With full gear!
I immediately warn you not to decide to play in the basic variant. I made this mistake and my first fight with other players was more tedious than Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and 5 combined.
The main game mode is cannon shots, dice rolls, ship movements (this is done with a string with knots which is quite cute) and the occasional hand-to-hand combat. The goal is to shoot down or board the enemy ships and base. The problem is that the bulk of the game are cannon shots. At one point, when everyone lost their ships, our rounds consisted of taking shots from our own base to other players’ bases (they were about a meter apart). It took us almost 10 minutes to finish the game this way and, by the way, how boring it was.
Therefore, it is better to include additional elements immediately. For pacifists, there is a trade mode to choose from, where a ship with a cargo scores a point for finishing off the enemy base, but cannot fire a cannon at the same time. There is also a pirate treasure hunt here. Finally, a sea dragon and Kraken may appear in the game, which pose another threat to the player. None of these elements completely remodel the gameplay, but it makes it a bit more interesting.
You can’t shoot a sparrow with this cannon
Coming back to shooting, a completely misplaced (pun intended!) Idea is the biggest distinguishing feature of this game, i.e. the cannon. Yes, it arouses interest at the first contact, because it is wooden (I thank the creators for that – for the hassle of plastic), but its functionality raises my considerable reservations. First of all, it is light, which makes it difficult to aim properly, because it is very easy to move and thus change the trajectory. At the same time, it is so small that it is difficult to improve the precision of the shot. Perhaps it would be better if the projectiles were larger. And so I have the impression that in all the games I have played the shots on target were a coincidence. I remember when as a child I had a pirate LEGO set with a similarly working cannon and I think I’d rather dig it out (like a pirate treasure!) And use it in the future.
The manual gives you the freedom to play the game, which can be played on a table or on the floor. However, I cannot imagine the first variant, because while playing on the carpet, we repeatedly fired projectiles far behind us. Searching for the little black piece was annoying enough, let alone having to get out of the chair every time. Ship Ahoy would be best played in a room just after renovation, where there is no furniture yet – at least the bullet would be clearly visible and not falling under the cupboards. With the randomness of our shots, it is strange that no one caught the eye of anyone. Safety glasses from a DIY store should probably be added to the game.
The close-range combat element also fails. Boarding is such an important part of the pirate adventure, and here, when two ships meet, it is all resolved with a die roll, where the only options are win or lose movement and wait for what falls to the attacked person. Much more interesting would be dice rolls with more options and random factors, such as in the Tokyo Kings .
Arrrr!
Perhaps our moderate enthusiasm comes from the fact that we’re just land rats that don’t know how to handle a cannon. However, I don’t think that every team of players will have so many talented shooters. Hence, it is hard for me to recommend this game, when most of my time was spent on blind shots and then looking for a thin bullet. There is some potential here, the manual element adds a lot of freshness, but the gameplay itself is pale as a skull on a pirate flag.
For skilled privateers who decide to play with all the accessories, it can be a nice skirmish. However, the (it would seem) main asset of the game – the cannon – only frustrated me. If it were replaced with a more precise one, the gameplay would probably be more enjoyable.
