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Post by Swift Nic on Sept 25, 2009 3:29:39 GMT -5
I hope you're intending this as scenario or a sort of house rule option, because this is getting way too cumbersome and complicated to ever work as an "official" rule unless you redesigned the whole game around it. You've got a decent set of basics going so far, but there are lot of interactions with other rules and abilities that need to be taken into account, so a lot of playtesting would be required. Yes, I'm offering Merchants as a scenario/home rule for Pirates. Mostly I'm tossing these ideas out to see how they work (or not) They are open to revision or suggestions especially from players. As well as the Merchants goal of making a profit. The Pirates and Navies have to choose between defending their own merchants and attacking the enemies. So it may add another strategy to the game. There's still some work to do on buying and selling cargo and on the initial setup. If I ever get my rules together, Merchants and Privateers will probably feature.
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Post by Swift Nic on Sept 25, 2009 6:20:59 GMT -5
Parley doesn't really sound good. too much cash required. but a scenario that uses Merchant ships as a replacement for wild islands does sound nice. Okay forget Parley. A Question: How do Nations or Factions work in Pirates ?e.g. if both players have American ships in their fleet, can they attack each other ? What happens if they do ? What about Pirate faction, can they attack anyone ? Each Merchant should belong to a Faction (Maybe the Cursed have Slavers or Sulpha runners). A Merchant is immune from attack by ships of its own faction...
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Post by Swift Nic on Sept 25, 2009 7:45:37 GMT -5
One opposite approach to Merchant ships could be:
Cargo Bought as equipment, each cargo takes up one hold/hull space. Any ship with Hull spaces can load cargo. [Exceptions: Sea monsters, Ghost Ships, submarines, etc. ? ] Each Cargo has a face value in Gold [ and a destination ].
Each Cargo costs it's face value in gold/points when loaded (bought) at start / at the players home island Cargo is worth it's face value +1 in gold when unloaded (sold) at its destination. Each Cargo is worth it's face value -1 in points / gold when sold as stolen goods. (The Black Market).
If cargo is just sat on your ship, it's not worth anything!
Obviously you can't load cargo at your home island then just unload it again for a free profit, you have to ship it to or from somewhere else. So we need destinations for our cargoes. If players name all the islands in the game. Cargoes have to be shipped to named islands.
[ Randomizer to determine how much cargo, what it's worth and which island to ship it too ? ]
e.g. Guano - 2 Gold; ship to Port Louis, Earl Grey Tea - 3 Gold; ship to George Town, Inca loot - 6 Gold; ship to Hispaniola, Rum and Ships Biscuits - 5 Gold; ship to Tortug-Arrr!
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Post by Swift Nic on Sept 25, 2009 8:14:49 GMT -5
Replying to my own post already:
Maybe the profit should be in proportion to the value of the cargo ?
or
Cargoes could take up more than one hull space:
e.g. Bat Guano - 2 Gold; 3 Spaces; ship to Port Louis, Earl Grey Tea - 3 Gold; 2 spaces; ship to George Town, Inca loot - 6 Gold; 1 space; ship to Hispaniola, Rum and Ships Biscuits - 5 Gold; 2 spaces; ship to Tortug-Arrr!
The Gold value is for the whole cargo not for each space.
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Post by marhawkman on Sept 25, 2009 14:21:20 GMT -5
Hmmm... Interesting, perhaps nix the mass effect negation in that case?
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Post by Swift Nic on Oct 7, 2009 8:26:27 GMT -5
I've had some time off holidaying in Scotland and come back refreshed and re-enthused! At some point I realised my Cargo rules are completely unnecessary. Pirates already has a great mechanism that fulfills the Cargo role. When Pirates explore wild islands, they pick up treasure and ship it home. If I call Treasure 'Cargo' it does exactly what I had originally intended! So scrub my Cargo rules (They were bollixed anyways). Lets get back to Merchant ships as wandering Wild Islands. I just need to work out how (or if) to cost merchants... p.s. no-one's responded on my query re factions yet. Nic
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Post by admiralb on Oct 7, 2009 14:37:47 GMT -5
maybe instead of making them immune to attack by their own faction, they can Parley their own faction...but not other factions...like having a built-in "X Letter of Marque" because as you already pointed out, what if both players are playing America or both playing Pirate? it'd be a pretty boring game, you wouldn't really be able to attack the merchants at all...at least if they could Parley their own, you could still attack, but you might get parleyed in the process...it'd take quite a while to get all the treasure that way, but still possible...hmm...makes mixed fleets a bit more powerful...interestingly...
for one of our "regattas" we had an equipment that I made of Fireworks, it said something to the affect: "When loaded, roll a d6. This equipment is worth gold equal to the die roll result when unloaded at your home island. You may reduce the gold value of this equipment to 0 to gie this ship +1 to her cannon rolls for the rest of this turm."
basically, used for a scenario of getting the most gold home and you could only use this equipment to get gold...so, the question of the day was do you want to blow your Fireworks in an attempt to sink and possibly capture an opponent's Fireworks or do you just make a break for home and unload the one you have...oh, and there was only one home island, so everyone was heading there anyway...made for a pretty crazy fun game...also, did I mention we used 10-masted junks for this?
