Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
If you hit a ship with a Switchblade, but then move away so that you are no longer touching the hit ship can boarding still occur or does the blade have to remain in contact?
You can apply the effect against every ship that the blades touch at any point during the entire length of the move action. You don’t need to remain in contact with any of them.
Sleigh/Whitebeard questions: Can the “Ho Ho Ho” ability be used on every player’s turn? (or just Santa’s turn; I realize it is probably every player’s turn due to your answer on the spying abilities from October, but it just felt too ridiculous to play it that way with this one)
It doesn’t specify Santa’s turn, so you can use it every turn.
Is the Sleigh’s ability to not be shot at and cannot sink one ability since it’s one sentence? (or separate for copying/cancelling purposes)
It’s a single sentence, so yes, treat it as one single ability for copy/cancel purposes.
Can an L mover move a ship out of a fog bank?
No, a move action is required.
Can Runes of Odin be revealed on any player’s turn? (or just the owner’s turn)
It’s not triggered by some outside action (like Loki/Thor, for example), so you can only activate it during your own turn.
Are flotillas automatically “docked” at an island when the towing ship docks? (thinking no because flotillas don’t have bows)
Yes. Because they don’t have bows, any part can touch the island to dock.
Do you get 1 gold from Ransom if you eliminate your own crew after it was captured by an opponent?
No, only players opposing to the original owner can gain gold from Ransom, regardless of what happens to the crew.
Am I correct in saying that neither of these situations trigger a player to be eliminated for the “half or more” multiplayer endgame rule: derelict with Eternal (can be scuttled), and a ship with Oarsman that is pinned in place by a sea monster.
Correct. The Eternal ship can be scuttled and repaired, and pinning will never trigger the endgame.
I may have been moving sea monsters wrong for years. Must you always move them so the white dot is the forwardmost point? I have usually played that they face “forward” with the tentacles of a squid outstretched which helps them be able to pin opponents more quickly. Is this wrong? I’ve noticed that by reversing direction on the dot and turning 180 degrees, it can produce quite a large “flip” as the tentacles reverse direction and cause a big movement jump from one extreme end to the opposite direction.
Treat the front point (dot) similar to the bow of a standard ship for movement purposes. It does create a big swing with the tentacles sticking so far past that point, but functionally it’s really not that different from a ship with a long front sail that reaches past its own bow.
If native canoes find the Message in a Bottle UT upon exploring, is only one transferred to the new location?
Correct. Even though they all have to be given the same action, they’re given those actions individually and independently like any other ships.
If the flotilla keyword is cancelled, can it still shoot through itself?
Yes. The body of a ship (including oars, turtle panels, outriggers, and the little flag at the back) never blocks its own lines of fire. Only a ship’s masts will block its own shots.
Asking for a friend: do derelicts block lines of fire?
Yes. Ships always block lines of fire for other ships, regardless of their condition, unless something else (ability, etc.) specifically says they don’t.
On dismasted ships with Oarsman: are there undesirable outcomes that are avoided by not letting these ships ram other ships? This has come up frequently this year, where a player feels they should be able to ram and board with a ship that has an oarsman.
That’s one of the concessions to “realism” in the game, because a ship limping along with oars isn’t going to be fast enough or maneuverable enough to catch another ship, much less hit it hard enough to actually ram it.
I also always got the impression that oarsmen were originally meant only as a method to maybe save a ship that was severely damaged, while the numerous other uses players have come up with for them over the years were unintended and/or unexpected. Making them also prevent towing was a much later addition/modification of the ability.
For Mysterious Island #7, can the new coin be a UT or a 0 coin?
5-6: After exploring this island, place a treasure coin from your collection with value equal to or less than one you took on the island.
It specifically refers to a coin with a value, so 0-gold coins are allowed.
Most UTs would not count because they lack any gold value, although one that did have a gold value (determined when found/loaded) would be okay as long as that value was less than whatever other treasure you took to set the max value.
Do you skip an eliminated player’s turn with Altar of the Loa if all they have left in play is a fort?
No. That player will count toward the endgame condition because they can’t give move actions, but assuming there are enough other players still going to prevent that, the player with the fort still gets their turn in the normal sequence. If there’s nothing within range of the fort to attack they won’t have anything to do, but that’s not enough to skip them entirely.
Can it skip that player if they didn’t have a fort? (absolutely no units in play)
That’s a discretion call left up to the person running the event and/or the group, that’s best decided beforehand, if possible.
