Game: Captain Treasure Boots

Thread: Re: Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum (so I get all your treasure!)

lord goon — 2008-07-04T16:02:39+00:00

Nice review. For me, this game had too much of an 'abstract' feel for a supposedly highly thematic game, but you've made me want to give it another try.

Thread: Who would have thought that RUM makes the world go round?!

Petru5 — 2006-06-27T05:17:00+00:00

The local gaming store here in Lee's Summit, MO has an open gaming night on Sundays. People come in and play whatever they bring. As with most gaming/comic shops, there is ample terrain to use for wargaming and nonsuch. I always tend to bring "beer and pretzel" games that can be completed in a modest amount of time. This time I brought Captain Treasure Boots (CTB).

CTB's rules have been well defined in another post. Needless to say, they are fast, fun, and while not overly challenging, play rather well...a hallmark of many Cheapass games.

Set up was a breeze. I used Pirates of the Spanish Main minis as pawns and created "coins" of appropriate colors from laminated construction paper. Instead of using the not so accurate thought of 'open sea' squares, I also laminated a sheet of large blue construction paper that had game-sized squares drawn on it. This enabled us gamers to expand out the color maps and create a much bigger and visually appealing game. My "treasure box" was the game's actual white business envelope. Talk about cheap! I think I spent more on the pawns than I did on the game!

I settled in with two other players: The shop's owner and his girlfriend (a female pirate?! Yeah!). We had plenty of over-the-shoulder looks from other gamers as the ships and the colorful maps drew attention to the action. From the get-go it was a pot-shot game. Initially there were plenty of Guns and Privateers on the board, but not any Armor, Rum, or Sails. This means that we were wailing on each other and taking what meager provisions were available.

Very early on, our femme fatale took a commanding lead by destroying not one, not two, but three Privateers and stealing their booty! She docked at port and Wham! She was up to 12 points while us guys were at 0! We managed to put a bold face on the game and pull a little closer to her by getting our goods to port and cashing them in for points. Throughout all this we were trying to shoot everyone in (and sometimes out of) range. It was no good...our shots seem to bounce off hulls like hockey pucks on goalie pads.

All three of us exchanged shots and small amounts of treasure, looking for a kill that will tip the scales. Armor and Rum finally became available and the shots got even messier. The action drifted back to our lady pirate as she made a lumbering dash to port for a win...one...space...at...a...time (yes, she was that heavily laden!). We threw everything we had at her, (Privateers, our best shots TWICE, and the proverbial kitchen sink) but it was to no avail. She had too much Rum and booty to beat her. Final scores 22,15,12.

The store's owner carries Cheapass products, but hadn't played this particular game. We all enjoyed the game and laughed at some of the truly horrendous rolls we got. All in all, this is a game that practically anyone can get into and enjoy. I highly recommend it for its ease of play, fun factor, and appeal to many ages. Remember, kiddos will be really into pirates this summer, especially when the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie comes out!

Thread: Re: Captain Treasure Boots

Starsaver — 2005-09-21T17:05:50+00:00

Very nice work. I also dont like the fact Rum can spell the differance between being above the waves or in Dave Jone's Locker.

Thread: Captain Treasure Boots

dwsparks — 2005-09-21T14:54:36+00:00

Captain Treasure Boots is a new game from those twisted minds at Cheapass Games. Actually, as the rules point out, CTB is an update to a previously-released free game called Swag, about gathering free stuff at a convention.

In CTB players move their ships to various islands and collect the treasure that lies there, and then attempt to return it to port to sell it and make points. We played a four-player game, to the recommended 18 points. Also we used three of the four provided boards, each of which has numbered islands and a Port.

Treasure is placed by rolling two dice at the beginning of each player’s turn, so if you roll an 8, you place treasure on any islands with the number 8. This is fairly simple, though care was taken so that the distribution expected when rolling two dice didn’t unbalance the game (e.g. there was only one number 7 island, but there were two number 11 islands).

Ships roll one die to move and then can pick up treasure from islands such as rum, sails, guns, armor, or pearls. Sails give you an additional movement die. Guns give you an additional attack die. Armor gives you an additional defense die. Pearls are “wild” and can be expended to gain an additional attack/movement/defense die when you really need it. Rum gives you advantages in combat. If you have more rum than your opponent, you take ALL his treasure, equal rum means that two treasures are taken, and if the defender has more rum than the attacker, the attacker can only take one treasure.

The other random treasure is no treasure at all, but a privateer. Privateers are moved if you roll doubles on the treasure-placement phase. They can gather treasure just like regular players, and you get two points for sinking privateers.

Cheapass will sell you the bits for this game, but we found that the small single-mast ships from Pirates of the Spanish Main worked well as pawns, and we used the properly colored counters from an old Star Fleet Battles set. (And you need some six sided dice, but everyone has some of those lying around, I’m sure.)

The game started out fairly well, with people collecting treasures instead of blowing each other out of the water; usually we concentrated on getting sails, as they give you a higher movement rate. The more treasure you have on board, the more they slow you down (subtract one for each treasure you have).

