Treasure Island

There was some confusion last night about what games we were planned at the Gong Garage Gamers, and what was originally planned as a two-player emergency game of Galleys & Galleons turned into a full four-player game instead. I'd never played the Treasure Hunt scenario, so we set that up.

In this scenario there are three islands on the board that may or may not have treasure on them. Each player can search each island once, and may find treasure, may find danger, or may simply find nothing.  Obviously if someone does find treasure, other players can relieve them of it, but once treasure has been found the game runs to a time-limit. The game is won on victory points, with a big score for holding treasure, but some points for sinking or capturing opposing vessels.

We had four players: I ran the British explorers in their sturdy barks, Caesar ran the Spanish in their single mighty man o'war, Dave ran the Pyrates and John ran the King Of The Cannibal Isles, with his canoe and catamaran fleet.

Here's the start. From top-left clockwise: King of the Cannibal Isles, Pyrates, Spanish and English Explorers.

John was able to use his canoes to explore the island nearest to him, and immediately found some treasure.

Caesar and I approached the rocky island from opposite sides.

Dave took the Pyrates into the third island, but his smaller ship, the Little Pillager managed to sail on by without successfully sending out an exploration party.

First fire! Caesar's man o'war La Magdalena fired at the Opportunity, but the range was too great for it to score any damage.

La Magdalena sailed close to the land, and couldn't find any treasure.

As she sailed on further she found that the Little Pillager was in range. A long-range shot set the pirate vessel on fire. Whilst the crew tried to fight it they weren't paying attention to the shallows they were in, and ripped the bottom of the ship out, sinking it. Still, at least the fire was extinguished.

Opportunity had failed to find any treasure on the rocky island, so came up on the next one in its path, but was intercepted by cannibal canoes.

Explorer came up in support.

Meanwhile Dave sailed his pirate galleon, the Broken Cutlass, past the island, and found some treasure.

Explorer fired a broadside and seriously damaged a native catamaran.

She then set a course for the canoes with the treasure. Time was running short now.

Caesar took La Magdalena close in to explore the island, and found a stash of rum. His crew got drunk.

Very, very drunk.

Explorer made a bold move, colliding with the native canoes in an attempt to damage them and follow it up with a boarding action. They evaded the collision, and fought off the English attack.

Opportunity was less fortunate. Its crew cut grapples at one stage, and managed to get off a broadside at the canoes attacking it, but it had no effect. The canoes came in again, and captured the English ship.

The last move of the game saw the Broken Cutlass fire a desperate long-range broadside at the ongoing melee between the native canoes with the treasure and the Explorer. A particularly effective and lucky shot could have sunk the canoes, denying John the points for the treasure in them, thus giving Dave the win. But it wasn't to be - the cannibals survived.

At the end of the game, the King of the Cannibal Islands had a treasure, plus had captured the Opportunity, for a total of 7VP. The Pyrates held a treasure for 5VP. The English and Spanish scored nothing. So a win for John.

This was a fun scenario. It does however, have a slight failing in that in order to search an island you must sail within Short distance of it. But this is also the distance at which you have to check for striking shallows, which means that for many ships organising a search means taking a lot of risk. Most of the damage ships took was from hitting rocks and sandbanks around the islands.Good designs for this scenario should have Pilot at the very minimum, and Shallow Draft for preference. Needless to say John's vessels were all Shallow Draft.