If the “eliminated” player steps out entirely and forfeits it’s easier to justify skipping them, but if they’re still in contention to win based on previously-collected gold, they’re still part of the game even if they have nothing left to do during their turn.
If it was allowed for usage in a game, could the Sleigh start the game with Unique Treasure aboard her?
This ship cannot be shot at, and she cannot sink. She begins the game fully loaded with treasure from her controller’s collection. Her base move becomes 6L when she has no available cargo capacity.
If you can, could you include Abandoned crew in that mix to give the Sleigh more crew?
You can load the Sleigh up with anything and everything you’ve got. If it fits, it sits.
Is terrain applied to docking location after Message in a Bottle is triggered? (I assume it would be on a case by case basis whether or not the terrain rules say “touches” vs. “moves over”)
Message in a Bottle is meant to just dock the ship at the island, and not potentially act as another Lost, so the ship should be placed at the island in way so that it doesn’t touch terrain if at all possible. Following the standard placement rules for terrain that should be possible the vast majority of the time. In the rare case you can’t place the ship without it touching terrain (perhaps due to house rules allowing terrain to surround an island or something), ignore the terrain while docking the ship, but then apply it normally as soon as the ship tries to move away.
Is PotC Dead Man’s Chest automatically unloaded to an HI if you are stating not to use it for any gold? (ex: to keep it on your ship and use it at a later time, or it must be unloaded for 0 gold)
Dead Man’s Chest must be unloaded when you dock at home – that part isn’t optional. You only get to decide how many crew to eliminate, and you can choose zero.
Are outriggers considered part of the bow for movement/etc purposes? (Catamarans/canoes/etc)
No.
Can you trigger the Mines UT when a ship already within S starts moving? (regardless of which direction it is going, such as away from the ship with Mines)
You can trigger it as long as some part of the ship is within S during its move action, even if the ship moves away.
Can a ship still use S-Board if Mines causes it to become derelict? Can the same ship still shoot before that last cannon gets eliminated by Mines? For clarity, I assume the wording in the UT “end of her move” means her move action, not move segment?
The Mines damage applies at the end of the move, which puts it after any other abilities and effects that happen as part of the move action, including S-boarding and shooting with a Captain.
Do you skip an eliminated player’s turn with Altar of the Loa if all they have left in play is a fort?
No. That player will count toward the endgame condition because they can’t give move actions, but assuming there are enough other players still going to prevent that, the player with the fort still gets their turn in the normal sequence. If there’s nothing within range of the fort to attack they won’t have anything to do, but that’s not enough to skip them entirely.
Can native canoes redock at a wild island that was S-explored on the first turn of a game to take gold from it as a free action? (I assume yes because they’re given move actions, not explore actions)
Yes. The same applies to a ship that used Hidden Cove too.
If the below theoretically happened: is the flotilla’s movement (straight ahead with the St. Joan) blocked by the tentacle? (knowing that the monster cannot pin the flotilla)
Tentacles (and masts) will not prevent or stop movement if the ship is not pinned.
Does a forfeit affect existing gold scores? For example, if a player forfeits, does their gold count, or does it automatically become 0? (asking partly since someone could have an “emergency” and clear their fleet out and leave the venue, at which point they can’t claim to win just because they have more gold at the time)
That’s going to be up to the group or whoever is running the event.
It can be worth noting how much gold they had when they had to leave just for the sake of posterity, but if it’s being treated as a forfeit, I wouldn’t give them credit for winning even if they did end up with the most gold.
If some sort of running total is being tracked from game-to-game, there’s also value in recording how much they had up to the point they had to leave. In a case like that, I think it would be better for them to show how much they had to an outside party or someone running the event before leaving, without revealing it to the other players until the rest of the game was finished.
Home island raiders throw a wrench in the works for any longer-term tracking, because technically the forfeiting player’s total could go down before the game ended, but the fact that they’re leaving early kind of assumes their final total would have ended up higher had they finished completely. How to handle disputes about that would be up to the group or the event runners too.
If you use Hidden Cove to fling a ship to a Mysterious Island, can you immediately roll for that Island’s effects? If you can, can the target ship be given a move action to move away, re-dock and roll for effects again?
Hidden Cove docks the ship, so you do have to roll for the island effect immediately. If you used your action(s) to move and redock at the same island during that same turn, you have to roll again, possibly getting additional or doubled-up effects.
