Finally, a Peaceful Round | New Records as Usual | 2025 CG4 Turn
Table of Contents
- Pirates
- The Cursed
- Vikings
- Barbary Corsairs
- Point Count
- Summary
All rules can be found in the first Battle Report for the game.
Reference Links: All previous CG4 Battle Reports | Wizkids game pieces | Master Spreadsheet which includes Return to Savage Shores and Unreleased | Customs Database
-As always, it’s highly recommended that you read the previous battle reports to understand how the game works and what has happened so far.
Custom Sets in play (by the end of this report) with abbreviations (some new this round) and creator name. (from now on, only the set abbreviation will be used for the launch phase specifics – that way you can find the customs used in the Customs Database if desired)
Age of Sail (AoS), Epic Seas (ES), Golden Seas (GS) – A7XfanBen
Return of Davy Jones (RoDJ), Fiends of the Blood Islands (FoBI), Spherus Magna (SpMa) – Xerecs
Great Sea (GrS), Rise of the Moon Sorcerer (MS) – El Cazador
Dark Tides (DT), Seas of Doom (SoD), Eldest Seas (ELS) – JW Darkhurst
Vengeance of the Cadet Captain (VotCC) – Cadet-Captain Mike
Back to War (B2W) – The Grandmaster/PointlessArrow
Dutch East Indies (DEI) – Avery
Treasure Trove of Fenrir (TT) – Woelf
Lost Isles (LI) – Shockwave
Godmason’s Customs
Marhawkman’s Customs
Obsidian Isles (OI), Siren Islands (SI), Oceans of the Apocalypse (OotA) – projekt355
Islands of Ice (IofI), Journeys Through the Cursed Swamp (JTC), Age of Extinction (AoE), Search for Golden Shores (SfGS), Rise of the Rebellion (RotR) – Pirate Captain Andrew/DoubleAAsauce
Baltic Sea (BS) – Skelebone
Treacherous Waters (TW) – Ochobrazo2298
Pirates Who Never Met (PWM), Pirates Who Spent Too Much Time Together (STM) – Gazerbeam543
Forgotten Coast (FC) – Riz
Treachery on the High Seas (T), The Golden Age (TGA), – Vladsimpaler
Kraken Sea (KS) – mr_awesome
Lighthouses by The9ofSpades
Pirates of the Sendoran Coast (SC) – Captain Vendari’s customs
That’s a whopping 35 custom sets being used! Nearly all custom creators of Pirates CSG game pieces are represented in CG4!
The theme of my overall turn was a revamp. Before my turn even started, there were two significant changes related to the VASSAL virtual board game engine the game is played with. cawley333 made some great edits to the Pirates module, adding the missing ship and sea creature types! This opens up CG4 to a bunch of types that were previously not represented at all. It also eliminates the need to proxy for certain ship types, such as using 1 masted galleys in place of native canoes. The other big change was when I made a new Pirates module specifically for CG4. This was bound to happen at some point, because we were already running out of deckplate space on the non-play borders of the map. I made a new “CG4 module” that massively expands the border areas, booted up the game in the new module, and then proceeded to move all the game pieces into place so they were in the right spot again. The old module with regular size borders had enough room for around 558 deckplates. I basically 10x’d the size of the non-play (desert/tan color) border edges, so now we should have room for approximately 5500+ deckplates, likely enough space for decades of continued play. Right now each round usually sees at least 70 new ships launched (a rate that will probably increase as new launch points are built), so this was the perfect time to do the module edit and expansion to accommodate the massive and growing game size.
Continuing that theme, I undertook major reorganization efforts. The spreadsheet I use to track each of my fleets was expanded and sections were created for the smaller fleets (Corsairs and Vikings) that didn’t have them before. In addition, I needed a new system to catalog the severe amount of game pieces available for each fleet to launch. To solve that issue, I’ve made faction-specific versions of both the Master Spreadsheet and the Customs Database for CG4. I control 4 fleets, so that means I now have 8 additional spreadsheets for the game. There are large logistical and tracking challenges involved in commanding over 400 ships. The spreadsheets are mainly to track which game pieces are still available to a faction, to avoid violating the No-Duplicates Rule. When a game piece is launched/hired/bought, I simply hide the row in the spreadsheet. This way the custom MS+CD sheets are a “quick” and handy reference guide to all game pieces still available to that faction when they enter their launch phase.
