Libertalia – Review

Libertalia is a pirate game where you use crew members to acquire the most treasure over three weeks (rounds) of play.  Each player draws the same nine cards from their crew deck and selects one crewmember to play.  All the players display their card at once and then the following events take place:

• The cards are ordred by rank on the board
• The day effects take place in ascending rank order
• The dusk effects take place in descending rank order
• Treasure is taken by players in descending rank order
• Spanish Officer & Saber treasure effects may take place (if taken as treasure)
• Cards move from the board to player’s den
• Night effects take place

There are six turns per round (Monday – Saturday) and then the day of rest (Sunday)  All the day of rest effects take place and then the players cash out their treasure and arrive at a final round total of doubloons.  You advance your score token and then refresh your cash (you reset to 10 doubloons)  You clear your den and any discarded crew and those cards go back into the box.  The players draw another six cards and play another round of six turns then reset and play a final round.

This game works better with more people.  The card selection feels like worker placement and selecting which cards to play and which cards to keep feels like a deck builder/manager.  The treasures to pick also present interesting choices depending on card effects.  The 30 card crew deck presents enough diversity to make the game re-playable but small enough to let people memorize card behaviors to speed game play.

We definately want to try the game with 4-6 players.  Both of my test runs where 2 player games.