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What model ship is the Mars (Pirates of the Age of Sail)?
You’d have to ask Ben I think. He made the ship.
Report 7 is now up!
What would happen if Jail!, Celestine’s Charts, and Nemo’s Plans wound up on the same ship? Would the Plans and Jail! basically keep crew from being assigned to that ship? Would the Charts stay on the ship, or be moved as per its own ability text?
CoEC continues! Report 6 is now up!
Just like the S-Boarder ability, it can be used while submerged (or against something submerged) unless specifically prevented by some other ability.
As a follow-up, what’s the timing on the Selkirk’s ability? The card says “once per turn”. Could it be used like a canceller, which is also a “once per turn”?
But it works against smaller ships more so than against big ones.
Hmmm. That’s true.
If there’s less incentive to ram, there will be less boarding… unless other things make boarding MORE appealing than usual.
Being able to steal treasure from other ships and not being pinned. I don’t usually go for a board unless I have S-board or I’m boarding a derelict since I don’t want to be pinned. If I didn’t need to worry about being pinned, I’d board a LOT more.
I agree with numbers 3-5, but I’m not so certain about 1 and 2. It does seem silly that ramming another ship would severely damage that ship, but I suspect it’s a game balance issue, it gives the smaller ships a slight chance against the bigger ones, especially in swarm fleets.
Pinning makes a little bit of thematic sense, since ships of the time couldn’t really move sideways. I think they’d have to get poles or something to push the ships apart if collisions happened accidental or not (I could be wrong though).
Each +1 to boards should be only 1 point each.
Is this for every form of boarding roll bonus? Or just for the ‘”regular” this ship gets +1 to her boarding rolls.
I ask since you can have multiple variations of boarding roll bonuses, such as +1 for every crew assigned to a ship; +1 against ships with more/less masts; +1 to boarding rolls against X faction.
Not long ago I was in favor of having the player order determined by all the initiative rolls, with the second-highest roll going second and so on.
We’ve done that, but it usually feels like either oldest to youngest player or the other way around, since there are only 3 of us normally. We have yet to get a meaningful game in with all 5 of us, but I’ve tried a couple times in the past.
What fixes or clarifications would you make there?
Taking a look at the complete game rules section, it seems like WK brought a lot of the language from the Sea Monster keyword into the Sea Creature category. I think distinguishing it from Sea Monster might go a ways to clearing it up.
During T1 and T2, did you enjoy having some control over your half of the gold contribution?
Eh….. I don’t really remember how I felt when setting the fleets up, I remember the actual game-play more.
I find it more enjoyable to be random with the treasure selection. As I said, players don’t contribute the gold, the “house” does. We basically agree to a number of random coins on every island along with how many (if any) random UT’s. Typically we have about 10 coins per island.
We used it in the VASSAL tournaments, but I definitely get your points.
The VASSAL tournaments were all 1v1, and highly competitive, which I almost never play. If it’s not a campaign game, it’s a 3-way 60-80 point game between me and my brothers. Since I play those more often than 1v1 a lot of the 1v1 rules I’m not totally familiar with or use too often.
I typically play 3 player games (when not in campaign mode), and determine player order a couple of ways. All players roll dice and highest goes first, with play continuing to the left. Oldest player goes first and descends to the youngest, and vice-versa.
I don’t think it should be added as a general action (for now), but I do think you should be able to board a ship if the ships are touching, and not just rammed and pinned. Additionally you could revamp the S-Board ability and include that as part of a general mechanic instead of a niche ability on certain crew and ships.
I do like the back-and-forth option you mentioned, since that does make a lot of thematic sense, and could open up new abilities and what-not.
Boarding in general should/could be overhauled.
From reading this, it seems I’ve been playing gold bonus ships and crew wrong. When a ship unloads treasure and has a bonus, I get a new coin to represent that bonus and place it on the home island.
For example: La Santa Isabel docks at home and unloads 3 coins. The gold bonus kicks in, giving one of them a +2 to value. I go and get a spare 2 coin from outside the game and add it to the home island.
I keep track of bonus coins by placing them face-up, since I never place normal gold face-up during games.
Hmmmmm. Bit of a tough one for me. Some point costs are absolutely silly, especially among the Cursed, Americans, and Vikings. That said, I do enjoy the “power pieces” that are low cost like Banshee’s Cry. 😀
I do believe that fixing, or clarifying rulings would be slightly more important, especially where Creatures are concerned.
Do people think the standard treasure rules (8 coins worth 15 gold) are GOOD for the game? Why or why not?
