Pirates of Maracaibo Game Review

 About two years ago, I was staring at a copy of Maracaibo (2019, Capstone Games) sitting on my shelf.

 The game looked back at me. "You keep looking at me like you love me, but we used to spend a lot more time together."

 "You're right," I said. “The problem isn't entirely yours, and I don't think the problem is mine either. The problem is, as much as I love you, you take time to set up, you take time to teach, and every time I have to explain how combat is fought and where the dice go on the map and how it all affects the ending - scoring mechanics in the game, I move on to another game. Besides, the whole thing usually takes two or three hours to play... I just think it's better to find another home for you.''

 So I gave Maracaibo to a guy in my company. I got the Maracaibo app (which unfortunately still doesn't support playing against AI opponents outside of solo) and then basically stopped playing the game until it hit Board Game Arena a few months ago.

 Toward the end of my time at Gen Con 2024, I stopped by the Capstone booth to talk to the team about the show, and they offered up a copy of Pirates of Maracaibo, the standalone version of the game that won rave reviews at SPIEL last year. I was curious, so I accepted a copy and a few weeks later had it in front of my other junkie friends from Maracaibo.

 15 minutes into the first game I breathed a sigh of relief. I'm back in Maracaibo like never before...because Pirates of Maracaibo is Maracaibo with all the card games I love in a package that plays in about an hour even with three players. Because it's so easy to set up and take down, Pirates of Maracaibo has a much higher chance of making it to the table than its big brother.

 They are a match made in heaven. If you liked the base game, buy Pirates of Maracaibo. And even if you didn't like Maracaibo the first time around, I think Pirates of Maracaibo is still worth checking out.

THE SEA IS A CARD OCEAN

 Pirates of Maracaibo is a stand-alone exploration and treasure hunt game for 1-4 players, with many of the same table-building mechanics featured in the Maracaibo base game. You don't need a copy of Maracaibo to play Pirates of Maracaibo, but it's certainly easier to learn if you already know how to play the original.

 Although Maracaibo had quest mechanics and combat, I always thought of it as a card game. I liked choosing which cards to buy, I liked buying cards that allowed me to do special things in certain places, and I liked card tagging that allowed me to burn cards to leave items in certain places on the map. I've always been concerned about the structure of the base game, how players can speed up the end of rounds by running around the map and triggering the scoring at the end of the round, but at four rounds I always felt like I had a good chance of getting enough points to win.

 Pirates of Maracaibo seems to know exactly what I wanted most from the base game, and then deliver it in such a quick fashion. Pirates of Maracaibo is even more of a card game than the base game, thanks to the removal of the standardized game board and replacing it with… you guessed it, more cards.

 The Pirates of Maracaibo game contains a deck of cards divided into nine columns, 2-4 cards per column. Starting at the west end of this table, players control their pirate ship by moving 1-3 spaces (cards) east to perform actions. These cards range from Location cards, where players can improve the side of their ship and carry out raids or research activities, to Enhancement cards, which provide one-time actions or red flags that permanently improve abilities. As in the base game, upgrade cards cost doubloons, and this cost can be reduced by powering up other cards or upgrading your ship. Residence cards, just like in the base game, are also featured in Pirates of Maracaibo, now arranged as locations on the map that can be visited and replenished with player tokens to be claimed at the end of the game.

 The maps are still great in Pirates of Maracaibo and it's very interesting to see how the map changes. This is because when a player buys an Enhancement, it moves to the new owner's personal table and is then replaced by a card from a better deck, so there's always a series of cards available for purchase, but the ways the options change add a nice decision-making dynamic.

 Location cards contain a variety of options, including the explorer mechanic from the base game. In the base game, I always felt like the Pathfinder mechanic took a focused effort to make it work, and I rarely saw the player who performed the best win the game. In Pirates of Maracaibo, the Explorer process is incorporated into the core gameplay in a way that is meaningful but doesn't require the player to direct most of their energy in that direction.

 The new game features a small Exploration board that looks the same as the original game, but now the loop is a circle where players move their Explorer meeples across rivers to get bonuses similar to those in the base game (points , coins, treasure, etc.). Some Location and Enhancement cards allow you to move multiple locations at once, thanks to enhancements obtained from other cards or aboard a ship.

 Pirates of Maracaibo has three areas that have received a major update: combat, quest cards, and ship upgrades. All three add to the action in Pirates of Maracaibo by streamlining processes that were difficult work in the original game, and all three areas proved to be meta improvements that dictated play in the base game, particularly aboard the ship.

BURIED TREASURE

 Let's talk about the new shipboard for a moment.

 Remember the personal ship board from the base game? Players seemed to do the same upgrades in pretty much the same order every time they played: five coins, then one that increased the hand size from four cards to six, then maybe one that gave you three points so you could unlock the one that gives you six more points. And it always took two deliveries before you could get each update.

 The Pirates of Maracaibo know you don't like to wait. So there are two major changes aboard the ship. The first is that all location cards allow the player to upgrade their ship and get something immediately. Want three doubloons? Here you go. Another quest card? Here you go. The second change is that the ship upgrades are closed like in the first game, but the gates are lower.

 So, after your first two upgrades, you gain access to the juicier upgrade options in the second of three ship upgrade levels. One of my favorite options is to drop a quest card for eight doubloons. Another awards the player two points if they choose to move less than they could on the research map. Another update allows the player to buy the upper part of their ship. Major items new to Pirates of Maracaibo give players the choice of a slight asymmetry as they receive one-time or permanent powers that change the way the game is played.

