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OK here’s a last minute one: What’s his favorite ship type? (Mine is the one-masted sloop, for example.)
“All of The Cursed, period – I know I’ll take some flak for this one, but imho wizkids sold out to “the dark side” with this faction, and we see the results today.”
My man Lordstu with a great take. They’re not good but I don’t find them interesting and would prefer if they were super rare ships that appeared here and there as opposed to a full faction.
I think Banshee’s Cry is fine, actually. Being a one master means you just need to ram it and there’s plenty of ships that can catch it now.
I think the only re-rollers that have the limit keyword are the 0 pt ones. Griffin and Lady Baptiste don’t have the keyword. I think it’s more about limiting your free crew. But yes, it’s not as game-changing as the +5 points ones
I don’t have F+S LeNoir, otherwise I would go with him and the extra Oarsman. Though CC LeNoir looks way cooler.
Well there goes literally the only reason to use a Smokepot Specialist besides fog hopping.
Also I guess Smokepot Specialists are 3 points, not the 2 I have on my card soooo
I think a Helmsman is crucial, and is probably my most often used piece of crew. I actually have put it on board S+S+S ships like Tiger’s Eye and Hades’ Flame before just to make sure nothing will catch it. 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.
I agree that S+L seems like the “minimum” speed needed for something to be considered fast. If a ship moves S or L, I pretty much consider it to be worth 2 extra points because it needs a Helmsman.
That’s a good point on the Devil Ray needing a helmsman, and I actually did have it with a helmsman at first before moving it to the Molina. SS O’Brien may be better than her original version here, which might free up 2 points as the Smokepot isn’t going to be used as much. (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)
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 unload the treasure. O’Brien is really just an overpriced Captain but at least provides a +1 on mysterious islands. The UTs and Cursed Zone help slow your opponent down so you can ideally steal the three best treasures they pick up.
—————————————————-Devil Ray (18 pts)
– Yeshaji Angria
Santa Molina (22 pts)
– Christian Fiore
– Captain
– Helmsman
UTs: Plunder, Buried Treasure, Rum
Molina is a decent battleship, while Angria on board the Devil Ray can make a beeline for your Opponent’s HI and make things tough for gold runners, while getting a good feel for where the best remaining coins are. The UTs slow down your opponent by a turn and if you manage to get them first thanks to Angria or steal them then they provide a big gold boost.
——————————————————————–
<b>Hephaestus </b>(28 pts)
– Herr Fuchs
– Christian Fiore
– Helmsman
Devil Ray (12 pts)
– Helmsman
One ship booms, one ship zooms. Don’t lose boom ship or else zoom ship can’t unload anything.
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 their cannon rolls” ships that are all 15+ points)
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 carefully incase San Cristobal could make it broken.
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 can’t divide the cost up evenly by mast, round it and the last mast is worth extra. So for El Acorazado 21/5=~4. The first 4 masts lost loses you 4 points each. The last mast is worth 5.
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 USS Lamon and the non-mercenary subs, but Nemo’s a genius afterall. It would make sense if his subs were ultra fast. Alternatively, maybe the Mercenary helmsman adds L instead of S. (This would also entice people to use Ex-Pats more often on other nations’ ships.)
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 in the game from the start, as suddenly adding a new universal game mechanic is not something Pirates CSG ever did.
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 13-14 gold.
Zephyr beating Acorazado happened just recently. Acorazado wiped out an entire Pirate fleet except for the Zephyr, losing one mast in the process. Zephyr was able to evade it long enough to set up a fort. Acorazado sailed up to the fort (Devil’s Maw) and hit it twice. The Maw was able to hit twice to bring Acorazado down to three masts, then Zephyr darted out and rammed Acorazado. The ram was successful, then in the boarding party they each rolled a 7, except Zephyr’s +1 bonus gave it the win and eliminated Admiral Castro. With Zephyr now blocking Acorazado’s line of sight to the fort, Spain just sunk the Zephyr to end the game rather than risk another turn.
Turns out, the pirates had enough gold in the Maw to win.
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 nation (France-Corsairs-Mercs) but god there’s no way around them being the worst at the base game. They might not have even been intended to be played as a pure nation, though the lore certainly indicates that they are all on the same “team” more or less.
I have exactly half the fleet pretty much set:
Devil Ray, Yeshaji Angria, Cursed Zone.
I think I want to use Nikos Chelios as well, which will allow for more gold stealing, as well as using lots of UTs to slow an opponent down like Metal Hull and Enemy of the State. But where to put him on? The Mobilis is cheap at 11 points and has a canceller so I can actually unload treasure at my HI, but it only moves S and if I put a helmsman on it then I can’t use Chelios’s ability. I can use Brave Selkirk to further steal treasures, but I wouldn’t be able to ever offload.
Maybe Devil Ray with Yeshaji, and Brave Selkirk with Chelios and Fiore? I really like Cursed Zone when using MIs though…
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 so only the “spine” is showing (the hull is set aside, and is still used to track damage to the submarine). When the submarine is on the surface replace the hull (minus any previously eliminated hull pieces). If submerged, a submarine can only move; it cannot shoot or be shot at, it cannot repair, it cannot dock, and it cannot be rammed. A submerged submarine may ram another ship, but regardless of success it must immediately be moved S away from the target instead of boarding. If a submarine is on the surface it functions exactly like a normal ship, except that it cannot pin or be pinned, cannot tow or be towed, and is not damaged when rammed (it can still board and be boarded normally).
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 minute… is Calico Cat Thomas Gunn’s daughter???
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 Inquisitor working together in a Spanish fleet, which would be make sense with Ozat being like a Corsair who defected to the Inquisition and taught them their secrets.
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 islands, and you can use a ship’s action for the turn to “discover” an island, by placing an island at least L-away from that ship, and 3-L away from any other island. Then the player to your left places a piece of terrain within S of the island, so typically between the ship and the island.
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 crew had had a unique ability, like Nemo’s and Greek Guy’s, they would make more sense thematically. At the end of the day there’s no reason for a pirate fleet to spend 7 points on Osvaldos when Geoffrey Flores does the trick for 6, but if Osvaldos did something extra (spitballing: maybe he allows broadsides attacks to be rerolled) then there’s an incentive to shell out the extra point to hire him.
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 have their linked crew aboard, they can begin the game S-away from a Mysterious Island)
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. I really like the Mercenaries and just bought a bunch of them so I’ve been thinking about house rules for them a lot lately.
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 Spanish fleet. Game 1 was close, and El Neptuno had a chance to put it away early but couldn’t quite get a second 6.
Game 2 was a slaughter. The Desert Wind single-handedly took out all three Spanish ships (El Neptuno, El Villalobos, San Theodora) before any gold runner for either side got to their HI. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a 2-master be so deadly. I got slightly lucky, as the 4-rank gun hit way more often than it should have, but the build does kind of make its own luck with the reroll from Griffin and SAT ability from me.
Yep! I like to use ships like Mermaid, Rover, Snipe, and Zephyr as fort builders.
Snipe also doubles as a fort-killer.
I can answer this one.
You must have explored the island and have a ship docked at it. Doesn’t matter when you explored it.
Also, you can’t mark it explored with a crew like James Cook and dock a ship at it. You have to have made an actual explore action.