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Post by Swift Nic on Oct 9, 2009 4:10:28 GMT -5
maybe instead of making them immune to attack by their own faction, they can Parley their own faction...but not other factions...like having a built-in "X Letter of Marque" because as you already pointed out, what if both players are playing America or both playing Pirate? it'd be a pretty boring game, you wouldn't really be able to attack the merchants at all...at least if they could Parley their own, you could still attack, but you might get parleyed in the process...it'd take quite a while to get all the treasure that way, but still possible...hmm...makes mixed fleets a bit more powerful...interestingly... for one of our "regattas" we had an equipment that I made of Fireworks, it said something to the affect: "When loaded, roll a d6. This equipment is worth gold equal to the die roll result when unloaded at your home island. You may reduce the gold value of this equipment to 0 to gie this ship +1 to her cannon rolls for the rest of this turm." basically, used for a scenario of getting the most gold home and you could only use this equipment to get gold...so, the question of the day was do you want to blow your Fireworks in an attempt to sink and possibly capture an opponent's Fireworks or do you just make a break for home and unload the one you have...oh, and there was only one home island, so everyone was heading there anyway...made for a pretty crazy fun game...also, did I mention we used 10-masted junks for this? I like the Fireworks equipment, It seems particularly appropriate for Junks! There is a lot of room in Pirates for different scenarios. One idea, I was thinking of an A4 sized island in the middle of the board with player harbours spaced around the coast, so ships have to sail around the island to get home. Looking at Merchants as a scenario rather than as a rule variant. How would it work (or not)? If: - Each Faction has a home island or harbour (rather than each player);
- Player fleets can include mixed factions;
- Any ship can safely dock in their own Faction's harbour, regardless of Player or fleet;
- Each Faction has a number of Merchants;
- Merchants are immune from attack by their own Faction;
- Merchants start the game loaded with Cargo (Gold and/or UT);
- Merchants sail to their Faction harbour from the furthest table edge;
- When all the
Merchants are docked Gold is unloaded, sunk or captured* the game ends.
* Merchants can be captured by boarding. To remain captured you have to leave a prize crew aboard.
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Post by admiralb on Oct 9, 2009 13:12:18 GMT -5
sounds interesting and simple as long as UTs and powerful unique crew are left out. only problem I have is starting ships at the edge of the table...I get why you're doing that, but would probably just go with something more like placing a "wild island" for each faction at a certain distance from the main island and docking the merchants there...maybe its just that fact that I've been playing a lot of campaign lately and almost everything has a set location where its suppose to go or start at or what have you...
...small question...the last bullet point says unloaded, sunk, or captured...does the captured gold count if its on the ship or unloaded at the appropriate port? maybe make that more clear...I'm assuming Pirates don't use Merchants, but instead try to capture them. Cursed I can see with weird supernatural artifacts, sea monster food, and other oddities...Pirates, Corsair, and to a lesser extent Jade and Viking, shouldn't even have them, or have a limited amount of them or be noticeably slower than their European and American counterparts.
so, to really have a good fleet for a game with merchants you'd need at a few different attack ships...Pirates probably being the best choice...right?
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Post by marhawkman on Oct 10, 2009 13:20:52 GMT -5
Actually I like the idea of allowing UTs. Makes for a bit more excitement. the benefit of massive gold UTs is offset by the risk of them being captured. Scenario Rules: 1: I'd go with player. There's 10 factions, you're only gonna actually have stuff for what people are playing. It doesn't seem like a good idea to force people to play unique factions either. Having to groups of British looting each other's ships is (historically) somewhat rare, but not unheard of. With 6 or less players it won't make a huge difference. 2: sure, see 1 3: see 1 4: that is the core of the scenario. Each player effectively has two fleets. One of combat vessels, and one of Merchant vessels. 5: See 1, the idea sounds good, but it'd be very awkward in practice. 6: see 4 7: I'd go with a set distance, something like 12L or some such distance. 8: I'd require captured merchants to be docked at the HI of whoever controls them. thus they'd go under "unloaded" as well. Thus it'd end when all gold is either unloaded or removed from the game. re:small question: I don't see why not. Vikings were first and foremost traders. Pirates may be more renowned for pillagin, but they sold insane amounts of stuff on the black market and were active smugglers. Jade were Chinese who wanted to return to national sovereignty, trade was essential to them. Corsairs.... enh, I'm sure they did all the same stuff other pirates did.
