Pyrates!

Pyrates! Rulebook

Table of Contents

Overview

Pyrates! is a game for 1 to 4 players set during the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean. You control the fate of your pirate band while attempting to win the game through a combination of fame, infamy, and popularity. You do this through piracy, raids on ports, and gathering and trading booty.

Useful Definitions

Human Player: Someone playing this game that is a human.
AI Player: A player that is not controlled by a human.
Player: Any player, human or AI.
Booty: The sum of trade goods and gold. E.g., 2 goods and 1 gold = 3 booty.
Allegiance: The nation a player is currently working for, so they cannot attack their ports or merchant ships.
Full Pirate: A human or AI player that owes allegiance to no nation.
D6: An ordinary six-sided die.

Other definitions are introduced with bold text in the game.

Components

Map of the Caribbean.
Quick Reference Sheet.
This Rule Book.
18 Pirate Character Cards.
18 Merchant Ship Cards.
10 Bid Tokens (double sided).
4 Allegiance Counters: French, Dutch, Spanish, British.
30 Player Ships (6 in each of 5 different colours).
3 Governor Ships – used in optional rules.
15 Scoring Tokens (Fame, Infamy, Popularity).
1 Turn Marker.
1 Reminder Counter.
10 Gold Coins.
32 Trade Good Counters (1 on one side, 2 on the other).
17 Trade Rating Counters.
17 Port Defense Counters.

Game Map

The game map shows the Caribbean region during the Golden Age of Piracy from the mid seventeenth to the early eighteenth centuries – the age of sail, musket and cutlass.

There are three sea zones: High Seas, East Caribbean Sea, and West Caribbean Sea – these have a range of numbers for random placement of Merchant Ships from a D6 roll.

Around the seas are ports which are marked to indicate the nation owning the port: British, French, Spanish, or Dutch. There are also three pirate ports: Tortuga, Nassau, and Port Royal. Ports can be adjacent to one or two sea zones. Pirate ports additionally have random number indicators showing return from sea zones and placement of ships for AI players.

Example of a port: St. Eustatius is a Dutch port. It borders two sea zones: High Seas and East Caribbean. There are two counters placed on it from setup: a trade rating counter of 2 and a port defense counter of 3. During the game booty (trade goods and gold) may also be placed on the port. Ships belonging to various players may dock there or attempt to raid it!

The map has a turn track for keeping track of the game's progress and a scoring track where each player can record their Fame, Infamy and Popularity.

Game Counters

Each player uses ships (they can have up to 6 ships) with their own colour and pirate symbol.

Human players start the game with allegiance to one of the four nations and place an allegiance counter on their character card.

Each port has one trade rating and one port defense counter.

Booty, consisting of trade goods and gold, can be in ports, on merchant ships, or hoarded by your pirate character.

A Note on Player Order: Generally, the order things are done is specified in the rules, but sometimes you may need to decide who does something first (such as returning ships to port after piracy). In this case, the order is by ascending ID order on each player's pirate character card.

Pirate Character Card: The card has an ID number, name of the pirate, a description of them and a picture of the flag they sailed under. For a human player, the card shows the Unique Player Action which can be performed once in the game. For an AI player, the card shows what the player will bid based on a D6 roll.

Unique Player Action: This is something that can only be done once in the entire game, so choose wisely when to use it. It is incumbent upon the players to remember who has used their unique action, so they don't "accidentally" use it more than once. AI players cannot use the unique player action.

Game Setup

Each human player chooses a colour/symbol and sets aside their ships, bid tokens, and scoring tokens next to themselves off the map. The remaining ships, bid tokens, and scoring tokens are set aside for AI player usage.

On each port randomly place two counters:

One trade rating counter (these are numbered 2 to 4). Do not place a counter with a value of 2 on any of the three pirate ports – these must have a counter valued 3 or 4 on them.
One port defense counter (these are numbered 1 to 4).