With the massively expanded deckplate areas, I decided to do a massive reorganization of ALL my fleet deckplate areas. In the past I just added new deckplates to the edges of each row/column for each fleet, creating somewhat of a chaotic and haphazard mess. Finding a specific ship (let alone crew/equipment token) in the pool of deckplates was time-consuming and annoying. Now my fleet areas are generally organized similar to how I section them off in the tracking spreadsheet. Ex: a section for Upgrade ships, a section for a specific combat squadron, a section for copying game pieces, a section for patrol gunships, etc. Below you can see why this is necessary – the Pirate Whirlpool Strike Group (WSG) numbers around 100 total ships now, making a decent organization system a necessity.
Not many major events occurred for the other player’s factions, save for the English megalaunch. They used their new riches from the Viking “gift Trove” (Hidden Trove UT) to put many new ships in play. The Spanish continued sailing away from their home island.
The actual turns I played were rather quiet and peaceful. This round really marked a complete reversal from most “recent” previous rounds from the past 4-5 years: almost no combat, and far more time spent planning/organizing than actually playing. As a result, this battle report will be shorter than the last CG4 BR, and possibly the shortest for a while. At the bottom there is a summary video of my turn as well.
My last overall turn took 72 total hours. This one took 65 hours: 61 for planning and playing, and 4 for the battle report. Play dates ranged from 8/27-10/12. That doesn’t include the hours spent making the module edits and getting the game file ready in the new CG4 module. I expect this to be an extreme rarity – usually each successive turn takes more hours than the last, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I have a 100 hour turn in the next few rounds. This is probably the first Pirates game where I’ve wondered to myself if it’s “too big to play”. The key is that it’s on VASSAL, so there’s no setup to dismantle, no move that can interrupt the tables, and no sudden obligations that can make finishing a physical campaign game nearly impossible. We’ve been going since April 2018, and to say there’s no end in sight would be a massive understatement.
Pirates
240 Ships, 5797 Points in Play
With all the crazy details in previous reports, here’s a very quick summary of what the next section is about. The Pirates have a ship (Arcane) that can bring in a UT from outside the game on a 6 roll. They have ways of “multiplying” how many rolls they get per turn between a bevy of rerollers, custom abilities, and multiple different sources of copying. They also have multiple auto-6’s via copies of Nemo’s Plans and Runes of Thor brought in earlier in the game. Given that the number of rolls related to this “UT meta” system increases pretty much every round, from now on I’m likely to simply summarize the results of the rolls in a fast format.
Arcane rolls:
Arcane: failed all 3 rolls, used one auto-6 to get it. Brought in: Nemo’s Plans on Sudden Death ship.
Smoke’s Hand: got a 4->boosted to 6 with double bonus. Brought in: Runes of Thor on Sudden Death.
Vesok: failed all 3 rolls, used 2nd auto-6 to get it. Brought in: Nemo’s Plans on Klabautermann.
Nuva/shipwright (copying Vesok->Arcane): fails all 3 rolls, used 3rd auto-6 to get it. Brought in: Runes of Thor on Klabautermann.
Sphinx (EoI>Captain>DJ>Arcane): failed, used 4th (1st of 2 new) auto-6 to get it. Brought in: Eye of Insanity on Jaguar.
Auto-6’s used: 5/5
Shrunken Heads was used to move Jackal’s Teeth into an iceberg – hostility against the Corsairs without breaking their agreement (from last round) and not “attacking” them. Meshud was smashed up in a similar manner, courtesy of the Stormy Night.
