Chrono Corsairs
Chrono Corsairs Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components & Setup
- 1 Game Board
- 5 Ship Mats: place one in front of each player. Return any left over to the box; they will not be used this game. The flags on these mats indicate which color of Officer and Crew meeples you will control during the game.
- 10 Plan Cubes: on each player's Ship mat, place 1 cube in the "1" space of their Stable Plans track, and 1 cube in the "1" space of their Unstable Plans track. Return any that are left over to the box.
- 10 Officer Meeples: place 2 matching each player's Ship mat color in the Harbor area of the Game board. Return any left over to the box.
- 55 Crew Meeples: return any that do not match a player's Ship mat color to the box. Place 5 matching each player's Ship mat color in the Harbor area of the Game board. Place the remaining meeples on the correspondingly shaped spaces on their respective players' Ship mats. During the game, some effects may reference "Pirates", which collectively means both Officer meeples and Crew meeples.
- 3 Interior Island Tiles: place these in a random order on the 3 indicated spots on the board, to form a ring.
- 6 Exterior Island Tiles: place these in a random order on the 6 indicated spots around the Interior Island tiles.
- 4 Mysterious Cave Tiles: select 3 at random, and place them in the circular spots with a random side face up. Return the left over one to the box.
- 28 Event Tokens: shuffle these face down in the box lid. For each Interior Island tile, Exterior Island tile, and Mysterious Cave tile, pull out one Event token and place it face-down on the tile (without looking at it). Return any left over Event tokens to the box without looking at them.
- 30 Stable Plan Cards: shuffle these and place them in a face-down deck on the "Stable Plans" space of the Game board.
- 19 Unstable Plan Cards: shuffle these and place them in a face-down deck on the "Unstable Plans" space of the Game board.
- 9 Anomaly Cards: shuffle these and place them in a face-UP deck on the Anomaly Deck space of the Game board, so that the top card of the deck is visible.
- 1 Storm Stability Marker: when playing with 2 players, place this on the first space of the Vortex track on the Game board. When playing with 3 or more players, place it on the second space of the Vortex track.
Game Overview
Each round, players will resolve the top card of the Anomaly deck and place it in the discard pile. Next, everyone will simultaneously select and play 1 new Plan card for the round, and then take turns performing their Plans. Then you will hand out rewards to the players based on who has the most Pirates in each area of the island. Finally, players will determine turn order for the next round, spend Doubloons, and reset the board.
Every round the Storm Stability marker will move 1 space forward, plus 1 additional space if anyone played an Unstable Plan this round. When the marker reaches the last space of the track, finish that round, and the player with the most Time Gems, wins!
Round Overview
- Advance the Storm Stability Marker
- Resolve Top Anomaly Card
- Select and Play Plan Card
- Perform Plan Actions (In Player Order)
- Hand Out Rewards
- Outfit Your Ships
- Reset the Board
Gameplay in Detail
Each round consists of 6 phases, which are performed in order. Most of the phases, with the exception of "Run the Loop" are generally executed simultaneously. If you ever need to execute something specifically in turn order, let the other players know – turn order is determined by the position of your Flag marker on the Flag track, with the player whose flag is highest acting first, second highest acting second, and so on. The Flag track also breaks all ties, with whichever player is higher on the track winning any tie in which they are involved. All players will complete a phase, and then move on to the next phase at the same time.
Note: the printed Round Overview lists seven numbered steps, while the text says each round consists of 6 phases. Both are transcribed as printed; the phases below follow the printed headings.
Phase 1: Destabilization and Anomalies
- Advance the Storm Stability marker one space, following the arrows.
- Then look at the top card of the Anomaly deck, and read the effect printed next to the symbol corresponding to the Storm Stability marker's current position. Do whatever the Anomaly effect that was just read instructs you to do. Do not perform the actions listed next to the other symbols on the card. Then place the Anomaly card on top of the discard pile.
Some Anomalies will have immediate effects, some will have lasting effects or change the way the round is played, and some will do something at the end of the round.
Phase 2: Select Plans
- Draw the number of Stable Plan and Unstable Plan cards indicated by the position of the cubes on your Ship mat. Look at the cards you have drawn, and select ONE of them. Hold the selected card out in front of you, face-down. You should use your hand to obscure the back of the card.