Shuffle the merchant ship cards into a deck placed face down off the map so you cannot see the ships. Do the same with the pirate character cards into a separate deck. Deal one pirate character card to each human player – this card will detail a unique player action only available to the human player that holds it. Deal one or more non-human (AI player) pirate character cards so that there will be 5 cards dealt in total (for example, if there are 3 human players then 2 AI pirate character cards will be needed to bring the total up to 5).

Randomly give each human player an allegiance counter. This shows the nation (Spanish, French, British, Dutch) that each human player is presently swearing allegiance to. AI players are full pirates and, as such, they have no national allegiance.

Each human player takes two ships of their own colour and places their ships in any port(s) belonging to the nation they hold allegiance to. More than one ship can be in the same port.

AI players get 1 ship each. Roll a D6 for each AI ship and place that AI ship in a pirate port corresponding to its D6 roll (as printed on the map). More than one ship can be in the same port.

Bonus Table: Roll D6 for each AI pirate and give them a bonus:

D6	Bonus
1	1 Trade Good
2	2 Trade Goods
3	1 Fame
4	1 Infamy
5	1 Extra Ship*
6	1 Popularity

* placed in the same port as the AI player's first ship.

Place Fame, Infamy and Popularity on the map's scoring track.

Where do I place my booty? During the game, place booty won by the pirate on the pirate's character card.

Setup Example (2 players)

Each player has their own colour ship placed on their card for reference. Blackbeard and Henry Morgan are the two human players so they each have an allegiance counter on them. The other three are AI players and have rolled on the table. Francois got 1 trade good, Amaro got 2 trade goods, Anne got 1 fame which means that her orange/hourglass fame token will be placed in the 1 section of the map's scoring track.

On the map all the ports have port defense and trade rating counters on them.

Blackbeard, who has Dutch allegiance, decided to place one ship in the Dutch port of Curacao and the other in the Dutch port of St. Eustatius.
Henry Morgan, who has French allegiance, decided to place both ships in the French port of Cap Francais.
The 3 AI pirates rolled randomly: Amaro rolled for pirate port Tortuga and the other two rolled for Port Royal.

Playing a Turn

The game is played as a number of turns. Each turn consists of 5 phases which are all carried out in the following order each turn:

Booty Phase: Trade Goods are placed at ports and a merchant ship is placed in one of the three sea zones.
Bidding Phase: Each pirate bids one of 5 actions: Pass, Build, Piracy, Raid, or Trade.
Action Phase: Actions are carried out.
End Phase: Pirates may spend gold and ships return to port.
Victory Phase: Check to see if anyone has won the game.

Booty Phase

Roll a D6 and consult the corresponding column on the Random Port Table on the map: Place one trade good at each of the ports in rows 1 to 5 inclusive listed in the column rolled for, excepting those ports that have a ship at them that does not have allegiance to the port.

If a port now has 5 goods at it, remove all 5 goods and replace them with 1 gold coin.

Draw a merchant ship card, roll a D6, and place it in the sea zone corresponding to the die roll result. Using the card's instructions, roll for the booty carried by the merchant ship and place this on the card in the form of trade goods and gold.

If there is already a merchant ship in the sea zone, remove it and replace it with the newly drawn one. Then perform the random event on the removed merchant ship's card before proceeding to the next phase. The reminder counter can be used here if required.

Example Merchant Ship Card: This ship has a defense rating of 2. The Cargo section on the card details what is placed on it from a D6 roll. As the nationality of this merchant ship is British, the player with British allegiance cannot join in a piracy against it. If this ship is replaced by another merchant ship, then the RANDOM EVENT "European War" is carried out.

Example: The same example from setup after the first booty phase. A six was rolled so a single trade good has been placed in each port of: La Habana, Campeche, Bahamas, Martinique, St. Eustatius. The merchant ship drawn was a Bermuda sloop and the sea zone rolled for its placement was East Caribbean. A roll of six was made for its cargo, which is one gold coin. A tempting prize!

Bidding Phase

First, the Human Player(s): Each human player secretly decides on (bids on) a single Action. Actions are Pass, Build, Piracy, Raid, and Trade. The player picks an Action Token for the action they have chosen and places it, concealed from view, on the playing surface. Note that there is no token for Pass, you simply place no token to bid Pass.

