OUR REVIEW
Merchants & Marauders
Korsaren der Karibik
Get Me Another Keg of Rum!
There's
a pirate, known to fame
Black Macocco was the pirate's name.
In his day, the tops was he
Round the Caribbéan or Caríbbean Sea.
“Mack the Black” from the musical film “The Pirate”, directed by Vincente Minnelli, 1948
A ship under full sails is dashing through rough seas, its cargo hold full to the brim with precious goods. The fresh water on board will last for two more days, plenty to reach the ship’s destination. “Ship astern larboard!”, the man on the lookout yells suddenly. A brig, small, nimble and fiendishly fast is drawing nearer. As the distance diminishes, the captain, looking through the telescope, descries what he has been afraid of all along – on the brig a black flag has been hoisted – pirates! Clear the decks for action!
“Never, capt’n! Tha’ be more than seven days to go the long way round, we don’t have enough food aboard. Let’s sail to Tortuga first, a-replenishin’.” On board a fast brig, the mate is looking at a strange map. Davy Jones might know where the capt’n got that map from – is this really writ on leather? Or is it…? Yoicks, better not to think about’t. “Fat merchant ahead starboard!”, comes from the deck above. “Arrrgh, maybe we do not ’ave to go to Tortuga anyway, aye, matey? – Ready guns, you sea scum!”, the corsair, wanted in more than forty port cities for being bad, shouts while stashing the dirty piece of leather (or is it...?) into his boot leg.
Either a dreaded privateer, now at Any Majesty’s service, then again for his (or her) own benefit, or smart merchant in league with royal governors and the guild of smugglers (who are sometimes the same people, aren’t they?) – there are many roles to play in “Merchants & Marauders”! In fact, sixteen captains, amongst them even three females, are there to choose from (according to the rules, they are to be drawn randomly). Players receive some gold and a ship to start with – either a nimble Sloop or a Flute (more cargo space). With the choice of vessel and depending on the captain’s skills (Seamanship, Scouting, Leadership, Influence) you may be predetermined what course to take to get the (ten) Glory Points needed for victory as either Pirate or Merchant. True, if chance will have it, one may swap sides, although it is far easier to become a pirate than to install oneself as a law abiding tradesman.
Gaming takes place on the game board (64 cm x 56 cm), representing the Caribbean Sea and 16 important port cities of the four sea powers England, France, Holland and Spain (and a neutral sea zone in the centre) in the 16th through to the early 18th centuries, as well as on Player Boards. On these boards vital information, for example the ships’ hit locations, cargo, crew numbers and mission cards are recorded and altered, if necessary.
Each round starts with an Event card that introduces either a singular (e. g. hurricanes that influence ships’ maneuvering, non-player-ships’ mandatory movement) or permanent event (e. g. start or end of war between the four sea powers, additional pirates or men-o-war appearing). The game ends at the latest when the last Event card is drawn. In addition, there are always two open Mission cards on the board. Any captain may decide to try to fulfill one of these missions – for example, rescue the governor’s daughter, find a new animal species or even deliver secret documents to your king’s agents. On fulfilling that mission, captains receive one Glory Point and a Glory Card (to play during the game – there are, for example, Glory Cards to get specialists for your crew, or hamper other captains’ actions or increase your combat strength), sometimes as well as gold or advantages in trading.
There is a random “in high demand” commodity in each seaport (tobacco, spices, rum, textiles, food, etc.) as well as an upgrade (start with a face-down marker) for the first ship to buy that upgrade at that particular shipyard. In addition, almost all port cities offer special treats, printed on the game board – for example, pirates are always welcome at Port Royal and there are more commodities to pick from at Curaçao. In the sea zones there are mercantile vessels of the four sea powers (Spain has five, all others four ships) – pirates’ possible booty represented by face-down tokens till revealed through scouting. Anyway, almost every time a captain joins combat at sea, he (or she) gets a bounty. Very devoted scoundrels can even amass bounties of all four nations!
Captains have, beginning with the start player, three actions per round – movement, scouting and a multi-phased port action. The “move”-action is used to move between sea zones or to and from ports. The “scout”-action (roll a die against the scouting skill) is used to engage a ship in the same sea area – a battle may take place, fought during that same “scout”-action –, or to fulfill some tasks (missions or rumors), in most cases resolved as well by rolling the dice. “Port”-actions are quite elaborate, therefore only one “port”-action is allowed per player’s turn: sell or buy goods, recruit, repair and upgrade ships, acquire a rumor (normally by paying gold and rolling a die), claim a mission, or, normally only when at your home port, stash away gold (to be converted secretly into Glory Points).
That is all rather uncomplicated. The Rule Booklet is clearly written, filled with useful examples and illustrations – as often stated before, an index of topics would be very welcome; but the rules as pdf-file are to be found on the internet, so one can browse through them after all. The game’s components are exuberant and well designed (although the ship models could be a little nicer still) and especially when considering the Mission and Rumor Cards one almost feels the diligence and even the fun the game designers, Kasper Aagard and Christian Marcussen from Denmark, put into it.
It is not always as much fun to play, though. Even the attempt to appreciate most of the possibilities of “Merchants & Marauders” will take at least four hours spent on a single gaming session. It is even more likely that your fellow players – either by chance or obstinacy – will reach their target of ten Glory Points (basic game requirement) early. This goal is easy to reach for brutal buccaneers, but even ruthless tradesmen can get there by clever commercial transactions eventually. Since claiming Missions as well as availability of commodities and not to forget Events (hurricanes do restrict a captain’s range of movement dramatically; in comparison, being followed by the French Navy is a mere child’s play) have an enormous influence on the captains’ actions, it is elementary to shuffle the respective decks of cards really thoroughly when setting up the game. Almost nothing is more annoying than encountering four hurricanes in a row or having to avoid every enemy fleet in eight consecutive rounds of play – that can really ruin the most beautiful of plans. A captain’s best strategy often is to either totally ignore your fellow captains or sabotage their every venture, while trying on the other hand to fulfill as many lucrative missions as possible and to sell goods at the highest possible price, even when playing as a pirate, no matter whether the cargo was bought honestly or looted. In short, whoever gets not distracted by the mass of, in fact, too many possibilities of “Merchants & Marauders” will most probably win, but miss out on a (rather too) complex game world and even rob the fellow players of their fun.
Review by Martina & Martin Lhotzky with Marcus Steinwender
Players: 2-4
Age: 13+
Time: 120+
Designer: Christian Marcussen, Kasper Aagaard
Artist: Ben Nelson, Chris Quilliams
Price: ca. 35 Euro
Publisher: Pegasus Spiele 2011
Web: www.pegasus.de
Genre: Adventure game with a pirate topic
Users: With friends
Version: de
Rules: de en fr it nl pl
In-game text: yes
Comments:
Complex game setting * a lot of possibilities and choices * you can switch between pirate and trader * attractive components * good rules * takes a rather long time to play
Compares to:
Pirates 2ed and all other adventure games with a pirates topic
Other editions:
Z-Man Games, USA; Rebel.pl, Poland; Asterion Press, Italy; Filosofia Editions, France
My rating: 4
Martina, Martin & Markus:
This is a beautifully designed, easy-to-learn game that, unfortunately, shows some lengths.
Chance (pink): 2
Tactic (turquoise): 3
Strategy (blue): 2
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 0
Interaction (brown): 2
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0