3 impromptu games were played between myself and xerecs! Since they were all rather lopsided and quick, the reports will be short as well. The three games only took about 3 hours, so the concern of VASSAL games taking longer than regular games continues to lose steam.
The first game featured a7xfanben’s Minimal Crew fleet against a Cursed fleet made by xerecs.
A great barrier reef stretched across the sea to cut off access to the wild islands.
The Revenant successfully navigated the reef, but the Stephens rolled a 1 to lose 4 of her 5 masts!
As ships began exploring, the Stephens tried to sail back home to repair, but was promptly wrecked!
The Revenant targeted the San Pedro before she could cross the reefs, but missed.
The San Pedro rammed and boarded to take a coin from the Revenant!
The Lizard’s Sting dismasted the Bon Marin with a ram while the Revenant sunk the San Pedro, and the Cursed were victorious 21-13!
The second game was a 60 point game, and featured a7xfanben’s Clones of the South China Sea fleet against an American fleet created by xerecs.
Americans:
Venture (custom ship) + Commander Steven Decatur, captain, helmsman, oarsman
Nene-nui + explorer
Jarvis + 1 crew
This time, the previous setup was “moved and rotated randomly” until a feasible setup was found. The wild island in between the two HI’s has 5 coins on it, with 3 apiece for the other two.
The Grand Wind sacced an oarsman to move S+S+S+S, and the fleets were off and sailing.
The Grand Path received a ludricrous amount of 6’s this game, as the dice luck from the previous game shifted completely in a7xfanben’s favor! Here the junk has rammed the Venture!
The Venture is dismasted!
The Venture ducks into the fog while the Grand Wind returns home. The Grand Path hunts the remaining American ships.
The Venture is sunk, and the Americans look to be doomed.
The Nene Nui tries to return home, but is set upon by the Grand Path, who receives yet another SAT from Warlord Cavendish.
The Nene Nui is captured while the Grand Wind explores the center island.
The captured Nene Nui docks at the same time as the Grand Wind, giving the Jade Rebellion a huge windfall.
The Grand Path sinks the Jarvis, and the Jade Rebellion claims a whopping 31-0 victory!
The final game was the most unique. It featured 50 point fleets, with one wild island holding all the gold, defended by an old Viking fort with six 3L cannons. The island was completely surrounded by reefs and fog.
Cursed: (xerecs)
Revenant (custom ship) + captain, explorer
Divine Dragon + Davy Jones
My strategy was to use Calypso’s whirlpool-creating ability to warp into the area around the wild island, but it failed miserably. Further serving this goal and furthering the similarities to the epic Economy Edition, I secretly placed three UT’s: Bad Maps, Turtles, and Whirlpool.
Davy Jones got a 6 on the second turn, but the Pirates were smart to split up their ships in his presence.
Unfortunately for Calypso, she wasn’t such a surprise, since the Pirates waited too long to reveal her. As a result, the Cursed found the Whirlpool and Bad Maps UT’s, and figured out what was going on. Shades of Economy Edition indeed, but it didn’t work nearly as well. Further making the game a complete failure, we forgot to have the fort fire!
Chaos reigns as the island is displaced from the fake “lagoon” of reefs while the turtles start scrambling.
In my frustration, the Deliverance rammed the Revenant and destroyed the fort.
As the island does an Economy and returns to it’s former station, the fleets are flabbergasted.
The Divine Dragon and Deliverance are locked in a pitched battle.
The Deliverance sinks the Divine Dragon, while the Eagle heads to cut off the Revenant.
The Revenant is wrecked while moving over a reef, just like the Stephens in the first game! This ended the game, with the Cursed having no available ships. Neither fleet had any gold on their HI, so xerecs was decided the winner since his fleet had gold “in the water” while a7xfanben had no gold on his ships.
The last game was a complete disaster, but as usual in Pirates, “everything that can go wrong will go wrong”. However, all three games were fun and will now be forever known as the first confrontations between the legendary Admirals A7XfanBen and Xerecs, players of Economy Edition and Century of the Empires!
Warning: This may be my most arrogant and self-congratulatory piece of content I have ever made or will ever make for Pirates CSG. It is a way for me to look back at my best and favorite game moments where my obsession with the game’s strategy and my vast experience with playing the game culminated in big wins. After thousands of hours spent on the game in general, I’m happy with what I’ve accomplished in terms of playing the game.
For a long time I only played solo games. I didn’t play my first game against a human opponent until January 2015. Since then I’ve played against a few dozen players, some in physical games but even more on the VASSAL module. This post documents some of my greatest moments as an experienced and extremely passionate player of Pirates CSG.
My first non-solo campaign game featured a ton of amazing moments, and it remains as possibly my favorite huge game. It was smart for my Spanish to optimize their gold system very early on, purposely launching pretty much all of their ships and crew with gold bonus abilities. The massive fleet of native canoes peaked at 35 total (7 sets), which helped the Spanish rake in a ton of gold throughout the game. This allowed them to spend on battle fleets, which were used to take on the other factions. The Americans were forced to pay tribute, and ironically became a vassal state of the Spanish Empire. The French put up an amazing fight but were crushed by the strength of the Spanish war fleet. The Pirates were next. The Cursed and English were also smashed by my Spanish, who steamrolled through the game. Even though my English fleet looked superior in the endgame, the Spanish managed to wear them down and pull out a well-deserved victory. My superior launching strategy (of not saving gold for almost any reason) gave me the win. Check out the factional analysis in the reflection at the bottom of the reports to get a better idea of how dominant the Spanish were.
Here is the retrospective video for a quick summary of the game, with the Spanish theme of the game playing:
This game was short compared to CG1, but still featured some interesting plays. My theme in this game was attacking the Pirates (the main rival of my English) through whirlpools. I pulled off multiple whirlpool raids, most of which were successful in general. The final one was a huge move that swung the momentum permanently to the English side. At that point I was building up an insurmountable points lead, and the game ended somewhat prematurely after my English intervened in a battle between the Pirates and French. I was able to use 10 masters and submarines to devastate opposing forces, and eventually controlled seven 10 masters and six cancellers! I mostly accomplished my goals within the game, which were to capture the Zeus, hinder or eliminate Captain Jack Sparrow, and of course win in the end. Check out my path to victory in this video:
CG3 would be perhaps my greatest test yet. In CG1 I controlled half the fleets (3/6), and in CG2 I still controlled a third (1/3). In CG3, I’d be at just 1 fleet out of 6 total, with 5 other players trying to win the game. I still thrived. Lying low early due to bad resource rolls for my islands, the Americans watched as the Spanish burned brightly but then fizzled out. After some long-awaited changes in the resource values, my Americans began to have serious spending power. As usual, I first concentrated on optimizing my gold system, and then began to steadily launch ships for war.
The game’s turning point was an epic display of momentum shifting – the French crushed the Spanish at the central Gateway island, but then my Americans struck and crushed the French in the same location. From there it was a matter of eliminating the other factions. My fleet ranged far and wide, with the Zhanfu and others going to the far west to take out the Spanish and English. The French were eliminated after trying to invade my home waters through a whirlpool. I correctly anticipated a betrayal by my Pirate allies, and launched a preemptive strike to take care of that threat to my gold system. The Cursed were the toughest opponent to beat, but yet another whirlpool strike (like in CG2) with the first shot advantage proved to be decisive. You can even see my epic opening turn of that conflict here. A long battle at the Cursed home island eventually saw the American numerical superiority victorious, with a massive wave of cancellation coming to dominate the Frozen North.
This grand victory was my third consecutive non-solo campaign game victory in as many efforts, improving my record to a perfect 3-0 and initiating comparisons to Tom Brady and Thanos in terms of utter dominance and early “championship” success. At the bottom of the battle reports you can see my long strategy explanation for the game. In this retrospective video you can see the dominance of the American fleet play out.
This is one of those extremely rare games where everything goes according to plan. My strategy was applied, and it worked flawlessly. Everything I did went right. It was a bizarre combination of luck, timing, and good gameplay on my part.
The Guichuan’s heist totaled 22 gold, but in reality the final score was about 35-0. I had won the game in a complete shutout despite the big build total. I only lost one ship, the Celtic Fury (plus one canoe haha). I had captured or destroyed Xerecs’ entire fleet.I was also happy because I was intimidated when I saw the enemy fleet – the Zeus and San Cristobal (by some people’s accounts the 2 best gunships in the game), along with the Baochuan and some of the best gold runners in the game. However, with some negative UT’s, effective crew placement, and brilliantly executed gimmick strategy, I was able to pull off the victory!
To be fair, this was against a slow fleet. However, it was still one of my most impressive wins, with Calypso going ballistic with whirlpools to give the Pirates every single coin in the treasure distribution for a 55-0 victory! O_O
In a huge blowout, the Pirates defeat the Spanish 55-0! This is one of the only games I’ve ever played where a fleet gets every single coin in the treasure distribution. No gold was sunk, and the Pirates collected and stole the rest for a massive victory. This game made me want to use Calypso more, and it’s also one of the best gimmick games/fleets I’ve seen.
This 5-hour long game was captured in full on video, found at the bottom of the battle report linked above. I scored two massive coups that helped me pull out a narrow victory in the end. The first involved a brilliant combination of using the Harbinger’s ship-stealing ability in conjunction with the special rules of the scenario, where the first island your fleet explores becomes your home island. This happened early in the game, but there was a ton of action left.
The second “coup” netted me another capture. I was able to capture a derelict galley and then row her S+S towards the Europa, who used an extra action and Commander Temple’s ability to warp the galley home. Making it even sweeter was the fact that the 2 gold runners captured in these incredible game moves are two of the best to ever sail: the Banshee’s Cry and Star of Siam. Quite the prizes indeed!
This second coup of the game for me was triply effective – it made the Hound less of a target, it got the SoS and Europa out of harms’ way (the Black Pearl), and it gave me another capable gold runner in my fleet. All in all one of my favorite moves I’ve pulled off in this game, showing how important it is to consider all options and really think through how you want to tow or “untow” things to your greatest benefit.
I then captured the Black Pearl a la Captain Jack Sparrow retaking his favorite vessel. In the end it appeared that my moves were needed to keep me in the race, as I won a narrow 85-81 victory. Truly a memorable game.
These massive tournaments full of uber-competitive fleets were played between myself and Xerecs. 23 games in T1 and 53 in T2 combined for 76 games of competitive high-stakes action. I played my ass off consistently, winning a lot of games and having a lot of incredible strategy moments. A lot of it was gold calculation and making decisions based on available gold and fort strategy. Really fun and incredible, and Xerecs had plenty of great moments as well. I also made the somewhat incredible pick of choosing UPS 2 as the fleet to win T2 before the 16 fleet tournament even started! (so technically 6.25% chance of picking the right fleet, though UPS 2 was an obvious favorite among some others) This was based on my prior experience using UPS 2 in physical games and knowing how ridiculously effective, efficient, and overpowered that fleet is. It was a total crapshoot, but I also won the 16 fleet game (using every fleet from T2) by 1 gold, and you can see footage of that game in my Games playlist.
This game was a bit controversial at the end, but my American Pirates fleet made things right with an impressive victory. Not necessarily my best game in terms of strategy or specific plays, but it was one of the games I was happiest to win.
That was the first of two games with the “Other Worlds” scenario, where you use whirlpools to access multiple tables to dramatically change the setup compared to most games. My opponent tried to use gunships to blockade my home island after I returned with gold from the other oceans – that way he didn’t have to brave the whirlpools. I foiled that real quick. The Philadelphia’s ability (ship stealing just like the Harbinger and Commander Temple) warped home a capture and I charged right back in. I proved the ineffectiveness of the blockade strategy, and won in a 32-2 blowout. I basically did the exact same thing a year later against a different opponent. That game ended up 31-0 in my favor.
Here I used a gimmicky home island raiding strategy with the Spanish to win by a decent margin.
My record speaks for itself. I have by far the most wins of any player on VASSAL (at least since it’s rebirth in 2016), and I am the only player to win a campaign game on the module that I know of, having won all 3 thus far.
A HUGE thanks to el_cazador for reaching out to me! And once again, a HUGE thanks to B.J. Olejnik for getting this module up and running. I literally had VASSAL on my to-do list for today (part of a series of VASSAL ironies that keep happening – el_cazador literally PM’d me a few minutes after I responded to B.J.’s email), where I was going to experiment with it and play around a bit. Instead, my (and el_cazador’s) first game was played on VASSAL!!
