Buccaneer Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Getting Ready to Play
• How to Play
  • (A) Moving a Pirate
  • (B) Boarding a Ship
• Mutiny
• The End of the Game

Components

• 15 ship cards
• 24 pieces of booty:
  • 6 treasure chests
  • 6 barrels of rum
  • 6 candlesticks
  • 6 daggers
• 75 coins:
  • 27 1-ducat coins (copper)
  • 18 5-ducat coins (silver)
  • 30 10-ducat coins (gold)
• 25 wooden discs in five colors
• 1 sheet of stickers with 25 pirate stickers in 5 colors, plus 5 spares without color

Before the first game, the wooden discs are each fitted with 1 matching sticker in accordance with their color.

• 1 manual of instructions

Getting Ready to Play

The ship cards are shuffled face down and form a deck kept face down nearby. The top three ships are laid face-up in the middle of the table.

Each player takes the 5 Pirates in the color of his choice and lays them face up in front of him.

In addition, each player receives 10 ducats.

The rest of the money and the 24 pieces of booty are laid ready as general stock visible to all players.

With fewer than 5 players, the unused pirates are removed from the game.

How to Play

Play passes round in a clockwise direction. The eldest player begins.

The player whose turn it is must always choose one of two possible courses of action:

• (A) Moving a pirate
• (B) Boarding a Ship

If possible, the player must carry out one of these two options. However, if a player has no free pirate piece available when it is his go (all 5 are in other piles), then he does not move in this round.

(A) Moving a Pirate

• A player takes his own pirate or his own pirate stack and puts it on top of an opposing pirate or pirate stack.
• The player puts down the newly formed stack in front of him; this makes him the captain of this boarding party.

A pirate stack belongs to the player whose counter is on top.

Not allowed:

• Once a stack has been made it may not be separated.
• A player's own pirate or pirate stack may not be put on another of his own pirates or pirate stacks.
• A move which would make a pirate stack have a height of more than 9 cannot be made.
• Players can't look at the value of the pirates concealed in a stack.

(B) Boarding a Ship

A player can only board a ship as captain. To do this, a player puts one of his own pirate stacks on an upturned ship card.

The pirate stack must have at least the required number of pirates, as shown on the ship card.

Sharing out the booty:

• First he chooses one of the pieces of booty pictured on the ship card and takes it from the general stock.
• The player to whom the second pirate in the stack belongs, gets the other pictured piece of booty, if any, from the stock.
• The captain now takes the amount of money shown from the stock.
• Then he pays the crew which took part in the boarding of this ship.
• He pays out the amount of ducats indicated on the pirate pieces of the other players which were involved in the boarding party.
• There are pirates who have a question mark instead of a number.
• If they have taken part, they are paid the amount which is shown next to the question mark on the respective ship.

After all the pirates who took part have been paid, the players are given back their pirate pieces and they lay them face-up in front of them.

There is not enough booty:

• If there is not enough booty to pay all the pirates belonging to the other players, the captain must use his own money.
• If he does not have enough money at his disposal, the missing amount is paid to the other players out of the general stock.
• Although the captain now has no money, he keeps his pieces of booty.

New ship cards:

• The card of the boarded ship is removed from the game.
• When the last of the face-up ship cards has been boarded, three new ship cards are turned up.

Note: as there are 15 ship cards, 3 ship cards are laid out a total of five times during the game.

Mutiny

• If a player has 3 or more of his playing pieces in a stack belonging to another player, this player may mutiny and force the captain to board a ship.
• When it is the captain's turn (the owner of the stack), the mutineer can challenge him to board a ship.
• If there is a choice of several ships which can be boarded, the captain alone decides which ship he will board.
• The pirate stack must have the required number of pirates to board the ship.
• The boarding is carried out as usual.
• The stack is broken up and the pirate pieces are returned to their owners.

If the captain has several stacks where a mutiny is taking place, only one ship is boarded. The captain decides which of the stacks he is going to use to board.

The End of the Game

As soon as all 15 ships have been boarded, the game ends and scoring takes place.

Whoever owns the most pieces of booty of one kind is paid the amount shown on the booty in ducats.

If several players have the same number of one kind of booty, they share the corresponding amount, rounding down.

Players who have pieces of booty for which they received no money get, as a small consolation, 1 ducat for each of these pieces of booty.

The player with the most money is the winner.