 The shipboard in Pirates of Maracaibo blows the old version of the game out of the water. I'm not sure I can even play basic Maracaibo now that I've seen this new version. This is doping and it is not discussed.

 So the shipboard is the first and probably the best upgrade to the base game outside of general playtime.

 The second update is combat. In Pirates of Maracaibo, the tiles that tell players how much additional combat power they have against each of the three factions (Spain, France, England) are gone. Now fighting is "raiding" and raiding is cake. Three cubes of three different colors fall out. Dice represent both grains of power that can be used to perform unique combat actions, and the scent of treasure that can be captured with enough power. Yellow cube - gold, green - emeralds, white - pearls. Roll the dice, then roll any number of those dice again if desired. Your combat strength is the number of points on one die plus any bonuses you've unlocked through cards and ship upgrades.

 The treasure corresponding to the selected cube (if the combat strength is at least five) is taken from the treasure island and placed on the player's "hidden board". A cute nod to every pirate story ever written: newly found treasure is placed on the beach of each treasure type column, but can later be "buried" in places below the beach line for extra endgame points. . (Being the nerd that I am, I made the players make a shovel sound every time they did the Bury the Treasures action.)

 Raiding is fun. Moreover, raiding is easy and very fast. The single roll option is ideal, and after that Pirates of Maracaibo has plenty of dice softening options for players who want to invest in this area. The treasure market is run by all players and shows the current value of each treasure, so scoring each type at the end of the game is pretty easy.

 The third update to the base game is the quest cards. Frankly, I hated the Maracaibo quest mechanic simply because it seemed like every time I wanted to stop at a quest location, the current quest would have two tags that I didn't have in hand. Worse, every now and then the quests would change and the opponent would hijack my ability to stop somewhere and use the tags I had in hand. It was hard to count on quests to succeed, and sometimes my career card choices would lead me into a game full of trying to make quests work. Mech

 Pirates of Maracaibo fixes this by allowing players to build a quest map from two of their choice during setup, and then very easily get more of them during gameplay. The quests are simple and, like the main game, multi-step, so the player can get three points for burying two pearl treasures, or more points for burying three. Great, I can go there right now. There are always two cards available in the quest card market, and players can always add more quests to the top deck if they don't like the offering. There is even a bonus of 10 points waiting for the player if he can collect and collect six or more quest cards before the end of the game.

 Oh my goodness, the quest cards. None of the maps on their own are all that interesting, but finding ways to combine your game with the maps is a fun puzzle. Also, it's a major upgrade over the base game's quest mechanics.

I'VE HEARD ENOUGH! WHERE TO SIGN UP?

 Pirates of Maracaibo is the final stake in the coffin of the Maracaibo base game. And as strong as Alexander Pfister's resume is, Pirates of Maracaibo may now be my favorite Pfister design. (We're talking about a game list that includes Great Western Trail, Maracaibo, Mombasa/Skymines and Oh My Goods!.)

 Pirates of Maracaibo is Maracaibo, but faster. It's still the same card game with a market you have to visit to buy. He has a better combat process. It has a three-round format that can be sprinted from 12 to 14 laps. Headlines are an interesting look at player capabilities. Quests increase the number of points. Cleanup at the end of the round has been turned into a point and doubloon phase. Setup and takedown is quick.

 And the board of the ship has become much better in the new version of the game.

 Co-designers Ryan Hendrickson and Ralph Bienert worked with Pfister on Pirates of Maracaibo. While I don't know Beinert's other work, I do know Hendrickson from his work as a co-developer of Joan of Arc: Orléans Draw & Write, a game that somehow turned Orléans into a very fast 45 minute version of the same game. . Hendrickson's work in streamlining draw/flip/flip-and-record classics tells me he's good at ensuring the core mechanics of the original game remain intact.

 My main complaints about Pirates of Maracaibo are minimal. Many of the new icons here have raised questions from experienced Maracaibo players, including treasure, adding dice to the treasure market versus adding treasure dice to the Hideout board, and an icon to add "black market tiles" to the ocean card map. Speaking of these new tiles, I'm still not convinced the game needed the Black Market mechanic; it added something to each game, but it's not the reason I'd insist on playing Pirates of Maracaibo in the first place.

 These tiles add a subtle dot salad style scoring feel to this game; our scores fit in the 125-175 range and sometimes it felt like I was only getting points for turning left instead of right on the ocean map to grab more treasure. Pirates of Maracaibo earns you at least a little bit of everything, and I was surprised at how close the games were despite the players doing wildly different things.

 The wins still felt deserved, and those high scores didn't detract from my enjoyment, but it's worth mentioning.

 One production note is the ocean map grid. The Capstone contained a replica of the game mat with spaces for cards in each column as well as treasure islands. I never asked for these add-ons, but now I understand why they included them - the game would be difficult if it was on a smooth table. The cards are a board, so keeping them on a neoprene mat was definitely helpful. Normally I wouldn't recommend this, but I think it's a good idea to buy a mat for this game.

 For this review, I played the game three times: one player, two players, and three players. Solo is a very easy way to play, and the auto deck is easy to control and scales with a six-level difficulty ramp. As someone who hated the solo option for the base game, I'm happy to report that the difficulty here is fair and can be adjusted according to the skill level of the player. I knocked out the solo game in less than 30 minutes, so it was a great lunchtime activity.

 Pirates of Maracaibo win. Even those who haven't played the base game will find a fun European-style experience in a very affordable package. Highly recommend!