A player with no ships must play the Build token. Additionally, a human player may not choose a token that it is impossible to carry out (e.g., a player who already has the maximum 6 ships cannot bid Build).

Once all human players have chosen an Action Token, they reveal their tokens and put them on their pirate character card as a reminder. It could be that all players will have the same action or that each player will have different actions in the turn, or any other combination.

Then, the AI Player(s): If an AI player has no ships place the Build token on their card. Otherwise, roll a D6 for each AI player and consult their card to see which token to place on their card.

If the AI player rolls an action that it is impossible to carry out (such as Trade, but they do not have enough goods) then their bid is changed to a Build action.

If an AI player bids Build, but they already have 3 ships, then the card will detail an alternative action for the AI player. If this is not possible then they bid Pass.

Action Phase

Actions are performed in this order. Players can only be involved in an action they have bid on.

Pass
Build
Piracy
Raid
Trade

Example of an Action: Blackbeard and Captain Le Picard have bid for piracy. This means that when determining and resolving the piracy action only those two players are involved. The other 3 players take no part in the piracy action during the action phase and resolve their actions in the order shown above. For example, build actions take place before piracy actions and trade actions are resolved last.

Unable to perform an Action: Sometimes a player will be unable to perform the action they bid. If this happens the player does nothing in the turn (they do not perform pass).

1. Pass

In this action phase, a human player may either:

Move any number of their own ships from any port(s) to any other port(s) – even those in different sea zones. A player who currently holds allegiance to a nation cannot place any of their ships in a pirate port. A full pirate can only place their ships in one or more of the 3 pirate ports.
Remove their allegiance and re-base all their ships in one or more of the 3 pirate ports. They are now a full pirate.

An AI player rolls a D6 for a single, random pirate port and places all their ships there: 1-2 = Nassau, 3-4 = Tortuga, 5-6 = Port Royal.

2. Build

Players bidding "Build" place one new ship of their own color at a port:

A human player that is not a full pirate places 1 new ship at any port belonging to the nation that the player has allegiance to. Full pirates place 1 new ship at any one of the three pirate ports. Note that a human player can never have more than 6 ships.

An AI player places 1 new ship randomly at one of the three pirate ports. Note that an AI player can never have more than 3 ships.

3. Piracy

This action phase involves pirates who bid "Piracy" banding together to attack one merchant ship.

First determine a lead player for the piracy. This is:

The player (human or AI) with the most ships.
If there is a tie for the most ships, roll randomly to determine which player among those tied is the lead player.

The leader of the pirate band could be a human or AI player. A human pirate (full or owing allegiance) can be part of a piracy band led by an AI pirate (and vice versa).

Only a merchant ship in a sea zone bordering a port in which the lead pirate has a ship located can be attacked.

A lead human player chooses which merchant ship to commit an act of piracy on – a merchant ship belonging to the nation that the lead player has allegiance to cannot be chosen (note that a Full Pirate has no allegiance to any nation and therefore has no worries about the nationality of the merchant ship being attacked).

A lead AI player picks the merchant ship with the lowest defense. If there are two or more ships with the same defense then decide by selecting in this order: the ship with the most gold, then the most booty, then pick randomly.

Starting with the lead player, each player moves at least one ship into the target sea zone to be part of the pirate fleet. AI players will always commit as many ships as they can. Only those ships at ports bordering the target sea zone may be moved.

However, if a player has allegiance to the same nation as the nationality of the merchant ship under attack, they cannot be involved in the piracy attempt and take no action this turn.

If any player bidding piracy cannot move any of their ships to the target sea zone then they take no action this turn.

Resolving the Pirate Attack on the Merchant Ship

Roll a D6 and add to that roll the total number of pirate ships in the band: this is the pirate attack total.

Roll another D6 and add the merchant ship's defense rating: this is the merchant ship's defense total.

