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I’m fairly certain I’ve asked this, but I can’t find where. What happens when two sources of the cancel ability get within range of each other? Do players have an option to use their cancellation on something other than the opposing canceller if in range?
A matter of timing as well. Lets say that I have a ship with a canceller, and it is my turn. I sail next another ship with a canceller. The opposing ships controller declares that they cancel my canceller, before I say what I am going to cancel with it. What I’m trying to understand is who cancels first, is there an order or is it as fast as a player can declare?
A canceler that targets another canceler prevents that target canceler from canceling something else. Since none of them can be activated more than once during a turn, they effectively wash each other out and whatever other ability was involved gets to function normally. The specific timing of which canceler goes first doesn’t actually matter.
When more than two cancelers interact, you first determined which cancelers are getting used, then you peel back the layers one at a time to see if the original target ability will still function or not.
Hello,
Question about forts,
When a Fort enters the game is it supposed to have all 8 flags mounted on it or is it only supposed to have flags mounted on it equal to the number of cannons it has?When built, a fort gets a number of flags equal to the number of cannons shown on their primary card.
The player who built it gets to choose the exact placement of those flags among the different mounting points.
several ships hidden inside of nearby icebergs
This caught my attention – sounds like something I’ll have to include in a game someday.
There were also some references made by the characters to an incident years earlier where an airbender created a typhoon as a “non-violent” way to disperse an entire pirate fleet and keep them from returning to a certain region. Of course, from the point of view of the pirates on those ships it wasn’t so non-violent, and they were slightly bitter about it. 😀
Something like that probably wouldn’t translate very well into the game as a ship or crew ability unless it was ridiculously expensive, but it might work as a UT or as part of an overriding scenario for a game.
Pirates CSG ship briefly seen in a popular video. Never thought about sending ships to random popular people/content creators lol, maybe a worthwhile idea.
That’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. How did you even spot that? Was there some lead up to it earlier in the video, or did you hear about it elsewhere?
Saw this in a survey response:
Why do you think Pirates CSG hasn’t returned?
“game “depth” versus collecting, too many different ships”
I like how many ships there are, but does anyone agree? I think more in-depth combat rules would make games with lots of ships take even longer, which would be a bit of an issue for me.
I like the incalculable number of options that exist by having so many different things available. It may have deterred a handful of people in the later days of the game who were overwhelmed bu the sheet amount of stuff available, but I don’t think it had any meaningful effect on the game ending and isn’t a factor in preventing its return.
Better rules would be a great benefit. Not necessarily more in-depth or more complex, but cleaner, with far fewer ambiguities, and some sort of plan to keep things consistent even as new parts get added.
As an aside, has anyone ever determined an exact count of how many different “unique” items are in the game? For the sake of argument, let’s go with the following guidelines:
- Each type of generic crew counts once for each nation. (A generic English Captain is a generic English Captain, regardless of set, item number, or artwork.)
- Items with a “Limited” and “Unlimited” version only count once.
- Alternate language versions only count extra if there are significant differences from their English-language version (e.g. the four German SM ships).
- Items with identical functions but with completely different names and/or nations would all count separately (copycat crew across nations, UTs that repeated in DPotC with new names.)
- Minor variances in text are ignored for otherwise identical items (e.g. the REV ships with the pointless Broadsides note).
- Don’t count things that were never released (RtSS, Adventure Book).
Of course that still leaves a bunch of things in limbo, like the “ghost ship” promos early on where the only real change was artwork and flavor text, the Jade Rebellion ships that returned in later sets with new flags but (mostly) identical stats, identical “reprints” like Rum (SM vs. DPotC) and Abandoned Crew (CC vs. MI), or things that exist in physical form but were technically never released (Ships in Bottles, prototypes).
Islands and terrain are a whole other can of worms.
I’m about a quarter of the way into my third time reading through The Rise of Kyoshi by F.C.Yee.