Not particularly. It feeds into the “Half of starting gold wins” condition, which I don’t like. It makes the game feel less like a game and more like an expanded math equation, especially when people start running gold calculations to see if they’ve won or if they’re close to winning. I like unpredictability, which is why I use random coins when I play regular games. Furthermore, players don’t input the gold, the “house” does. We agree upon a number of coins per island, and if and how many random UT’s we use.
What is your biggest issue with the rules? How would you go about fixing it?
The win condition. I’ve literally never used it, and it makes the game go too quickly as well as putting an emphasis on quick capacious gold ships. I’m not sure how to fix it without “unbalancing” the game. The situation I outlined above works for me and my brothers, but I suspect just wouldn’t fly for most other people that play. Seems people like order and knowing as opposed to chaos and unknowing.
We are back! Report 5 is now up!
Abilities that steal or trade treasure by touching another ship, can those abilities be used by submerged submarines?
For example, Nikos Cheilos on his linked Fathom Submarine. Would he be able to take treasures from a ship while the Fathom is submerged?
How many ships can you board with the S-Board ability on the same turn? Can you even use that ability to board more than one ship in a move action?
Also, the Brave Selkirk. Can it use it’s ability while submerged?
Report 4 is now up! What could the Cursed have found!?
Report 3 is now up! What else is hidden out there?
Can’t wait to see this game in person in a few days!
Hopefully I’ll get another two reports up before then!
Report 2, is now up! What could the Americans have found?
Hyped that the game has begun!
Me too! Report 1 only covers about half of the first DAY of action! 0.0 Stuff’s been happening almost every day since then!
The Adventure begins!! Report 1 is now up!
The Rats UT says it cannot be unloaded from a ship. Does this mean that it cannot be transferred to another ship?
Is that only possible/relevant at Voya Nui?
No, the Lagoon Island is the primary island where that rule will be relevant.
Is it ever confusing switching back and forth between CoEC and CG4 due to the rules differences?
You hit it right on the head, digital v. physical keeps them separate enough. However, I’d like to one day have a game as massive as CG4 with physical ships.
Do you mind revealing who controls each faction? I need to know who to bribe….
Not at all! I am controlling the French and the Spanish. Gingerninja is controlling the Americans and English, and Darkhurst is controlling the Pirates and Cursed.
I like the CTO-esque twist with the map. Should make for some fun exploration moments!
Oh boy, oh boy……. 😀
I think this has been asked/discussed before but…..
What happens when you put the Power Cannons UT on a ship like El Neptuno? The code seemed to indicate that the Neptuno could shoot at targets 4L away, since the cannons would have a range of L+L that was then doubled to 4L.
An additional layer, what happens when you get Extended Range on that same ship? If for example you managed to get Davy Jones onto El Neptuno along with the Power Cannons, and Jones copied Extended Range from somewhere else. Would the feasible max range be 8L?
Almost forgot, I mentioned in the report that the Spanish Fleet was rather weird at the end. After talking to gingerbread who first noticed this, about 90-95 of the ships the Spanish controlled were hired. Mercenary, Jade Rebellion, Viking, and Corsairs.
Nice, hopefully I’ll see them in action before too long.
Me too. I’m crossing my fingers that the game will start during the week of the 21st. However I won’t be surprised if the start day gets pushed back into the early days of July.
Who controlled each of the 6 factions? Would be great to know for updating our all time data spreadsheet.
I controlled the Spanish and the Cursed. I admit that their Sea Monster/Creature launch was a massive tactical error; the pirate controller even said that if they had launched spar and sail gunships the Pirates would have backed off.
The French and Americans were controlled by Darkhurst.
The Pirates and English were controlled by Gingerninja (lord gingerbread). He was a little salty that the English were eliminated on day 1 about two hours after the game began. However, he’s controlling them again for this year and has literally been plotting and strategizing since they were eliminated. 😀
Insane that you had two fleets in one game that were BOTH bigger than ANY previous fleets ever seen
Considering how crazy CG4 has already gotten and the massiveness of CTO and CG3, that is really insane!
Of course, CG4 and my Pirates in that game are poised to take over both of those records in a matter of days…. though I’m not sure if CG4 will top CTO for biggest game ever this round.
No doubt. 😀 It’ll be weird starting CG5 for when Cg4 eventually ends.
Since I didn’t mention it in the final report, here is the final ship and point count for Century of Economy 2020.
Total ships at games end: 386
Spanish: 163 ships
Pirates: 158 ships
French: 64 ships
Total points in play at game’s end: 6,981
Spanish: 3,209 points
Pirates: 2,675 points
French: 1,097 points
Additional points not included in the count, these are mostly crew that are on non-home islands: 121 points
Total forts in play at game’s end: 11
Total number of intact Ports at game’s end: 12
Total number of colonies at games end: Precise number unknown, but greater than 5.
Report 25, the finale of Century of Economy 2020 is now up!