Re: [piecepack] Review: The Pirates of Van Zandz

[Ron Hale-Evans <rwhe@...>]

Interesting, Jorge. Thanks for the review. I may give this a try the
next time I have a craving for treasure and pirate blood.

I see you've posted the review to the wiki too. Thanks!

Ron

On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 7:31 AM, Jorge Arroyo <trozo@...> wrote:
> This is a review I posted to BGG. I thought it'd be useful to also post it
> here on the list.
>
> ----------------------------
>
> The Pirates of Van Zandz is a piecepack game for 3 to 4 players.
>
> The premise of the game is that several pirates have all hidden their
> treasure on one group of islands which are all too close to each other, so
> naturally they all rush to protect their own treasure while at the same time
> trying to steal the treasures from the other pirates.
>
> Each player uses a different suit, with the coins representing the crew of
> their pirate ship and the pawn representing the captain. All these pieces
> start the game on the null face up tile of their own suit, which represents
> their ship.
>
> The islands are built with the rest of the tiles face down (the table space
> between them being the sea where the ships move), and pieces will move
> through the small squares when they disembark from the ships. The game gives
> you different configurations of islands but it's easy to create your own.
>
> Each player will place their ship on a sea area close to the coast of an
> island (ships always move with at least a corner or an edge touching a
> corner or edge of an island) and then will place their own die on one of the
> small squares of their choice. That's the "possible" spot for their
> treasure.
>
> Then the game starts with players playing in turns, choosing between a
> variety of actions like moving, shooting their cannon, moving individual
> crew members or their captain, etc... Players choose two actions to perform
> each turn.
>
> When a player has at least one piece next to a treasure from another player,
> they might try to take it. They do so by rolling that die and checking if
> the number rolled is the same as the number on one of the pieces next to the
> treasure (the captain counts as null). So you can see how having more pieces
> around the treasure will highly increase your chances of getting it, because
> if you fail the roll, the owning player will get the chance of moving the
> die to any other spot (probably far from where your men are).
>
> It's also important to note that the actual value rolled for the die must be
> kept because that's the actual value of the treasure. So it's in your best
> interest to use your higher coins to try and get the treasure.
>
> But of course, that would leave your ship with lower valued coins which
> would leave it vulnerable to a boarding attack (when boarding a ship, you
> compare the total values of all the coins on each side, highest value wins
> and eliminates the crew of the opposing ship).
>
> Last, players can also leave the islands and go to the deep seas to hide the
> treasure they stole for good and recover lost crew members.
>
> In the end the player that gets the most treasures wins, so in a 3 player
> game, you need to get two treasures. In a four player game, if anyone gets
> two treasures before anyone else got any, they win, else when 3 treasures
> have been claimed you compare the values on the dice and highest wins. In
> case of a tie wait until the fourth one has been collected. If the tie
> persists each player rolls their treasure dice until the winner is clearly
> determined.
>
> Thoughts:
>
> We played a few 3 player games with our 6yo son and he really liked the
> game. I think it is a good game to play with kids.
>
> I found the game offers some nice decisions and has a push-your-luck element
> because you can either try your luck with just one or two men to try and get
> a treasure, or you can spend more time to move more men and increase your
> chances (but in the meantime other players will advancing their goals too).
>
> There are a few strange situations that can arise if players are not careful
> which might leave a player without any chance of getting treasure. For
> example, in a 3 player game, if two players take each other's treasures, the
> third player will not be able to get any treasure. Of course, if this player
> manages to board and steal one of the treasures from either ship then he'll
> be fine, but once the other players have gone to the deep seas and hid the
> treasures for good, there's nothing that player will be able to do that
> game. Fortunately the game is short.
>
> Something else that can happen is that a ship can be stolen (only if the
> captain is not on board). Usually if a player steals a ship, the player that
> lost the ship will be able to at least board the abandoned  ship and use it,
> but it might happen that his crew is on an island that has no access to that
> ship. If that happens they will be stranded for the rest of the game. The
> chances of this actually happening in one game are extremely small, so it
> shouldn't be a problem, but the possibility is there nevertheless.
>
> Also, one thing that wasn't clear for me from the rules, but that the
> designer clarified when I asked was the fact that the ship is really like
> one big square which when next to land or to another ship is considered
> adjacent for all purposes of the game. This means that if a treasure is on
> the coast (next to the sea) and you move your ship so it is adjacent to the
> treasure, you can get it with all the men on your ship (so putting a
> treasure on the coast is a BAD idea). Also, when two ships are next to each
> other you're not only limited to ship attack actions (fire your cannon or
> board) but you can use individual crew members to fight and weaken the crew.
> Initially I thought individual combat was limited to island spaces.
>
> With that in mind, the game gets more interesting, as the tactical options
> increase. For me the only problem is that it is too easy to take away a
> stolen treasure as you can move to "deep sea" from any spot on the map. You
> can also return to any spot on the map once you've hidden the treasure, so
> you can return as close as possible to the next treasure.
>
> One suggestion from the designer is that each trip to "deep seas" and back
> costs 2 actions instead of one. This helps a bit. Another suggestion is that
> players can never hide their treasures (they always stay on the ship). This
> makes for a much bloodier game where you've got to always watch your back.
> We still have to try this last variant, and although I'm aware it may make
> the game longer, it may also make it more interesting.
>
> Conclusion
>
> I think the game makes good use of the piecepack pieces, taking advantage of
> hidden information, and using the tiles in a novel way (many games use tiles
> as board, but few if any use them as actual moving pieces). The game does
> feel thematic enough for a piecepack game, and is fun enough to play. I
> think it is a good game to play with kids as they will enjoy the theme and
> the game is easy to learn. It also is pretty visual and it's easy to know
> what each piece represents at a glance. It is also more interesting for
> adults, so they can have fun too
>
> So overall I think this is a good addition to the system and a good, quick,
> family game.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
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