It’s based on the character from Avatar: The Last Airbender, one of the Avatars prior to Aang (and later Korra). She had only a few brief but memorable appearances in the shows, but this book and the follow-up, The Shadow of Kyoshi, focus on some of the many issues she had to deal with early in her life – one of the biggest being that pretty much everyone thought that someone else was the Avatar.
It’s a little more “adult” than the shows were, because it’s not limited by what Nickelodeon could air on TV. The violence is ramped up quite a bit, and it goes into a lot more detail on the kinds of things people could actually do with the various bending powers. There’s also significantly more representation included, which the shows (particularly the later seasons of Korra) were only allowed to hint at and imply.
As for pirates, there is a part fairly early on that deals with some. (Minor spoilers follow)
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Kyoshi travels along with the person everyone else thinks is the Avatar so he can sign a political treaty with a large pirate fleet operating in the region. One of the terms is that they meet on an iceberg, which puts the mostly-Earthbending contingent they’re with a huge disadvantage because they don’t have any of their native element nearby. It goes well at first, until the pirate queen decides she’s had enough and springs her trap, which includes several ships hidden inside of nearby icebergs, and waterbenders hidden under the iceberg they’re standing on. As things are spiraling out of control, Kyoshi inadvertently activates the Avatar state, and rips up huge chunks of the seafloor from hundreds of feet below to smash the fleet…
The fort building thing is kinda wild and may have slightly affected some T2 games back then.
I think the spirit of the rule is that you’d have any forts you might build included with and limited by your starting fleet, as if you were taking only that fleet to a gaming event of some sort, and you’d have those available for the duration of the game regardless of what happened to the rest of your fleet. This would be opposed to the reality these days, where you can have your entire collection available, and in the case of VASSAL and/or physical mock-ups, access to literally every piece ever made.
Of course, that’s not how the rules for forts are actually written.
Got another one: An enemy derelict (HI raider) is docked at a player’s home island. Can the player simultaneously tow (+capture) the enemy ship and dock home at the same time, triggering the automatic docking of the derelict?
The “move to touch one thing at a time” rule would apply here, so the ship would have to touch/tow the derelict with one move action, then use another to dock.
I just skimmed through the battle report where these came up. Interesting ending!
1. Can Maps of Hades be used to break a tow? (ex: a Galley with the Maps that gets an action from an enemy player)
Yes. Abilities that move other ships (as opposed to giving move actions) can break a tow by moving either ship involved.
2. If Spices and Smuggled Goods are applied to the same 5 coin, does the player end up with 15 or 20 gold on their home island? (doubled twice or separately)
Even though their text is slightly different (one vs. lowest), I think the no-stacking rule should really be applied.
HOWEVER, as written, you can choose to apply both, in any order, and using previously-established precedents for range-doublers, you can double it twice. A 5 becomes 10, then doubles again to 20.
3. Can a player trigger the “no future move actions” endgame condition by putting a dismasted 1 masted galley (or a 1 master with an Oarsman) in a sargasso sea (since they cannot roll higher than the required 6) IF another player has an L-mover like George Washington LeBeaux in their fleet? It seems the answer would be no, because the L mover can result in future move actions (from the ship’s actual owner) to the ship that is stuck.
The “no future move actions” rule is not contingent upon any actions or abilities of opposing players, so once the ship became “permanently” stuck in a Sargasso, it could potentially trigger that endgame condition. An L-Mover could delay that by pulling it out before that player’s turn, but if it’s still stuck when that player’s turn starts, the game ends.
4. Condition for building a fort:
–You must have at least one ship of the same nationality as the fort in your fleet.
Does that apply only to the fleet starting the game, or does it apply throughout the game, potentially eliminating forts you could build if certain game pieces are eliminated or removed?
The nationality check is applied when the fort is built, so losing all ships of a specific nation will cut off access to the forts of that nation. On the other hand, capturing ships from some other opposing nation will technically grant you access to the forts of that nation.
