Th' Big "AYE!"-dea

We'll refer to the two "players" of our pseudo-game by the names of their factions' Captains: Reis of the Crimson Rogers and Allende of the Brotherhood of the Coast. At the start of a game, the players reveal just their Ship & Captain, and then choose the other starting Crew. Reis ends up with two other Crew: Jemy (whose most notable trait is enough Sailing skill to move their Ship) and Domingo (a decent Gunner). Allende starts with three: Denny LaBree (Jemy's analog), Buccaneers (noteworthy most for Adventuring), and Jillison Brown (a mandolin-playin' fellow with some Influence). According to their text, Allende starts in La Boca, the midmost of the 5 Seas, and Reis starts in the Forbidden Sea, between La Boca and The Mirror.

In the following example game, I'll give a snapshot of the game status at each turn's outset, followed by a list of the actions taken by each player.

• Reis plays an Adventure, Forbidden Delicacies, in The Mirror. Adventures are played in distant Seas (FD says "1 Sea Away"), and since FD also says its completion cost is lower in The Mirror, 1 Sea away, Reis makes the obvious decision. That's Reis's first Action; now it's Allende's turn.
• Allende plays a Crew, Babette (whose impressive Swashbuckling skill and Swordsman ability make her excellent to have around during a Boarding), tacking Jillison and himself to scratch together enough Influence to convince Babette to come aboard. But Allende reacts to his own action by tacking The Hanged Man, his ship, to simultaneously move to Frothing Sea, away from Reis. (Remember, all Ships have the ability to combine movement-by-tacking with another action printed on them.)
• Reis responds to this by moving away from Allende, down to The Mirror, tacking Jemy to produce the requisite Sailing.
• Allende tacks his Buccaneers and Denny for their Adventuring skills (totalling 5, having needed 4), playing Out of Rum on Domingo, Reis's Gunner. OoR tacks any crew whose Swashbuckling is under 3 (Domingo's is 2). Domingo is tacked, leaving only Reis himself.
• Reis tacks to complete the Forbidden Delicacies Adventure--in The Mirror, this Adventure requires 2 Adventuring to complete. Of course, it only requires 3A elsewhere, and Reis's Adventuring is 3, so in this case the location is irrelevant. Now that it's completed, FD says it becomes a Crew Attachment, and confers a +2 Influence bonus. Reis chooses to keep the Forbidden Delicacies to himself (though he could have placed the card with any of his Crew)--after all, he had to go in and get them himself! Now Reis's Influence is 4, enough to hire most mid-level Crew alone.
• Allende passes, so Reis can go again. He plays another Adventure, Scraping the Bottom, in the just-vacated Forbidden Sea. He'll not be able to move there, having no one left untacked and no action to "react" to with the boat's ability. Reis realizes too late he should have used the boat to move originally, and is forced to pass, ending this turn.

• Allende's first action is to place an Adventure, Castillian Swordmaster, in central La Boca.
• Reis acts by completing the adjacent Adventure, Scraping the Bottom. But you can only complete Adventures in the same Sea as your ship! So, Reis "reacts" by tacking The Crimson Roger, his Ship, to move. Since the exact Ship text reads, "Tack before performing an action, to move to an adjacent Sea," The Crimson Roger takes Reis & Crew to the Forbidden Sea and then allows Reis & Domingo to tack to produce the 4A required by the card. Scraping the Bottom provides the attached Crew member with a +4 Adventuring bonus, and is placed with Jemy, the sailor.
• Allende tacks Jillison for his 2 Influence, enough to convince some Fancy Dans (more Influence-wielding chumps) to hop aboard.
• Reis places an Adventure, Sinking of the Swan, in La Boca.
• Allende tacks the Fancy Dans and Babette for the 3 Influence he needs to play another Denny LaBree. Like most Crew, Denny is not unique, so you can have all 3 copies potentially in a deck out in play--just consider duplicates to be archetypally similar, I guess. Now Allende has an extra Sailor, giving him the initiative.
• Reis places another Adventure, Wind at Your Back, over in the other direction, in The Mirror.
• Allende takes a look at Reis's side of the table: his Ship is tacked, and no one's left untacked with any Cannon skill, even if he did use Jemy to move first. Allende feels safe to move to an adjacent Sea, and so tacks The Hanged Man to move to La Boca. This is before completing Castillian Swordmaster thereby tacking those adventurous Buccaneers. CS gets attached to Babette, increasing her Swashbuckling skill by 1 (to 4), and also increasing her damage in Boarding Attacks by 2. But her Swordsman ability already increased this by 1, so Babette can now be counted on for a 7-Hit Boarding Attack.
• Reis tacks Jemy to move down to The Mirror.