I think VASSAL is going to be an extremely valuable tool. It’s the only known reliable way of people being able to play Pirates remotely, which is huge. This forum is full of the absolute, hardcore, diehard fans of the game that are still left supporting it and keeping it alive. The fact that we can play games of Pirates with each other for free and without the hassles of traveling is so cool!
This is a Battle Report of the game that myself and el_cazador played on 1/29/2016. It’s my first BR using “pictures” of a virtual game, which is crazy cool and crazy unique. You can’t get angled shots or closeups (edit: you can with a snipping tool or by editing and cropping full pictures), but the pros include not needing a camera of any kind, not having to worry about how the shot will look, and of course the nature of an overhead shot: every picture gives the viewer a great idea of what’s going on everywhere on the ocean.
Neither of us had much experience at all with VASSAL prior to this impromptu game. Nevertheless, we were determined to see it happen!! (I’m very excited about this lol.)
First, we didn’t even know how to set up the ocean. I’ll make a post within the next 24 hours where I do my best to give a comprehensive sort of “setup guide” for everyone. For now, I will focus on the report. This will eventually go in Battle Reports, but I think that this first game should definitely go in this thread, not to mention xerecs’ massively epic Economy Edition game going on right now. As always I’ll post it on BGG and Pojo (and I think reddit this time too!), so hopefully that will drum up additional interest.
I began creating a fleet. A day or two I was on VASSAL very briefly, and I created HMS Dover just to refresh my memory of how to create a ship and its associated deckplate card. As a result, she was the first ship I chose. My fleet was constructed somewhat randomly and haphazardly, but the English are my favorite faction and the Lord Algernon is my favorite ship, so it should come as no surprise that my first game on VASSAL featured them.
English: (Ben)
HMS Lord Algernon + Administrator Scott Bratley, captain, helmsman
HMS Dover + Thomas Gunn, explorer
HMS Hound + explorer
el_cazador, on the other hand, had a fleet ready.
Spanish: (El Cazador)
Spanish Cursed Seas Showcase (fleet was on Miniature Trading)
At this time it is necessary to explain the dumb setup. Once we had an ocean created, we got excited and started dumping stuff everywhere! We didn’t know how to delete islands and terrain! As a result, the setup was very abnormal and unfairly biased in favor of the English. Once our first ship was introduced to the sea, we both simply gravitated towards the nearest islands, so the HI placement was random as well. However, the treasure distribution was fair, with 4 coins on each of the 4 wild islands. There are no native canoes in the module so they’re represented by the 1 masted galleys.
The English rolled to go first, and the fleets were off! The Hound and Dover were quick to exploit the bad setup, docking and exploring nearby wild islands on the first two turns. The Lord Algernon headed out as the most dangerous but also slowest ship in play.
The Spanish sailed out, with the San Pedro easily navigating a reef successfully. The native canoes, however, couldn’t explore on the first turn.
The Dover docked home treasure, while the Lord Algernon moved within firing range of a native canoe!!
The Lord Algernon easily blasted the canoe to smithereens, and war was on! The remaining canoes had no choice but to run from the English flagship, but the Castigue had something to say about the Lord Algernon, hitting 2/3 to take out a mast!
Here the San Pedro docks and explores. a7xfanben, commander of the English forces, knew how valuable the +1 and +2 gold abilities (aboard the canoes and San Pedro) are, and therefore prioritized eliminating those ships from the game.
The Hound has docked home while the Morning Star takes gold from the western island. However, the English used their two gunships to sink the Castigue! This netted them 1 gold for eliminating the Ransom crew Anita Amore. The dots on the islands are explored markers, something el_cazador was brilliant enough to think of and find on the module. Nicely enough, they’re color-coded by player, and here they turned out to match the nationalities as well!
Surprising the English, the Spanish now attacked the Lord Algernon with their treasure runners! The San Pedro rammed and boarded. However, she failed with both rolls, losing her explorer. The canoes began to head towards the Lord Algernon, which El Cazador would later admit was a “canoe screen” to help shield the Morning Star. Mid-turn, you can see the S and L rulers in the directions ships have moved and are going to move.
The English strike again, and sink the San Pedro! After a brief discussion, it was decided that any gold on ships would sink to the bottom with the vessel carrying it. (Woelf does this and it’s obviously more historically accurate.) At this point the English finally remembered to use the Hound’s ability and revealed a 2 on the Morning Star, who was heading towards the southern island while the English were distracted by the canoes.
Here, the Morning Star has docked at the southern island, where she explores and finds some UT’s that were placed by a7xfanben. However, I didn’t define what they were when I placed them, so I decided to let El Cazador use them as “wilds” since the setup was so biased in my favor. This meant he could pick any value for the two “UT’s” from 1-7. Naturally, he picked 7 for both of them.
With a powerful broadside, the Lord Algernon stays put and sinks the remaining native canoes! The Dover returns home for the time being, while the Hound added to the English treasure haul.
The Morning Star began sailing away, but the Lord Algernon shot two of her masts off. The Dover docked home, only for me to realize that she didn’t have any gold on her after all!
The Morning Star continued to run, but the English continued to shoot! The Lord Algernon connected twice more, and the Dover moved into position to end the game.
The Dover fired and hit, sinking the final Spanish ship! The Royal Navy reigns supreme! (My shoot action die rolls were much better for this game than they are in the physical world, a promising sign for me lol.)
This image simply shows the English gold revealed on their HI, and they won by a 24-0 blowout! (The gold in the water is from the sunken San Pedro.)
When it comes to playing a board game online, the VASSAL engine is a great way to go. VASSAL is an open source computer program that is used to play board games over their online server. You can build a module from scratch, or take an existing module for a game created by someone else and make modifications to it.
Why I love VASSAL
I absolutely love the VASSAL engine. Why? I can play with anyone in the world. There’s no need to have physical proximity to your gaming peers in order to have fun playing the games you love. If a gaming group broke up because of moving or other difficulties, play could continue with VASSAL. You could even use something like Skype or Discord to continue the verbal and even video conversation during play time.
I can start a game on one day, and finish it another day. I can play games that are longer than anything I would ever be able to play in real life. With no need for a physical setup, games can be as large or as long as you want them to be.
Gaming Examples
My Battle Reports Compendium post contains examples of the many games I’ve played using the VASSAL module. My favorite type of Pirates CSG games are large campaign games. This is where you spend gold to acquire new ships and crew rather than just having it sit as a score on your home island. The VASSAL module is great for playing these kinds of extended games because you can save the file (.vsav) and then reload it in the module to continue playing later on. This applies to any game that could take longer than one session or sitting to finish.
Saving the file is also a great way to play tournaments of similar games. In VASSAL Tournaments #1 and #2, Xerecs and I played many competitive games where the basic setup would remain the same between games. It was very convenient to simply save the file after each game and return to it for the next session. This saved us time because we didn’t have to recreate the setup for each game. To that end, if you play a game with a customizable setup, you can save specific “maps”/etc as files that can be easily reused.
Below you can check out the video I made looking back at the events of VASSAL Campaign Game 1 in a very condensed format. (the game took about 3 months of consistent play sessions)
This is my first attempt at actually “making” a video through editing and putting something together versus just recording. Although the quality may be a joke compared to many of the epic things on youtube, I’ve been VERY excited about it and it’s been AWESOME to make it and watch it. Please give feedback! I want to make more videos like this and improve if possible.
This is a parody of sorts – CG4 is NOT meant as the last campaign game (VASSAL or otherwise) of Pirates CSG. Just wanted to have the title connection. I combined the titles of both “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” to get the title the way I wanted it. (worked out perfectly!)
I’ve always loved epic stuff so this sort of thing is exactly what I want to create. I LOVE this game and campaign games are my favorite thing about the world of Pirates CSG, so naturally I’m excited about both the past and future of them. I thought it would be cool to showcase my illustrious history of playing campaign games, while using that as a way to preview this upcoming game.
I know there are some inconsistencies with the character parallels, but naturally I have to portray myself as the “First Order” with the other CG4 players as the rebels. With the “it does now”, I was originally going to have that feature my own avatar with the two player 1000 point game post by mastercommander before it, but I decided it would be much better to showcase a current player. Plus, it makes Xerecs seem epic XD, which his games have been. I also was going to have a picture from one of his games fade in right after his avatar first appears, but I think it would be too fast before the next transition. Funny enough my name is Ben, which is perfect for the Ben Solo comparison. (I actually hate Kylo Ren though haha) Baseball is the only sport I really care about at this point, but I’m a Yankees and Patriots fan (go dynasties!!), and Tom Brady was 3-0 through his first 3 Super Bowls, just as I am 3-0 in my first 3 non-solo campaign games, thus why I’m the “Tom Brady of campaign games”. (it also acts as an homage to the Patriots hype videos that partially inspired this one)
Since this is my first real “edited” video, I hope to improve in the future. I already have a solid half-dozen more ideas for this kind of video, but it will take a while to make each of them. Indeed, I was actually going to make retrospective videos for CG1/2/3 before this one, with this video as an epic “finale” of sorts that outdoes all the rest. However, a number of things have led to this being first, although this is the one I’m most excited about anyway.
Disclaimer: Not trying to take credit from Disney or Star Wars. XD
Leave a like and subscribe if you want to see more! You can see the CG1/CG2/CG3 retrospective videos in the Epic Videos playlist.
The first game of the planned VASSAL weekend was a 3 player Circle of Blood game between myself, repkosai, and wifey!
Repkosai went first with a diverse fleet, followed by yours truly with my ship stealing fleet (its first game!), and then wifey with a fast Pirate fleet. Thanks to Rizz for making such a cool game setup; it would be my second go-round at CoB, and the first experience for repkosai and wifey.
With an odd number of players, we had to improvise the last chunk of picking fleet locations, which is why repkosai’s HMS Gibraltar is in the middle of the play area between the hostile forts.
This shows the first of two major coups (“a notable or successful stroke or move”; feat, master stroke) by a7xfanben’s ship stealers in the early part of this game. Looking back at the first picture, the Banshee’s Cry moved towards the SE island, and was pursued by the Harbinger to the north. Because of the unique home island rules (the first island you explore becomes your home island), there was considerable strategy in essentially being able to choose a location. With some intimidating Pirates to the north (repkosai’s Black Pearl crushed the Raven and Neptune’s Hoard in a single turn, with the Revenant also lurking), I wanted a location far from them.
In a very important die roll that allowed the move to work, I rolled a 6 with Preble to get an AA (Admiral’s Action). The Electric Eel (of wifey’s fleet) had docked at the SW island, with my El Dorado also headed there. I had other options, such as exploring the SE island with the Hound or trying to get an island in the NW area. After some strategic thinking, I made my choice, trusting the Harbinger to not roll a bunch of 1’s in a row lol.
El Dorado used her action to dock at the SW island. She then used the AA to explore it, making it my home island. Suddenly the Electric Eel was caught docked at an enemy home island, with no chance left to explore. The Harbinger surged forward, ramming the Banshee’s Cry but taking care not to sink the ship, simply dismasting her with a shot. Then Havana Black sacced an oarsman to EXPLORE the Cry, triggering the Harbinger’s ability. To complete the coup, the Harbinger warped to her new home with the BC, suddenly docking right next to the flabbergasted crew of the Electric Eel! The ship stealers were living up to their name, going from not having a home island to capturing a ship, getting it home, and simultaneously denying another ship from that island’s gold!
Clockwise from the top: repkosai has sunk the Raven and Neptune’s Hoard, putting wifey in a major predicament. In the SE, the Hound has explored the SE island while the Star of Siam makes the southern island wifey’s HI. The Harbinger knocks two masts off the fleeing Eel, while El Dorado looks to transfer Weapons to the flagship. The northwest is a scene of considerable delay, with the Windjammer finding Rum and the New Orleans finding Natives.
Repkosai’s fleet gets gold while my ship stealers continue to bother wifey’s fleet. The Harbinger dismasts the Eel, leaving her carcass to the less-important El Dorado while the Harbinger gets ready to make full sail towards the south. The Hound is hounding the Star of Siam, ramming a mast off but failing to hit with cannons. The Europa is slow without a helmsman but lurks to the west of the Hound, which would soon become important….