If the defense total is greater than or equal to the attack total, then the attack has failed. Each attacker loses 1 ship and surviving ships remain in the sea zone until the End Phase.
If the Attack Total is greater than the defense total, then the attack has succeeded! Remove the merchant ship card and divvy up the booty. Each player in the piracy gains 1 fame.

Example of Piracy: Blackbeard (grey/skull) has one ship and Caesar (pink/crossbones) has one ship in this piracy on a Bermuda Sloop which is carrying 2 trade goods. Neither have British allegiance. The pirates roll a D6 and add the total number of pirate ships (two of them) to get their attack total. They roll a 2 - so the attack total is 4. The defending merchant ship rolls a D6 and adds its defense of 2. It also rolls a 2 - so the defense total is 4. As this is a draw, the merchant ship wins. Each player in the piracy loses one ship and the merchant ship remains where it is. If the pirates had won, they would have divvied up the booty and gained 1 fame each. The merchant ship card would have been removed from the map.

4. Raid

This involves pirates who bid "Raid" organizing to attack one port containing booty.

First determine a lead player for the raid. This is:

The player (human or AI) with the most ships.
If there is a tie for the most ships, roll randomly to determine which player among those tied is the lead player.

The leader of the pirate raid could be a human or AI player. A human pirate (full or owing allegiance) can be part of a pirate raid led by an AI pirate (and vice versa).

Only a port sharing the same sea zone as a port in which the lead player has a ship can be attacked.

A lead human player chooses which port to raid. A port belonging to the nation that the lead player has allegiance to cannot be chosen. In the case of Full Pirates, they can raid any port belonging to any nation, but they cannot raid any of the three pirate ports.

A lead AI player cannot pick one of the three pirate ports. If there is more than one choice of a port, the AI player picks the one with the lowest defense. If still a draw, decide by selecting in this order: the port with the most gold, then the most booty, then pick randomly.

Starting with the lead player, each player moves at least one ship to the port selected to be raided. AI players will always commit as many ships as they can. Remember, only ships from ports that share the same sea zone as the target port may participate in the raid.

If a player has allegiance to the same nation as the nationality of the port under attack, they cannot be involved in the raid and take no action this turn. AI players and Full Pirates are unable to take part if the target port is a pirate port and take no action this turn.

If any player bidding raid cannot move any of their ships to the target port, then they take no action this turn.

Resolving the Pirate Raid on the Port

Roll a D6 and add to that roll the number of ships in the raid: this is the raid attack total.

Roll another D6 and add the port defense. Add 1 for each ship at the port which belongs to any player not involved in the raid. This is the port's defense total.

If the defense total is greater than or equal to the attack total, then the attack has failed. Each attacker loses 1 ship. Place all surviving ships in the sea zone bordering the port. If there is more than one bordering sea zone, then the lead player chooses one (roll randomly if the lead player is an AI player). Any player with a defending ship at the port gains 1 Good.
If the attack total is greater than the defense total, then the raid has succeeded! Remove any defending ships at the port. Then divvy up booty. Each player in the raid gains 1 infamy.

Example of a Raid: Blackbeard (grey/skull) has one ship and Caesar (pink/crossbones) has two ships in this raid on St. Eustatius. Neither have Dutch allegiance. The lead player is Blackbeard, who has two other ships not involved in the raid and has 3 ships in total while Caesar only has two ships which are both in the raid. The raiders roll D6 and add the total number of their ships involved in the raid = 3 to get an attack total. The pirates roll a 3 - so the attack total is 6. The defending port rolls a D6 and adds its defense rating of 3. It rolls a 2 - so the defense total is 5. The attack total is greater than the defense total so the pirates have won. They both gain 1 infamy and divvy up the booty (3 goods): The lead pirate, Blackbeard, takes half of the booty, rounding down – which is 1 good. He then allocates the remaining 2 goods to the other players in the raid. As this is only Caesar, Caesar gets them both. Players place their goods on their pirate character card. Their ships remain at the port. Do not remove either the trade rating or port defense counters.