I was worried about a breakaway spoiling the game, as one player through privateer destroying and some treasure gathering had 12 points, and the next highest player only had 5 points, with two tied for last place at 4 points. But we ganged up on the breakaway, stealing all his treasure, which meant that the player with 5 points now had enough cargo to cash in and get to 18 points in one turn. So he was ganged up on, and one of his treasures got stolen, so that when he did make port, his score only went to 17 points.

When the player with 17 points left port, he collected a single treasure, and attempted to head for port, but got blown out of the water by another player. He then reappeared on the other end of the map, so one player volunteered to be sunk so that he could reappear on that end of the map as well. It was a bit of a nail-biter in the end, what with two ships fighting over a single treasure, but the 17 point player ended up winning after some lucky defense rolls. Final score: 18, 16, 14, 13

Analysis: Surprisingly fun and fast paced, and not nearly as complicated as the original read-through of the rules might have implied. The only really bizzaro rule is with regards to rum, but as long as you figure the pirates are bribing each other with it, it makes somewhat more sense. Rules are very clear, with all the exceptions we could think of stated in the text. While it’s certainly not the deepest game I’ve ever played, for $3.50 it’s not bad at all. We’ll play it again sometime, and I’d give it a 7 out of 10.

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Mojo Jojo — 2005-09-20T12:37:05+00:00

There comes a time in every Privateer's life when the other players have laden him with so much loot that his rampage makes mountains shake. This is the story of one such boat.

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Mojo Jojo — 2005-09-20T12:37:05+00:00

Squatting down behind my ship to get a better view of the ocean. AHOY THERE!

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Mojo Jojo — 2005-09-20T12:37:04+00:00

Three ships go in, one comes out (a game a few turns in)

Thread: Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum (so I get all your treasure!)

Mojo Jojo — 2005-09-20T10:25:13+00:00

Note: Although this is a redevelopment of Swag, I've not had the opportunity to play it, as such this review is not a comparison between the two games.

Like most people I like pirates. And there are a fair few pirate-themed games on the market. A quick look at most reveals that they don't quite fit the bill of what I expect from a pirate boardgame. Captain Treasure Boots managed to deliver a simplistic and compressed package of my wants and needs from this genre.

Components
This is a Cheapass game. As such, you shouldn't be expected finely sculpted plastic miniatures, a board covered with lavish artwork and hundreds of other miscellaneous game pieces. What you do get in the small envelope containing the game is a black and white paper instruction manual and four colour map pieces. You will need to provide a few items of your own to play this game.

The instructions are well written (containing the usual bits and pieces of humour) and the board pieces are surprisingly attractive. The card from which the board pieces are constructed is very thin, although they are unlikely to fall apart without some calamity befalling them first. Most of each map section is a shifting blue ocean with a scattering of green islands (Each of which is numbered) and a single port island. Each port is named although the chosen font and small side make them rather unreadable which is a shame.

For the game to work you will need an array of markers to represent the different types of loot (my group used glass beads in a variety of colours although microchips would allow for easier stacking beneath Privateers(black markers)), some kind of box in which to hide the treasure and allow random drawing (we used an empty scrabble letters bag), a pawn each (the ships from Seafarer's of Catan would be a good choice here) and a pair of dice (of the six-sided variety).

Mechanics
Elegance is a difficult quality to define, although it is fair to say that this game's mechanics fall short of elegance.

The board pieces are arranged in any manner (they do not even need to touch; intervening space is simply open water which conforms tot he same grid as on the board pieces). A two player game uses only two board pieces while a six player uses all four. The ability to rearrange the board at the start of each game does a decent amount of replayability.

Each turn a player rolls two dice to determine whether any islands have treasure buried on them (in a manner very similar to that of Settlers of Catan). The player then rolls again to move and finally may fire upon any nearby ships. A player can assume control of a Privateer before their own turn whenever they roll doubles on treasure generation.

The game contains five types of loot (pearls, sails, guns, armour and rum) each of which has a special function to aid with piracy. Dropping off loot at a port earns points with a bonus for dropping many colours at the same time. Play continues up to a number of points depending on the number of players.

Games last about half an hour with tree players. Larger groups have lower point targets and so shouldn't differ too much in terms of time frame (I'd be fairly surprised if a six player game went on for much longer than an hour).

The only confusion that arises tends to be from the two successive dice rolls (one to place treasure, one to move). Aside from that the game flows smoothly.

Theme
The mechanics fit the theme nicely and with a suitable treasure chest and pirate ship pieces the game would match the setting perfectly.

Saying this, the story aim of the game is a little strange in true Cheapass fashion. One of the players is Captain Treasure Boots, a famous pirate, and that player happens to be the one who gains the target number of points first.

Conclusion
Whenever I see a new Cheapass game I have a hard time not buying it due to their low cost. Although previously the games have generally been fairly poor on the mechanics side, this however was an exception and produced a response from my gaming group which I have not heard in conjunction with a Cheapass game before, "Let's play again".

For £2 (I have a feeling I may have been slightly undercharged for this one) you can do a great deal worse than to pick up this game

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dbucak — 2005-08-16T13:33:28+00:00

In color!

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dbucak — 2005-08-16T13:33:28+00:00