The Blackleaf has upgraded the far northeast spice island, making it a Pirate town. She still carries a military port upgrade as well, which she will likely use to further upgrade the island next turn. This island was peacefully and profitably shared by the Corsairs and English, so it may prompt even more combat in this hot region….
The Pirates finally executed on their chain exploring setup, transferring 7 Metals tokens from their southeastern military port to their home island via explore actions rather than move actions. However, since most of the ships in those 2 chains would be better off as WSG supply ships, they likely won’t continue running the chain exploring gimmick for long.
With Gale Force Nine escorting her, the Hai Peng upgraded the big textiles island shared by the English and Corsairs to a Pirate town. She has a military port upgrade aboard as well. This is a very worrying development, as it appears the Pirates are snatching up islands left and right, denying their resources to factions that relied on such islands.
The Stormcloud got Robert Alcantara’s EA and went into a fog bank.
The Tempest created a new whirlpool, just northeast of the Pirate metals military port. This could provide a very convenient access point for new ships launched from said port, and ships going there to repair.
The Slash (Pirate WSG attack ship) got an EA to sink the Crown Jewel! (Corsair 10 master that was doomed anyway from last round’s counterattack)
The last Pirate actions of the turn were through their lone AA and Elizabeth’s Piece of Eight (UT). Harbinger sailed into the southeastern fogpool, and the Howler submarine repaired with her new shipwright (gifted to her via the custom Pandora on a dinghy).
The Pirates did a lot of regrouping on their turn. Many WSG ships gathered around whirlpools. All of their fog hoppers either entered fog banks, or exited a fog bank and re-entered it.
“Prepare for slaughter.”
Pirate Launch Phase
Any custom game pieces launched will have their set abbreviation in parentheses so you can use the reference near the beginning of this post to see who they’re from and in the Customs Database if you want to check them out in full (ctrl+h works really well to find things quickly). There are a few exceptions for very commonly used generic customs, such as Dinghy from PointlessArrow’s Back to War (B2W) set and Gilded Figurehead and Streamlined Hull from Woelf’s Treasure Trove of Fenrir (TT) set.
MP=Military Port | C=Captain | H=Helmsman | O=Oarsman | S=Shipwright | E=Explorer | WH=World Hater | FPS=Firepot Specialist | CSS=Chainshot Specialist | SmPS=Smokepot Specialist
As usual the Pirates megalaunched from all four of their launch points, putting as many new ships in play as possible. They are still a long ways from running out of ships to launch, so this is likely to continue for many more rounds (and then after that, they can still launch duplicate original ships with the “Complete the Fleet” rule).
From now on I might just do what I’ve done below and list (almost) all game pieces introduced, regardless of whether or not some crew or equipment chips are face down in the actual game. I know it’s throwing caution to the wind, but it’s annoying to publish some and write “3 crew, 2 equipment” for others. I also like how always listing everything here serves as a nice look back at when things were introduced, when named crew were hired, etc. My fleets are also so large that I might just be past the point of caring lol. Lastly, I suppose seeing the full names might serve as an intimidation factor for the other players, knowing or researching how nasty some of the setups are.