- Once all players are holding a card in front of them, flip over your card at the same time as everyone else onto the space on your Ship mat where you would like it to go. You may place the card on any of the spaces, replacing the pre-printed cards on the Ship board and any previously played card in that space. If you replace another card in this way, put the replaced card face-down on the bottom of the deck it came from.
- Discard all the other Plan cards that were drawn this phase, aside from the selected one, face-down to the bottom of their respective decks.
If ONE OR MORE players just flipped over an Unstable Plan, advance the Storm Stability marker one space. (It can only advance one space in this way, even if multiple players flipped over an Unstable Plan.)
Phase 3: Run the Loop
The player whose Flag marker is highest on the Flag track will resolve the card in their "Sunrise" space first, followed by the player whose Flag is second highest, and so on, until everyone has resolved their Sunrise card. Then advance the Time marker to the "Morning" position, and all players will resolve the card in their Morning space in the same order. Then do the same for "Evening" and "Sunset", advancing the marker and then resolving everyone's cards in order.
When it is your turn to resolve one of your plan cards, you may choose to perform the Plan in the current space, or ignore it and collect 1 Doubloon instead. You may also choose to play 1 Artifact card either before or after performing (or not performing) a Plan.
You may choose to perform the Plan in the current space. If there is a card there, perform the Plan printed on that card. If there is no card there, perform the Plan that is pre-printed on the Ship mat.
- The most common thing a card will tell you to do is to move some of your Officer or Crew meeples. When you move a meeple, it can only move to an adjacent space (touching the space they are currently in), unless the card says otherwise. Often there are other restrictions on which types of space the meeple may move to or from. Each Island Tile is a single space. The Harbor area also counts as space, which is adjacent to the nearest 3 Exterior Island tiles.
- When moving one of your Officers, you may also move any number of your other Pirates (Officers or Crew meeples) that are in the same space as the moving Officer to the same destination space as the Officer. If an Officer moves multiple spaces in the same turn, treat each space as a separate move - you may choose different Pirates to move with him for each space he moves.
- Each event token can only happen once each time a plan card resolves, even if multiple pirates move into the space.
- When moving ANY Pirate into a space containing an Event token, if the Event token's back matches the current time of day (Sunrise, Morning, Evening, or Sunset), you must resolve the Event token's effect immediately. If it is face down, flip the token face up and perform the action indicated on it. Do not flip it back face-down afterward - once an Event has been shown to occur at that time of day, players may freely use that information when making decisions in the future.
- If you do perform the plan, you may choose to forgo parts of it. However, if your Plan tells you to affect "all" of something, you may not choose to only affect some of that thing. For example, if you are told to push ALL opposing Pirates from a space, you may not choose to only push some of them.
- Unless the card specifies otherwise, you may have different movements performed by different pieces. For example, if a card tells you to move an Officer into a Jungle, and then move an Officer into a Jungle, you might move the same Officer twice, or two different Officers once each.
- If a Pirate "dies" or is "killed", don't panic! Simply place them out in the water above the island for now. At the beginning of the next day, time will reset and the Pirate will re-appear in the Harbor with everyone else. If a Pirate is "lost to the storm", they are removed from the Game board and returned to the most recently emptied Crew space on your Ship mat. They may be recruited again in the future. If there is no empty Crew space, they are still returned to your Ship mat, and may be recruited again for 2 Doubloons in the future.
You may choose not to execute your Plan card in the current space at all. If you forgo it entirely, you gain 1 Doubloon from the general supply instead.
You may choose to play exactly one Artifact card during each of your turns, either before or after you resolve (or don't resolve) your Plan. To do this, simply reveal the card from your hand at the appropriate time and perform the action described. Then discard the Artifact card face-down to the bottom of the Artifact deck.
Phase 4: Find Treasure
Evaluate each Island tile on the board individually to see who has the most Pirates (Officers and Crew) on them. For each tile, the player with the most Pirates on the tile will receive the rewards shown below the symbol corresponding to the Storm Stability marker's current position. For example, if the Storm Stability marker is currently in the Opening area, then the player with the most Pirates receives what is shown under the Opening symbol on the tile. Officers and Crew count equally during this evaluation. If there is a tie during this phase, whichever tied player's Flag is higher on the Flag track wins the tie.
If a tile has the 1st / 2nd / 3rd place symbol on it, then other players who have Pirates on the tile may also win some treasure. If the Storm Stability marker is currently in the Expanding area, then the player with the most Pirates there will receive what is shown under the Expanding symbol, and the player with the second most will receive what is under the Opening symbol.