I can think of an additional timing issue. I feel like this could potentially be finagled to essentially remove a ship from play to make it immune. What if Davy Jones copies the Fog Hopper ability and moves into an enemy smoke bank. They remove it, and the player says they’ll choose the second option, “it will have to exit from a different one during its next turn.” However, the player doesn’t copy the Fog Hopper ability again, they copy something else. Now the ship is “gone” with no fog to hop out of…. (especially if there is no other fog banks in play and perhaps the smokepot specialist is killed/etc)
In that situation, the player with DJ has to make a choice:
Copy the fog-hopping ability, then move out of some other fog bank during their turn.
-OR-
Don’t copy it (or copy something else), and the ship plus all of its cargo is immediately removed from the game.
It’s essentially the same situation you could get into when using a standard fog-hopper without any permanent fog banks in play. If it loses its entry point and can’t find another way out, it’s gone permanently. Lost forever in whatever parallel dimension fog-hoppers use to travel from place to place, where even Captain Jack Sparrow won’t be able to find it.
Even if this doesn’t work, I feel like there’s some variation of this that could be used in a big multiplayer game to “ghost” a ship out of play for most of a round. Ex: Player 1 lays down a smoke bank. Player 8 (last in the turn order) moves in with a Fog Hopper. Then it’s back to Player 1, who removes it. Where is Player 8’s ship until their turn comes up? Can players 2-7 target the ship (with a Copier for example) as if it was still in fog somewhere?
The ship and its crew are still considered in play, at least until the owning player’s turn, so until then they can still be copied or targeted by other things that can affect ships in fog. When it gets back to the owner’s turn, it either has to reappear somewhere or it gets removed from the game (see above).
Q1) A Fog-Hopper moved into an opponents ‘Smoke/Fog’, which is removed at the beginning of the opponents turn. When is the decision to use the ability chosen? This is a timing issue, as since the ship is not being given a move action the ability wouldn’t be triggered. But can the ship still stay in the fog/ether as per the owners choice? Is it forced out since it’s the opponents turn?
This is a timing issue, but it does have a resolution. It either needs to pop out immediately when the smoke/fog is removed, or it will have to exit from a different one during its next turn.
Here’s the relevant entry from the Pirate Code:
- This ability may be used with a fog bank created by a smokepot specialist/shot as either an entry or exit point, even if there are no other “permanent” fog banks in play.
- When the fog bank is removed at the beginning of your turn, you may choose to roll and place this ship immediately (per normal the rules for smokepots) or you may choose to have it remain “inside” the fog. If it remains in the fog, the ship must exit another fog bank before the end of your turn; if it does not exit, it is removed from the game instead.
———————————————————————————————–
Q2) Davy Jones (DJC) copies the Fog-Hopping ability and moved into a fog. Since his ability is reset on the next turn, can the ability be recopied and ‘hop’ out of another fog with a move action? Does the ability need to be recopied or is it carried over from the last turn?
Copied abilities generally do not carry over, so he would have to copy it again to exit from a different fog bank. If he doesn’t use it on that next turn, he can only exit from the fog bank he started in.
TYKON XEROP
Points: 7
Nationality: Mercenary
Ability: EX-PATRIOT. Once per turn you may force an enemy ship attacking this ship to reroll any number of d6.
As written, this can really only affect one roll of one die per turn.
It specifies “attacking this ship”, which narrows it down to mostly just cannons shots, or arguably ramming and boarding rolls. Extra actions, possessions, all-powerful, and the vast majority of other effects that involve die rolls are not explicitly (or implicitly) attacks, even if they can negatively affect opposing ships.
It also doesn’t say that it applies to the entire action. During a normal shoot action you roll cannons separately and one-at-a-time, so really that “once per turn” is limiting this effect to a single cannon. Someone using F&S Diamond Nelson Turner would be really annoyed by this because you could force both of his dice to be rerolled, but that’s about it. Broadsides Attack wouldn’t care, because its “no other actions” clause already prevents the use of this ability.
Some suggestions to make this more useful and/or less breakable:
Instead of referring to attacks, make it apply based on proximity. For example, “Once per turn, you may force an opposing ship within S to reroll one die.”