Another major coup! (Sorry if it sounds like I’m tooting my own horn too much, but honestly these two moves are some of my favorite that I’ve pulled off in a Pirates game) You may be wondering where the Star of Siam went. Well, she was snagged like the Banshee’s Cry.
Once again, the situation was more complicated than a simple picture can show. The super-fast Black Pearl was bearing down on the southern tier of the sea, likely in support of HMS Gibraltar raiding wifey’s unprotected home island (repkosai has made some great plays of his own this game). The Hound’s captain was worried about the BP, but reckoned that he still needed to pursue the SoS, who had picked up a certain Calico Cat who had been “cast away” for some reason. Now, I will admit that I got lucky once more, but it was perfect timing for the second time too. The Hound had caught the SoS at the SE island and knocked off her final mast. The SoS lost Calico Cat in a boarding party but rowed a bit to the south at S+S. To mitigate the Hound’s fear of the Black Pearl arriving imminently from the north, the Harbinger was sailing at full speed towards the general area of interest.
The Hound captured the SoS, towing her so the ship would be as far from the Black Pearl as possible. The luck occurred with the Europa getting an extra action from her built-in ability! I was originally going to move the Europa 4S and get her on the starboard side, to protect her from a potentially hostile Black Pearl. The Europa could not reach the SoS with her first action, and therefore couldn’t teleport her home with the second since she would need the second just to reach the SoS. Then I suddenly realized that because the SoS could move S+S but was still technically derelict, the Hound could tow her and then immediately release her, upon which the SoS turned around and moved S+S towards the Europa! This saved the Europa valuable movement. The Europa was then able to reach the SoS with her first action, and explore the derelict with her second action, using Commander Temple to warp both ships home!
This second coup of the game for me was triply effective – it made the Hound less of a target, it got the SoS and Europa out of harms’ way (the Black Pearl), and it gave me another capable gold runner in my fleet. All in all one of my favorite moves I’ve pulled off in this game, showing how important it is to consider all options and really think through how you want to tow or “untow” things to your greatest benefit.
However, for all my bragging, repkosai had gained a steady lead in the gold race, and many of my ships with treasure on them were far from home. Here, the Philadelphia and New Orleans are finally getting sails unfurled after their encounter with the Natives. The BC has explored the western island, while HMS Gibraltar raids wifey’s HI for a 7 coin (which I saw with the Hound’s spying ability). The Electric Eel and Star of Siam repair at their new HI, while the Dorado and Europa follow the Harbinger to support her potential intervention in the southern theater. With the Hound in a bad spot on the ocean anyway, I decided to have her redock at the SE island just to build Ramsgate, which could serve to not only deter the Black Pearl from coming after the Hound, but also to potentially protect my gold from being stolen off my HI by the Gibraltar.
Here the Harbinger is about to dismast the Windjammer.
The Windjammer was captured, eliminating wifey from the game and giving my fleet yet another captured ship.
Here you can see all 10 of the ships in my fleet, in a rare instance of them being relatively close to one another.
Each fleet was busy wrecking forts on the sides their HI’s were on. The northwest island (with Natives) looked like a potential future hotspot.
The last forts are finished off and the two imposing fleets are about as close as they had been all game.
My fleet masses near the northern whirlpool, anticipating a conflict.
However, a somewhat unfortunate situation played out, with each fleet inevitably being content with getting local gold. My fleet got the last of the native gold, while repkosai’s Morning Star grabbed the final coins from the northern island.
Repkosai’s fleet made a move towards the ships I had getting gold from Ramsgate in the southeast, but the distances and lack of whirlpools prevented a major encounter. Soon afterwards the Europa made a surprise attack, using an EA to burst through the eastern whirlpool and ram the valuable HMS Gibraltar! Thomas Gunn was lost in the boarding party, and the Gibraltar scurried home for repairs, the rest of her fleet covering her stern.
At this point it is worth noting that all gold (except for Ramsgate) had been unloaded to home islands. However, the game was quite “live” as both fleets had a HI raider: HMS Gibraltar for repkosai and a captured (no surprise there!) Electric Eel in my fleet. In addition, the gold race was a complete mystery but we both knew that it was likely very close. With that, the endgame was decided: it would be a raiding challenge, with neither side wanting to completely vacate their HI in fear of the other player making a move towards it.
Repkosai conceded that he didn’t think he would be able to pull off a successful HI raid without TGunn aboard the Gibraltar along with his numerical disadvantage. Thus he formed a protective barrier around his HI with all of his ships, and waited it out. This let me formulate any strategy I wanted, and of course I thought of a many plans. I decided to round earth part of my fleet, with the Electric Eel as the most important ship. Other ships headed to meet up with them in the northeast near repkosai’s HI.
With infinite time to orchestrate what I wanted, I set things up to perfection. With my ships in position, my plan was sprung. Two forts were built, to provide places for repairing and any gun assistance in case of a chase. The Harbinger hid in the fog, ready to pop out and start the assault!
The Harbinger tore into the Gibraltar and Revenant. I made sure to target the Gibraltar, so I could possibly capture another HI raider and gain a decided advantage, simultaneously securing my own gold for the duration. I managed to capture the Gibraltar with the Windjammer, but couldn’t get an extra action to the Dorado to warp her home.
Repkosai’s counterattack was devastating, with the Black Pearl sinking the Harbinger and Gibraltar with a double action! This denied me from using the Gibraltar, and took out my flagship as well. The Yankee rammed the Windjammer, while the Morning Star attempted to stop the Electric Eel from raiding the HI.
I managed to dismast the Black Pearl with a combination of ships, and then used a lucky AA from Preble to capture the ship with the Dorado! This netted me another capture, but it was doubtful the BP could be used in time to affect the results.
Captain Jack Sparrow: “I’m going after the Black Pearl…. I know where it’s going to be, and I’m going to take it.”
The Electric Eel was continually foiled by the MS, Yankee, and Revenant until she was dismasted, which ended the game!
After the gold count:
1. a7xfanben: 85 gold
2. repkosai: 81
3. wifey: 0 (she had 7 or 8 before it was stolen)
What an amazing conclusion to a fun game! In the end, wifey’s captured Rum (worth 5 gold) made the difference in a way, since it got my score from 80 to 85! Very high scores, and very close as well. I must admit being very happy about the victory, since I played one of my favorite games ever in the early going, and certainly felt deserving of the win after the plays I made.
Another successful Circle of Blood game, and it’s a great scenario that I would recommend. As far as potential changes for us, I would say that making the islands a bit closer together and/or adding more whirlpools could help. Also, the forts were easy to eliminate, so they should probably have at least 6 3L cannons instead of 4.
Thanks for reading! This was played over the course of three different sessions on VASSAL. We’ll be back with more sometime, and until then, may your swords stay sharp!
The setup featured 6 wild islands with 3 coins apiece, and flat earth rules.
Calypso was successful on the first turn, and the Paradox used a trade current to reach the first whirlpool and pop out of the second near the southwestern wild island. The Akua Lapu didn’t want to risk a lot of masts or crew via whirlpools, and needed to wait in order to use Grim’s ability, so she wasn’t in a hurry to do anything for the first part of the game. I must admit that the 5 extra points helped, since it allowed me to have a dedicated gold runner. The Paradox is very slow without a helmsman, but between trade currents and the whirlpools being placed close to wild islands, she wouldn’t need a lot of speed to move all over the map.
The Spanish set out, and the Paradox has an eventful trip already. She found an abandoned helmsman in the south, but also Barrel o’ Monkeys and a 6 coin. The monkeys took the 6 for themselves, which left the Paradox with no gold. Thus, she used another of Calypso’s whirlpools to emerge near another wild island, losing a mast in the process.
Risking negative UT’s, the bored Akua Lapu looks to explore in the northeast. The Paradox gets 3 coins from an island but one will be left behind due to the greedy monkeys.
Here, the Morning Star has emptied an island for the Spanish, while their gunships head northwest towards the Pirates. The Paradox unloads, while the Akua Lapu loads up 3 coins.
The AL gets the SAT from Calico Cat, allowing the AL to dock home for a Pirate windfall! You can see the strange situation around the Pirate HI, with two sargasso seas, a bunch of whirlpools, and a few trade currents, all near a corner of the map.
Much excitement! After some rules issues, the Paradox is forced south from using some faulty Bad Maps! However, the Spanish weren’t completely fortunate: Calypso finally rolled to place another whirlpool, and luckily for me Calico Cat also rolled successfully. The Akua Lapu took off for the Spanish home island!
Grim the Savage led a raiding party, and the Pirates took all of the Spanish loot!! The gimmick was complete, though the AL still had to make it home in one piece and unload the gold. Speaking of unloading gold, the Paradox did just that, further increasing the Spanish treasure deficit. At this point everything in my fleet was working perfectly, as even the slow Paradox was turned into an awesome gold runner between the whirlpools and her explorer.
Calypso placed another whirlpool, allowing the AL to scoot around the fog bank and be whisked back to friendly waters. The Morning Star unloaded another island worth of gold, and the Leon was approaching the Pirate home island and managed to hit the AL.
Another windfall! The Akua Lapu docks home the stolen gold, and the game was turning into a blowout. I decided I had enough whirlpools and trade currents to execute any late-game strategies and maneuvers I might need, so the Coeur and Banshee’s Cry got to do some sight-seeing.
However, the Morning Star would have none of it! She rammed the Coeur out of action and stole the 6 that the monkeys had originally stolen from the Paradox. The Leon arrived through a whirlpool, but the attack naturally triggered a Pirate response, with the Paradox and Akua Lapu arriving shortly thereafter. In hindsight, the AL could have just raided the unprotected Spanish home island a second time, but instead there was some fun combat.
Disaster for the Spanish! The Leon sank the Coeur, but the Morning Star boarded the Paradox (when she had 3 masts remaining after the AL shot off 2 of them) and lost the 6 coin! The Paradox took full advantage, speeding away through the whirlpool. The AL got another SAT from Cat and blasted two masts off the MS before turning east in anticipation of another HI raid!
The MS and Leon exchange crew so the Leon has Castro, captain, and helmsman. The Paradox docks home the 6 coin she originally found on the second turn, while the Banshee’s Cry prepared to sacrifice herself to defend the AL.
Race for the Spanish home island! The Leon gets an SAT from Castro, but now the Paradox is ready to assist the AL too.
The AL raided the Spanish home island of the last two coins in the game, but Castro got an SAT to allow the Leon to shoot twice. Furthering Spanish woes, both shots missed, which allowed the AL to escape via whirlpool after yet another SAT from Cat. The Pirates had escaped, and more gold was unloaded to end the game!
In a huge blowout, the Pirates defeat the Spanish 55-0! This is one of the only games I’ve ever played where a fleet gets every single coin in the treasure distribution. No gold was sunk, and the Pirates collected and stole the rest for a massive victory. This game made me want to use Calypso more, and it’s also one of the best gimmick games/fleets I’ve seen.
We both learned a lot from this game: I learned how effective Calypso can be by not always needing helmsmen on slower gold runners, as the Paradox was just as valuable a ship as the Akua Lapu. Repkosai learned the opposite – speed wins games, as the Acorazado was way too slow to have any impact on the game. We also learned some rules situations; though I was surprised by the answers and we played them wrong, it wouldn’t have affected the final outcome since the Pirates were so dominant in this game. Thanks for reading! More adventures await!
Xerecs and I have begun the 8 fleet multiplayer game!
The American Pirates (AP’s) used Hidden Cove on the Amity to put her at a wild island in the center of the map. She found the turtles UT on the first turn! My other fleets also got off to fast starts, with the Zeus building Dead Man’s Point on an island for UPS 5, while both the Star of Siam and Joya del Sol got extra actions for the EA Gold Runners fleet.
Xerecs’ fleets sail out! The swarm fleet began to split up, but the Intrepide was shot at by the Algeciras of the EA gold runner fleet. There were 3 different Algeciras’ in this game, as well as multiple copies of the Banshee’s Cry and the Hag of Tortuga. HMS Grand Temple has struck! Using a whirlpool, the GT ambushed the Joya del Sol (of the EA gold runner fleet, not volt’s fleet), dismasting her and capturing Castro with Bonny Peel! Despite the Amity finding Missionary, the AP’s were off to the fastest start, with 8 gold aboard the Amity and essentially 10 more swimming home in the form of sea turtles. The Roanoke looked to empty that same center island, but there was a long way to go….
