Introduction
There is a big, chunky Euro game called Maracaibo and in some ways, this is its little brother. Certainly, it’s a faster game, but in no way should it be regarded as less than Maracaibo. Pirates of Maracaibo is a game about sailing in and around the Caribbean of the 17th Century, which is the same setting as the original Maracaibo.
In Pirates, there are a lot of paths to victory, a lot of ways to amass victory points and there’s plenty of crunchiness for dedicated Euro gamers. The rules are somewhat simpler and some elements have carried over from Maracaibo into Pirates of Maracaibo. However, it is a completely standalone game and can be played and enjoyed without ever having experienced Maracaibo itself.
Introduction
There is a big, chunky Euro game called Maracaibo and in some ways, this is its little brother. Certainly, it’s a faster game, but in no way should it be regarded as less than Maracaibo. Pirates of Maracaibo is a game about sailing in and around the Caribbean of the 17th Century, which is the same setting as the original Maracaibo.
In Pirates, there are a lot of paths to victory, a lot of ways to amass victory points and there’s plenty of crunchiness for dedicated Euro gamers. The rules are somewhat simpler and some elements have carried over from Maracaibo into Pirates of Maracaibo. However, it is a completely standalone game and can be played and enjoyed without ever having experienced Maracaibo itself.
Gameplay
Pirates of Maracaibo is played over three rounds and in each round players sail from West to East across the Caribbean, from the starting zone to the Gulf and Maracaibo locations. Once any player has reached the Gulf with their ship, the end of round is triggered. That player’s next move can only be to Maracaibo and that will immediately end the round. Each other player gets one more turn in that round. The Maracaibo space gives 6 victory points. After round end, players receive income – both doubloon income and victory point income, if any – and then their ships are moved back to the Western end of the Caribbean tableau.
At the end of three rounds, the game ends and the final scores are evaluated.
The Caribbean is made up of twenty seven cards arranged in nine columns and three or four rows in each column. Mixed in among the cards are three treasure island tiles, one for each of the three types of treasure in the game – emeralds, pearls, and gold. There is also a communal exploration board and each player has a Ship board and a Hideout board. They have an explorer meeple that can progress across the exploration board. The victory point track runs around the outside of the exploration board.
On your turn, you set sail to a new destination in the Caribbean, moving 1 to 3 spaces. An important rule is that you must advance to a new column of card spaces each turn. Apart from the Gulf and Maracaibo on the right hand side of the map, there are three types of card space – Improvements, Residences and Locations.
Improvement cards can be bought and placed in your own player area, then they are replaced. Improvements have a cost in coins on the top left, a number of end game victory points on the top right, an income modifier in the bottom left – which may add to VP income or coin income. There is an effect in the centre of the card, which may be immediate, ongoing or end of game. Finally, they have a type tag in the bottom right and some scoring cards and other effects will trigger on collecting a number of these tags of the correct type.
Residences provide an end game scoring condition, cost a significant amount to construct and remain in the Caribbean tableau, but a player who constructs a residence gets to place one of their markers on it. There is a small VP bonus for being first to construct a particular residence.
Location cards have several effects: first, there may be an increase in value for one of the three treasures in the game. The three treasures are emeralds, gold, and pearls. Next, you get to upgrade your ship by placing a grey cube on one of the spots on your ship upgrade board. Finally, there is a main effect, which may be to raid by rolling the three dice, green, yellow and white, which represent the three treasures. Raiding is one way to acquire treasure – you choose a colour and spend raiding power of that colour, which is the dice roll adjusted for bonuses. Each option can only be chosen once, so if you have, say, 8 raiding power, you can choose to spend 5 on a treasure and 2 to gain 3 coins, but you cannot take the “gain 3 coins” effect four times.
The effect may be to explore, and then you move your explorer meeple up to the indicated number of spaces plus any bonuses you have. You activate the space your explorer lands on. You ignore any spaces occupied by opponent explorer meeples, skipping over them. In this way, there is a denial element to the exploration.
The effect may be to bury treasure. You have to have treasure of the indicated type first and then you can use the bury action, which is denoted by a spade, to bury it. Buried treasure scores two points in addition to the variable treasure value from the islands. T
Finally, the effect may be to gain another quest card.