• Allende places a "Goods" Adventure, Bolts of Fine Cloth, in the more Reis-distant Frothing Sea.
• Reis adds Crew, Julius Caligari, using Reis to entice him with those forbidden delicacies, and Domingo for a spare point. The villainous Mr. Caligari is himself of respectable Influence and Swashbuckling ability.
• Allende tacks Jillison and his Dans for the 4I needed to purchase a Grappling Gun for Babette. This is an item which tacks to untack Babette at the start of a Boarding.
• Reis tacks Julius to play a second Jemy--now Reis has 4 Crimson Rogers apart from himself aboard, so (according to his text) all his Crew now have +1 Cannon skill. (Allende has related text, which has been in effect since the game's beginning, always giving him the less expensive Adventuring completion costs for Adventures.)
• Allende tacks The Hanged Man to scoot over to Frothing Sea, then tacks his Buccaneers to complete the Bolts of Fine Cloth Adventure. This he attaches to Jillison, increasing his Influence to 4.
• Reis tacks his adventurous Jemy to complete Wind at Your Back, which will now increase Julius's Sailing by 3--Reis figured he had more to gain by increasing the percentage of his crew able to move his Ship than by making someone already able have phenomenal Sailing skill (hey, you only tack once).
• Allende moves back to central La Boca, tacking Denny to do so.
• Reis moves out of The Mirror, into the Forbidden Sea, by tacking his new Jemy.
• Allende can hardly believe his eyes! Here he is, next door to Reis, and Reis's entire Crew is tacked. Meanwhile, Allende has an untacked Denny, Babette, and himself. It looks like he'll be able to get over and weaken Reis considerably with a 7-Hit Boarding Attack from Babette. He tacks his second Denny to move to the Forbidden Sea, with Reis.
• Reis scowls, and passes.
• It's time to press the Boarding! Allende has to pay his Ship's Movement Cost to board, so he tacks himself to do so. Reis could cancel this if he could pay his own Ship's Movement Cost, but all of his Crew are tacked. Just as Allende is about to play Babette's attack, Reis turns his frown upside-down and reveals his Steering Clear, a "react" card that cancels a Boarding. According to SC, Allende could cancel that by paying 2 more Sailing himself, but Allende has no Crew to spare either, and so Reis is saved by his planning!

