Islas Canarias

Tags

boardgame, canary islands, pirates, settlers, spain

A boardgame about the Canary Islands? Ooo sounds intriguing, and as a gamer who does holiday there, I was intrigued as to whether it would possibly make an apt travel game? After all it can be fun playing boardgames in their themed locations: Carcassonne, Alhambra, and Puerto Rico are games that people have done (see boardgamegeek for photographic evidence).

Islas Canarias is a game about the settlement of the Canary Islands – each player takes one island playing board, which are differently shaped but containing the same number of land plot spaces. The boards each contain a set of features adjacent to the landplots: mountain, coast, river, road, village, and a farm, which vary in the number of plots adjacent to it (so an island will have 5 spaces next to one feature and other islands will have 4 or 3), with each island being strong at something. new players seem to want the bigger islands or moan if they’ve got a small island, but each has its strengths.

Look at the islands and you will see each has 5 spaces next to 2 features, 4 next to another 2, and 3 next to the final 2.

There is a deck of settler cards, of which each player starts with a hand of five. Each card depicts a settler with their occupation in Spanish and depicting the colour house they want to live in and a priority preference of where they want to live. On your turn you can do one of two things and then compulsory do a final action – you can either play a settler card to place a house on your island (of the colour stated on the card, and its placed according to the priority depicted on the card e.g. next to the mountain, if there’s no free space there then next to a red house, otherwise …) or pick up three cards; the final action of your turn is to place a card on the settlement ship (so if you start your turn with one card you must choose to pick up to be able to place a card in the ship). At the end of each round the cards placed on the ship by everyone are shuffled and one placed aside (so the card you put in may not come out this time), they are then “settled” according to the priority i.e. given to the player who has most free spaces next to the settlers priority, with ties going down to the next order of priority. Of course you have to place the settler in a highest available space, so meaning you now have less spaces. Your spaces this way can quickly fill, luckily there is a way to free up spaces. Houses are worth 1 point, but if you have 2 houses in the same colour you can exchange these for 1 palace (that has to go on one of the spaces vacated by the houses) worth 3 points (or 2 points if you already have 1 in that colour). You can also upgrade to Town settlements, worth 5 points, by converting 3 houses of that colour. A rule I missed on first couple of plays is you cannot upgrade a palace and a house into a town, which is quite important as it makes you more vulnerable to pirates in the meantime!

So this is a game about using cards to place houses on your island directly and hopefully via the ship (if you have the most favourable space). There is more to this game though in the terms of privileges and pirates. The first player in each colour to build a palace gets the privilege card for that colour (other players may take these later if they get more points in that colour) that gives you a special power. these are

• Win all ties
• Draw 5 cards when not building
• Use houses of different colours when building a palace
• Build wherever you want
• Take extra card every turn
• Protected from pirate attacks

The settler deck consists of 54 settlers and 6 pirates (one in each colour). A player may not play a pirate on their island, but can place it in the ship. When a pirate comes out they attack the owner of that colours privilege, who then has to place a house (of any colour) back into supply (if they have the pirate protection privilege they can determine another player to be attacked). If the privilege isn’t out its the player with most points in that colour with ties meaning all tied players put one house back.

The game carries on until one player reaches 19 points and then the game ends at the end of that round (so it is possible for someone else to win with more points or even the player who reached 19 to then lose points via the pirates!).

This game was described to me by one friend as just a puzzle solving game, but I don’t see it that way. It is about being aware of which features you are strong in each round (to hopefully get settlers via the ship) and deciding when to upgrade to palaces or go for towns. It is quite a short game, playing in about 45 minutes, though this can be longer if players are deliberating far too much each turn. The mechanics are quite simple to pick up but with more to it than a quick filler. Maybe I will take it on holiday next time.

Cartagena Die Goldinsel

Tags

pirates, simple, themed

Die Goldinsel (or Cartagena: Die Goldinsel to give its full name) is a boardgame from the Cartagena Series of games. Its a pirate themed game and it doesn’t matter, in my opinion, if you haven’t played the previous games. The description of the game (taken from boardgamegeek as the game itself is in German) is “After escaping the fortress of Cartagena and their return to the Pirates Nest, the pirates’ search for Treasure Island starts. Players are pirate captains and try to get together a new crew of pirates, gather Island cards and acquire digging rights before setting sail to Treasure Island.” and really you could take the theme as just the last sentence.

Each player has a captain and a ship piece, the captains start at the lighthouse space on Crows Nest Island (CNI) and the ships in the harbour. You each have a set of digging permits (numbered 1-6 with another numbered 7 on the furthest island), of which you start with one, chosen at random, the rest placed at the centre of CNI. There are a set of island cards (one for each of the islands that have treasure on), one of which has been chosen as the Treasure Island, of which each player starts with one and the rest in a pile, and you each get a deck of pirate action cards.

This game is, in part, a memory game – you need to try and look at most of the island cards to find out which aren’t the Treasure Island, because you cannot win unless you have dug on that island! that is quite important. You have a hand of four pirate action cards and can use one to move (you can then optionally use the action element on a second card) and afterwards you draw back up to four. So you start the game moving around CNI which has a circular track comprising of spaces that allow you to: pick an island card; pick up a digging permit; get a pirate crew of the specified colour on that space (your ship can only hold 3 though); or gamble (turn over the top pirate action card of your deck and if it shows a poker symbol get a pirate and a permit!). If you land on same space as another captain and you have a card with a robbery action on you may steal one (or two) of their island cards. So it is a memory game as you won’t hold onto the island cards but need to know what you’ve seen to ensure you cover the Treasure Island in your digs.

In our three player game Mike was first off the island, with all his permits and collecting his seventh. If you’ve seen five island cards, you can place on the other seven. Jon was next off and I was last, mainly because I hadn’t got enough permits by the time Mike set sail. By the time I managed to get five permits, enough I thought to go and get digging, I’d seen eight cards, so it did mean I could concentrate on going to the other four.

To dig on an island you need to move your boat there, play a second card that depicts allowing you to place pirates on the island as your action, place the pirate of the colour specified on the island or any two, and then place one of your digging permits.  Mike had picked up the Relic card that allowed him to use any colour pirate so could happily go digging, Jon had to go back to CNI as Mike had been the only player to pick up a black pirate. When you arrived at an island that already had pirate(s) on (from another player placing their digging permit) if you have a card that allows you to pick up one or two pirates then you can play that and collect pirates. So you can travel to an island one turn place pirate and dig, next turn go to another island and pick up a pirate, etc, so long as you had the cards. It was even possible to leave the island you’d just dug on and go a circular route (cannot use the same lane twice in the same turn) and pick them back up!

When one player has placed their last digging permit, everyone else gets a single go and then scoring happens. Treasure where no one has dug gets removed from the game, and that where only one player has dug gets given to that player. For everywhere else the permits are turned over and the highest value wins it, in case of ties the tying player who placed their permit first wins. The treasure island card is turned over and whoever won on that island takes the bonus 3 gold. Everyone totals their gold (including the value of a relic card if they got one), and of the players who dug on Treasure Island, the one with the highest gold total wins. In our game, Jon had the highest gold but had not dug on the Treasure Island, so I won :-). Not really sure how, though I guess placing less digging permits but of higher value could be it, though that’s highly dependent on what other people place (my 6 went up against Mike’s 7 bonus).