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cleverpun
Master & Commander
I need more wenches / More wenches and mead
Posts: 46
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Post by cleverpun on Oct 11, 2009 22:45:47 GMT -5
As I mentioned when this came up before, it's an interesting scenario, but will get very rules heavy quickly. Could be interesting once finished though. Simplify it a bit- having three sides (pirates, navies, merchants) is too cumbersome. I'd consolidate the Navy and Merchant parts into one force, so it's be a bit closer to the original rules. Of course in the original rules treasure running is a much harder task than shooting the treasure fleet, protection or not...
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Post by Swift Nic on Oct 13, 2009 6:30:06 GMT -5
sounds interesting and simple as long as UTs and powerful unique crew are left out. only problem I have is starting ships at the edge of the table...I get why you're doing that, but would probably just go with something more like placing a "wild island" for each faction at a certain distance from the main island and docking the merchants there...maybe its just that fact that I've been playing a lot of campaign lately and almost everything has a set location where its suppose to go or start at or what have you... ...small question...the last bullet point says unloaded, sunk, or captured...does the captured gold count if its on the ship or unloaded at the appropriate port? maybe make that more clear...I'm assuming Pirates don't use Merchants, but instead try to capture them. Cursed I can see with weird supernatural artifacts, sea monster food, and other oddities...Pirates, Corsair, and to a lesser extent Jade and Viking, shouldn't even have them, or have a limited amount of them or be noticeably slower than their European and American counterparts. so, to really have a good fleet for a game with merchants you'd need at a few different attack ships...Pirates probably being the best choice...right? I have no problem with starting Merchants at wild islands. My point was that loaded Merchants have to sail a minimum distance before they get home. You could use a regular starting set up, with gold randomly distributed on wild islands. Place a merchant ship at each island and load it with as much gold as it can carry. Then start the game. The Merchants have to reach their Home Island and unload cargo. The Fighting Fleet has to catch'em or sink'em. If captured gold is still on a ship at sea whether a Player ship or a Prize then it's still up for grabs. So to finish the game all (or most ?) of the Gold has to be unloaded at players Home Islands. When I said each Faction should have it's own Home Island, I was thinking of the big four Nations. I did not intend that every Faction in the game should have it's own harbour unless they are all being played. There seems little point putting Shanghai or Bear Island on the table when there are no Jade or Vikings in play. I've no problem with any Faction having Merchants. Of course what the Cursed consider valuable cargo may well differ from the French or British. It's pretty much a condition of the scenario that each player has a Merchant fleet and a fighting fleet.
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Post by admiralb on Oct 15, 2009 15:45:45 GMT -5
just a small idea...what if the gold on merchant ships were like a reverse Sunken Treasure...the more turns the gold is on board the more its worth...so each coin starts as a 1, then increases to a 2 at the beginning of your next turn, then 3...and so on...that would also give the opponent more of an incentive to go after the merchants; stop you from getting those coins home...of course for this to not be overpowered merchants would have to have no more than 4 cargo...
...you could even use the Sunken Treasure idea as is...make each coin worth a d6 roll and -1 at the start of each turn. That way getting the merchant home as fast as possible nets you more gold...just some ideas to ponder.
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Riz
Master & Commander
As bloody as I wanna be!
Posts: 55
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Post by Riz on Oct 15, 2009 16:05:32 GMT -5
just a small idea...what if the gold on merchant ships were like a reverse Sunken Treasure...the more turns the gold is on board the more its worth...so each coin starts as a 1, then increases to a 2 at the beginning of your next turn, then 3...and so on...that would also give the opponent more of an incentive to go after the merchants; stop you from getting those coins home...of course for this to not be overpowered merchants would have to have no more than 4 cargo... ...you could even use the Sunken Treasure idea as is...make each coin worth a d6 roll and -1 at the start of each turn. That way getting the merchant home as fast as possible nets you more gold...just some ideas to ponder. Got a UT in my set that does this, worked the actual wording on it out with Woelf, and I think you will all like it when I publish it.
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Post by Swift Nic on Oct 16, 2009 9:03:29 GMT -5
I do like the idea that a Merchant increases the value of their goods. i.e. Buy cheap, sell high. That was part of my original concept for Merchants, but it meant turning Pirates into a trading game rather than fightin', sailin', lootin', boozin' an wenching, Arr!
Way back when... I had a load of the little red and white odd numbered movement dice from PotSM.
Instead of moving short or long card lengths, ships would roll red or white dice and move that number of inches. (Was this only in the British issue of PotSM ?)
The Merchant would buy 'common cargo' white dice for one gold each; or 'valuable cargo' red dice for two gold each. The player would roll these dice for the cargo's value when the Merchant unloads at their home island. If captured they would be worth one or two gold each.
Nic
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