• Reis gets to go first, and does not seem able to stifle an impulse to blow Allende the hell out of the water. Reis tacks Domingo, whose Cannon skill is increased to 4 by Reis's ability. Reis tacks The Crimson Roger in response, which increases Domingo's Cannon to 6 for the moment (this is TCR's special ability). He also plays "Target their Powder Room!" which increases the attack's potency to 8 Hits. Allende, having counted on a lame and limping opponent at this point, has no tricks up his sleeve and must simply absorb them. He tacks and sinks his Buccaneers--their Swashbuckling of 2 means this accounts for half the damage--and tacks Babette to absorb the other 4.
• Allende's in no position to fight any longer--it's a relief Reis used the ship to enhance the attack, actually, because if he'd left it untacked, Reis could have chased Allende and gotten another shot off next action. Allende tacks a Denny to move back to La Boca.
• Reis follows, moving with the new Jemy.
• Allende keeps moving in the same direction, using his other Denny.
• Reis stops to complete Sinking the Swan, which will now give Domingo +3 Cannon. He tacks the adventurous Jemy to produce the needed Adventuring.
• Allende places another Castillian Swordmaster in La Boca.
• Reis tacks Julius to play Gerald Höhne, another Crew. He simultaneously plays Courtly Manner to provide a 4th Influence point to pay for this.
• Allende places an Adventure, Casks of Fine Wine, in the Trade Sea. It might make more sense to put it in the same Sea as the Swordmaster, since Allende can ignore locations with Adventures, but Allende doesn't want to share the seas with Reis, and has enough resources to complete an adventure this turn.
• Reis plays a card, Sailing Under the Jolly Roger, which allows him to search through his deck to fetch an Adventure, which is placed in his hand. This he does, showing Allende We Needs Us an Ussuran Gunner, his selection (a +4 Cannon Adventure). SutJR costs 2 Sailing to play, so Reis tacks himself to satisfy the requirement.
• Allende tacks The Hanged Man to move up to the Trade Sea, and tacks himself to complete Casks of Fine Wine. This is placed on Jillison as well--becomin' a regular quartermaster, that Jilly--which raises his Influence to 6.

• Reis tacks Jemy, and sails back to the Forbidden Sea.
• Tacking himself and Babette for the 6 Adventuring, Allende places a Cutlass on Babette, which will further increase her damage in Boarding Attacks by 2, for a total of 9.
• Reis plays the recently fetched We Needs Us an Ussuran Gunner adventure in The Mirror.
• Allende plays an adventure of his own, another Casks of Fine Wine, in La Boca.
• Reis plays another adventure, another Wind at Your Back, in The Mirror as well.
• Allende tacks a Denny to sail to La Boca.
• Reis tacks The Crimson Roger to move, and completes We Needs Us an Ussuran Gunner by tacking himself, now increasing Domingo's Cannon skill by another 4.
• Allende tacks his other Denny and Jillison to complete the second Castillian Swordmaster, increasing Babette's potential Boarding Attack damage now to 12.
• Reis completes the Wind at Your Back, tacking Domingo and Gerald, making a sailor out of Gerald as well--Reis's hold on the initiative tightens!
• Allende passes, so Reis sails back towards the middle, tacking Julius to move to the Forbidden Sea.
• Allende still passes, and Reis sails to La Boca on Jemy's shift. Now both players' Crew are tacked out, but Reis knows he's going to get to go first! Allende's face goes all slack.

• Reis starts out, surprisingly enough, with a Cannon Attack from Domingo. Domingo's skill is 3, his attached adventures give him a +7, and Reis's special ability gives another +1, so his attack is good for 11 Hits of damage. Reis again reacts by tacking The Crimson Roger for 2 additional Hits, for a total of 13. Luckily for Allende, he has since drawn two Quick Tacks, which can each reduce a Cannon Attack's Hits by 2. He plays both, and so now he only has to deal with 9 Hits. (13 Hits would indeed provide for difficult choices, as Allende's Crew's total Swashbuckling is 13!) Allende deliberates for a moment.. He tacks and sinks the Fancy Dans (Swashbuckling 1), which absorbs 2 Hits (one when tacked, one when sunk). He tacks both Dennys, also sinking one of them, and now he's got 4 Hits left to go. He tacks himself, and he's done.
• Now it's Allende's turn, but he's extremely battered. His sailors are busy or dying, so performing a Boarding suddenly seems an imposition. He tacks The Hanged Man to set sail out to the Frothing Sea, while tacking goods-laden Jillison to play William Fodd, Crew exactly identical to Denny except for costing an Influence point more and absorbing 2 extra Hits when tacking against Cannon damage.
• Reis tacks Jemy to give pursuit into Frothing Sea.
• Allende shrugs, puts the Eisen Cannons adventure in La Boca.
• Reis tacks himself to unleash a 5-Hit Cannon Attack against Allende. Allende absorbs the hits by tacking Babette.
• Allende is tacked out and can do nothing more this turn but pass. Reis, meanwhile takes several more actions:
• Reis makes a 2-Hit Cannon Attack with Julius. Allende sinks Denny and Jillison.
• Reis makes a 3-Hit Cannon Attack with Gerald. Allende tacks William.
• Reis makes a 1-Hit Cannon Attack with the adventurous Jemy. Allende sinks William.