Another turn by Xerecs, and more carnage! The Star of Siam was set upon by swarmers, while the Banshee’s Cry rammed the Tiger’s Eye in the northeast! The other Star of Siam (of the Dread Galley speed fleet) found Monkey’s Paw and Runes of Death, and decided to leave the island’s gold to the Tiger’s Eye and Algiers. At the lower right, some swarmers have round earthed to the southeast, but they may have to deal with the wrath of volt’s loaded Santo Columba. In the far north, the Longshanks of the GT fleet has found more turtles, while the GT herself stole another crew from the derelict Joya del Sol!
Volt’s fleet finally had an eventful turn. The Algeciras hopped through a whirlpool to the northeast, where she would try to either stop the Longshanks or the turtles. Both the AP and GT fleets looked very good, with turtles found close to their HI’s in addition to regular gold making its way home. However, any fleet taking on the AP’s would have to contend with the Roanoke, so the Algeciras went north. In the meantime, the Joya del Sol docked at the southeastern island, confident that the Santo Columba could hold off the swarmers. The SC smashed the Lezard and Venture, but more ships were coming.
Speaking of the AP’s, the Amity returned home with valuable loot. A situation was brewing in the center, and a familiar one at that: the Roanoke vs. the Zeus! In a rematch of the final round of Tournament 1, the AP’s and UPS 5 were about to clash! The Roanoke loaded the final two coins from the center island and maneuvered to defend her turtles. The Zeus, having deposited a nice cache of coins, now sailed out to cause mayhem for the other fleets. Seeing the AP’s about to get rich, and just to the west, it was an easy choice. The Zeus loaded up the oarsmen remaining on the HI, and sailed to war. After a sac action, both of her guns in range hit! The Coeur du Lion rammed the Roanoke and another mast fell! In a quick attack UPS 5 had left the Roanoke crippled, and essentially unable to launch a counterattack (the Roanoke would be able to hit the Zeus at most 4 times with a double action, which would still leave the Zeus with 6 masts). The EA gold runner fleet was in shambles, but the Star of Siam managed to get an EA from Gallows to dock home a few coins.
Bonny Peel on the GT managed to capture the entire crew complement of the Joya del Sol, which would make for an impressive gold haul. The Barbary Untouchables fleet was starting to make some waves: the Tiger’s Eye docked at the northwestern island for gold, while the Nubian Prince sailed out of a whirlpool to emerge right next to the Zeus! Her immunity to ships within S meant the Zeus was relatively powerless against her, but in a game with this many fleets and whirlpools, UPS 5 would have no trouble finding an alternative target…. In a way, the NP’s arrival may have saved the Roanoke and some of the AP’s turtles, which could eventually have implications in the final gold count.
In the far north, the Pique managed a successful ram and board against the Longshanks, but was quickly dismasted for the effort. As for the Dread Galleys, the Tiger’s Eye had escaped via round earth, while the Star of Siam was almost home to eliminate the dreaded Runes of Death. The Algiers took up exploring duties, and was promptly set upon by the same brave Banshee’s Cry! At the lower right, the swarmers are successful against the Santo Columba, taking her down to 2 masts.
Volt’s fleet had a rough turn at the beginning of the next round, with the Santo Columba failing miserably against the Carrion Crow and Coeur du Lion. Making things worse, the Joya del Sol found Natives and mediocre gold values. The AP’s frantically tried to make the right decisions, with the Roanoke returning home both to deposit gold and to repair. With no obvious sac options left and both of the Amity’s crew eliminated due to Missionary, the Roanoke’s offensive capability was limited. The Bandido, after making a trip to the same island the Dread Galleys explored, was incredibly able to grab two of the last three coins from the island! Many turns ago I intended to use her to ram the Banshee’s Cry if she loaded gold. Once the Dread Galleys showed up, I figured there wouldn’t be gold left to take once the Bandido was finally able to explore. Instead, circumstances left the Bandido unharmed and (now) full with treasure! It wasn’t all perfect for the AP’s, as the Coeur eliminated a turtle. However, they breathed a sigh of relief to have the Zeus off their backs…
That’s right, the Zeus is loose! Wanting no part of the extremely obnoxious Nubian Prince, Captain Jack Sparrow saw a golden opportunity. The Zeus used a whirlpool to emerge right next to the HMS Grand Temple! Using Skrew Engine, the Zeus was able to move a second time and rip off 8 shots, 6 of which found their mark! Suddenly the GT was a mastless hulk! A rematch of the first series of the first round of T1! I decided to not sink the GT, hoping to tow her home with her vast riches of captured crew. In hindsight, even though things would soon go terribly wrong, perhaps getting the GT’s gold was the only hope UPS 5 had of winning this game?
In a brilliant move, Xerecs used the Banshee’s Cry to tow the derelict Joya del Sol out of the GT’s path! With an SAT from Myngs the GT was able to go through the whirlpool at S+S (helmsman and oarsman) and safely dock home 13 gold worth of captured crew!! I sat there in utter shock and anger, kicking myself for my mistake. I was naive enough to think the BC was going to explore, and I think I told myself that the BC in question belonged to the swarm fleet, not the GT fleet (wanting to believe it). Alas, I had made a huge mistake, and I was afraid it would cost one of my fleets the game. With 13 gold already on their HI and a full “fleet” of 10 turtles not far from reaching that HI, the GT fleet was the most obvious target for the Zeus. The AP fleet was also rich, but their turtles were essentially already safe (with no way to block them) and the Roanoke and Amity already home with gold. The GT fleet had 10 turtles 2 or 3 turns from home, in addition to a damaged Longshanks with gold aboard. The Zeus went through the same whirlpool as the GT, with a uniquely angry Captain Jack Sparrow aboard.
In the meantime, the swarmers grabbed gold and the Roanoke (barely) dismasted the Coeur du Lion of the UPS 5 fleet. The AP’s had fantastic luck with gold (finding turtles and NOT finding Wolves, Natives, or Runes of Death, etc), but terrible luck with cannons. The Roanoke had to sac her helmsman just to end the Coeur’s threat to the turtles, which effectively took the Roanoke out of the game, with just L speed at this point. The AP’s were also lucky not to have their gold runners attacked in any way – the Bandido was about to return with gold, while the Amity had gone through a whirlpool towards the northwestern island, which was less volatile than the other WI’s with gold on them. In the east, the Dread Galleys have unloaded gold, volt’s Algeciras has unsuccessfully attacked the Longshanks, and the Santo Columba and swarmers have fought to a stalemate of sorts, with neither side having much of anything left at the end of that battle.
After another turn by Xerecs, more gold has been loaded and unloaded. The Nubian Prince follows the Zeus, but without the help of extra actions there will be no chain shotting today! In the southeast, the Santo Columba has fallen to the swarm ships, but the Joya is finally ready to set sail after spending two full turns docked at the island (one to explore, another to wait after Natives affected her helmsman).
In the northwest, the Star of Siam and Amity race to a wild island. The AP’s have a sudden influx of gold, taking in 9 turtles and 2 coins from the Bandido in one turn! The hardships of the Roanoke have not been in vain, for the AP’s look like the fleet to beat! (so far heh) As expected, things are going to get messy in the far northeast. The Zeus got busy, eliminating two turtles with a double action. The GT was repairing, while the Nubian Prince didn’t have the speed to catch the Zeus.
After another turn, exciting developments unfold! Volt’s Joya del Sol is almost home with gold, though her comrades (the Santo Columba and Algeciras) have sank beneath the waves. The Tiger’s Eye of the Untouchables fleet has docked home an impressive haul, while the swarm fleet has some gold of their own on its way to their HI. The Zeus eliminated two more turtles with another double action, but even more importantly she sank the Longshanks with a whopping 10 gold aboard!! That could prove important later on, though there wasn’t anything the GT fleet could do about it. The final action of the night was a major stroke of luck on the part of the EA gold runners, the winners of my historic 12 fleet game from early 2015. The Star of Siam had used Runes of Speed the turn before to dock at the northwestern island ahead of the Amity. Since neither ship had explorers, this meant the SoS would explore first. The AP’s go right before the EA fleet in the turn order, and the Amity rammed the final mast off the SoS. The EA fleet’s only remaining ship was the SoS, so the pressure was on her alone. Gallows gave her an EA, meaning she could explore and slowly begin to row away. The Star then explored, finding a few low-value coins, but also a very well-timed UT: TREES! The UT meant the SoS had both masts fully repaired! Anticipating a base move of only S, suddenly the Star of Siam was back in action with Trees! With her second action the Star sped into a fog bank, where she patiently waits… as this was the last turn of the night! Stay tuned for more, because this is a very interesting, exciting, close game! We are nearing the end, but perhaps more twists await?
September 27th, 2016
Last night saw a ton of Pirates action! Not only did CG2 continue, but the 8 fleet game as well! It was a bit crazy playing two games at once, and this battle report skims over some of the details that I cannot remember.
In the southwest, the Star of Siam (SoS) has escaped through a whirlpool:
The northeast became very chaotic. The Zeus finally was able to move again, and I had to sac her helmsman just to get her out of the Nubian Prince’s range. In the far northeast, the Dread Galleys have gold, which attracts the Amity to the area. The Grand Temple has repaired and is sailing once more.
The Bandido predictably finds Wolves on one of the northwestern islands, meaning that island is essentially irrelevant. Ships continue to flock to the east: the Zeus is slowly trying to get into position to protect the Dead Man’s Point fort, which is about to come under attack by both a Tiger’s Eye and the Roanoke. The fort holds gold, which is becoming quite scarce indeed. The Joya has whirlpooled to the southeast, where the Dread Galleys are round earthing their way home. The swarm fleet is also concentrated in the east at this point, and there’s sure to be some desperate battles for low-value coins!
The Amity boards the Jolly Mon of UPS 5, killing that Hag of Tortuga to net another gold for the AP’s! The Nubian Prince hit the Zeus with chainshot again, while the Grand Temple moved southwest. The Roanoke damaged the fort, inadvertently getting in the way of the Tiger’s Eye lol. But in the far south, things were even more exciting! The Joya del Sol (of volt’s fleet) stole a coin from the Dread Galleys, and then the Star of Siam from EA gold runners came through a whirlpool with an EA and rammed the Star of Siam of the Dread Galley fleet! Battle of the Stars! XD
Ships began scattering. The Joya and SoS whirlpooled near home in order to dock their stolen loot. The GT appeared in the southwest, Bonny Peel intent on capturing the swarm fleet’s Hag of Tortuga. The Nubian Prince held the Zeus in place with chain shot while hitting with her regular cannons, a trend that would continue for 3 straight turns! The Dread Galleys had already run into trouble with having their gold stolen, and they weren’t done yet. The AP’s and swarmers were the next to pick on them.
The Joya and SoS have docked home their gold, while the Amity managed to steal a coin. The fort is no more! The Roanoke managed to dismast the Coeur on the same turn, but the swarmers had a plan…. In the far west, the unthinkable happened: the mighty Grand Temple rolled a 1 when ramming the Jolly Mon, meaning that she would be pinned as long as the JM didn’t move away!! Bonny Peel captured the Hag of Tortuga, but the swarmers had a perfect opportunity to deny the GT fleet her 5 gold payout in addition to keeping the other swarm ships safe from the big gunship.
The Coeur explored with her last gasp, and the Banshee’s Cry moved in right beside her to take the gold formerly held in the fort! In the meantime, the Roanoke had come under attack from other swarm ships! With gold aboard the BC and the GT pinned, things looked great for the swarm fleet. The Nubian Prince has knocked the Zeus down to just one mast, but UPS 5 would have a few more fireworks in them…
At this point, Xerecs did something I may never fully understand, but here’s his explanation after I asked him about it through email:
xerecs wrote:
The swarm thought and figured that the gt would go after ships with crew on them, like the Zeus or NP. The swarm has a mentality of meat shields for their few remaining runners, also they know that the gt wont bother with them since now that the hag is gone, the gt has no more business with them.
All eyes turned to the southeast. The Roanoke was in major trouble, while the Tiger’s Eye of the Untouchables fleet had loaded the final coin from the island that had Dead Man’s Point on it. It was a congregation of survivors, and things were about to get even more interesting!