Removing the reference to attacks specifically would allow it to work against almost any rolled effect that happened within range. If this was the intent, the cost could come down quite a bit, maybe even to match a standard reroller at 3 points (making this crew 4 with Ex-Pat included).
If you want it to apply to every cannon in a shoot action, you have to be more specific, and a proximity would again be less ambiguous than referring to an attack. For example, “Once per turn, when an opposing ship within S is given a shoot action, you may force it to reroll each cannon roll once.”
This would sit more in line with the ability cost of 6 (7 with Ex-Pat), but that’s debatable because it’s going to be drastically more powerful against a large ship than a small one. Not every reroll will even help, but forcing potentially up to 10 rerolls in a single action is going to be a mess, and could make that ability seem massively overpowered if ultimately most of those cannons miss. Abilities that vary depending on the number of masts on a ship should generally be avoided on crew; they’re okay when built into ships when their cost can be adjusted based on the size of the ship, just as long as you don’t try to reverse engineer that point cost to copy it from one ship to another different-sized ship.
Tiny nitpick: The PC has “This ship can shoot at submerged ships within S” with the “of her.” part at the end of the ability text.
I don’t know when or if there will ever need to be another update to the PC, but it’s noted in my master copy, so if a new release ever is needed, that’ll be covered.
Just to confirm, the “must begin the game S away from its home island” part of Mercenary does not require you to have the bow of the ship pointing at the home island?
Correct. As long as the ship is the right distance away, you can orient it however you like. With some ships (especially 10-masters), that can put the bow a substantial distance away.
Edit: Another little confirmation item. When a ship rolls a 1-2 to get an additional fire mast, I assume you don’t have to roll for that fire mast right away? (I would think not until the next action)
Correct. You only have to roll for the masts that were present when you first started rolling.
A single (starting) fire mast can’t take out an entire otherwise-healthy ship in a single turn with a string of bad rolls.
Rarity distribution is information that Wizkids has never released in any meaningful way, so anything known is largely anecdotal. People who have opened and cataloged numerous boxes have probably noticed some patterns, but it didn’t help that it seemed to vary wildly from set to set, and sometimes even regionally.
Then there was that short time when several people reported finding “god boxes” that were loaded up with multiple super rare packs. (I can’t recall which set that was. Anyone else remember? PotC?)
I guess I already know the answer, but Titans can’t repair right?
Correct. You can legally assign a shipwright to one, but those don’t grant the ability to take repair actions, they only change where you can give that standard action. Sea creatures can’t be given one at all, so the SW doesn’t help.
Your only ways to repair one is with that weird set of canoes that technically don’t exist (RtSS), or with Trees (UT), which is always an amusing visual to think about thematically.
Becalmed will affect canoes normally, because they cannot move while derelict. The fact that they cannot become derelict is incidental.
Forts do not block movement of Titans, so they can pass over regardless of ownership. However, they cannot stop over an opposing fort, because that would dock it at the island, which cannot be done at an opposing fort.
Is Calypso’s ability supposed to be mandatory?
At the beginning of each of your turns, roll a d6. On a result of 4-6, instead of giving this ship an action, choose two whirlpools from outside the game. Put one L away from this ship and one L away from a wild island. Neither can be placed so that it touches any island or ship. This ship does not have to roll for effect when she uses a whirlpool.
The way it’s worded, technically yes, because it doesn’t give you a “may”, “can” or anything else that would imply that it’s optional. Thematically, it kinda fits that way with her going crazy at that point in the movie.
However, I wouldn’t fault anyone for choosing to not make the roll every single turn. After a few turns of placing whirlpools that effect can quickly become far more annoying than it is useful. It also limits how often her ship can do anything, and makes it too unreliable for anything really important.
Great news: with google drive you can upload a picture that has text and open it with google docs to convert it to regular text. I just tried it with a capture of the original Custom Ships Organized Version thread (nearly 3MB with a ton of text) and it worked. Doesn’t preserve the formatting but at least an option.
Wow, nice! Even without the formatting, that’s really useful. Thanks!