How does “This ship may dock at an enemy home island and load one treasure. If able, she must leave on your next turn.” work? Do you get to choose the treasure you take or is it random?
The player losing the treasure gets to pick the specific one you steal, so you’re unlikely to get something highly valuable unless that’s all they have. (The best time to raid is often right after their first ship returns home. Or, just make multiple raids.)
Also when trying to find an answer in the FAQ I came across the section for “Multiplayer”, which has among its exceptions from the regular 2-player rules that “Treasure is not revealed when unloaded at a home island.” This implies that you are supposed to reveal unloaded treasure in a 2-player game, which seemed odd to me as this isn’t actually mentioned anywhere in the rules. The rules just state that all treasure must be unloaded when you dock at your home island.
I’ve been playing that the treasure always stays hidden as it’s hidden when on the ship so it felt logical that it remained hidden when unloaded. Why is it the case that it should be revealed?
The rule to reveal treasure immediately is carried over from the illustrated rules, and ties into the “more than half” rule for ending the game. It’s not exactly the best way to handle the endgame, so feel free to continue ignoring those rules and keep using the multiplayer rules for everything instead.
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.
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.
Can you tow a tangled derelict out of a sargasso sea?
No, it would have to be repaired first.
You could also use one of the abilities that move other ships, if it’s pushed completely clear of the terrain.
Can a ship shoot after freeing itself from a sargasso sea? (by extension, is “its action for the turn” a move action?)
Not on the same turn, unless it had an extra action available. It uses the ship’s standard action for the turn, but is not specifically a move action.
Does Parley last for the duration of the attacker’s turn or until the owner of Parley starts their turn? (or a whole round)
It’s only for the duration of the current turn, not the round. In a multiplayer game, the ship with Parley would have to use it on each opposing player individually to avoid being attacked.
Does a roll of 5 with the Fear keyword affect abilities for just the Fear owner’s turn, or the whole round?
The 5 result applies only to the current player’s turn, so it’ll shut defensive abilities and continuously active effects like point reducers, but won’t do anything to own-turn abilities like a captain, a helmsman, or an ability generator.
If a crew such as Commodore Matthew Perry (American 0LR +5) is on a shipwreck, I assume that only American ships could load him because he can’t be assigned to ships of other nationalities? If so and it was not the original owner, would it be considered a captured crew or just a free crew?
If anyone but the original owner picked him up, Ransom would kick in and he could be unloaded at their home for gold.
If the original owner wanted to pick him up, they’d need a ship that could legally carry him.
For spying abilities (such as “Once per turn, this ship may look at one face-down cargo on any ship”), is it every player turn or just on that player’s active turn? (same wording as Canceller so players voted to have it apply to every player turn in last night’s 6 player game)
As long as it doesn’t require or generate an action, you can use that on every player’s turn.
If a native canoe gets stuck in a sargasso sea, is it stuck forever because it cannot roll higher than a 6 or not stuck at all because the sargasso sea rules refer to masts which the canoes don’t have?
A canoe is treated as a ship with zero masts, so if it touches a sargasso sea, it’s going to have a bad time.
I checked the older versions of the Code that you’ve uploaded to BGG but found no text differences relevant to this topic. Wondering if it originated in an older FAQ or a specific Multiplayer Rules document perhaps. For example, where does the current Code ruling come from? And if it originates from before any of the sets came out, why didn’t it make it into the Complete Game rules for that set and all afterwards? (which are biased towards 1v1 games, but the immediate vs. start of turn timing matters regardless of player count)
Almost all of the additional endgame rules beyond the “more than half” thing were built out of old tournament rules and rulings, where they needed more defined ways on how to handle games with multiple players, play styles that didn’t focus on getting the most gold, and all sorts of other odd edge cases that came up.
Ending the game when enough players had been wiped out was added so there wouldn’t be situations where some players who were technically still part of a game would be stuck waiting for the others to finish collecting treasure.
Ending it quickly (the next turn) after enough players were out was intended to address situations where one player would ignore treasure entirely and would instead build a fleet designed solely for attacking (in the days before action limits of any kind, often it was often just a single, massive, multiple-action warship like the Titan or Harbinger), under the originally-legal assumption that all gold in play would become theirs by default when there was no opposition left. Other players without a similar setup wouldn’t stand a chance, and when both players were set up for that, games could come down to a matter of who went first or who risked leaving their home island first, so that ruling and other similar rulings were created to dissuade those types of tactics, at least within “normal” games.