The treasure mechanism is quite interesting and something I didn’t fully understand the first time I played, because it was online and the alterations were happening automatically. And because I hadn’t read the rules carefully enough. So, whenever you gain a treasure, you take a cube from the relevant island – emeralds in the northwest corner, gold in the centre and pearls in the northeast corner. The number of cubes on each treasure island govern the scoring value of that treasure, so you really want to add more cubes to the island after you’ve acquired one in order to make your treasure score more. The maximum score on each island is five. Cubes are added at certain locations when someone visits them, also two of the burial slots for each kind of treasure add a cube to their island as an effect of burying that treasure. Thus, there’s a tension between having a lot of cubes of a particular kind of treasure and making sure that they all score as much as possible. It’s a sort of minority game – you don’t want to chase the same treasure that everyone else does because it will be worthless.
Quest cards are another way to score end of game points. You start the game with one and can pick up others along the way, for example by ship upgrades. Quest cards usually give a scoring condition in two parts, meet the condition at the easier level and score a small number of points – 3 or 4 – or meet it at the harder level and score 6, 7, or 8 points.
One of the ship upgrades possible is to pay three coins for a figurehead. There are a selection of them available in the market – two more than the number of players – and they give various boosts, such as reducing the cost of improvements and locations or adding to raiding strength.
For every river crossed on the exploration board, and there are four of them, a player scores four points at end of game. That can be quite significant if you ignore the exploration action entirely.
Each player also has a set of black market tiles available to them. They are dual sided and the sides are chosen randomly by one player at the start and then everyone else matches them. Black market tiles can be placed on locations that don’t already have one of your tiles. They are activated, first by placing them and then again by landing on the location with your ship. There are also spaces on the exploration board that allow you to activate any one of your black market tiles on the Caribbean tableau and gain the benefit. It is possible in this way to activate a particular tile several times.
Artwork
Artwork on the game boards, the cards, the tiles and tokens and the game box and rulebook is all consistent with the original Maracaibo and fits the theme very well. The iconography is clear and easy to read and understand without being cartoonish. I really like how tasteful it all is, so I’ll give it 4/5 for artwork.
Complexity
There’s a lot to think about and plan in Pirates of Maracaibo and there are many paths to victory. It’s easy to get lost in analysis paralysis with the array of choices. I think this is a 4/5 for complexity.
Replayability
There’s lots of replayability in this game – the random nature of the Caribbean tableau means that no two games are alike. Even just the raw base game is great fun and I’ll happily play it over and over. And when that (eventually) pales there are several modules which give small adjustments to the rules. And finally, there are a couple of expansions. I think this is a solid 5/5 for replayability.
Player interaction
There are several ways that other players’ choices can affect you. Firstly, if they sail to an Improvement card and buy it, that card is obviously no longer available to you. Then the whole raiding mechanism means that someone else can tank the value of the treasure you’ve spent the game carefully burying. Destinations in the Caribbean are not exclusive, but you do need to pay doubloons to any players already there. Exploration sites are exclusive, and your explorer simply “jumps over” any opponent meeple on the exploration board. Finally, each round is a race to cross to the Gulf and Maracaibo – don’t get left too far behind. In light of all that, I think this is a 5/5 for player interaction.
Component quality
Most of the components are either cardboard tiles and chits or painted wooden meeples and tokens. The ship upgrade board has punched square holes for the upgrade cubes to occupy, but apart from that, the cardboard is all single layer. The cards are good quality. The three dice are a good size and good quality. I realise a deluxe version would cost a lot more money and the component quality is really quite good, but I like the game so much that I would like a little more bling… So, I’ll give it 3/5 for component quality.
Likes and dislikes
I think my main dislike, and it’s quite a minor one, is the score track. The scoring markers are meant to slot onto the outside of the exploration board, which has a sort of wavy set of indentations to accommodate this. However, I found that they kept getting pushed under the board. I think I’d prefer a regular score track, myself. Other than that little quibble, I think the whole experience is a lot of fun. It gives the same vibe as its parent game, Maracaibo, but in a much more streamlined form.
Conclusion
This is a great game. I’ve played both Maracaibo and Pirates of Maracaibo and I much prefer Pirates. I first played this online and then bought a physical copy (from Zatu, of course!) and I’m very happy with it. Pirates of Maracaibo is a 90% from me.