How to Divvy up Booty

These rules apply equally for both Piracy and Raids:

The lead player takes half of the booty, rounding down, in either gold or goods (e.g., 2 goods and 1 gold = 3 booty. Half of this is 1, rounding down – so the lead player can take either 1 good or 1 gold). An AI player will always take gold before they take goods.
The lead player distributes the rest of the booty as equally among the other players (including the AI players) as desired. If the lead player is an AI player, then they give out gold first and then goods – they give to AI players first and then human players in the order of the ID printed on the pirate character card.

5. Trade

This involves players who bid "Trade" exchanging goods for gold.

Each player may trade goods once per port they have a ship in. An AI or human player can therefore trade more than once if they have ships at more than one port. Different players can trade at the same port, but each player can only trade once per port.

A trade involves placing goods at the port equal to the trade rating of the port* and the player receives 1 gold in exchange. If an AI player chooses trade and has ships at more than one port, then they choose the port with the lowest trade rating (choose randomly if there is a draw).

* The trade rating number is increased by 1 for a player with an allegiance who trades at a pirate port or any other port which they do not have allegiance to. For an AI or full pirate player, the trade rating number is increased by 1 for all ports except the three pirate ports.

If any port now has 5 or more goods, remove 5 goods and replace them with 1 gold (10 goods = 2 gold and so on).

Example of Trade: Blackbeard has Dutch allegiance and bid Trade. He has 3 goods to trade. Blackbeard has a ship at St. Eustatius which has a trade rating of 2. Since this is a Dutch port and Blackbeard has Dutch allegiance he can place 2 goods at this port and receive 1 gold in exchange.

(Another player's note: "I cannot trade because the port was raided and my ship removed! In this case you take no action this turn – bad luck matey.")

End Phase

Conduct these steps in the following order.

Return to Port: All players with ships in a sea zone (remaining from an act of piracy or failed raid) return them to a port bordering that sea zone. A human player with more than one ship to return may place them in different ports or all in the same port – whatever combination they desire. A player with an allegiance cannot place any ships in a pirate port. A full pirate player can only place their ships in one or more of the 3 pirate ports. AI players return all their ships to a single random pirate port bordering the sea zone. A port can end up with ships belonging to different players.

Increase Popularity: All AI players with gold spend ONE gold to increase their popularity by 1. All human players can either spend ONE gold to increase their popularity by 1 or to place 1 new ship of their own colour as per the build phase.

Victory Phase

If any player (human or AI) has reached 5 or more of either Fame, Infamy, or Popularity, the game automatically ends. If two or more reach this condition in the same turn, then the game is still over but decide the winner using the tiebreakers below.

Otherwise, starting with the end of turn 8 and, if necessary, with the end of each turn thereafter, roll a D6 – the game ends if the roll matches the die roll ranges on the turn track. The game ends at the end of turn 12 if it has not ended sooner.

If the game has not ended, advance the turn marker 1 space and start a new turn with the Booty phase.

If the game has ended, each player (including AI players) checks to see what their lowest Fame, Infamy, and Popularity numbers are. Whoever has the best (highest) low number among the three wins. (Example – Blackbeard has Fame 2, Infamy 3, and Popularity 0 – his lowest number is zero. Meanwhile, Caesar has Fame 1, Infamy 2, and Popularity 1 – his lowest number is 1, so Caesar would win). In case of a draw, see the tiebreakers below.

Tiebreakers in Case of a Draw

In the case of a draw, total up each drawing player's Fame + Infamy + Popularity. The highest total is the winner.
If still a draw, the winner is the drawing player with the most booty.
If still a draw, the winner is the drawing player with the most ships.
If still a draw, all drawing players may either fight it out with cutlasses or accept a shared victory.

It is quite possible that an AI player will win.

Who Rolls the Dice?

Ultimately, this does not matter as the result will be random. But...

Attackers: The lead player rolls the dice for the attackers. If this is an AI player then any human player in the attack can roll. If there are no human players in the attack then any player may roll on behalf of the AI player.
Defenders: The player with allegiance to the port or merchant ship rolls. If there is no such player then any player not involved in the attack may roll. If all players are involved in the attack then any volunteer will do!