The printed rulebooks never really kept up partly because they were intentionally kept simpler for the more casual players who might pick up a few packs to try out the game. Also, and maybe even more significantly, there always seemed to be a large disconnect between whoever was editing the rulebook, the designers, and the tournament rules. That issue continued right up to the very end – just look at how long it took to finally get the action limit included in the actual rulebook.
As far as the “immediately” versus “start of turn” issue, as far as I know the official timing has always been the start of a turn. I can see where the distinction would matter, in a scenario where a player had ships in scoring position but used one of their first actions to knock out an opponent’s last ship. Delaying the endgame until the next player’s turn means they don’t have to be super careful about the precise timing of when they make that last attack, and it also covers an edge case where the “eliminated” opponent might still have a facedown Shipwright or a recruiter that could bring one in.
Makes sense! Thanks for all the answers lately, it’s been very helpful.
I think part of the confusion stems from the Combined Set rules, which state “The game ends immediately…”, which seems to contradict what the Code says.
You’re welcome!
I saw your post over on BGG about that too. That looks like just a side effect of paraphrasing things to save space. It’s fine for the vast majority of the time, but loses the nuance that covers the remainder.
Just to make sure I understand: For example, in a 7 player game where 4 players must be “eliminated” to trigger the “half or more” rule. Players 5-7 are already out. Another round starts, and Player 1 eliminates Player 4. Players 2 and 3 then take their full turns, and the game doesn’t end until Player 4’s next “turn” comes around?
I wasn’t as clear as I should have been earlier, or maybe I misspoke. It is worded slightly different with two players versus more players.
With only two players, it doesn’t end until the eliminated player would start their own turn.
With more players, it ends at the start of any player’s turn after the minimum number of players have been eliminated. It doesn’t have to be the start of an eliminated player’s turn.
Functionally it still amounts to almost the same thing. The current/active player still gets to finish their own turn before the game would actually end; it doesn’t end the instant enough other players have been eliminated.
Some fort wording minutiae:
“-An island with a fort is still considered a wild island for the purposes of all other abilities and effects.”
“-If treasure remains on wild islands but cannot be loaded by any player due to an ability or some other effect, that gold is no longer considered “available” and will not prevent this end condition.”
My understanding is that fort gold is available gold, but this seems to contradict that because ships cannot dock at or explore islands that have opposing forts on them. Is it just a quirk of how the rules or Code are worded?
Gold in a fort is always considered available with regards to the endgame condition because forts can be destroyed by any opposing ship, allowing the treasure inside to be loaded normally again.
Contrast that with something like Wolves, which prevents loading the treasure unless someone has one of the highly-specific means of getting rid of the wolves; if no one has that, there’s no possible way for anyone to get to that treasure, so it’s effectively out of play.
I assume you must build sea creatures in a configuration that matches their deckplate cannons? For example, Calim has two 2S segments and three 4S’s. They can physically be placed so that you could have a 2S in slots 1 and 4 or 2 and 5 (looking top down left to right/etc), but is this illegal?
They should be built in the correct positions/configuration whenever possible. Switching them around would be like rearranging the masts on a standard ship.
If PotC Davy Jones declares “no target” for a previously activated kraken, does that still use the ship’s action for the turn?
Changing the target, even just to remove the target, requires the full action.
Is the ship’s action for the turn used if the targeting ability is used and then cancelled after someone declares a target? (the kraken benefit is lost either way, but I assume DJ’s ship gets the action back?)
The targeting ability acts as a toggle for the Kraken/Octopus, so once you’ve spent the action and picked a target, cancelling DJ’s ability won’t take it away or give the action back. (It would be like trying to cancel an extra action ability after the action had already been used; you technically can, but it won’t alter what’s already happened.)
Cancelling Kraken/Octopus directly would take away the bonus movement and the target restriction for the turn, but it stays toggled, so they’d apply normally again as soon as the cancellation wore off at the end of the turn.
If a ghostly ship is moved by an outside force into a fog bank, does the resetting of Ghost Ship (since it doesn’t seem to be a “continuously active” ability) cause the ship to become lost in the fog bank before the controlling player can “ghost” out of it and ignore the fog bank?