Home Island: 6 ships, 142 points
Sea Fox + CHOS, exploding shot (23)
Sea Lizard + CH (11)
Sister’s Rage + CHO, stinkpot specialist, CSS (21)
Xi’an + CHO (14)
Hanyu Pinyin + CHO, exploding shot (19)
Jape + CHOS, FPS (22)
+32 points for cargo on ships already there
Many ships were already docked at their HI for repairs/copying/cargo loading/etc, so there wasn’t a lot of room to launch. Here’s the northern half:
Textiles MP: 8 ships, 174 points
Anti-Corsair Defense Squadron:
Morning Star + CHOS, FPS, cannoneer (24)
Lady’s Scorn + CHOS, cannoneer, exploding shot (29)
Dragon’s Breath + CHOS, exploding shot (23)
Black Diamond + CHOS, musketeer (25)
Bloody Throne + CHOS (17)
Empress + CHOS, FPS (21)
Tiger + CHO, musketeer (20)
El Ballista + CHO (15)
Metals MP: 6 ships, 176 points
Angelica (19)
Seleucis (15)
Rat’s Lair (OotA) + HSO, Dinghy x2, Ballista x2 (38)
Lucy’s Boot (STM) + HS, 5x oarsmen (18)
Alkatiba (BS) + helmsman, Dinghy, shipwright x2, oarsmen x4 (26)
Tiger Moth (FaSh) + helmsman, Dinghy, shipwright x2, oarsmen x4 (26)
+34 points for cargo on ships already there
Skull Valley fort (at Archipelago island): 11 ships, 360 points
Black Phoenix (GS) + Lord Garhelm (GS), Alexandre Exquemelin (AoS), HSO (36)
Spider Queen (FaSh) + Mr. Scrupe (FaSh), CH, oarsmenx3 (31)
Court Jester (OotA) + Blackbeard, CH, oarsmenx3 (36)
Delfín (RotMS) + Beni Gabor (FaSh), CH, oarsmenx3 (29)
Knife’s Edge (GS) + Captain Fletcher (GS), HO (12)
Black Widow (GS) + Liliane Rousseau (GS), James Hawkins (FaSh), HSO, chain shot (36)
Falling Sky (ES) + Captain Jerica Key (FaSh), Arnold Pile (B2W), SO, cannoneer, fire shot, exploding shot, stinkpot shot, grape shot, chain shot, double shot, grapple shot (58)
Highwayman (Godmason) + The Decapitator, CHOS, cannoneer, musketeer (34)
Carnage (RoDJ) + One-Handed John (RoDJ), Trygla (SpMa), HSO, chain shot (40)
John’s Knighthood (ES) + Sir John Kingsbend (ES), HSO, cannoneer (30)
Jamaican Escape (ES) + CHOS (18)
I’ve always thought the megalaunches from an island look kind of like spokes of a wheel, and now the ships gathering around whirlpools have a similar formation.
Launch Totals for the turn: 31 ships, 852 points
Gold remaining: 3453
Overall Fleet Size: 271 ships, 6649 points
Ships Per Squadron
Whirlpool Strike Group (WSG): ~100 total ships
WSG Attack: ~50+ (23 with SAT or EA, 10+ with Sac)
WSG Support: 9+
WSG Supply: 38 (a few not fully crewed yet)
Anti-Viking Defense Squadron: 14
Anti-Corsair Defense Squadron: 8
Anti-Spanish Squadron: 12
“Fog Ships”: 9 (not a concentrated squadron)
Upgraders: 9
Home Defense: 12+
Patrol gunships: 7
Arcane defense/bodyguards: 6
Other/random gunships: 12+
Stock gunships: 19
The Cursed
81 Ships, 3245 Points in Play
Kalfu (on the Flying Dutchman) used his Reroll and “get a 6 to force a 6” abilities to help out Davy Jones to copy Arcane and bring in Nemo’s Plans, placed on the Pale Moon.
Spiral Chaos missed her Arcane rolls, but got bailed out by the original Cursed auto-6 (on Chimeratron Legacy). This was used to place Runes of Thor on the Pale Moon, netting The Cursed their second auto-6.
The Royal Feces missed her Arcane rolls as well, but the auto-6 just obtained was used to force the roll to succeed. With that, The Cursed brought in their third and final UT of the turn, putting Artifacts of the Lost (IofI) on the Insidious hoist.
All fog hoppers that were already in fog banks either exited and re-entered, or fog hopped and moved back into their exit location. This meant that just like the Pirate fog hoppers, all of them would be able to fog hop next turn.
Oya-lansan moved a storm closer to two Barbary Corsair resource runners, after which an L-move was used to yank Golden Peacock (already down to 1 mast) into the storm, sinking the galley!
