Letter of Marque [Signups 0/6]

[sAbLLimINal]

I hope that this won't be too much of an overload on games, but this is a pretty simple mind-screw game that kindof looked like fun. It calls for 2-6 players.

After the discovery of America, the European powers sought to exploit the New World's vast resources. Wars broke as nations struggled to control the trade routes to America. Soon, a new figure appeared on the seas: the corsair. Unlike pirates, who preyed upon any ship unable to escape, corsairs possessed the Letter of Marque. This letter, granted to the corsairs by a sponsoring nation, allowed them to attack the ships of that nation's enemies during wartime, so long as the corsairs avoided the vessels of the sponsor nation. This restriction was not always respected on the open sea, and the line between pirates and corsairs was often blurred.

Overview of the Game
Each player tries to sail his ships across the southern seas without being attacked and captured by his opponents' corsairrs, while sending his own corsairs against enemy merchant ships. Players know which ships carry the most wealth, but not which ones are escorted and defended. A corsair will not last long against a heavily defended galleon. The player who scores the most points by stealing his opponent's treasures and successfully defending his own ships wins the game.

Each player controls 5 ships. 2 of them have cannons on their ship while 3 do not. A ship with a cannon indicates that the ship is defended, and a ship without a cannon indicates a defenseless ship. Each player also gets 5 treasure cards, worth from 3 points to 7 points (but they are just shuffled and put face down), and 3 cannon cards.

Preliminary Turn
At the start of everyone's turn, I will take the top treasure card from each player's deck and annouce it to everyone. Each player then selects any ship that he hasn't used and assigns it to that treasure card. Only the ship's owner knows whether it is armed or defenseless.

The player with the lowest value treasure takes the first regular turn. If 2 or more players are tied for the lowest treasure value, it is broken by a dice roll. Gameplay then proceeds around in a pre-determined turn order, with each player taking a turn.

A Player's Turn
During his turn, a player must take one of the following five actions:

-A ship leaves: Basically same thing as the preliminary turn. The top treasure card is revealed and the player must choose another ship to be assigned to it.

-A ship arrives: The player chooses one of his ships that has treasure. He takes the treasure card from under the ship and it is now considered scored. The ship is removed from the game without revealing whether it is armed or defenseless.

-Attack an opponent's ship: To attack you must have at least one ship at sea (that has treasure). The player uses a cannon card to designate an opponent's ship at sea to attack. The attacked ship is then revealed to be armed or defenseless. If the ship is armed, the attack fails, but that ship then becomes defenseless. The defending player takes the cannon card of the attacking player and will be scored.
If the ship is defenseless, its treasure is captured. The attacking player takes the treasure card, it is scored, and removes his cannon card from the game. The defending ship is also removed from the game. A player without cannon cards may not attack another ship.

-Swap treasure: You may exchange treasure with another of your own ships. You may only switch 2 ships per turn.

-Pass: A player who has no more treasure in his deck and no more ships at sea may pass. He is not required to attack an opposing ship.

End of the Game
The game ends when there are no more ships at sea and no more treasure cards in any players' deck.
The value of all treasure cards in his score pile counts for his total number of points. He then adds 1 point for each opposing player's cannon in his score pile. Unused cannon cards are not worth points.
The player with the highest number of points is the winner. If there is a tie, the player with the highest number of cannon cards is the winner. If there is still a tie, players share the win.

Any takers?

[lexprod]

[sAbLLimINal]

I don't think this game was intended to have any strategy involved, but you want to have other players' cannons because they score bonus points.

Everyone gets 3 cannon cards max at the start of the game. The whole purpose of them was so you can steal other people's treasure so you can earn more points. I'm not sure were the subracting part comes into play.

[sAbLLimINal]

Oh, sorry about double post, and sorry that I think I'm reading your post wrong. There are some situations where cannon cards don't count at all. Like if you attacked another ship that wasn't defended, then that cannon card isn't scored at all.

[lexprod]

Ohhhh wait I get it. If player A has a cannon from player B in player A's score pile, then player A gets a point. I assumed player A gets points for each cannon card player B had in Player B's pile, like some sort of "not-using-the-card" penalty thing.
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I'll have a P please...