That’s right, UPS 5 has captured the Roanoke! In a last-ditch effort to deny the Roanoke’s gold (or 10 gold payout from her two crew if Bonny Peel captured them) via towing her back home or scuttling her, the Zeus made a big move. Even crazier was the other parts of UPS 5’s turn. Unfortunately I had to sacrifice Captain Jack Sparrow to get the Zeus into position, something that is extremely rare. But then the Jolly Mon won a boarding party to steal a coin from the Tiger’s Eye! It was an improbable turn, but the winner of T1 was too weak to sustain these brief advantages.
Utter confusion in the southeast. Many rams and boards were happening at this time, some of them likely irrelevant. The whole process of boarding, stealing a coin, and then the other ship stealing the coin back began in earnest. What I do know is that UPS 5 successfully rolled to scuttle the Roanoke, while the Zeus got into position to block the GT, who surprisingly didn’t blow the nearby Raton to smithereens.
More chaos! The Dread Galleys captured the Roanoke, but the Roanoke had her coin stolen by the TE of the Untouchables fleet! The GT captured Don Pedro Gilbert, leaving the Zeus (and UPS 5 as a fleet) with no crew! The Banshee’s Cry looked like she would escape, though not before the SoS would steal one of her coins! The Amity then stole it from the SoS, who lost Gallows in trying to get it back! The game was just plain messy!
This shows more rams and boards, and general combat. XD Who will win this epic battle!?
September 30th, 2016
The 8 fleet game has finally concluded!
The Roanoke was sunk!! This denied Bonny Peel from getting her crew, and also gave the Untouchables fleet 1 gold from drowning Commodore Perry. In the southwest, the Joya has turned around – I forgot that the Banshee’s Cry was carrying a helmsman, so the sloop was able to dock home her gold without getting attacked. In the north, the Amity has escaped the mess in the southeast and looks to dock home her stolen gold.
A few turns later, and the action has shifted! The Tiger’s Eye of the Untouchables fleet has both of the last few coins in play, making her a magnet to be mauled by the other fleets! The Dread Galley TE and volt’s Joya each steal a coin, making themselves the new targets. Bonny Peel unloads some captured crew for the GT fleet, while the Jolly Mon tows the Zeus for UPS 5.
The ensuing chaos results in the Untouchables’ TE stealing her coin back from the Joya. The Star of Siam of the EA gold runners fleet was sunk, eliminating them from the game.
However, that same TE is captured by the swarm fleet’s Banshee’s Cry after losing a mast to a whirlpool! The lost mast meant the TE couldn’t get home on oar power at one third her normal speed. The Dread Galley TE docked home her coin for the speed fleet. The Amity has been scuttled, eliminating the AP’s from the active game. Volt’s Joya has also been sunk, eliminating his fleet from contention. Most of the days’ action concerned Xerecs’ fleets, for I came into the day with exactly one functioning ship in each of my four fleets. By the end of the game I could only do stuff with the Jolly Mon of UPS 5!
Numerous galleys sailed through the whirlpool to try and catch the Banshee’s Cry, but she was too quick. Using the captured TE’s action to give herself the coin, the BC was able to dock home the final coin! This ended the game, after which the GT fleet docked home Bonny Peel’s final two captured crew.
The gold was counted up, and the American Pirates have won the 8 fleet multiplayer game!!
Final scores:
1. American Pirates: 31 gold
2. Xerecs’ HMS GT fleet: 28 gold
3. UPS 5: 15 gold
4. Barbary Untouchables 2: 14 gold
5. EA Gold Runners: 13 gold
6, 7, 8: Volt’s FC fleet, Dread Galley speed fleet, dakmor’s swarm fleet: 12 gold
O_O
An incredible game! The final scores were extremely close – a group of two elites at the top, followed by a pack of SIX fleets all within THREE gold of each other!! We couldn’t have asked for a better game – it was just about perfect. Not only did every single fleet get some gold (a rarity for a game with this many fleets), but the last 3 fleets all tied with 12, so no fleet stands out as getting “last” place! The game also featured lots of twists, turns, decisions, and exciting moments. Early UT luck was predictably a major factor, but things evened out in the long haul, especially as ramming and boarding became a major tactic.
The ending avoided controversy by a hair. If the Grand Temple had docked home Bonny Peel’s captured crew before the Banshee’s Cry had docked, the GT fleet would have won with 35 gold! However, after woelf’s answer in the Rules thread, nothing is in doubt. If the GT fleet had won, they would have advanced to Tournament #2! Alas, the AP’s were already in T2 after making it past the first round of T1, and thus simply further prove themselves as one of the more competitive fleets out there. I personally find it fitting that the GT fleet didn’t win, because the AP fleet easily could have won by a larger margin. After the swarm fleet’s (another fleet controlled by Xerecs) Jolly Mon “unpinned” the previously trapped Grand Temple at the swarmers’ HI, the GT went on to capture numerous crew, and indeed, eventually enough to win if another turn had passed. Therefore the questionable decision was almost enough to have the GT fleet win but only with the help of the swarm fleet. Nothing against Xerecs, but perhaps a lesson in playing all the fleets equally in multiplayer games, a bit of “karma” if you will.
It was now time to hand out some awards! Xerecs and I did this on a whim; it may become a tradition depending upon the game(s) played. It usually won’t be worth doing for standard 40 point games, but in a series of games (such as these tournaments) or a multiplayer game it’s more applicable.
MVS (Most Valuable Ship): Amity (of the AP fleet)
The Amity was a workhorse from the beginning, being one of the first ships to explore. Both of her crew were killed by the Missionary UT on the first turn, but somehow she survived almost the entire game. She brought back 8 gold on her first trip, discovering valuable turtles at the same island. Only 1 turtle was killed, resulting in a net of 17 gold from one wild island, which turned out to be higher than the totals of almost all the other fleets! The Amity then went on different raiding missions, and I believe two were successful. Either way, you could say she truly made the difference, for one of those raids brought home a 2 coin, while another killed UPS 5’s Hag of Tortuga for 1 gold, resulting in the difference of 3 gold in her fleet’s 31-28 margin of victory!
Honorable mentions: Roanoke, Banshee’s Cry, HMS GT, etc.
MVC (Most Valuable Crew): Bonny Peel (of the GT fleet)
Bonny managed to capture a whopping 30 points’ worth of crew, although 7 gold was left aboard when the game ended. 13 gold came from the EA runners’ Joya del Sol, whose entire crew complement was ransomed off. She then went on to terrorize other fleets, stealing the swarm’s Hag of Tortuga (which could have been the last crew she swiped), Don Pedro Gilbert of UPS 5, and the last two crew of the Nubian Prince (captain and Murat Rais for the unloaded 7). In the end, the GT fleet didn’t actually have any gold on their home island – they had 23 gold from crew captures and 5 turtles! This is made all the more amazing by the fact that it’s exactly the same amount of gold that Dragon Eyes captured in my epic game from last fall! However, Bonny Peel captured crew worth 30 gold in the game overall, which can stand as a record! (they are tied at 23 each for most captured crew unloaded in a single game)
With that, the AP’s improve to 9-7 overall. In terms of fleet records, Xerecs and I have agreed to only count games as losses if less than 4 players/fleets are involved. Therefore, in games with 4 or more fleets, the winning fleet is credited with a win (of course), but the other fleets aren’t charged with a loss. I think 3 fleets is a reasonable cutoff; once you have 4 or more players the chances of winning the game really decrease, and obviously 8 fleets is quite a large game.
It’s also nice to see some parity in the scores; my fleets were 1 and 3, Xerecs’ 2 and 4, etc. I collected 71 total gold against Xerecs’ 66 total gold, but Xerecs had all his fleets active at the end while I only had the Jolly Mon from UPS 5.
It was a memorable game, and now that it’s over, we look to VASSAL Tournament #2! This is the big one – the fleet that wins T2 will be declared the best fleet of all time!! 16 fleets will be participating, in the same elimination style bracket as T1. We are in the process of choosing our fleets and setting up the bracket. Tournament 2 will soon begin!
Welcome to the first VASSAL tournament! Xerecs and I have agreed to play not one, but two tournaments on the VASSAL module! The purpose of the tournaments is to determine which fleet is the best of all-time! 😀
Tournament 1 (T1) acts as a play-in round. The top 4 fleets from T1 (not just the winner) will advance to Tournament 2 (T2). There will be 8 fleets participating in T1, while T2 will have a whopping 16 fleets! Each matchup consists of 2 fleets facing each other in 1v1 competition in a 3-game series. The fleet that wins the series advances to the next round. To save time, if a fleet wins the first 2 games of a series, the third game of the series will likely not be played. If you’d like to join the tournament, just let us know.
Fleet selection: In a spreadsheet, I have documented the records of various fleets I’ve played in the past. Based on these records, some fleets get a “bye” of sorts and are automatically placed in T2. The fleets for T1 were selected by myself and Xerecs. They are the fleets we considered the most competitive of the other fleets available, and/or they were fleets we really wanted to give a shot to, for a chance to enter the grand Tournament #2.
I’ve done this tournament idea in the past, but it’s time for competitive play to return! The previous tournament saw Norvegia victorious, but the fleet was then swept 3-0 by my HMS GT fleet immediately afterwards in exhibition play. Therefore, my original HMS GT fleet will head into T2 as a #1 seed. The rest of the seeding process will be based on records and possibly other criteria such as vote scores on MT or margins of victory in past games.
These games are being played under most of the “standard” game rules (8 coins per player worth 15 gold, 6 islands, etc). However, there will be a few house rules:
-Xerecs and I are changing the turn order after the first game of each series. The fleet that went second in the first game will go first in the second game. This is to ensure maximum fairness so one die roll doesn’t effectively decide a series. (though Game 3’s will still feature regular rolls)
-We will play until there is a clear winner. This will often be the “more than half the starting gold” rule, but there may be exceptions.
Here is the bracket for Tournament #1! I am playing as UPS 5, dakmor’s swarm fleet, EA Gold Runners, and American Pirates. Xerecs is playing as his own GT fleet, Volt’s VASSAL fleet challenge fleet, Barbary Untouchables 2, and the Dread Galley speed fleet. I placed my fleets in the bracket in no particular order. We then assigned numbers to the fleets, for example, UPS 5 got a 1 because it would be the first series of the first round. Xerecs then rolled dice to determine the matchups, and the bracket was set up! For future rounds, if one person controls both fleets, they pick which one they want for that round, and the other person gets the other fleet. The matchups certainly looked interesting on paper, with a giant matchup headlining the first series!
(It’s highly recommended that you check out the fleets beforehand to have context going into the games)
The first game was underway! I rolled to go first, and quickly sacced an oarsman to get the Zeus to a wild island. Trading away a bad UT, we immediately began to run into rules questions lol. This picture shows the Zeus at a second wild island; two coins have already been tossed home via Captain Jack Sparrow (CJS). The Longshanks had her crew eliminated by a missionary, but it prevented some natives from freezing the ship. So far, Xerecs’ bad UT’s were hurting him, and Don Pedro Gilbert’s treasure trading ability ensured the Zeus would be reasonably safe from harm at most islands.
The Longshanks and Zeus returned home with gold, while the Banshee’s Cry (BC) was dismasted by the Coeur du Lion. The Zeus was running out of oarsmen to sacrifice, but UPS 5 already had a major lead in the gold game.
The Grand Temple got an SAT from Myngs and blasted the Zeus! However, the Zeus and her crew were annoyed to find Natives on the island, trading it away for another coin. Eager for the game to end, it was time to fire. ZEUS SMAAAASH!! Saccing the explorer, the Zeus dismasted the GT! A few more shenanigans followed, but UPS 5 was the obvious victor. The final score of the first game of T1: 18-3.
The second game was about to begin!
In extremely similar fashion, the Zeus traded away Wolves to an island close to the Longshanks and BC! The second game was a near-repeat of the first.
The Grand Temple made a move for the Hag of Tortuga, and captured her! The Zeus emerged from a fog bank to simultaneously dock at her HI and shoot at the GT, hitting only 5/16 in a double action. This wasn’t all that surprising given her 3S cannons and my generally poor luck with shoot actions. The BC and Longshanks reached the far islands, while the GT had the mast she needed to get home.