Even though Domingo's maximal cannon attack of 13 Hits could be absorbed by simply sinking Babette and tacking Allende, Allende instead concedes by sinking himself, thus preventing Reis from adding insult to injury. Certainly he has nothing that can extend his life beyond Reis's next turn. Yes, he'd apparently rather leave Babette behind to fend for herself on a sinking ship while a boat, bristling with cannon and full of would-be rapists stands nearby on the water... no one ever called pirates noble.

Q&A

Q: You suck. You spend all this time talking about how this game only has 2 things happening in it, how you hope more flesh gets added and so on, and then you can't even squeeze both of those 2 things into your sample game! What gives?

A: Hey, can I help it? Reis is a crafty guy, and lucky enough to be holding a Steering Clear in the third turn of the game. You want to know how things would have gone if there had been no Steering Clear, or if, say, this deck were being played by me, in which case probably Steering Clear had been specifically spared from discard for several turns but forgotten the instant needed? Fine.

This would have been a very straightforward boarding: once movement costs were paid, the attacker only had one Crew member, Babette, untacked, while the defender had no one untacked. Apart from the Steering Clear, Reis had no tricks up his sleeve, which simply means all Allende needed was to designate Babette as making a Boarding Attack to inflict Hits on Reis's ship. He'd have put his least favorite card down to indicate the attack type, ignoring such tactical considerations as which types of attacks were less likely to be blocked by the types of cards he expected to be in Reis's hand, as everyone on Reis's ship was asleep anyway. Since Babette was at that time able to inflict 7 Hits in a Boarding Attack, this is what Reis would be forced to absorb. Probably he'd have done this by sinking both his Jemys and Julius, leaving only Domingo and Reis!

Domingo would still have been able to fire off as devastating a shot as ever, except now Allende has the initiative--even if Reis had instead sacrificed Domingo (then with no Attachments) to keep the Jemy with Scraping the Bottom (indeed a sore loss, otherwise essentially stopping any hope of adventures), Allende's second Denny keeps him the nimbler. No matter what, it's clear that Reis would have lost near all the wind in his sails if Babette had managed to get aboard, and it was Steering Clear's play (and the lure of security it enabled) that provided the fulcrum on which this game tilted.

Q: You're not very good at this. If you had made your shots in a different order at the end of Turn 6, Reis could also have sunk Babette, thereby guaranteeing Allende's death with Domingo's first shot on Turn 7!

A: Oh yeah? Well, how else could I remind our audience of the craven sorts of things a pirate's likely to do? Kids need to be reminded that piracy isn't cool, and it's even illegal internationally! Besides that, did you notice the way Reis made mistake after mistake and he still won? I mean, I'm not an expert but I'd surmise that using the ship to pursue and make another 5-Hit cannon attack is usually better than using the ship to add 2 Hits to an attack. But Reis won anyway, thanks to that Steering Clear. That and the whole "get plenty of Sailing adventures while your opponent's Sailing adventures seem to lurk at the bottom of his deck" philosophy, anyway. So we could have killed Babette too, but we didn't. We thought we'd be more dramatic, something you obviously know nothing about! Yeah! Oh, and another thing, smart guy--I made all of these questions up myself before I even showed this to anyone, so I guess I'm not so dumb after all! Thank you very much!

Q: No, you are dumb. First you say this game is great because it works with multiple players so well, and then you show us a 2-player game... Hey, come back here!

Andy Fredricksen lives in Seattle, USA, where he was last seen impersonating a shrubbery. If you see him, please ask him to return the books he borrowed from us.