The Cursed completed two major upgrades during their turn. Their textiles island southeast of their HI was upgraded from a town to a military port, meaning they can launch ships from it starting from the end of their next turn. Their second Guños Fortress was upgraded, which completes their goal of having all 4 “whirlpool forts” available for launching. The impact of this development cannot be understated, especially when considering the possibility of whirlpool creation via the Tempest (via copying), Lost UT (brought in at will via copying Arcane and using auto-6’s), or other means. True to their supernatural status, The Cursed are not limited by geography. The traditional limits of the map can be bypassed, as they potentially whip up fleets out of nowhere from anywhere on the ocean.
The three whirlpool forts that can launch already were moved to new locations – a Figlar Castle in the northwest corner near the Cursed HI, and one each of Figlar and Guños at Whirlpool Island, which is near the Spanish HI.
All 8 fog banks near the Cursed HI have ships in them, mostly a combination of fog hoppers and “camper” ships that will likely stay in the fog while giving out extra actions or rolling for AA’s/etc. (pictured under their HI launch section)
The ship Slaying of the Savior was moved into a whirlpool near home via the Spiral Chaos, bringing the captured Spanish prize De Leon with her.
Something New
At this point I will “interrupt” the regular battle report because before the Cursed launch phase commenced, I was in Los Angeles for Talk Like a Pirate Day weekend (September 19th-20th). On Saturday 9/20/25, Xerecs and I had the first live in-person CG4 meeting and negotiations! It took over an hour, as some of our factions held talks on a variety of topics and issues at hand. While I won’t disclose the exact nature of most of the discussions, all should naturally be revealed in time as the game progresses. Generally I consider what I publish in the battle report to be separate from “public in-game info” – the former being things like admitting to the Corsair-Viking alliance because it enhances the battle reports. An example of the latter would be something like the Pirate and Cursed threats, where the factions are communicating directly to each other at scale. I don’t consider all parts of these BR’s to be public info to the factions involved in the game, if that makes sense. It’s more for the real-life audience and knowledge of the players, rather than the specific factions involved. I will attempt to make it clear when something is “in BR, not in game”/etc. Anything fully public in the game is automatically fair game for the BR and players/factions to share amongst themselves.
Part of the reason for this is so if two players are communicating an alliance but they’d rather not have a specific faction of the 3rd player know that, here on the site it might say “BR-only info:”. But of course that’s the honor system, so if something is to truly remain “game-secret”, it simply cannot show up here. 😀 Although, at some point in the grand future of this game, perhaps it would be quite dramatic to reveal “secret” info to all the players and factions as part of a battle report. XD
To sum up our friendly visit, the Barbary Corsairs have gained a new ally. By extension, the Vikings essentially do too. In addition, the Vikings and Corsairs both implored the Spanish to get a ship near their HI for potential Hidden Trove gift funding. Various other topics were discussed including a Conglomerate-Viking conversation, but I will say no more.
Cursed Launch Phase
With little reason to hold on to their few resources, The Cursed cashed in their 2 textiles and 1 food, netting them 11 additional gold to get to 2714 gold overall.