This led to an interesting situation – the Zeus blockading the BC and LS in a fog bank, while the GT repaired. The Jolly Mon, with no Ransom crew around, sailed off in search of treasure. However, all she found was Natives, meaning that the gold on ships was essentially the only gold left in the game. Theoretically the Zeus could have explored the other island and traded away the Wolves for the Natives (making the gold accessible), but there was no reason for me to do that with a fully repaired HMS GT charging the Zeus while she sat immobile due to the Natives. In addition, I already had the gold advantage once again.
Thus we began playing cat and mouse. The LS was shadowed by the Zeus, while the Jolly Mon and Coeur came up to support the 10 master. I had realized something: since I wasn’t going to be trading away any more gold home for oarsmen on the Coeur, there was no reason not to send the Coeur out to meet the Zeus and just give her the oarsman manually. This would give the Zeus two oarsmen, which might allow her enough actions to catch all three enemy ships.
I quickly tired of the maneuvering, and decided to force the action. The Jolly Mon rammed the Longshanks, who stayed in place and fired. This allowed my plan to work, with the Zeus dismasting the Longshanks and stealing her coin (I wanted the extra gold before sinking the LS). The Coeur came alongside the Zeus and was ready to transfer the final oarsman.
The GT got an SAT and attacked the Zeus. Incredibly, she missed all 6 times!! This allowed the Zeus to sink her with a double shoot, also sinking the LS. The BC was all alone in the fog.
I managed to corner the BC near my home island. Docking the Zeus to deposit my last coin (stolen from the LS), I then shot at the BC and sank her! This ended the game, with UPS 5 winning 15-5! This was the fleet’s second win in as many games, winning the pair by a combined score of 33-8. UPS 5 advances to Round 2 and therefore also to a spot in Tournament #2!
Once again I rolled to go first, and the swarm fleet was off!
The BC reached the northeastern island, and things got silly in a hurry. She found 3 3’s (the highest treasure value in the distribution for these two fleets) as well as the Turtles UT. Xerecs’ bad luck was apparently going to continue, as my fleets consistently found better UT’s and values.
The Santo Columba began blasting her way through the swarm, but it was already too late. To add insult to injury, the Intrepide had found 8 more gold on her island, while the Lezard and Mermaid found Skrew Engine and Runes of Speed on their island.
The UT’s were flipped and the BC also returned home, netting me 15 gold in one turn. 10 turtles weren’t far behind, and just to make things even more lopsided, my tiny ships rammed effectively, taking the Santo Columba down to 2 masts.
The Santo Columba eliminated a turtle, but then the Intrepide docked home and the game ended. The swarm fleet had won a massively lopsided game 23-5. They look to advance to T2 with another win, a game that will hopefully be played soon.
The bad luck experienced by Xerecs on this night was beyond comprehension. Luck wasn’t the only reason he lost all three games, but it was truly hard to believe, especially the GT going 0/6 and the completely perfect treasure distribution that the swarm fleet got lucky with.
After three games, here are the standings! For future reference, the top fleet will have the first score (ex: if volt’s fleet had just won the latest game 10-5, it would say 5-10 instead of 23-5.)
Which fleet will face the formidable UPS 5? And which fleets of the other 4 will advance? Stay tuned to find out!
September 6th, 2016
The tournament has continued!
Here’s the setup for the second game of the second matchup.
Once again the swarm fleet found Turtles! This made the swarm even harder to deal with – in addition to 11 ships (Jolly Mon sitting at home), the Spanish had to deal with 10 turtles as well!
A pileup emerged in the center, with the swarmers putting their best gunships (Intrepide, Carrion Crow, Venture) alongside the Santo Columba.
The Santo Columba was victorious and eliminated almost the entire swarm fleet! At this point we simulated the rest of the game since the Spanish would keep the Jolly Mon afloat in order to get the remaining gold. The Spanish won the game 25-15!
That set the stage for the first game 3 of the tournament! The stakes were high, with the loser facing elimination.
The home islands happened to reverse from the previous game.
The Banshee’s Cry was sent west with the Mermaid to get gold from an island that I expected to be contested. The Intrepide, Pique, and Lezard all headed south. I put together the best battle squadron I could (Carrion Crow, Venture, Algeciras, Rover) and sailed them straight towards the Santo Columba. The Coeur and Raton would act as block ships or potential “tugboats”.
The BC and Mermaid loaded gold, but the Mermaid was sunk and the BC dismasted! (both by the Santo Columba) I decided to try and trap the SC and prevent her from towing the BC (who had 8 gold aboard), and proceeded to eliminate 3 of her 4 masts in a series of rams and shots. Countessa Amore was killed in a boarding attack, netting the swarmers 1 gold. In the east, the Pique headed home with gold while the Intrepide and Lezard lagged behind to protect the turtles. That’s right, for the third game in a row, the swarm fleet had found the Turtles UT! However, I had also stashed Grease Barrels away on the Intrepide, hoping to make her a surprise ramming threat if needed…
The Joya del Sol was busy filling her cargo hold, while the Algeciras sailed in and capture the BC. In a complex series of maneuvers I managed to extricate one of my derelicts out of the way so that another ship could tow the Santo Columba. I then utilized a small chain tow with the Intrepide to move the SC farther from the Algeciras. You can see how crowded the area was, and 10 turtles just to the east only made it busier.
The Algeciras attacked, but my prize was safe: the Santo Columba! Guess what saved her? The Grease Barrels! I flipped the UT aboard the Intrepide to allow her to dock home before the Algeciras potentially could have sunk the SC on the following turn. An SAT got the SC repairing quickly, and now the swarmers had access to the very weapon that caused their demise in the previous game, and the only huge threat between the two fleets combined.
Turtles began reaching safety, while the Algeciras re-towed the BC. The SC fully repaired, and the Intrepide set sail again.
I figured I could catch the Joya del Sol with the Santo Columba, but I forgot about the other UT’s: Skrew Engine and Runes of Speed. The Joya had both aboard, meaning she could move 12S in two turns to get home. The Algeciras swapped her captain (Luis Zuan) for a coin on the BC, hoping to salvage some value from the prize, knowing that she wouldn’t make it home at S speed while towing the BC. I moved to recapture the BC. At this point I had a very good idea of what Xerecs had on the Joya, since I had explored two islands and knew what values were present on the BC. It was possible that the score would end up 20-19!
Things went according to plan for a turn, surprisingly enough! I captured the BC, Xerecs got the Joya home, and the SC fought with the Algeciras.
The SC used S boarding to steal the coin from the Algeciras, but the Joya stole it back! The SC managed to retrieve it, and sped away from the scene. The BC was towed back while that was happening, and the game ended.
Dakmor’s swarm fleet wins 22-17 in a fantastic finale! They advance to Round 2, where they will face UPS 5!
We changed the setup once again but made sure to keep it fair and standard. Also: this game hasn’t concluded yet!
The Star of Siam got an extra action early, and I found turtles for the fourth game in a row. The Algeciras hid from the Nubian Prince, while the Joya and Tiger’s Eye headed east.
The Star of Siam ducked into a fog bank as well, knowing she could get home when receiving an extra action. The Tiger’s Eye turned south but the Joya got an EA to get there first and explore.
As I had planned, a lot of things started happening at once. The Star came out of the fog and docked home gold. The Algeciras emerged as well and scored a hit on the Nubian Prince, while the turtles and Joya del Sol raced home.
The Algeciras was quickly dismasted, while the Star of Siam tried to block the Nubian Prince from sailing over the turtles.
Just like the Star of Siam, the Joya hid in a fog bank until she could get home, this time with a UT. The Nubian Prince dismasted the Star, who fled into a fog bank. The Joya rammed the NP, taking out a second mast. The Tiger’s Eye had filled up with gold.
Who will win the first game of this series and take an advantage into the second game?
The first game of the third series came to a quick end, with the EA gold runners fleet victorious 22-13!
The Corsairs went first to start the second game:
The Nubian Prince dismasted the Algeciras, but once again I had found turtles!
Then I tried to make it look like my ships were heading northeast to contest the Tiger’s Eye at a wild island. It worked, as the Nubian Prince turned northeast. The Joya then got an EA at the perfect time and slipped past the Prince. The Star of Siam sacrificed herself and partially blocked the Prince. The turtles continued to swim home.
The Nubian Prince missed the Joya del Sol with a chainshot, and the game was effectively over.
EA Gold Runners wins the game 24-13! They capture the series and move on to round 2, and by extension Tournament 2!
The setup was changed a bit, and we were ready to play! Unfortunately this game wasn’t able to be played to completion, but we got off to an interesting start.
The Amity got gold home quickly with some help from Hidden Cove, while Captain Blackheart sacced some an oarsman to fire at the Algiers.
The Star of Siam lost a mast to a reef and another to the Bandido with a ram. The Roanoke proceeded to get another double action and sink both ships!
This game should conclude very soon, and Round 2 of Tournament 1 is approaching…
September 11th, 2016
Tournament 1 continues once more!
The Roanoke was unable to hit the Tiger’s Eye, giving the galley another chance to explore. Knowing the general gold situation, I had the Roanoke grab the final coin (at the island the Amity is docked at) rather than pursue the Eye.
The American Pirates prevailed 15-13!
The second game of the series began:
The Roanoke engages:
The galleys congregated in the south, and the Roanoke stalked them. The Amity and Bandido made short work of a wild island.
Things got interesting in a hurry. The Amity rammed a mast off the Tiger’s Eye and stole a coin, while the Roanoke went after the others, who were far from home. With a double action the Algiers was dismasted, but the Star of Siam escaped unscathed.
The Tiger’s Eye made a mistake trying to cross a Sargasso Sea, and became tangled. The Amity grabbed a coin, while the Star of Siam fled for home. Blackheart wanted more crew for his sacrifices, and sailed southwest to pick up the crew that the Dread Galleys had left off.
At this point the game began to tip in my favor. The Bandido rammed a mast off the Tiger’s Eye and robbed a treasure, while the Amity took a short detour and rammed the TE derelict. This left her stuck in the Sargasso with no easy way out. In the east, the Roanoke sank the Algiers and a bunch of coins!
In the end the American Pirates won 14-9! They advance to Round 2 of Tournament #1 and qualify for Tournament #2!
Round 2 of Tournament 1
With that, it was time for the second round, the semifinals!
It was truly an odd matchup – essentially one ship (the Zeus) versus 11 ships!
The Zeus set up Dead Man’s Point on an island, and sailed back home with the rest of the island’s gold. The Banshee’s Cry quickly unloaded an island by herself with the help of some UT’s. The main question was whether or not the Zeus could catch the enemy gold runners before they docked home some gold.
The swarm fleet killed the Hag of Tortuga in a boarding action for an extra gold, while the Zeus picked up the oarsmen that would normally be loaded onto the Coeur du Lion. Captain Jack was ready for battle!
There were 4 swarm ships with gold aboard, and the Zeus quickly dispatched two of them. The Intrepide was tougher to get to, with the Rover in the way.
The Zeus dismasted the Intrepide and Lezard! This left towing as the only option for the swarmers. Chain towing helped a bit, but in the end the Zeus was too fast (with double actions each turn due to saccing) and had too many cannons. Both ships were sunk, and UPS 5 won the game 10-7!
Here is the tournament bracket, completely updated through the end of Round 1! My fleets proved their worth, and now two of them must face each other in the second series of Round 2. In the meantime, the winner of the current matchup will soon be decided!
Looking for a second sweep in as many rounds, UPS 5 started game 2 of the series in the northwest while the swarm fleet started in the east.
After returning 10 gold to her home island, the Zeus battled her way to another 5 gold. However, she couldn’t catch any of the swarming gold runners, and the game ended in a 15-15 tie!
The series went to a game 3, though the series was still 1-0 in favor of UPS 5. I made a mistake and put Xerecs and the swarm fleet near the middle of the sea. This would give them access to 3 of the 4 wild islands.
As the swarmers scattered, the Zeus scooped up all the oarsmen she could carry and headed towards the swarm fleet’s home island. I knew I’d have to move quickly to sink a bunch of gold before it got back.
Both Hags of Tortuga were killed to net us 1 gold apiece, while the Zeus sank the Intrepide and 3 coins!
