Jack

OK here’s some spitballing for pure Merc fleets:

40 points:

Matuku (17 pts)

– Nikos Chelios

Mobilis (21 pts)

– Eileen Brigid O’Brien

– Helmsman

– Smokeshot Specialist

Cursed Zone (2 points)

UTs: Metal Hull, Enemy of the State, Luddite’s Revenge

Matuku touching a ship = 3 coins stolen. Mobilis provides security and a means to actually u…[Read more]

Can I put Ned Lands on board a ship with the effect “this ship gets +1 to its boarding rolls” and/or “this ship gets +1 to its boarding rolls, +2 if her opponent is a sea monster?” Ned Lands’s effect IS different than theirs, technically.

I think OE Acorazado makes sense with its flavor text. It’s a centuries old warship that was found rotting away in drydock and they just slapped some harpoons on it and sent it away. It’s supposed to be underpowered.

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…[Read more]

Are you telling me Seven Brothers isn’t the most broken ship in the game?

I think that if the game ever had an official competitive scene again that San Cristobal should just be banned. Just patently unfair and if they were still making packs it would restrict creativity because every new ability they could think of would have to be made very…[Read more]

I’ve done a system like this, but instead of points remaining ships that have been wounded lose points proportionally per mast lost.

So for example, if if the Raven’s Neck lost two masts in the game, it would be considered to be worth 6 points. It’s a 12 point ship, and has 4 masts, so each mast would be “worth” 3 points.

For ships where you…[Read more]

Yeah, there’s no point in hiring out mercenaries if they’re not better than what you already have available!

So I’ve been reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and it gave me another idea to help buff Mercenaries, or at least submarines. In the book, the Nautilus is capable of moving at least twice as fast as the Abraham Lincoln. That begs the question why make submarines so slow in the game? I suppose for balance reasons, and that would hold true for U…[Read more]

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

Ooh, good topic.

Wind is a big one, but I’ll go with resources/resource management. Most of my favorite strategy games are about managing resources in some way. Gold isn’t really a resource since you can’t exchange it for anything except in the case of Carbon Charlie and some random RotF ship. It seems like it would’ve had to have been something…[Read more]

I’ll take a look at your fleets. I really like the submarines lore-wise but I could see myself going for one of their wooden ships + Devil Ray if that makes it somewhat more playable.

As for the other fleets:

I forget what the other fleet was in the Antonio/False Treasure game but I got really lucky with False Treasure, I think it eliminated…[Read more]

I’ve managed to make a couple decent offensive Corsair fleets. I once won a game with Marques Miguel Antonio and False Treasure taking up half the point cost. I once beat El Acorazado with the Zephyr. But now I face my toughest challenge yet… building a mercenary fleet that can actually win a game.

The mercenaries are probably my third favorite…[Read more]

Nope.

Full text for submarine on the master keyword list:

A ship with this keyword printed on its deckplate card has removable hull pieces that are treated exactly the same as masts on a normal ship. At the beginning of your turn, decide if the submarine is submerged or on the surface. If submerged, lift the submarine’s hull from its base s…[Read more]

Only submarines can ram while submerged:

Sea Monster: If submerged, a sea monster can only move; it cannot shoot or be shot at, and it cannot dock or touch other ships

Submarine:  A submerged submarine may ram another ship, but regardless of success it must immediately be moved S away from the target instead of boarding.

I wanted to ask a question about mercenaries but then I reread the original post and saw he stopped working on it after Spanish Main :/

Here’s a sillier one: What happened to Thomas Gunn the Elder? His son goes on to be one of England’s most legendary heroes, but pops just gets one appearance. Did he ever get his daughter Catherine back?

Wait a…[Read more]

In that vein, I bought Ibrahan Ozat in part to use in Corsair fleets. He’s a former Corsair in lore, so it kind of makes sense, but I haven’t really found a spot for him. Only the Janissaries Blood can hold him+Hawkins+DJC Skyme, and it would only have one cargo spot left so Skyme would be useless. I’m thinking of trying out a game with Ozat + The…[Read more]

I usually play the standard 4 island, 40 point, 30 gold game. I’ve done plenty of campaign type games before where gold can be exchanged for crew/ships of equal point value.

In general I would just like to see terrain get used more in the game. So I like the idea of searching for something hidden by the fog, like a UT or something. I generally don’t even use terrain honestly.

One alternate rule that I’ve used that slows the game down well and makes terrain in general more useful is that you only begin with home…[Read more]

I also think that Ex-patriot should be worth 0 points, not 1. Their named crew have very powerful effects, and the ability to use them on any ship ties into the whole idea of Ex-pats and mercenaries, but paying one extra point for a small head start and inability to dock at your HI for repairs is not a good trade off. And I think that if every…[Read more]

What I want to try for a tweak is this:

If there are Mysterious Islands in play, Mercenary ships can start S-away from one. However, you can not do this if there are any ships in your fleet which do not belong to the Mercenary faction. (Ex-pats on a ship that originally belonged to another nation are fine.)

(Alternatively: If Mercenary ships…[Read more]

Well I certainly had a good day today.

In my eternal quest to make a Corsair fleet with offensive ability that doesn’t use Tiger’s Eye, I put together one using myself (Barbary Corsair version of course) on board the Desert Wind with Griffin and a Chainshot Specialist, with two cheap gold runners.

Tested this against a solid but not great S…[Read more]