Home Island: 8 ships, 299 points
Gog-Clocthoth (KS custom) (20)
Devil’s Orders (ES) + El Fantasma (IofI version), Mauled Slave (ES), Ulima (ES), HSO, FPS (62)
Oriental Devil (ES) + Gorgon Confucius (ES), CHOS, FPS, cannoneer (44)
Klen (SoD) + Brine (ELS), Aiestel (ELS), HSO (52)
Marra (ELS) + Dinghy, HSO (19)
Demise (GrS) + Ghirahim (GrS), The Insane (IofI), HSO, musketeer (38)
Agramon (SoD) + Osiris (JTC), HSO, musketeer, Dinghy (33)
Madness + CHOS (20)
+6 points for 2x shipwrights and 2x oarsmen for Maman Brigitte and 5 points for HSO on Repulsive Waste
Figlar Castle in NW corner: 6 ships, 139 points (pictured above)
Sea Dragon squadron:
Shal-Bala (20)
Raptor Maw (16)
Typhon + Fanglord (ES) (39)
Bahamut (ES) (23)
Morgrul (RoDJ) (20)
Smaug (FoBI) (21)
Gunos Fortress: 6 ships, 131 points (pictured below)
Blastbreath (FaSh) (20)
Torch (FaSh) (17)
Black Snout (FaSh) (26)
Scorcher (FaSh) (30)
Quetzal Rey (GrS) (18)
Blackwing (OI) (20)
Figlar Castle at Whirlpool Island: 11 ships, 359 points
Glaurung (SI) (23)
The Phantom (ELS) + Captain Scott Dash (FoBI), Sidorak the Tyrant (DT), shipwright, oarsmenx3 (53)
Sacrifice (ELS) + Dinghy, HO (15)
Ourang Medan (SI) + Ivan Kepler (B2W), The Ghosts of the Demeter (STM), SO (40)
Empire’s Fall (OotA) + Shan Yu (OotA), Ghost Conjurer (ES), Renfro (RoDJ), HSO (48)
Tartarus (ELS) + CHS, oarsmen x3, streamlined hull (30)
Siren’s Song (SI) + Ariel Queen of Atlantis (SI), Magic Jimmy (STM), HSO, musketeer (44)
Frozen Bones (IofI) + Dinghy, H, shipwright x2, oarsmen x5 (28)
Dire Miralis (GrS) + Dinghy, H, shipwright x2, oarsmen x5 (28)
Ragweed (LI) + The Devourer (LI), HSO, FPS, SmPS (34)
Pestilence (F&S) + HSO, Signal Flag (16)
Launch Totals for the turn: 31 ships, 928 points
Gold remaining: 1786
Overall Fleet Size: 112 ships, 4173 points
Ships Per Squadron (Cursed)
Cursed WSG: 25 ships
WSG Attack: 18
WSG Supply: 6
WSG Support: 1
“Fog Ships”: 17
Upgraders: 8
Movers: 8
Sea Dragons: 13
Vikings
26 Ships, 683 Points in Play
Thor got another 6 with All-Powerful just like last turn!
He took control of the Cursed Flying Dutchman again, rolls were (need one 6): Kalfu>3, FD>4, Reroll>3. So no 6’s and no UT’s brought in.
Straight from the module: * **** Crew – Viking (Kould the Conquerer) revealed by a7xfanben ****
Another Viking All-Powerful crew!! Rolled a 2, so no crazy copying/etc shenanigans.
Asgard (with copier Jord) was up next. The Gilded Figurehead equipment roll was a 6!! Jord and her dedicated reroller (Frigg Sigurdsdottir) both got 4’s, so GF was used to replace her roll with the GF 6.
The Vikings were copying the Cursed Flying Dutchman with Jord, and brought in a Hidden Trove!
They placed it on the Tiger’s Eye, a Corsair ship bringing home spices and about to dock at the Corsair HI! This was to help out their ally, as the Corsairs only had 148 gold on their HI and would certainly run out this round with their launch pace (aka burn rate).
The Corsairs do have their own copier to try for a Trove, but the Vikings and Corsairs are working closely together and want to back each other up. This way, the Corsairs retain the ability to “launch at will” for many more turns without having to rely on the Corsair copying to stay afloat against the Pirates nearby.
The Vikings used move actions to reposition some ships and send some out from home waters in a hurry. Two longships joined the square masted Tyr in the south via round earth. They’re in the bottom middle of the picture. At the left are various Cursed ships including many of their “movers”. To the east lies the southern half of the Pirate HI, with the Jade HI north of them.
Lars Valgard of the Vikings sent out some correspondence as part of the Viking turn. Jord has also communicated for them in the past, but was understandably very busy this turn with her duties to the fleet.
