceptual house rules.

Adding the main concept to the Game Ideas page.

In terms of balance, it becomes difficult to have as much gold in play as points.  For example, you’d have to include 80 points of gold to have a 2 player 40 point game with an equal distribution of points and gold.  There are many things you could do to balance things, such as half of your points in play instead of 100%, or higher gold values like 8-10 instead of just 1-7.

My conclusions after that 2017 game:

I must say, I like this new endgame variation, and not just because I won. It’s rather practical, and adds more realism to the game. Ships were very important, and losing a ship could be as bad or worse than losing a cargo full of resources. It really emphasizes keeping your fleet healthy, and trying to make a decisive engagement with another player so you can take ships and crew (and therefore points) from their fleet and add them to your own. In addition, it makes sinking ships less practical, and incentivizes the winners of battles to keep derelicts afloat and capture them. This is also more realistic, as ships didn’t sink from cannon fire very often in the Age of Sail. Finally, it makes combat more enticing since the gold scores aren’t the end-all be-all like they usually are. This is great because various people expected the game to be more of a combat game and wish there was more battling, and because gold running is usually more boring than the combat. I’d love to hear feedback on this idea!

[Ben]

Missed yesterday, so double today.

Blue Dragon
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Barbary Corsair
Rarity: C
Point Value: 14
Number of Masts: 3
Cargo Space: 5
Base Move: S+S
Cannons: 3S-4S-5S
Ability: Galley. When this ship hits an enemy ship, replace one of that ship’s masts with a fire mast instead of regular damage [this ability cannot be copied].

Flavor text: Experts at conjuring “blue flame”, the gunners of this vessel are holding out hope that the ship’s excess cargo will someday be used to store ammunition and weapons. For now they are stuck ferrying goods.

Tyrant Apostilary
Type: Crew
Faction Affiliation: Barbary Corsair
Rarity: R
Point Value: 10
Ability: Loyal: Cursed. Captain. Fear. Black Mark. Sac. Cursed crew can use their abilities on this ship.

Flavor text: A brutish tyrant ready to wage war on nearly everyone in the Mediterranean, this angry man has claimed his own sect of Corsairs to help fight with the Cursed agenda. He is very “persuasive” in his ways, and now has many misinformed Corsairs lining up to crew his ships that aid the Cursed in their unholy crusade.

Historical Custom of the Day #419

William Rhett
English
Crew
3 points
Ability: This ship gets +1 to her cannon rolls and +S to her base move when she’s within S of an island or friendly fort.

Historical Custom of the Day #420

Diego Miruelo
Spanish
Crew
2 points
Ability: Explorer. You may not place an explored marker on islands this ship explores. Once per turn, if this ship carries treasure and is within S of an island, ship or fort, you may randomly trade one treasure with the target.

You can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas

[Ben]

How would we place an equal amount of emphasis on combat and capturing?

I like using points in play count towards the victory condition of most gold/points.

I think it can be as simple as “if you destroy the other person’s entire fleet, you win regardless of players’ gold count.”

It makes a lot of sense, and some players I’ve played with in the past assumed or wanted there to be a “simulation” at the end of the game where the remaining fleet automatically got all the remaining gold in play.

However, I think it would lead to a lot of power strategies where people would try to kill the other player as fast as possible.  Fleets using ships like the San Cristobal and HMS Grand Temple can be very effective against good gold fleets, to the point where the “meta” could devolve into somewhat boring deathmatch play unless you always ran a version of the UPS strategy with Captain Jack Sparrow just to survive the onslaught.

[Ben]

I like the idea of resources! It would place more importance on treasure runners and gathering, setting up supply lines and defending territory, all that good stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I love combat, but resource management would give the game a lot of replayability and strategy (on top of what it already has!)

I agree, but a lot of people have complained that the game is too much of a grab gold and win type of game.  A lot of complaints I’ve seen have been concerned with how the win conditions pretty much de-emphasize combat, which can make it boring or less interactive between players.  I think a healthy mix would be resources along with captures and/or your entire fleet having endgame value.

Ive been trying to figure out how to add wind and rescoures into my games but it almost always causes slower turns I still love to use special rules to switch things up though.

It probably always will slow things down.  (+@Jeremiah) There are some decent wind rules at BGG of which I’ve used at least one.

It’s a compromise between historical accuracy (gold is scarce, wind is not; game has it backwards in a way lol) and time of play.  I like long games, but mostly just when they’re huge and I know that upfront going into it.  Unless it’s a super memorable game, I prefer to not have smaller games take over an hour.

[Ben]

I myself love to add a touch of mundane,my shipyard games are played with a circle of our extra ships surrounding play with a shopkeep token placed in between 2 ships the two ships on either side of it are for sale when 1 ship is purchased its moved onto the board and now another ship would be up for sale.

Interesting, that reminds me of my harbor system from a while back when I had unbought ships on the deckplate docks of harbors in big games/scenarios.  Example picture

[Ben]

I know this isn’t technically Pirates CSG, but I can’t help but share 3D printing/etc news occasionally because of how it could relate to bringing back the game in some form in the future.  Interesting to think about the possibilities if the production costs weren’t such a big hurdle to overcome.

 https://www.diamandis.com/blog/convergence-catalyzer-3d-printing 

(Not to mention Peter Diamandis and his projects could use more attention in general.)

[Ben]

Grand Pillaging
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Jade Rebellion
Rarity: R
Point Value: 21
Number of Masts: 6
Cargo Space: 8
Base Move: S
Cannons: 6S-6S-6L-6L-6S-6S
Ability: Junk. This ship may dock at an enemy home island and take as much treasure as she can carry. If able, she must leave on your next turn.