Ghost ship’s terrain ignoring effect only applies when moving, so as soon as it stops on the fog it becomes “lost” like any other ship would, regardless of how it was moved there. When the ship’s owner’s turn comes back around, if they give it a move action, it exits normally (roll & place) whether they turn ghostly on or not.
If they do turn ghostly on again, after placing the ship on the edge of the fog it could immediately double-back over the top without falling back in, unless it stops on it again.
Activating ghostly while already in a fog bank won’t do anything on its own. The ship remains “lost” until it moves.
Regarding the Davy Jones’ Key UT: “Swap Davy Jones’ Key with one face-down treasure on any other wild island.”
-I assume it’s revealed when found? Or can you do a covert swap? Is it placed face down on the island it gets put on?
-If it’s the last coin in play and there is no swap to be made, is it loaded onto the ship?
-What happens if the final two coins in play are both Keys? Whenever one is found, it gets swapped back and forth with the other in a loop
The Key does have to be revealed when found, and remains face up after the swap. If you swapped it for another Key, you’d reveal that one too, then immediately swap it for some other face-down treasure. Repeat until you get a non-Key or run out of face down treasures to swap.
Once it’s face up, it won’t prevent the game from ending because it has no gold value.
Can you start the game with ships at your home island touching?
The physical ships can be touching, and might have to be because of lack of space, but for gameplay/rules purposes they are only considered to be touching the island at that point.
What happens if an oared ship is docked at a player’s home island such that no ship can touch its bow? Is the ship uncaptureable? (could see this as a niche “stalemate” issue with Wolves in play, no way to eliminate it, and no way for one player to eliminate the other if their last ship cannot be captured/sunk)
This would fall under a similar ruling to the one for towing when there isn’t physical space available to place the towed ship, or pinning when a ship’s front mast is removed or repaired. As long as no other ships are blocking the movement, the oared ship is actually capturable (no oarsman, etc.), and the ship attempting to tow it would have enough movement to reach the bow, you can move it in as close as possible and state the you’re towing it. The oars aren’t meant to be a physical barrier of shield of any kind.
That being side, I’m not sure of what scenario could come up where this would actually matter, outside of a player purposely trying to stall the game. If it’s sitting at its own home island, it can be repaired. If it’s at an opposing home island (after a failed raid?) and can still move away using the oar power, it must. Either way, if that’s the only ship the player has left, their opponent(s) can ignore it and just go around gathering up every other last bit of treasure they can get.
If Wolves are on an island and no one has a Musketeer or Marine left in play, any other gold on that island is considered unavailable and will not prevent the “all available gold” endgame condition.
In a multiplayer game, which opponent chooses the tied island for the Message in a Bottle UT? (“Immediately dock this ship at the wild island with the fewest treasure coins on it. If there is a tie, your opponent chooses which tied island this ship docks at.”)
The next player in turn order chooses, unless players agreed on someone else ahead of time. Regardless of who actually picks, the other players are of course free to give “advice”.
If you copy Sea Dragon to a Titan, can the Titan make swoop attacks? The Sea Dragon keyword mentions “base”, which a Titan might not have (unless it would be considered where it touches the water for copying purposes).
In addition, if you copied Sea Dragon to a ship, would that then be considered a sea creature and not be able to have crew assigned to it?
The TL;DR answer to both is no.
These fall under a combination of the general Keywords vs. Shipwright rules and some of the more detailed bits that fell onto the second page of the Copy ability section. Copying a keyword doesn’t change a ship’s type, and the swoop attack part of the Sea Dragon keyword specifically refers to “a sea dragon” (as opposed to “this ship”), so it can only be used by a sea dragon.
Likewise, copying any of the various sea creature keywords onto a normal ship doesn’t make it a sea creature, so the “no crew” restriction will not apply.
You can still copy any of the sea creature keywords, but because they’re all worded specifically for their type they’re going be functionally useless on any other ship, including other (different) sea creatures.
Thanks For the input! Will revise.
I think ballast could be a one per fleet crew but not have Limit.Like: You may only have one of this crew per fleet. You may eliminate this crew to give this ship an extra S to this ship’s base move for the rest of the game. (You have to include this crew into the build total.)
If it’s a named crew, the “one per fleet” part is covered by the no-duplicates rule.
Whether it can be duplicated or not is much less of a concern than the granting of a permanent, untouchable effect through elimination. If the goal is just to allow it to stack with a Helmsman, it’s going to be much simpler and far less problematic to just state that directly in the ability text, like, “This ship gets +S to her base move (this ability can stack with a Helmsman).” You can then easily add other effects, like taking up no cargo space or being unable to be unloaded.