Viking Launch Phase: 8 ships, 282 points (330 including upgrades/etc)
Ragnarok (KS) + Yrsa Jotunnsdotter (KS), Bruan Longwind (ES), Cedrick the Swift (LI), Danegeld (KS), Leif Jounstoun (LI), streamlined hull, shipwright, oarsman (72)
Glacier of Zeus (ES) + Hammupyklos, Grand Paladin (ES), Ivar the Boneless (LI), HSO (47)
Glacial Mist (IofI) + Darina (ES), Stargazer (IofI), Steel Anchor (TT), Streamlined Hull (TT), oarsman (33)
+48 gold spent for coin+fort upgrade
Sigra Mein (ES) + Olof Andersen (ES), 2 equipment, 1 crew (40). Towing Jäävuori flotilla (KS) (9)
Baldr (ES) + oarsman (17) (new home for Jord)
Cargo for Asgard: Weaponmaster Garson Cannels, 1 equipment, CHO (16)
Fenrir’s Chains (OotA) + CHOS, musketeer (24)
Jormungandr (KS) (20)
Cargo for Frost: captain, chain shot (4)
Gold remaining: 697
Overall Fleet Size: 34 ships, 965 points
Barbary Corsairs
26 Ships, ~573 Points in Play
The Corsairs were still mourning the loss of many captains and other crew from last round’s devastating Pirate counterattack. They missed their only AA roll (+Reroll), but then got a 6 with Gilded Figurehead before even starting to roll for the Nephila’s copying ability! This meant they were guaranteed to be able to bring in a UT when copying Arcane/Flying Dutchman.
Nephila copied the Cursed Flying Dutchman, bringing in an Eye of Insanity UT that was placed on the Noble Glacier, a recently launched Viking icebreaker that is optimized for copy>Arcane/FD rolling. This was the Corsairs’ way of saying thank you to the Vikings for bailing them out with a Hidden Trove, and also serves to further strengthen the Corsair-Viking alliance. That alliance is technically still only public in the battle reports and not the game, but the Pirates and Cursed are likely growing wary of the somewhat obvious friendship. The other cool thing about the Corsairs giving the Vikings an EoI is that it might continually benefit the Corsairs long-term – the more copiers the Vikings have, the more FD rolls they should get to potentially help out the Corsairs again down the line.
The Corsairs docked home the Tiger’s Eye before the mandatory scuttles of their burning ships, thus maximizing the value of Hidden Trove. With 546 ships in play at the time, it was worth 1092 gold. TE also dropped off four spice tokens, which are currently worth 6 gold each, netting them an additional 24 gold. They also cashed in 7 textiles for 21 gold. Add those to their existing 148 gold on their home island and they have a considerable 1285 gold to work with. This should be enough to last them a good 3-4 turns or more, though they hope their “burn rate” of gold will increase with new launch points in the near future.
Corsairs and Vikings (and likely other factions) are very happy that the turn order has the Pirates and Cursed going back to back. Although it’s frustrating in the case of a double attack as we saw against the Corsairs (to a small degree) last round, it makes allied cross-fleet logistics easier. For example, when the Vikings give the Corsairs (or any other faction) a Hidden Trove, they know there is almost nothing the Pirates or Cursed can do to stop it because those faction’s next turns won’t come around again until after the other factions have taken their turns.
Corsair Launch Phase: 5 ships, 188 points
Rachna (ES) + Malophoros (ES), Akila Bennu (PNM), CH (36)
Hapi (ES) + Alkebu-lan The Just (PNM), Ibrahan Vosely (ES), Ardagundas (ES), Gilded Figurehead (TT), HO (36)
Spaniards Folly (OotA) + CHOS (19)
Oman’s Fury (RotR) + Raidamos (ES), Turgut Reis (PNM), Mustafa Kemal (B2W), Powder Kegs (AoS), SO, stinkpot shot (56)
Tomb of Kings (OotA) + CHO, exploding shot, fire shot (22)
+Cargo for Algiers and Tiger’s Eye (19)
Gold remaining: 1097
Overall Fleet Size: 28 ships, 671 points
The Northeast quadrant: Pirate hegemony, or a powder keg ready to blow?