What do I do if I run out of trade good counters?

Remember these are double sided, with one good on one side and two goods on the other, so you can flip them over if you need more trade goods.

If you still run out then don't place any during the booty phase. If a merchant ship is placed and has no booty on it, give it a single gold coin.

If you run out of gold coins, use real coins!

Optional Rules

Use as many or as few of these as desired – or make your own up!

More Powerful AI

There are several ways to make the AI pirates more of a challenge. This is particularly suitable for solitaire play. Feel free to pick as many or as few of these as desired:

Make additional rolls on the random table during setup for as many AI players as you want.
Give one or more AI players an extra ship during setup.
Give human players only one ship during setup.

Bidding for Allegiance

If there are 2 or more human players, then instead of assigning allegiances randomly, the players may bid to pick the allegiance of their choice as follows:

Each human player is given 5 goods.
Each player secretly takes from zero to five of these goods and places them in their hand as their bid.
All players reveal the number of goods in their hands simultaneously, and the one with the most picks first and so on with the one with the least picking last.
If two or more players bid the same number then they randomly determine by rolling a D6 who picks first.
Goods that were bid are lost. Goods not bid are retained on the player's pirate character card. You may wish to assist the AI players by giving them a number of goods equal to the human player with the most.

Governor Ships

The game comes with 3 governor ships. These represent the forces of "law and order": naval patrols, other pirates hired to bring in their fellow for a bounty and so on. They can be used as follows:

Option 1: When rolling to place booty use the pirate port on row 6 to determine two bordering sea zones and place one governor ship in each one. For example, for Port Royal place a Governor Ship in the East and West Caribbean Sea Zones.

During the end phase, before ships return to port, any player (human and AI) with ships in the same sea zone as a governor ship must make a D6 roll for each of their ships. If they roll a 1 then that ship is sunk and removed from the map. Then remove the governor ships from the map.

Option 2: Instead of placing 2 governor ships in the sea zones from the Random Port Table, roll a D6 for each governor ship and place it in the corresponding sea zone as per placing merchant ships. You can use one, two, or even three Governor ships, as desired. This means that a sea zone might have up to 3 governors in it. During the end phase instead of a roll of 1 removing a ship, a roll equal to or less than the number of governor ships in a sea zone eliminates a player's ship (for example, 2 governors in a sea zone would mean ships are eliminated on a roll of 1 or 2). Remove the governor ships from the map once all rolls are complete for placement next turn.

More Gold

Instead of replacing 5 goods for 1 gold on ports in the booty phase and trade action, replace 4 goods for 1 gold.

Secret Cargo

Do not roll for booty when placing a merchant ship. Only roll for the booty if that ship is successfully attacked during piracy – then divvy up this booty. You may also need to roll for booty for some random events.

Alternative Victory Conditions

Either at the start of the game or, if you want a nasty surprise, at the end of the game roll a D6 to decide how victory is determined:

D6	Victory
1	The standard victory conditions are unchanged.
2	The highest total of Fame + Infamy + Popularity.
3	The best single score of either Fame, Infamy, or Popularity.
4	The best 2nd highest score of either Fame, Infamy, or Popularity.
5	The player with the most booty on their card.
6	Roll another D6. The winner is the player with the highest: 1-2 = Fame, 3-4 = Infamy, 5-6 = Popularity.

Tiebreakers will apply as per the standard victory conditions.

Five Human Players

The game can cater to five human players. In this case there will be no AI player and one human will start the game as a full pirate and set up on the pirate ports. When randomly assigning allegiances to players include the reminder token: the player that gets this will be the full pirate.

More Pyrates Please!

Maybe one or more players want to start the game as a full pirate with no allegiance. The players may agree to this beforehand and impose some minor penalty, such as all players with allegiance receiving one booty at the start of the game while the full pirates receive none.

Fewer Pyrates Please!

You can play with fewer than the recommended 5 players, but ensure that at least one is an AI player.