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.
agentpatman
This is our initial rating but subject to change. This game is dense and will require playing 2-3 plays just to learn the rules. This game is not tough because it's hard to play but it's hard to play correctly because learning the game takes such a time commitment. My main issue with the gameplay is long player turn times when people are at port. I also felt lack of completely different paths, it seems you are a trader or a pirate and no easily ability to switch between the two and all other decisions are just subsets of what path you took. I felt like I was following a script of what my captain and ship were designed to do and following a script in combat based on what the dice said. You could deviate from the script but then you can't keep up with traders port jumping and selling cargo or pirates killing everyone. I was hoping for a sandbox game where you could do anything, and you can here, but you won't be able to keep up with everyone who is following the script. If your out to spend a few hours having fun with minimal objectives then this would be perfect. If your out to play a strategy game where you outwit your opponents and play to score then stay away. It's highly thematic and a cool system for NPCs. Maybe the expansion offers some direction other then pick up and deliver or combat game but unfortunately it's out of print and super expensive. I do want to play it again and learn it well to see how much our opinion might change. Update. I played this again and I rage quit. This is the first game I played that I just can’t stand. You spend so long getting a ship and upgrading it and lose due to bad dice rolls. There is nothing you can do about it and you lose two hours of work. The worst part about it is that you have to play for two more hours when you might have been really close building up again. If you just get a good captain for cargo and pickup and deliver the entire game you’ll never have any bounty and will likely win as everyone else gets hammered by the game. You’ll also have no fun in the process. The first hour of the game is fun and the next 4 are just repeating the first one. There’s so much I dislike about this but the NPC system is one of the best but definitely not worth playing. I probably won’t ever play this again.
Aglardulin
Great base game for new players. A good stepping stone to more intricate strategy games. Working on modifying some game mechanics for more replayability.
AgentOddball
[b]Thank you, BGG Secret Santa 2014![/b] Our first game went very well! I was surprised at the game's ability to hold my interest given the length of play. The board was tense and filled with the threat of violence. I'll give this one a rating after one more play.