What’s it about?
The players build warehouses and fortresses in nine mediterranean harbours to collect money. Winner is he who has the most money after three rounds.


How does it work?
The game board consists of nine harbours where the players can play warehouses (max. 12 at each harbour) and fortresses (max. 2 per harbour).


During his turn a player can buy a travel card and has to build a warehouse or fortress or take a loan.
The travel cards are on display at the top of the board and depict either a destination, allowing the player to travel straight to this harbour, or a trip, showing from where to where a player can travel with his ship. The player can choose to purchase one or more of these cards for a price ranging from 1 to 6 money.
Now the player can move his ship to another harbour where he has to buy a warehouse or a fortress according to the cards he plays .
If you're out of money, you can always take a loan at the bank.

Once a player has build all his six warehouses of this round, the round ends and the scoring is triggered.


In every harbour the player with the most warehouses gets the amount of money of the next free field (e.g. red gets 12) and the player with the second most warehouses gets half of the first player. The player who has a fortress, also gets as much money as the second place.
An extra bonus is given for having warehouses in different harbours.

Players get new playing pieces and the next round start.

The game ends after three rounds when the player with the most money wins.

Where is the fun?
'El Capitan' is basically an area majority game with a heavy accountancy factor. Money is tight and since money is points at the end of the game, you need to do some serious profit calculation to find the best move.
The movement cards and the increasing and decreasing value of harbours makes timing of high importance in this game.
However since money is both the driving factor in the game and the goal of the game, there can be a leader-runaway problem.

Why should I like this?
- Heavy on money management
- The scoring of harbour makes timing and position very interesting.

Why shouldn’t I like this?
- Leader-runaway problem
- Might feel to abstract to some.

Final verdict
'El Capitan' is basically an area-majority game with heavy accountancy influences. It all comes down to timing and 'cost-effect'-calculation. So a great game if you like these two things but something to consider if you were looking for a shipping game.