Flavor text: With an extremely large cargo hold, this ship is meant to carry valuables. The Jades have decided to use her to steal from their enemies rather than just being another merchant vessel.

Aethyris Landerry
Type: Crew
Faction Affiliation: Jade Rebellion
Rarity: C
Point Value: 6
Ability: Crew Protect. [This ship’s crew cannot be eliminated unless she sinks.] You may double the range of this ship’s L-range cannons each turn, but you must roll a 6 to hit.

Flavor text: Landerry is a former mercenary “inventor” who decided to join the Jade Rebellion full time after seeing too many tribal massacres in the Pacific. He has advanced the fields of medicine and gunpowder, so his expertise in those fields is greatly appreciated when he travels with the fleet.

Historical Custom of the Day #418

Christopher Carleill
English
Crew
4 points
Ability: Musketeer. Marines on this ship take up no cargo space and get +1 to their d6 rolls.
Link: Francis Walsingham

You can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas

[Ben]

@Mechavelli: I like the English fleet!  Though I hate the Treachery due to her flavor text (English are my favorite faction).  Hopefully you can sub her out for the Cumberland or Antelope sometime.  🙂

I once won a game with Marques Miguel Antonio and False Treasure taking up half the point cost.

That deserves a battle report.  XD

I once beat El Acorazado with the Zephyr.

Explosives?  Or just part of the game in terms of gold?

Interesting fleet you’ve got percolating there.  Angria is extremely expensive for what he does, and Chelios is arguably not better.  Mercenary named crew in a 40 point fleet is going to be rough either way.  Are you purposely restricting yourself to only submarines?  They do have a few options with 4 cargo that Chelios could be assigned to.

I’ve tried some all-Mercenary fleets designed to win.  You can currently see the main 2 at the top of this search.

[Ben]

One, does this happen even if the sub rams while surfaced?

No.

And two, does the immediate S move action interrupt a captain action?

Therefore, no.  The sub can’t shoot while submerged, and has no S segment to move while ramming on the surface.  The S segment is not a move action.  The Nautilus would actually shoot at the Bon Marin before applying ram damage in that example if she was on the surface, because the order of operations goes move>shoot>ram>board.

[Ben]

Mercenaries are entirely battle focused, and thematically they are defending their little utopia from invaders, so this would help with both of those things while tying into their stateless rebels lore.

That’s one thing that I’ve wondered about with the Mercs.  It seems like they’d go to the highest bidder and not really care about their territory or existing utopia/etc.  It’s interesting to think about what they could have been thematically closer to.  I’ve played around with their ideals and alliances a LOT in my custom fantasy set, with various “types” of mercenaries.

I also think that Ex-patriot should be worth 0 points, not 1.

Combine that with better-costed abilities and they’d be considered much more often.  However, I see the premium as two important things – they need payment for their services, and they can serve on ships of any nationality.  That second part is a much bigger deal than the positive of the Mercenary keyword.  SS Tsai essentially gave all the factions a sac captain, which automatically makes the minor factions more competitive.

That’s one of the things to consider with the Ex-Patriot crew that have existing ability combos – Celemente may not be worthy of Pirate employ, but a ship like the JR Sea Phoenix could make reasonable use out of him.

[Ben]

I would like to know how other people play.

I like to change things up.  I’ve played well over 400 games, with build totals from 10 points to 500.  My favorite of course are huge games.  I recommend you check out Game Ideas.

Perhaps campaign is a bad adjective but that is what we usual describe it as.

From the sounds of it that makes sense.  Any game where gold is used to purchase new ships and crew can be described as a campaign.  I haven’t tried resetting the map/ship locations before each session, but that’s something that CCM has done.

I’ve done plenty of campaign type games before where gold can be exchanged for crew/ships of equal point value.

Any memorable moments or specifics you remember?  Love hearing about CG’s.

Let’s give credit where it’s due: looks like CCM came up with the whaling scenario.

[Ben]

as a free action if your ship is 2L away from every isle

Interesting idea, but this seems very unlikely to happen in a game, especially when using the standard 3L distance.  (which I don’t recommend)

[Ben]

Devil’s Glory
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Cursed
Rarity: R
Point Value: 23
Number of Masts: 5
Cargo Space: 5
Base Move: S+S
Cannons: 3L-2S-4L-2S-3L
Ability: Cargo Wrecking. [When this ship hits an enemy ship, you may also eliminate one cargo from that ship.] Hidden Gold. [This ship has 2 extra cargo spaces that may only be assigned treasure.] (modified version of keyword by Xerecs)
Link: Gorskull Bulos

Flavor text: This captured French ship offers the Cursed something they don’t usually possess – good speed and good cargo capacity on a large ship. Assigning a less bloodthirsty captain to her, they are reaping the rewards.

Gorskull Bulos
Type: Crew
Faction Affiliation: Cursed
Rarity: U
Point Value: 7
Ability: Captain. If this ship wins a boarding party, you choose which crew is eliminated.
Link: Devil’s Glory

Flavor text: Although Gorskull Bulos has an affinity for decapitating his enemy equals, he is content to help the Cursed effort in any way possible. Lately that has meant ferrying riches away from Central America, and killing anyone who they see on the way out of the Caribbean.

~~~~~

Historical Custom of the Day #417

Trinity
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Pirate
Rarity: U
Point Value: 10
Number of Masts: 4
Cargo Space: 6
Base Move: S
Cannons: 4S-5S-5S-4S
Ability: None.

You can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas

[Author]

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