There’s also the big question mark about what it represents thematically as a crew that’s being eliminated to gain the effect. It almost seems to imply that bodies are being shoved down into the lower hull to weight it down, when there are numerous less-problematic options for that.
Making it Equipment instead of crew would make it seem far more like a physical upgrade to the ship, and would keep it safe from most cancellers without taking it out of play entirely.
Does the Sea Monster movement bonus ability (Sargasso Nightmare, El Pescador, etc.) apply to the target Sea Monster for one move action or an entire turn? For example, if I have a friendly SM within L of El Pescador and I give that Monster a move action that puts it out of range of El Pescador. If I give that Monster a second action to move again, would Pescador’s +L still be applied?
Thinking about I think it might not, since the ability says begins move, not begins turn.
Ability for reference:
If a sea monster begins its move within L of this ship, it gets +L to its base moveIt applies only to a move action that begins within L of the ability source. If the sea monster gains a second action but is no longer within range, it does not get the bonus for the second action.
How does the ability of Intermediario interact with Mysterious Islands? Would his ability bypass any effects of revealed MI’s? As in, I wouldn’t need to roll for effects if I use Intermediario to get treasure onto a nearby friendly ship(s)?
They don’t interact at all, because Intermediario’s ability doesn’t involve docking. It will not reveal a face down MI, and it will ignore any ability of a face up one (no roll required or allowed).
If you do dock the sea monster at a MI before using the ability, you have to completely resolve the island (reveal, roll, apply instant effects, etc.) before moving treasure to other ships.
Another clarification: for the multiplayer endgame rules regarding “half or more players” can’t give future move actions, I assume you’d round up in a game with an odd number of players? (ex: in a 9 player game, 5 would have to be eliminated for it to end because rounding down to 4 from 4.5 would violate the “or more” intention)
The “or more” covers the odd numbers.
In a 3-player game, 2 would need to be out.
In a 5-player game, you’d need 3.
With 9 players you’d need at least 5 out.
When is the determination made on whether or not Mysterious Island effects will be used? Based on the Setup rules it seems it would be decided between placing islands and placing terrain, but before choosing home islands.
There’s not really any specific timing on that, but it makes the most sense to decide whether or not to use them before you start. At the minimum, you should decide before players choose the islands to include in the game, because allowing or disallowing MI effects will definitely influence which specific ones get chosen, regardless of who actually places them or where.
Just to clarify, when placing terrain, players can pick from the pool of what has been contributed by all players, correct? Or do they have to place their own, or randomly as determined by d6 roll or RNG?
Everything in the pool is fair game. Each player can choose what they want to place, and it does not have to be something they contributed themselves.
Name: Ballast
Point Cost: 3
Ability: You may eliminate this crew to give this ship an extra S to this ship’s base move for the rest of the game. (You have to include this crew into the build total.)
This one is game-breaking as written. For only a single point more than a standard Helmsman you’ve got one that is permanent, un-cancellable, takes up no cargo space, AND can still stack with a Helmsman. At the absolute bare minimum the cost needs to be doubled but probably even more. Adding Limit would be a good idea too, especially for higher-point games where players could fit multiples in a fleet, so this doesn’t become another “automatic” item that players would feel they need to have in order to remain competitive.
Tracking of permanent effects can be problematic too, especially in longer games and when ships change hands multiple times. It’s much better for “elimination” effects to apply immediately and only on the turn they’re used, so there’s no need to keep track of which hidden/extra bonuses are still in play a few turns later.
I think something like this would be much better suited as a UT that just remains face up on your ship without taking up space. Then all of the issues above go away entirely.
Name: Joli Rouge
Once per turn, you may roll a d6. On a result of 1-3, give her no action; On a result of 4-6, you may give this ship an extra action.
What is the intended timing on the roll for this ability? Potentially losing the ability to give this ship any actions for a turn is very, very different from being a version of the existing extra action roll with slightly better odds, and it’s not entirely clear from the wording which it’s meant to be.
Either change the “Once per turn…” to “At the beginning of your turn…”, or drop the 1-3 result line entirely, depending on which option you want.
If it’s meant to be the beginning of turn version, you should also add either “may” or “must” into the part about rolling to make it clear if it’s mandatory or not.
