OVERVIEW
Come with me on an adventure! You are the Pirate Captain of 3 ships on the road through the Caribbean hunting for loot and booty to trade for even greater treasure! Your 3 ships are set in 3 different routes and are colored differently on the board. Each route ends at the Spanish Treasure Galleon at Trinidad. While on your trip to Trinidad, there are plenty of places to stop and many other special pirates you will meet and partner up with on the way! The goal is to be the first to reach the Spanish Treasure Galleon at Trinidad, which triggers the end game. Each pirate ship scores points based on what place they finished on each track, as well as for the treasures earned by selling booty. Come and join me as we dig into this fun, fast paced game a little more!
GAMEPLAY
On each turn, you will play 3 out of 5 cards from your hand maximum. There are 3 different types of cards you can play and each has a movement number, secondary action, and a "Play to Table" or "Discard out-of-play" symbol. Movement number moves one of your ships on a route. You can only move one ship at a time, you are not permitted to move 2 or 3 ships on different tracks, unless there is a card that tells you to. You also have the option to play a secondary action, but you cannot play both the movement number and the secondary action at the same time. You can only choose one or the other. "Discard out-of-play" cards can only be played once and then they are discarded from the game. "Play-to-table" cards are cards with ongoing abilities active for the rest of the game unless another card destroys it.
Pirates love to loot, and you will have the chance to loot merchant ships. But, Looting Merchant Ships sometimes comes with a price. Getting to those spaces typically takes you off route, so be very careful when going for them! When landing at a Merchant Ship you may loot them for their cargo crates. Cargo crates can be used to purchase Treasure tiles at any time during the game but be sure to purchase before someone reaches Trinidad! When you do loot from a Merchant Ship, you also take from the Merchant Deck. That card is placed in your discard pile. You cannot loot from a Merchant Ship if it was already looted, there aren't any cargo crates, and you would not be able to collect from the merchant deck as well. Landing on the Ports for the first time gives you the opportunity of gaining an advanced pirate from the Port deck! These pirates have better qualities, traits, and movement numbers. Getting to those first can drastically assist you with getting more crates and getting to the finish line quicker then your rival buccaneers.
Each Treasure tile requires different colors of crates. Once you have acquired the matching sets of crates to purchase, you can obtain the tile! Each tile has a different reward on them. The harder it is to purchase, the greater the victory points! These victory points are calculated at the end of the game.
EXPERIENCE
The game can be very fast paced at times and could really make getting treasure tiles and even crates easier than expected. This is a game where it would be more beneficial if you played with more people. In my experience, playing 2 player made for less player interaction than it was playing with more people. It took a little of the thrill away from it since I was only worried about 1 other person. Playing with multiple people made the game more thrilling as we had more fun competing over the crates, cards, and treasure tiles. The game starts slow, but once you get your deck up, the game begins to ramp up.
OVERALL GAMER SCORE [6 out 10]
Overall, I liked the game especially for a beginner gamer who is looking to get started into board gaming. It may turn some people away due to the slow start and progression. Another thing to think about is how many people you will be playing with. The game is best played at the higher player counts.
NEW GAMER APPROVED???
This game can go either way and I would call this a big maybe. I believe the theme plays into this as well (I personally don't know a lot of people who like the whole pirate theme.) I believe if they are going to go with the pirate theme, they could've made 6 main characters with special abilities to bring the theme in a little more so that players can take on the role of their pirate for more thematic entertainment. Overall, since its a victory point race, you don't even think too much about the theme cause all you are trying to do it get to the finish line with the most points. Picking up different pirates and special pirates are a cool way of doing that but since you really don't get into that until later in the game (due to the slow start) it makes the beginning not as interesting. Once you get those pirates, you're just about halfway through the routes, and then using their abilities gets you closer to the end which completely changes the game pace. If you are into Pirates, a fan of Jack Sparrow and Will Turner, give this one a try, you may like it! This is one that's definitely geared towards casual players and families, not necessarily your heavy euro gamer.