The Zeus rammed the Pique and stole both of her coins, which was only possible after saccing some oarsmen to unintentionally free up cargo space! However, the Mermaid and Lezard still posed threats. The Coeur and Jolly Mon joined the Zeus, and it was once again time for the Zeus to take center stage.
Shots of little consequence were fired, as the Zeus maneuvered into position. The Mermaid would be able to dock, but could only carry a single coin.
This picture doesn’t do justice how close the end of the game was. The Algeciras blocked the Zeus, but I managed to go 2/4 and sink the ship with the Zeus’ first action! This proved decisive, as it allowed the Zeus to sail north and get some cannons in range of the Lezard. Guns boomed once more, and the Lezard sank quickly. The game was effectively over, with the Zeus returning home and the swarm fleet largely eliminated.
UPS 5 wins the third game 13-7! The fleet now advances to the finals of Tournament #1, and looks to secure a high seed in Tournament #2 as well as further increasing its winning streak. UPS 5 is now 4-0 through two series.
Dakmor’s swarm fleet put up a good fight, losing the series by a combined score of just 38-29 when the tie game is included. It will be interesting to see what the swarm fleet has in store for Tournament 2 as well as the 8 fleet multiplayer game. That’s right, there will be a multiplayer game after the conclusion of Tournament 1! All 8 fleets will be participating. It’s largely an experiment, but the stakes could not be higher for the fleets that were eliminated in Round 1 and therefore will not advance to Round 2. The fleet that wins the multiplayer game will automatically advance to Tournament 2! This is a form of second chance – if one of the “underdog” fleets (now that they’ve lost in Round 1) manages to pull off a win against all 7 other fleets, they get into T2 with the win! Of course, if one of the 4 fleets that has already advanced to T2 wins the 8 fleet game, it will have no effect on T2 (other than a possible seeding tiebreaker or something), but it will be interesting to see who wins regardless. My EA gold runners fleet is still under .500 at 8-9 overall, but perhaps their greatest claim to fame is that they won that massive 12 fleet game in January 2015 as the conclusion of that “era” of competitive play (my previous “era” would be when Norvegia won a tournament in 2013, and this new era is the current one and will be the most comprehensive). Winning a huge multiplayer game definitely gives a fleet some bragging rights. And yes, we are planning to do a 16 fleet game at the conclusion of T2 using every single fleet from that tournament. Of course, that’s a long way off right now…
And with that, the second semifinal matchup is next! As I was the victor in advancing both of the fleets, I get to pick which one I control for the series. I love both fleets, but I’ve chosen EA gold runners because it’s one of my oldest fleets, I still believe in it even though its record isn’t fantastic, and because I prefer not to use events (the American Pirates fleet has Hidden Cove). We may not be able to continue for a few days, but we’ll be back! 😀
In the first game of the series, I got lucky and found most of the UT’s, including the turtles.
The Joya escaped to the southwestern island…
But was soon cornered by the Roanoke!
The AP’s managed to subdue the EA gold runners, but the gold was more important. I had found 11 gold, while 9 turtles reached safety. The final score was 20-19 in favor of the EA fleet!
The AP’s went first in the second game, and the home islands were close together.
The EA runners took care of the northern islands while the AP’s headed west. Xerecs had a new strategy, sending the Amity to the farther island after Hidden Coving her out. It was at the southwestern island that Xerecs finally found the Turtles UT!
I had a bunch of gold, but knew that I needed to eliminate some turtles or steal from the Amity to win. The Joya and Algeciras headed south to intercept the AP’s, while the Star of Siam headed west to pick up a 2.
Unsurprisingly the Roanoke was able to sac my fleet to pieces, and the AP’s won 20-18 in another extremely close game!
Game 3!
Xerecs found the turtles again, which meant I would be facing an uphill battle to win the game.
The Algeciras hit 2/2 to damage the Roanoke, while the Joya del Sol is heading west to pick up Skrew Engine. As in the last game, the Amity is sailing to the far island to get the best coins, leaving the Roanoke and Bandido to pick up the scraps.
The Amity picked up high value coins, and I sent the Joya in pursuit. However, the Roanoke had repaired with Trees at the northwestern island, and she gave chase. Realizing that I had a chance to eliminate some turtles (and knowing that they should be the priority since they would get home before the Amity), I suddenly sent all my ships towards the AP home island. The Joya got an extra action, while the damaged Algeciras and Star of Siam also sped north. (The Algeciras had rammed the Bandido derelict when the Roanoke repaired)
The Algeciras and Joya began eliminating turtles while also blocking the home island off from the remaining turtles. The SoS didn’t receive an extra action from Gallows, and the Roanoke and Amity were coming.
The Roanoke used a double action to sink the Algeciras and damage the Joya! Knowing how much gold I had and how many turtles had gotten home safely, I realized that I could win the game if I got the final 3 gold on the southwestern island. The Joya sailed at great speed for the island, while the Star of Siam would try to intercept the Amity.
In a surprise to me, the Amity rammed the Joya and took out a mast! With only one mast remaining the Joya reached the island and loaded the final two coins.
This is where it got ugly. The Amity caught the Joya and rammed her again. Rolling two consecutive 1’s, she didn’t eliminate the Joya’s final mast and the Joya managed to steal a coin! There was some confusion over how we played the boarding rules. From now on, as I usually play, the winner of the boarding party gets to choose whether they eliminate a crew or take a treasure. If they take a treasure, they can choose which coin they take (since it’s more realistic). If they eliminate a crew, the loser picks which crew is eliminated (since it’s more balanced). Under these rules, the EA gold runners fleet won the game 24-12. However, then we went back (by undoing everything) and played it again from the same boarding action. This time, the American Pirates won 20-16. As a result, we effectively called Game 3 a tie (!)… which meant that we now had to play a historic Game 4 to decide the winner of the series!
Unfortunately the fourth game was a complete blowout. Hidden Cove was used on the Roanoke, who sank the Joya and dismasted the Algeciras. I found the turtles, but it was already too late. The AP’s win 25-5 and advance to the final round!
Tournament 1, Final Round: UPS 5 vs. American Pirates
This will be played soon; Xerecs and I decided to swap fleets. I will control the AP fleet like I did in the first round and Xerecs will have his first opportunity to control UPS 5.
CJS aboard the Zeus made a mistake in putting the home island of the AP fleet right in the middle of the new setup. This would allow them to hit three of the four wild islands relatively easily.
I was able to make separate trips to the 3 islands while the Zeus returned home the other island for UPS 5.
After the Roanoke and Bandido got home, it was clear that the AP’s were victorious! Their 16-9 win meant that UPS 5 is no longer undefeated!
The second game featured different home islands:
The AP’s went with a different strategy, using Hidden Cove on the Amity, who then began sailing even further west. Once again I wanted to hit more than half the wild islands, sending the Roanoke to the middle and the Bandido west. The Roanoke managed a couple hits on the Zeus with a double action.
The Zeus is loose! The 10 master nearly dismasted the Roanoke while also sending home a coin via CJS.
The Roanoke repairs as the other ships bring in gold:
The Amity grabs the final coins from the southwestern island, while the Roanoke heads to grab the final coin in the far west. The Coeur, now empty, looks to get gold in the north. The Bandido is now an expendable block ship, but the Zeus turns south…
A few turns of mayhem! The Zeus managed to catch the Amity with some sac actions, taking off a mast. However, her other 2 guns in range missed, allowing the Amity to dock home valuable coins. Knowing the Zeus could probably blockade my home island effectively, and seeing the vulnerable Coeur more than a turn away from docking at her HI, I decided to change course and send the Roanoke northeast! She got there just in time, blocking the Coeur. Her guns missed the little ship, and the Zeus turned around.
Knowing a victory was within reach, I managed to play the end of the game quite effectively. The Roanoke sank the Coeur with gold aboard, then turned around to ram and board the Jolly Mon, eliminating the Hag of Tortuga for an additional 1 gold. These differentials would turn out to be important… I wasn’t worried about the 1 on the Roanoke at this point, having prioritized sinking the Coeur. The Bandido appeared just off the bow of the Zeus, hindering her movement. The Amity was sailing up as well, but the game was over. The AP fleet wins 16-13!
For various reasons, I wanted to play at least one more game despite the AP fleet winning two games in a row. We swapped fleets, and T1 continued.
This game featured an explosive start! The Roanoke used Hidden Cove to appear at the middle island right next to the Zeus! With a double action from Blackheart the Roanoke went 6/10 to damage the behemoth! However, with a double action of her own, the Zeus responded by dismasting the Roanoke! The Amity and Bandido had hardly begun sailing, and the flagships had already lost 11 masts between them!
The Roanoke tried to escape at 4S speed via a combination of helmsman, oarsman, and sac action, but it wasn’t quite enough – the Zeus sank her! This was a big deal, for it meant that the Zeus and her firepower was essentially unobstructed for the rest of the game. However, the fierce battle in the center had cost UPS 5 valuable time.
After a few more turns, things have become peaceful. The Zeus unloaded gold and picked up the remaining sacrificial oarsmen. The Amity and Bandido headed home with gold. I opted not to repair the Zeus because it would cost me too much time (even if I just repaired 1 or 2 masts), and with 4 3S cannons at the bow of the ship and no captains remaining in the enemy fleet (not to mention potential sac actions), the Zeus could dictate any battle she found herself in.
The Amity headed for the northeastern island, but the Zeus scared her off. The Zeus claimed the gold on that island, while the AP fleet finished off the rest of the gold. UPS 5 was victorious 19-12! (one extra gold from sinking Perry aboard the Roanoke)
After this third game, it was even less clear which fleet is superior. As a result, at least one more game will be played, hopefully in a matter of hours!
With the AP fleet up in the series 2-1 heading into Game 4, they had a chance to win glory as the winner of a competitive tournament!
Early in the game the Zeus managed to catch the Roanoke and take her down to one mast!
UPS 5 had the Coeur grab some coins, while the Zeus followed the Amity:
The Amity was sunk and UPS 5 remained in control of the game. They ended up winning 18-12 to even the series at 2 games apiece!
The setup for Game 5, with the HI’s close together:
This game was short and without combat. Faced with a choice between trying to catch one or both of the AP runners (Bandido and Amity) or simply emptying a second island, I made the wrong move. The northeastern island happened to have both of the 1’s in the treasure distribution, which meant it was too late to salvage the game. The AP’s won a close 16-14 victory!
With the American Pirates up in the series once more (3-2), we decided to swap fleets again: Xerecs took over for UPS 5 while I regained the AP fleet (just like the first 2 games of the series, which in hindsight is funny given the 2-3-2 nature of the series and the similarities to playoffs in the NBA and MLB heh).
Game 6!!
I used Hidden Cove to fling the Amity as far as possible, but it wasn’t enough. I expected Xerecs to turn the Zeus home to dock the gold, but instead he went after the Amity, sinking her easily. This destroyed my game, and it was a quick win for UPS 5 afterwards. The final score was essentially 12-0 (12-4 if counting the 4 gold on the Bandido).
Now the series was tied 3-3, which meant… you guessed it…
Game 7! The final series of the first tournament was coming to an epic conclusion!
Open fire! I knew I had to strike, but the Roanoke’s guns weren’t good enough. After Hidden Coving to the middle island, she went 4/10 in a double action.
After having some trouble maneuvering, the Zeus only managed two hits of her own! This gave the AP’s another chance, which was also squandered. The Roanoke went a whopping 0/6 with 3L cannons, and the game was effectively decided. The Zeus blasted the Roanoke to pieces, and the Amity and Bandido couldn’t get enough gold to make up the difference! Don Pedro Gilbert’s treasure swapping also helped the UPS fleet in this final game, but the Roanoke’s own abysmal shooting was the primary cause of the quick demise. UPS 5 wins Game 7 by a score of 17-14!
UPS v. 5.0: Zeus style has won VASSAL Tournament #1!
It was a fitting end, for the Universal Pirate Shipping strategy pioneered by darrin is simply one of the best (if not the best) ways to win this game. It was fitting on a personal level as well – one of my fleets won the tournament, but Xerecs controlled it for the final game (and 4 of the 7 games in the final series), so we’re both champions! 😀
The final bracket. For the gold scores, the first number is the gold total of the upper fleet.
