Pirates CSG Review

The Pirates of the Caribbean movie (and its imminent sequel) has helped to bring the romantic image of the pirate back into mainstream consciousness. Despite this image having very little basis in reality (a little searching on actual pirates on Wikipedia gives you a sense of what they were really like), it remains a popular subject for films, books, comics and games alike.

The Pirates CSG (Constructible Strategy Game) continues this tradition of appealingly anti-authoritarian pirates and chivalrous officers of the British Empire. Different to most board and card games, Pirates is sold in small packs that are similar to the booster packs for CCGs (Collectable Card Games). Within each pack is everything that one player needs to play, at least for a basic game. Packs are stuffed with goodies – within one small pack you get ships, an island, treasure, crew members, a tiny six sided die (these have to be seen to be believed…possibly the smallest dice in existence!) and basic as well as advanced rules. Considering the price per pack (£2.19 from this very site!), this it pretty good value for money. Two packs give you enough to play with for two players which means a 2-players game costs less than a fiver – at least initially. For a full game using all of the available options, each player will need several packs in order to build their fleet, with crew and varying amounts of treasure and special items and terrain also being brought into the game.

The ships themselves are great fun to build and are actually pretty impressive looking once built – it’s amazing when one of the larger types of ship is built for the first time, as they look huge and very nice indeed considering they are made up of smaller parts flat-packed into a relatively tiny foil game pack.

The object of the game is to collect over half of the available treasure in the game (usually players contribute 12 points worth of treasure each, which means that to win, coins totalling 12 points must be collected) or to destroy every single ship belonging to the other player. The game itself is simple to learn, with the basic rules being very clearly laid out in the form of sequential diagrams. Players take turns to place islands on the play area (any large flat surface will do, such as the floor, a table or the deck of a ship) and then each choose the home island for the opponent. Players then place their ships so that they are docked at their home islands and treasure is distributed among all wild islands.

Each turn, players can choose one action from a small number of options. Many of these actions allow more than one thing to be done per ship (moving will sometimes allow more than one direction to be moved in, but this depends on the speed of the ship – and shooting allows each cannon on a ship to fire as long as the target is within range and line of sight). Moving and firing are both calculated using distances which are measured using the cards that the ships are punched out of when being built – a white S uses the short white bar printed on the ship card, and a red L uses the long red bar. Each ship has a different speed and cannons have either short or long ranges, and as the cards are used in all cases it is usually very simple to calculate these distances. Repairing involves being docked at a home island and then adding a mast that has been previously lost in an attack, and exploring requires players to be docked at a wild island and then taking gold onto the ship (as many coins as their ship can carry, noted by the cargo number on the ship card).

At first this seems like a neat, German-style game with many options available – but soon enough problems arise with the fact that you cannot perform more than one action, such as move and shoot each turn: combat is incredibly slow and it’s very tough to actually hit a ship when it is constantly just moving away from you. If you then choose to move to catch up with it next turn, it can fire at you or just move away again. Some crew members can be used that allow a combination of two actions to be used (a captain on board allows a ship to move, then attack, for instance), but with a smaller number of ships and crew Pirates can degenerate into immensely frustrating, drawn out games of hit and run.

The ships themselves are well made, but as damage is tracked by removing masts they are prone to breaking. The masts are the flimsiest and most easily breakable parts, and if you don’t break them when putting them in for the first time, there’s a good chance that they’ll break when pulling them out or putting them back in during play. To solve this, I use a small amount of blu-tack or something similar to mark a damaged mast – this can then be removed if the mast is repaired.

There is a certain amount of enjoyment to be had with the Pirates CSG – ships are great fun and immensely satisfying to build, the game can play pretty quickly and can be played anywhere that you have enough space to play it – but there’s quite a few negative points to the game too. The damage tracking system can lead to broken masts, the one-action-per-ship-per-turn mechanic can prove very frustrating (especially if playing against someone who has a particularly useful crew member on board their ships) and the game is a little too simplistic even when using advanced rules. Also, measuring distances between ships for firing cannons is sometimes difficult as the three-dimensional nature of the ships means that parts do sometimes get in the way.

It is, however, a perfect game for children (as long as they aren’t too young – there are many small bits and pieces involved!), with difficulty and complexity seemingly pitched just at the right level. Not that it can't be enjoyed by adults - of course, lighter games do have their place and can be every bit as enjoyable as a more complex game, but Pirates CSG just feels like it's missing something. Although to be fair, the cost is not prohibitive, unless you are caught up in collecting every ship and every piece of treasure, but this is unlikely – I don’t mind admitting that I have a very addictive personality and find myself getting caught up in collecting all kinds of things just for the sake of it, but the Pirates CSG has not been compelling me to buy, buy, buy. For adults looking for a satisfying and involving Pirate game, I would recommend looking elsewhere, but that doesn't mean that adults looking for the 'wow' factor and a simple game to go with it won't be well served with this aesthetically stunning game. For kids (and parents looking for a suitable game to play with them), Pirates is an excellent choice – the toy factor alone is very enjoyable, and the game has enough (albeit simplistic) German style mechanics for those parents looking to introduce their children to slightly deeper games with many choices to be made every turn, rather than simply throwing dice and being a slave to the numbers rolled.

Summary

Presentation: Excellent ships in small packages that contain lots of well made components. Superb! 9.4/10

Clarity of Rules: The basic rules are well laid out and brilliantly illustrated, but the advanced rules are poorly laid out and later sets add and replace game mechanics seemingly at random, with some crew members and effects being left out of later rulesets altogether (forcing players to check out websites in order to properly find out how to use certain game pieces). 6.3/10

Game Length: Varies wildly, with some games being over within 20 minutes and others being dull, drawn out conflicts with no clear end in sight for a long time. 6.5/10

Value: Each pack is full of game pieces, and provides incredibly good value for money. However, players will need at least four packs each in order to properly play the advanced game. 8.1/10

Overall: A little simplistic for adult gamers looking for a deep and involving pirate game, but a perfect game for children looking for a toy they can play a proper game with. It’s also a bit more demanding than the average children’s game, which is great for parents desperate to get their children introduced to German-style games as quickly as possible. 7.4/10 (not an average)