Merchants and Marauders
Merchants & Marauders lets you live the life of an influential merchant or a dreaded pirate in the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy.
180m
2 - 4 Players
Ages 13+
Merchants & Marauders lets you live the life of an influential merchant or a dreaded pirate in the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy.
adebisi
Oh my god. How much downtime can there be in a game… Everybody played quick and still it felt like all you did was wait and wait and wait. Then you decided to go to the toilet and chase the badger out of its hole. And when you get back it is still not your turn. Merchants and Marauders could have been a fun pick up and deliver game but it would have required the game being stripped all unnecessary fluff like the rumors, glory cards, zillions of ship attributes, and most importantly the over complicated and long battle would have needed simplifying. Now a single battle could take 15 minutes and all the while players not involved in the battle have nothing to do. Mechanically there is nothing broken and there are no fatal design errors. The whole game just feels like all the mechanics were taken from a board game published 40 years ago. There is nothing innovative or elegant. Everything is slow and clunky. The only good thing I have to say about Merchants and Marauders is that it looks good and I really like the theme. Completing missions, trading goods and sinking ships is also fun, but it would need to happen at a pace 100x faster.
2ndPlace
In my opnion this is the best of this type game you can add to your collection. Well made and rules are well written. I've played twice and now I want to try playing as a pirate.
4x scalper
A bigger game than initially expected. Lots of depth and layers. Somehow the designer has melded an economic game and a "wargame" (fairly detailed sea battles) into one heavily themed adventure.