Here is the developing situation in the northeast region. This is easily the busiest and most crowded area of the map, with 4 large factions in the area. The Pirates are of course the most dominant fleet around. However, continued expansion by the Vikings and Corsairs may threaten their home waters a bit. The newest entrant to this apparent arms race is the English, shown with their new ships at the bottom right. Crucially for the Corsairs and English, the Pirates are tightening the noose around them, building a town (and likely military port next round) on the northeast island and the large island just out of frame to the south. Given that the Corsairs and Vikings have already had combat, this is a tense situation with no resolution in sight. An incredible concentration of power, with multiple thousands of points in just this picture. It’s one of the most interesting situations I’ve ever seen in a campaign game, partly for some reasons that have not yet been disclosed….
Point Count
The latest in record-breaking fleet and game size totals!
| Faction |
Ships |
Points |
Ship % |
Points % |
Points/ship |
| Spanish |
4 |
57 |
0.7% |
0.4% |
14.3 |
| Jade Rebellion |
4 |
43 |
0.7% |
0.3% |
10.8 |
| The Conglomerate |
33 |
581 |
6.0% |
4.1% |
17.6 |
| English |
27 |
514 |
4.9% |
3.6% |
19.0 |
| Pirates |
271 |
6649 |
49.5% |
47.0% |
24.5 |
| Cursed |
112 |
4173 |
20.4% |
29.5% |
37.3 |
| Vikings |
34 |
965 |
6.2% |
6.8% |
28.4 |
| Corsairs |
28 |
671 |
5.1% |
4.7% |
24.0 |
| Dutch |
6 |
76 |
1.1% |
0.5% |
12.7 |
| Americans |
15 |
215 |
2.7% |
1.5% |
14.3 |
| Mercenaries |
6 |
91 |
1.1% |
0.6% |
15.2 |
| French |
8 |
123 |
1.5% |
0.9% |
15.4 |
| Total |
548 |
14158 |
|
|
25.8 |
As usual, the Pirates continue to set new fleet records for both ships and points on every turn. They’re looking to become the first 300-ship fleet, an astounding number when considering that a 100 ship fleet is huge even in a campaign game. Speaking of that, The Cursed are the second faction to eclipse 100 ships in play, but probably won’t be the last. The English added 10 ships to their total with their new riches, joining the contenders as one of 6 fleets with more than 25 ships in play and more than 500 points in play. In a strange quirk, the 6 largest fleets go consecutively in the turn order, followed by the 6 smallest fleets bookending each round.
VASSAL Campaign Game 4 is now also the biggest recorded Pirates CSG game of all time by ship count!
The previous record was 509 for my physical Command the Oceans campaign game in 2017. At a ridiculous 548 ships in play, CG4 now has the ship record in addition to the points record (over 14,000!) that it broke a couple rounds ago.
Stats by player: I think this will slowly normalize/even out over the coming years, but it may require some diplomacy on the part of factions who don’t have access to a copier….
|
Ships |
Points |
Ship % |
Points % |
Points/ship |
| Xerecs |
68 |
1195 |
12.41% |
8.44% |
17.57 |
| A7XfanBen |
445 |
12458 |
81.20% |
87.99% |
28.00 |
| PirateAJ14 |
35 |
505 |
6.39% |
3.57% |
14.43 |
Summary
Here is the grand map! I recommend opening it in a new tab (twice, once here then again on postimg) and zooming in to view in full size to give yourself a tour of this crazy game. Here we have over 14,000 points in play. O_O You can also see the massively expanded deckplate areas, which should take years or decades to fill.
Thanks for reading! This game is a dream come true. The sheer size, scope and scale of it is awesome to witness and completely insane to play. For many years I wanted to play a game this large, but it’s almost impossible to do so with the physical game. Now we can command legions, fleets so large they require precise organization and tracking skills to even manage. The amount of diplomacy, intrigue and grand strategy will only increase as the game continues. A lot of incredible things have already happened in CG4, but I think the best is yet to come. It is truly turning into a game for the ages, and already ranks very high on my all-time list of Pirates games – somewhere in the top 5 out of all 600+ games I’ve played including 9 campaign games, and with a good chance of becoming #1 eventually.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the game in the comments below!