If the marker is currently in the Rippling area, the player with the most will receive what's under the Rippling symbol, the player with the second most will receive what is under the Expanding symbol, and third most will receive what is under the Opening symbol. If the marker is currently in the Collapsing area, the player with the most Pirates on the tile will receive the rewards shown under the Collapsing symbol, 2nd receives what is under the Rippling symbol, 3rd gets what is under the Expanding symbol, and 4th gets what is shown under the Opening symbol. If you do not have a Pirate present, you cannot receive rewards for that tile.
If a tile only has the 1st place symbol, then only the player with the most Pirates present receives any treasure.
Resolve all the Mysterious Cave tiles first (one at a time) starting with the top left cave, then the top right, then the lower cave, then resolve all the Exterior Island tiles, then all the Interior Island tiles. When you finish resolving a tile, return all Pirates from all players on it to the Harbor area.
After all tiles have been resolved, also move all Pirates that were killed back to the Harbor as well.
The possible rewards you can receive are all covered in detail in the symbol glossary at the end of these rules.
Note: Volcano tiles provide no rewards until the Storm Stability marker reaches at least the Expanding symbol.
Transcription note: the printed rules show the Storm Stability stage symbols as glyphs only. The stage names above (Opening, Expanding, Rippling, Collapsing) are matched to those glyphs using the Glossary of Symbols at the end of the rulebook.
Phase 5: Set Priority
Move all the Flag markers off the board, to the right of the Flag track, maintaining their current order. All players count their Doubloons and Time Gems. The player who has the LOWEST combined total of Time Gems and Doubloons selects their position in turn order for the next round, moving their Flag marker to the position of their choice on the Flag track. Then the player with the second lowest total may choose a position, and so on, until all players have chosen a position on the Flag track. If there is a tie, the player who was previously higher on the Flag track may choose first.
Phase 6: Outfit Ship
All players may now spend their Doubloons. You may hire Crew from the stragglers on the shore, you may motivate the Crew to cooperate better and increase the number of Plans you can draw, or you can pay for some artifacts that may have been uncovered during the day. After everyone has made their purchases, discard all the remaining Doubloons due to the time storm resetting things. Time Gems and Artifacts are not discarded, due to their magical nature.
You may make multiple purchases, and you may do the same type of purchase as many times as you would like, as long as you can afford it.
The available purchases are:
- You may pay 1 Doubloon: to move any 1 Plan card on your Ship mat to a different position. If there is another Plan card in the position you are moving it to, the other Plan card is swapped to the space the moving card came from.
- You may pay 2 Doubloons: to move one of the Plan cubes on your Ship one space to the right, increasing the number of Plans of that type you will draw in all future turns.
- You may pay 2 Doubloons: to recruit a new Crew member for the rest of the game, moving the meeple from your Ship mat to the Harbor on the Game board.
- You may pay 3 Doubloons: to gain 1 Time Gem.
- You may pay 5 Doubloons: to draw 1 Artifact card from the top of the deck and add it to your hand.
If the Storm Stability Marker is on the "collapsing" space, proceed to Final Scoring. Otherwise, discard all your Doubloons and begin a new round at Phase 1.
Final Scoring
- For every 2 Doubloons you have, gain 1 Time Gem.
- Reveal all Artifact cards that are still in your hand – each one is worth a number of Time Gems equal to the value indicated in the corner of the card.
The player with the most total Time Gems, wins! If there is a tie, the tied player whose Flag marker is highest on the Flag track wins the tie.
Glossary of Symbols
The glossary lists the symbols printed on the components and tiles, by their printed labels.
- First Place, Second Place, Third Place: the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place symbols used on tiles to award treasure (see Phase 4).
- Stable Plan; Unstable Plan; Artifact; Discard an Artifact.
- Your Crew; Kill one of your Crew here.
- Officer; Kill one of your Officers here.
- Enemy Crew; Kill one Enemy Crew anywhere.
- Time; Gain.
- Beach Terrain; Jungle Terrain; Volcano Terrain; Any Terrain.
- Mysterious Cave; Event Tile; Event No Effect.
Some tiles have their rewards spelled out on them. Example printed tile ("Scrying Mirror"): "Name a type of non-cave space. Gain 2 Doubloons for each space of that type you have more Pirates in than anyone else."