Buccaneer

Last week we were discussing exploration games at home, and somehow this game came up in conversation - Waddington's ancient classic, 'Buccaneer'. First published in 1938, I was surprised to discover my 1971 copy of it at the bottom of my games cupboard. With 'Our Flag Means Death' still in our heads, we decided to play it last night.

Each player has a ship and a home-port, and is attempting to accumulate a horde of treasure by pillaging Treasure Island, raiding other players' ships or simply trading at other ports. Here's the board set up ready to play, with crew and treasure in the three neutral ports and ships in the ports of the players. I was red, Catherine green and Maya blue. In the middle of the map is Treasure Island.

And here's the riches of Treasure island - barrels of rum, pearls, gold, diamonds and rubies. Each is worth a number of points (rum = 2, pearls = 3, gold = 4 and the gems = 5), and a ship can only carry two items at a time. When you arrive at Treasure Island you take a chance card. Sometimes this will allow you to take treasure to a certain value. And sometimes it rewards you in some other way, sends you off-course or scuppers your plans in other ways.

How do you move? You use crew cards. You start with a hand of five, but can gain or lose them as the game goes on. The total value of the cards in your hand is the maximum number of spaces you can move (always in a straight line). When fighting, though, your combat value is the total value of the colour with the highest value minus the value of the other colour. So in the example below the ship can move 9 spaces, but has a fighting value of 3 (Black's 6 minus Red's 3). Thus there is something to be gained in managing and trading your crew to optimise speed and combat ability.

Here's my ship, ready to set sail.
 

We all headed for Treasure Island at first. I got lucky and got a decent haul early on. Catherine kept getting cards she could use for trading in ports, but no actual treasure. Maya picked up a couple of items too.

Maya returned their first treasure to their home-port, and found Catherine waiting there having done some sneaky trading. A short fight saw Catherine driven off. In the background you can see my ship tucked away in the corner, having discovered Captain Kidd's treasure thanks to a chance card.

My haul - two rubies and two barrels of rum, for a total of 14 points. You need 20 to win. Treasure in your port can be 'stolen' by other players if they trade certain cards, crew or other treasure for it. But if you can collect three items of one type then they can be banked and are safe.

And so we reached the end-game. Maya had banked their rum - the three barrels in the green port. They had two diamonds and only needed to bring home a bar of gold to win. Catherine had spent the game trading for treasure in various ports, but wasn't doing too well. I lurked outside Maya's port, hoping to steal something and hold off their win.

A epic fight in the harbour! I had traded crew and a chance card for a diamond, but Maya sailed into port and won the ensuing fight, stealing the diamond back, depositing the gold and winning.

The victor in port.

My final haul was worth 18 points - I'd lost a ruby to Catherine's aggressive trading, but acquired a couple of pearls elsewhere. So not a bad result.

Anyway, it was a fun game. As you'd expect from a family boardgame the rules were a little fuzzy on places (we weren't sure if you could move through other ships, and there were a couple of minor timing issues as well). But I think we'd probably get it out again. 

52 Games - Game 44