Give me pirates or give me death!

I used to love playing Buccanneer when I was a kid. Now I'm thinking of adding a serious pirate game to my collection. Essential are:

• Pirate ships that sail around (a toy factor would be great here).
• Searching for treasure, naturally enough (more toys?).
• PvP combat and looting the ships of the vanquished.
• 2-6 players.

Not mandatory but worth considering:

• Trading.
• Different player roles consistent with the theme.
• NPC vessels.
• Cardplay.
• 2-3 hour playing time.

From references here and reading around on BGG

Merchants and Marauders is one game that is already on the horizon. What do FATties think are its strengths and weaknesses? Which of my boxes does it leave unticked? And what are the alternatives and how do they compare? Cheers.

M&M sounds exactly like what you want.

negatives to M&M from your list -

actual treasure hunting, like marching around on an island, X marks the spot....is pretty abstract. draw a card, go to the location. roll against a stat. actually looting that treasure is awesome, as you take that from merchants or other players.

limited cardplay(none? if i remember right?)
with 4 players bumps against your 3 hr time frame.
2-4 not 2-6 players.

but really, it sounds like what you want.

No ifs, no buts, Merchants and Marauders is the game for me? Remember, this is the sort of talk that could make me pull the trigger on a quick epurchase and I need yet another shelf toad like I need a hole in the head.

In with what's said above.

The off-ship stuff is super abstract. Roll stat for Rumours or whatever. There are a wide variety of those, so there's some excitement, and the rumours act as secret objectives to mix things up. Really, your plastic ship is where it's at.

This is a great game, but has some definite "more-is-better" chrome to it. Remembering to apply and use all the port special abilities and player special abilities is a constant headache to me (mostly because I don't play it enough, I think).

It's definitely 2-4, and until you get the flow down it's going to run long. It's fun throughout.

It hits basically all of your "nice-to-haves", but only sort of checks a couple of your mandatories. Depends on how important off-ship action and player count is to you.

I don't think there's a better pirate game out there, but you're going to have to decide if this one is good enough. I know I'm keeping my copy.

Merchants & Marauders is a brilliant game, easily one of the best thematic designs of the last ten years I think. I definitely recommend grabbing that one, because I bet it'll be a treasure when/if it ever goes out of print.

This positive feedback is very persuasive but I'm not rushing off for a bit of 1-Click shopping quite yet!

One more potential downside...

It's very easy to be competitive as a Merchant. If nobody is willing to mix it up, I'd actually say it's almost too easy. Someone really needs to threaten some piracy early on to keep the trade-grubbers honest.

That said, how you play the game is going to be somewhat dictated by which captain you draw. Some are born pirates, some are born merchants. If the card stats don't support the way you want to play, it's an going to be an uphill battle against the game. The rules do warn you about this.

Between this and Clash of Cultures, I'm pretty much going to autobuy anything Christian Marcussen publishes, though.

Whoops, almost forgot there's a fat expansion on deck for this too: Seas of Glory . Doesn't change the player count (which is to me a good thing), but adds a pile of cards and some new ships and things.

Not Sure wrote: One more potential downside...

It's very easy to be competitive as a Merchant. If nobody is willing to mix it up, I'd actually say it's almost too easy. Someone really needs to threaten some piracy early on to keep the trade-grubbers honest.

That said, how you play the game is going to be somewhat dictated by which captain you draw. Some are born pirates, some are born merchants. If the card stats don't support the way you want to play, it's an going to be an uphill battle against the game. The rules do warn you about this.

Between this and Clash of Cultures, I'm pretty much going to autobuy anything Christian Marcussen publishes, though.

It's one of those games, like BSG and Fury of Dracula, where I think balance is eventually achieved with experience. In all three of those games people I've heard equal number of people say that Cylons/Dracula/Pirates/Humans/Hunters/Merchants are overpowered, and with some experience it ends up being roughly equal. But it is definitely more interesting when you have both kinds of play going on at once, which almost always happens when there are 3 or 4 people. With 2 people you might end up with two merchants, which is fun but not AS fun if you know what I mean.

Totally agree. My point wasn't very well put.

I think there's a good balance, but I think the pirating players have to be at least threatening the merchant players. If the pirates only work the board, and everyone ignores each other, the pirates end up at a disadvantage. This is F:AT, so it's probably unnecessary advice to attack other players. However, I think that's the source of the "merchants are overpowered" idea.

In practice, it's a total non-issue. I've seen wins come many different ways.

Am I right in thinking that everyone starts as a merchant and has to commit acts of piracy to become an actual pirate?

JMcL63 wrote: Am I right in thinking that everyone starts as a merchant and has to commit acts of piracy to become an actual pirate?

Yes, in a basic sense. You're not really a pirate until someone is chasing you for a crime.

However, you choose your starting ship, and one is better for trading (more capacity) while the other is better is for raiding (more manuever, which means more loot from pirating the board). With that consideration, and the differences in captain stats, it's pretty easy to see who's going to do what early in the game. This is hidden during setup, so it's possible to end up with all pirates or all traders, but less likely as you get more players.

It's completely viable to start as a merchant in a pirate ship, sail around and kit out a bit, then go scurvy.

It's also possible to make some quick money as a pirate, get pardoned, and then finish out the game as a law-abiding trader.

Ships can be bought and sold, so your initial choice doesn't define you forever (or you can even capture a warship from one of the navies chasing you).

Not Sure wrote: Totally agree. My point wasn't very well put.

I think there's a good balance, but I think the pirating players have to be at least threatening the merchant players. If the pirates only work the board, and everyone ignores each other, the pirates end up at a disadvantage. This is F:AT, so it's probably unnecessary advice to attack other players. However, I think that's the source of the "merchants are overpowered" idea.

In practice, it's a total non-issue. I've seen wins come many different ways.

I haven't played with my Texas group yet, but by the time I left KC the Pirates were beginning to win VERY consistently. The balance had totally swung back from where it was earlier. I think we were just about at the point where people were about to start pirate-hunting to get some glory for that.

Man, such a great game. I think I might need to bust it out this weekend.

I think it's easy to declare M&M the best pirate game out there. Unfortunately, the field is pretty lousy. While I have fond memories of the original Blackbeard (and the new one is horrid), I'll admit that it's pretty dated and hasn't aged well.

As much as I love M&M, I'll only play it 3 player as I find it drags too much with 4 players. I'm not sure if the expansion will speed gameplay or just add "options".

To describe to the OP, it really feels like the old Sid Meier's Pirates! game come to life in a boardgame. No single part of the game is too involved but there is just enough exploration, combat, quests, etc. to keep it interesting but still moving quickly. Generally, there isn't much you're doing on someone else's turn though so that's why there is a pretty big play difference between 3 and 4 players.

I think there might be some good ideas buried in Tresham's Spanish Main but I haven't gotten it to the table or wrapped my head around the bizarre rules to teach it either

M&M is fantastic. My only complaint is that a Merchant in a Galleon is often more of a threat than a Pirate. In our circles it's a commonly accepted powerplay to switch wholesale from Merchant to PVP when you get a Galleon as the points come easy and Galleon's are so hard to take out.