Looking back on the first VASSAL tournament, it was a great experience. The first round saw 3 sweeps in 4 series, with all 3 of my fleets advancing. It wasn’t nearly so lopsided after that, with the final two series being especially interesting. EA Gold Runners is almost like the dark horse of the tournament, having barely missed a trip to the finals. The final round was a bit of a mess, but it turned into a rather epic 7-game series in which UPS 5 prevailed 4-3.
Here are the current records of the fleets involved in T1 after its conclusion:
UPS 5: 8-3
American Pirates: 8-7
EA Gold Runners: 9-11
Volt’s VASSAL FC fleet: 2-3
dakmor’s swarm fleet: 2-3
Xerecs’ GT fleet, Barbary Untouchables 2, Dread Galley speed fleet: 0-2
Of course, the last two rounds were mostly for bragging rights and seeding for VASSAL Tournament #2, which is the real deal – whichever fleet wins that tournament will hold the current status of the best fleet ever! The four fleets that advanced to Round 2 (UPS 5, dakmor’s swarm fleet, EA Gold Runners, and American Pirates) have advanced to Tournament #2, where they will compete against absolutely brutal fleets. Before T1 even started I picked 6 fleets to have a “bye” into T2, which includes 4 fleets based around the UPS strategy. The other two are my HMS Grand Temple fleet and the classic Norvegia fleet. It will be something to behold…
BUT! First we play the 8 fleet multiplayer game with all the fleets from T1! As I explained previously, if a fleet that didn’t advance to Round 2 of T1 wins the multiplayer game, they automatically advance to T2! The stakes could not be higher for the fleets that got swept in T1, as well as Volt’s FC fleet.
Coming soon: a picture of the setup for the multiplayer game, with all 16 islands and 8 fleets. We’ve also established the turn order, so we’re ready to begin, probably sometime next weekend. In the meantime, thanks for reading about Tournament 1, and as always, just hop on the module if you’d like to join us on VASSAL! (and let us know if you’d like to play fleets in Tournament 2!)
Xerecs and I have played a 200 point game of Water World!
I went first with this fleet while Xerecs used a similarly powerful fleet with multiple 10 masters. When creating my fleet, I was quite inspired by some of the ideas I presented here. With 200 points at my disposal, any combo was possible, even that monster one with the Guichuan. I’ll admit this report is a bit biased towards my perspective on things, but that’s entirely because this was one of the best games I’ve ever played. (as in, I played it really well, not that the game itself was that exceptional) Hopefully it won’t sound too conceited haha!
My strategy going into the game was as follows. The whole premise of the fleet was to basically sail the Guichuan up to the enemy fort, flip Grim to steal all the gold (or at least 7 coins anyway), and then be immune to cannon fire with the Haulers. Then, after stealing all the gold from said fort, proceed to sink it to add insult to injury! The Oxford is the sidekick to the Guichuan, chosen for her speed (able to keep up with a Guichuan going 4S per turn with Mycron’s help) and ability. The canoes provide transfer backup if needed. Honestly, the rest of the fleet was just created as a distraction. Realistically, the only thing that can distract an opponent from the Guichuan is another 10 master. Thus, the Celtic Fury. I chose her because France has some crew with the Parley ability, and using Parley as offense is another thing I’ve been wanting to test further. Roimata’s captain/SAT was the perfect complement to Lenoir’s reroll, while a stinkpot specialist was added to fill out the points and provide some insurance against tough foes. The support gunships are other distractions – with this many points available the Constitution was a support gunship! The Black Coral was added for another RtSS piece, and I thought she could be a backup gold runner, with Secret Hold being extra-useful in the Water World scenario. The Mercure is a ship I’d like to use more often, and was the perfect fiery pest to fill out points with.
I wondered to myself if this grand plan was even plausible. Somehow, it worked.
6 wild islands, 8 coins per island, round earth rules.
The canoes explored, and the first island sank beneath the waves. I was hesitant to make my strategy obvious early on, but knew I needed to strike Xerecs’ fort when he was least expecting it, preferably early in the game soon after some gold had been unloaded there. The Celtic Fury was to be a distraction, and a suicidal one if need be. She and the Mercure headed straight for the enemy 10 masters, with the Constitution not far behind. The San Cristobal grabbed a bunch of gold but also found Scurvy.
The Frontier grabbed the SC’s gold with her hoist, and I began to maneuver the Guichuan and Oxford into position in anticipation of Xerecs unloading gold at his home fort. After the Black Pearl was distracted by Natives at a northern wild island, the Celtic Fury moved to strike. With Lenoir still face down, I actually gave Mycron’s action to a native canoe in order to get some gold in my fort. I wanted Parley ready in case the Zeus was able to strike first with an SAT from Crimson Angel.
Xerecs was able to drain two islands completely, meaning that half of the wild islands were already gone. This worried me, since I didn’t know if the Guichuan’s potential haul would even be enough to tip the treasure game in my favor, especially if the heist didn’t go as planned.
I nearly attacked the Black Pearl since she was a sitting duck with the Natives UT affecting her for 3 turns, but decided not to risk it. Tia Dalma aboard the Zeus could easily cancel Lenoir’s Parley, leaving the Celtic Fury open to a devastating broadside. The Constitution was coming, but she wouldn’t arrive in time. At the bottom of the frame, I decided to not explore with the Black Coral since I knew some of the negative UT’s I put into the mix, and to provide support for the Guichuan from the west if needed.
Xerecs moved the Zeus west a bit, allowing the Celtic Fury to SAT into position. However, she only knocked one mast off the Pearl, being careful to stay out of Tia Dalma’s cancelling range. The Mercure ducked into a fog bank to hide from the Zeus, while the Constitution arrived on the scene. In the meantime my canoes had finished unloading gold, while the San Cristobal did the same on the opposite side of the sea. With the Celtic Fury getting some action going in the north, the distraction was in place. The Guichuan and Oxford turned their bows west, towards Xerecs’ fort accessible via round earth.
The Zeus sped north, while the Baochuan took over against the Celtic Fury. However, I flipped Lenoir to Parley my way out of the situation! The random coin chosen from my home fort was a 1, and the Celtic Fury was safe!
The Celtic Fury responds with a thunderous broadside, crippling the Baochuan! The Constitution and Mercure team up and sail north, possibly to pursue the Zeus. At this point the game was in a relatively flexible state, but I knew one thing for sure: I was going for it. The Guichuan and Oxford round earthed their way to the east, where the San Cristobal was the only ship guarding the home fort. In the meantime, the Black Coral attacked the Joya del Sol, who was headed north with an abandoned musketeer to take out the Wolves that were found on the same island with the Natives.
Attack! The Celtic Fury dismasts the Baochuan, while the Constitution and Mercure team up to take the Black Pearl down to 1 mast. The Morning Star went through a whirlpool and aimed her bow at my home fort, which funny enough, I had left unguarded! I interpreted this as a potential raid, but my ships weren’t close enough to deter it. However, the Guichuan was ready to strike, while the San Cristobal sailed away from danger.
The Frontier discovered a mess of UT’s at a middle island, which sent the hoist into a whirlpool. The Morning Star turned south, alleviating my fears for a moment. However, the Zeus was on her way to my home fort. Uh oh. The Joya escaped into a fog bank, while the Black Pearl joined the Zeus with her high speed and an EA from Calico Cat. I was a bit worried, but my excitement level was also very high, as the game was about to hit its climax.
Chaos! The Guichuan raids the home island! Grim steals everything! Bianco’s Haulers is also flipped, and I realized something. Originally I planned to dock, steal as much gold as possible, and then sink the fort all in one turn. However, with the Haulers available, I could purposely stay docked while not sinking the fort, meaning the Guichuan couldn’t be shot at until I sailed away or sank the fort. It worked to perfection – the Guichuan damaged the fort on the approach and while docking, getting a lot of help from the Junk keyword. Once the loot was loaded, it was the Oxford’s turn. She blasted the final cannons off the fort while simultaneously firing at the still-dangerous San Cristobal. However, I was just getting started. The native canoes round earthed to the east, and the full extent of my plan became clear – the canoes could use their transfer ability to grab gold from the Guichuan and then scatter! This was a variation on my Golden Cranes idea.
With the Joya in the fog, the Black Coral turned her attention to a new opponent: the Frontier. She hit once, but it was a good example of the Black Coral being my ultimate utility ship in this fleet. To the north, the Constitution began sailing back to my home fort, desperate to get there before the Zeus did. The Mercure stayed in the northeast, and nearly sunk the Baochuan (which in hindsight is what I probably should have done haha). What about the Celtic Fury? Well, I knew I’d need her for home defense, so I sent her through a whirlpool to intercept the Zeus. With an SAT from Roimata she was able to dismast the Morning Star after teleporting! All in all, this turn saw me dismast one ship, damage two others, and steal 6 coins all at once!
Knowing full well that Parley would be cancelled, the Celtic Fury had to make a stand – she was only in the fleet to be a distraction anyway. She positioned herself right between the oncoming ships and her home fort. The Constitution was going to be late, similar to the earlier battle. The Joya emerged from the fog to kill the Wolves, but was set aflame by the Mercure. The grand plan was nearly complete! The Guichuan began sailing for home with her stolen gold, while the Oxford easily sank the remains of Xerecs’ home fort, leaving the Black Coral utility player to deal with the weakened San Cristobal (making the SC the 3rd ship the Black Coral engaged during this game).
Here the Zeus has blasted the Celtic Fury to pieces! 8 shots hit their mark, and a second 10 master was ruined.
For trivia reasons I wanted to do what could have been the first inter-world (?) gold transfer: using the canoe’s ability to transfer a coin from a canoe in the west to a canoe in the east. It didn’t quite happen, partly because I was in a rush to get home. Predictably, the Celtic Fury hit with a regular cannon but not with her stinkpot specialist, which could have given the Zeus some big problems if it had hit. In other news, the Black Coral missed the San Cristobal all three times while the Mercure captured the Baochuan! Knowing how unlikely it would be to tow her home and use her, I was mostly after the Baochuan for Zheng He’s admiral ability, which would give me two along with the Headhunter. At this point I wasn’t worried about the gold remaining on islands – I knew I had enough to win between the gold in my fort and the gold coming home from the Guichuan’s heist. The last thing I wanted was the game to end since the islands had disappeared, because I knew I had an inferior gold fleet.
The Zeus sinks the Celtic Fury! The showdown is at hand! (and the Black Coral finally dismasts the San Cristobal heh)
The Zeus reaches my fort and blasts away! She hits 6 times in 9 shots – if all 9 had hit, my fort would have sunk. Alas, the odds were not in Xerecs’ favor at this point. I returned fire with my fort, the Constitution, and the Guichuan, who was just able to get some guns in range. The ending was rather bizarre, with two 10 masters fighting with a floating fort in between them. The canoes had just docked home some gold from the heist. To add to the strange finale, Lord Mycron’s ship (the Patagonia) was actually in the Guichuan’s way of getting more cannons in range, but the Patagonia couldn’t move out of the way since that would mean Mycron wouldn’t give his action to the Guichuan and the Guichuan wouldn’t have any guns in range in the first place!! The Mercure abandoned the Baochuan in the fog (I just wanted her for Zheng He’s ability, which I never rolled a 6 with haha), going after the Frontier. The Black Coral sank the San Cristobal.
I docked home my stolen loot and sank the Zeus and Frontier to end the game! To make things even more strange, the gold I originally had in my home fort was gone! The Guichuan’s heist totaled 22 gold, but in reality the final score was about 35-0. I had won the game in a complete shutout despite the big build total. I only lost one ship, the Celtic Fury (plus one canoe haha). I had captured or destroyed Xerecs’ entire fleet. I was also happy because I was intimidated when I saw the enemy fleet – the Zeus and San Cristobal (by some people’s accounts the 2 best gunships in the game), along with the Baochuan and some of the best gold runners in the game. However, with some negative UT’s, effective crew placement, and brilliantly executed gimmick strategy, I was able to pull off the victory!
I have to admit, this is one of the best performances I’ve ever had. There aren’t many games that go this well – almost my entire gameplan worked to a T. It was truly a perfect game.
Now, I will admit that I got lucky once more, but it was perfect timing for the second time too. The Hound had caught the SoS at the SE island and knocked off her final mast. The SoS lost Calico Cat in a boarding party but rowed a bit to the south at S+S. To mitigate the Hound’s fear of the Black Pearl arriving imminently from the north, the Harbinger was sailing at full speed towards the general area of interest.