It’s just interesting that RtSS has been known about for years now with a lot of the game pieces seeing play over time, while in fact we weren’t too far off from basically having 2 unreleased sets.
It was definitely a near miss, although if that had happened it would still only be one set unreleased – just a “large” normal-sized set instead of a half-sized one with a handful of extras.
I’ve always been curious about who knew the shutdown was coming prior to the set being split, and whether or not that had any effect on it. Splitting it into the smaller sets was presented mostly as a new marketing/distribution method, but it very well could have been a way to quietly push out as much as possible without investing in all of the artwork and production expenses needed for a full set.
The people highest up the food chain obviously knew because they made the plans, but it’s never been completely clear which people that remained within WK knew or when they knew. My interactions with Kelly near the end gave me the impression that she didn’t know until very late in the process, but it could have also been kept behind NDAs and such so she might not have been able to say something even if she wanted to.
If you ram a ship and make it derelict (wether it’s caused by the ram or the shoot action granted by a captain) you can’t board it anymore right ?
I think I’ve already saw the question asked in a previous topic but I can’t seem to find it.
Yes, you can still board a derelict. The owner of the derelict won’t have any masts to add to their die roll, but otherwise it works just like normal.
You can even ram & board a ship that was already derelict beforehand. The ram just won’t cause any damage, because that only eliminates masts.
With all of the shipping and distribution stuff that needs to happen prior to a release date, I don’t think Topps making the shutdown even two or three weeks earlier would have prevented the set from hitting the shelves, but it’s entirely possible that they purposely timed the announcement to come just after that and any other pending sets for other games had made it out. I don’t recall which other WK games had releases around the same time, but it’s safe to assume there was at least something for HeroClix nearby.
They didn’t really do much marketing anymore for the game even back then, so a complete lack of that probably wouldn’t have changed things much. By that point, I think the vast majority of people still buying the game were already well familiar with it. Have you heard of any new players that discovered Pirates or were introduced to it via Savage Shores?
Can a crew with the Sac ability successfully eliminate themselves to give their ship an extra action?
Nope! You would lose the source of the ability the instant it’s eliminated, which would also immediately take away the extra action it tried to generate. Because you can’t gain an extra action that way, you can’t make the elimination at all.
It’s an extension of the existing rule that prevents you from targeting other crew that cannot be permanently eliminated because something else is protecting them or because they’d return immediately. You can’t target those for the sole purpose of “eliminating” them even knowing ahead of time you won’t get the the action.
https://piratescsg.fandom.com/wiki/Keywords
you don’t run this one?Yikes. That whole page is just a disaster, and based on edit history, it’s been abandoned for almost a decade. Delete your bookmark to that wiki site and never look back.
Stick with the official and/or verified information Ben has available here. The “Information and Stats” section (in the menu at the top of this page) should have everything you’d need.
At this point I don’t know if I’ve even had to deal with the rules for [sand bars] yet since in my games ships just sail around them.
You can say much the same for terrain in general, or at least Reefs and Sargasso Seas. It’s been a long time since I actually sat down to play against anyone, but I can’t even remember the last time anyone sailed across one of those unless there was zero chance of it harming their ship. Even when using oversized versions that are impossible to sail around in order to reach certain islands, people just make sure to only use ships that can safely cross. It’s just not worth the hassle of getting stuck or damaged.
Even icebergs tended to be a non-factor unless you put so many in play that they were unavoidable.
At least fog banks and trade currents are super useful, so terrain isn’t a completely ineffective concept.
Alternatively, if I had Conseil link to all mercenary ships instead of taking up cargo space, would that work?
Probably not.The intent behind me putting dories on it besides just simply making him have the Bianco’s Hauler’s ability was to reward people for making “lore correct” combinations, and provide more incentive for players to make use of ExPats’ +1 roll on mysterious islands if they’re on their linked ship. I also wanted something of a nerf, as an ExPat that could let you unload within S and takes up no cargo space would probably get splashed into a hole bunch of ships.
@Jack – That would probably work. Leaving it exactly how you had it written initially would technically work too, it’s just an awkward way to apply it because of how WK worded the ability. You’d get the ability from Conseil as long as the ship had at least one other crew linked with it, making him kind of a third wheel on the lore connection.
I’m assuming someone has already come up with possible ideas for sandbars in the past, but here’s a quick take…
Sandbar – At the start of the game, roll a d6: on a 1-3, place all Sandbar terrain with their “Low Tide” side up; on a 4-6, “High Tide” side up. At the beginning of each following round, flip all Sandbars in play to their reverse side.
During Low Tide, ships with 1 or 2 masts may pass over Sand Bars without effect. Ships with 3 or masts must roll a d6; on a 1 or 2, the ship becomes beached (3-4 mast ships are automatically freed during High Tide). Ships with 5 or more masts become beached automatically.
During High Tide, ships with up to 4 masts may pass over Sand Bars without effect. Ships with 5 or more masts must roll a d6; on a 1 or 2, the ship becomes beached.
When a ship is beached, it cannot be given move actions and cannot be moved by any other actions or effects except by towing. A friendly ship may tow a beached ship even if it is not derelict; the towed ship must be released as soon as it has been freed from the Sand Bar.
According to Riz’s BGG profile*, he hasn’t logged in since February of 2016, so don’t hold your breath waiting for a response that way. With his website down and MT long gone, unless someone has another contact email for him, he could be tough to reach… 🙁
*If you click to view a profile page and scroll all the way down to the “User Details” on the left side, it shows when they last logged in.
Would the ability of The Kraken and Kray-Kin be considered a direct ability affect or an indirect ability affect, when in the same game as Holy Water/ Davy Jones Heart?
In other words, would the heart/water protect the ship it is on from their abilities? I’m led to believe that it can, but would like some clarification.
Those do affect crew directly, so Holy Water/DJ’s Heart will protect a ship (and its crew) from them.
Could a Ghost Ship tow a Flotilla?
Yes, but it would have to leave “Ghostly” turned off while doing it.
And would Poseidon’s Breath blow off one of a turtle ship’s shell panels instead of it’s mast?
No, PB removes the mast directly. It doesn’t cause a “hit”, so it ignores the panels.
Also if there is a captain of say the USS Stephens would that not be bad if there are a bunch of S-Cancelers in the game?
And also(This is the last thing) on the same note of S-Cancelers, if you have an S-Canceler on your boat can you cancel the ability of that boat or a crew onboard?
Jack is correct about these. Even though the sources are different, the Captain’s ability and the ability of USS Stephens are the same, so the no-stacking rule still applies. Redundancy only helps if they’re different. Cancelers can only target abilities on other ships, not their own.
Conseil
Type: Crew
Nation: Mercenaries
Cost: 4
Ability: Ex-Patriot. Dories. This crew takes up no cargo space.
The way WK defined the Dories keyword restricts where and how it can be used, so it should only be put on a ship that has at least one crew linked to it.
If this was intended to be a Mercenary version of Bianco’s Haulers, which the point cost of 4 supports, you should write out (copy&paste) the ability just to avoid any confusion.
I have a hunch that “eliminate a cargo” abilities usually meant just treasure, not treasure or crew. Every crew killer ability I can think of is only once per turn, so if cargo killer abilities were always meant to affect crew as well as treasure, I would assume they also would have gotten a OPT, no? Similar to what you said about Hidden Cove initially being a previously explored island and getting changed along the line. Is that at all possible? Otherwise, any particular reason why the cargo killer ability was made so much stronger?
There are a number of things throughout the game where the original definitions were ambiguous and had to be clarified/revised later, but “cargo” isn’t one of them. WK was always very specific about the distinction between crew and treasure, and how they were collectively considered cargo.
The standard cargo killers are a lot more powerful than the the once-per-turn crew killers, but they also cost twice as much (or more), so you do have to pay extra for what you get. There might be an argument to be made for adjusting the relative point costs of each type to make them more distinct, but I think they each fit pretty well where they are.
