Game: Time Pirates

Thread: Re: Time Pirates Review by SOS with FIX! Yes, it needs one!

Rew B Slippers — 2008-01-08T22:38:16+00:00

Good review.
I too enjoy this game quite a bit & feel that it tends to get quite a bad press on the geek. Although not the most amazing game, I still find it quite fun & a good game to introduce non-gamers to.
In my rules it doesn't have the extra action for restocking an epoch, so that cancelled out that problem you encountered anyway.
Agreed that the repeat scoring can cause a runaway leader problem. I wondered whether it would be better to score the contracts each game year & then turn them face-down so they don't get scored the next one but will still count for the final 'sets' scoring?
It's never been that much of an issue for me but I might give it a try sometime.

Thread: Time Pirates -- Review

gschloesser — 2007-05-22T15:23:21+00:00

Review by: Greg J. Schloesser
Designer: Alan Moon and Aaron Weissblum
Publisher: Rio Grande Games and Piatnik
Number of Players: 2 - 6
Time: 1 - 1/2 hours

Editor's Note: This review also appeared in Moves Magazine #107

My initial playing of this game was way back in early 2000 at Gulf Games, a small, regional get-together of gaming friends in Chattanooga, Tennessee. At the time, however, a few of the rules were misplayed as the game was essentially being taught from memory. These rule omissions and ambiguities, sadly, damaged the playability of the game and it was not very well received by the participants. I never gave the game much consideration after that ill-fated attempt. Until now.

I finally had the opportunity to give this Alan Moon / Aaron Weissblum collaboration a fair shake, playing several more times. I must say, the game is better than my original impression led me to believe. No, it's not the pinnacle of gaming, but it is certainly not bad, either. I also must say that I think the theme is fascinating, and it reminds me of the 1980's movie which bore the same name. Yes, the theme isn't fastened too securely, but it still works. Of course, you must get past the garish box cover, which depicts a funky, blue jean-wearing pirate emblazoned over a neon background. Ugh. It must have been a very bad day for my favorite game illustrator, Franz Vohwinkel.

Players each represent pirates roaming back in time collecting artifacts from various epochs. When they acquire enough of one type of artifact, they can jump (via some mysterious teleportation device, I guess) to the international bazaar and sell these artifacts to a collector for a handsome profit. These profits take the form of rich contracts, which ultimately determine the winner of the game. Of course, such piracy is illegal, so players must attempt to stay one step ahead of the dreaded Time Police who relentlessly pursue these wealth-seeking scoundrels across the pages of time. After three rounds of collecting and selling, the player amassing the greatest wealth earns the title "Great Time Pirate". Hey, I don't make this stuff up ... it's in the rules!

The board depicts seven different epochs in time, each of which contains a various amount of artifacts, ranging from 3 - 7. Artifacts come in five different colors, as well as the wild 'white' color, which can be used as any color. Players attempt to collect sets of colors, which can then be sold at the bazaar, exchanging the artifacts for a larger contract of the same color, but carrying a value based on the number of artifacts exchanged. For example, if Keith manages to collect five orange artifacts, he may jump to the bazaar and exchange them for an orange contract valued at "6". As mentioned, it is the value of these contracts which will ultimately determine the winner. Further, these contracts are safe from the clutches of those pesky police, as well as from the other players.

Players travel between the epochs following time lines. These paths, labeled '1' or '2', make it possible to move in two different directions from each epoch. These same paths, however, are followed by the time police when their movement is triggered by drawing a time police chit from the cloth bag.

If a player begins his turn in an epoch which does not contain the time police token, he may, if he so desires, re-fill an epoch with newly drawn artifacts, but ONLY if that epoch does not contain another time pirate. Re-filling an epoch can provide a better selection of artifacts from which to choose, but it also runs the danger of drawing one of the eight time police tokens from the bag of artifacts. If this occurs, the time police token moves along the path numbered on the token. If a player begins his turn in the same epoch as the time police, he is in trouble. He must surrender an artifact from his largest set collection, plus surrender any wild 'white' artifacts. Further, his first action MUST be to move away from the time police. Of course, more devious players will often elect to fill epochs with new artifacts in the hopes that the time police will, indeed, move -- but into an epoch which is occupied by an opponent or opponents. This is a particularly nasty move to take when your time pirate token is a safe distance from the long hand of the law.

On a player's turn, he has two standard actions he can perform. As mentioned, if he is in the same epoch as the time police, his first action must be to move to a different epoch. Otherwise, a player can choose from several actions, including moving, taking an artifact from the epoch he occupies, or jumping to the bazaar and selling a set of artifacts. He can perform the same action twice, if so desired.

In addition to the two standard actions, a player may perform any number of special actions. Several artifact chits depict special symbols which allow a player to perform a special action. One special action is the exchanging of an artifact with another player (depicted by two arrows), while the other allows a player to jump to any epoch on the board (depicted by an atomic symbol). These powers are a bit dubious and, in many cases, of limited value. In particular, a player should only exercise the 'exchange' power when he is ready to jump to the bazaar and sell a set of artifacts. Otherwise, the player with whom he forced the exchange will simply reverse the exchange on his next turn. Further, the artifact which allows the player to jump to any epoch is discarded after it is used. It has been my experience that it is more valuable to hold onto your artifacts and not go jumping around time using this power.

When jumping to the bazaar, players exchange a set of either 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 artifacts of one color for a contract of the same color. Contract values usually begin at an amount equal to the number of artifacts exchanged, but ultimately climb in value to be worth a point more than the number of contracts exchanged for it. Thus, a '7' valued contract only requires six artifacts to acquire.

In addition, there are a number of 2, 3 and 4 'white' contracts. These are acquired by trading the appropriate number of DIFFERENT colored artifacts. In either case, the wild white artifacts may be used to act as any color when performing these exchanges.

Once acquired, contracts are safe and cannot be stolen by other players. This was one major rule we played incorrectly in our first outing over a year ago and really adversely effected the playability and enjoyment of the game.

After exchanging his artifacts for a contract, the player may then return his time pirate token to ANY epoch on the board. This is a neat way to re-position your token into a more desirous epoch and keep safely away from the time police.

When eight time police tokens have been selected from the bag, the round ends. Players tally the value of their contracts and record this total. Two more rounds are played, with scoring occurring at the end of both of these rounds, too. However, in a scoring system I don�t fully understand the rationale behind, the contracts collected in previous rounds are added to the value of the contracts collected in the current round to determine the CURRENT round's score. This has the effect of inflating the leader's score even more. Thus, the game is one wherein it is very difficult to catch the leader. Fortunately, this is a problem that is easily corrected by simply keeping the contracts from each round separate and NOT adding them into each round's score. It's a rules modification I would highly recommend using.

At the end of the third and final round, bonus points can also be earned. Players secretly allocate their white contracts to one or more of their other contract colors. Then, these allocations are revealed. Each player with at least one contract from each of the five colors receives a 2-point bonus. Further, the player with the most points in a color scores another 2-point bonus. If two or more players tie for the most in a color, then they all receive the bonus points. The player with the greatest cumulative score is victorious.

The game is not bad ... but it isn't terribly exciting. It just doesn't have much 'kick' to it. The movement of the time police is about the only real tension in the game, and even that is minimal. It is pretty easy to stay away from the token, and even if you are caught, the penalty isn't all that severe. The wise player will minimize the number of artifacts he has in his possession if he is in range of the time police. Plus, once four or five of the time police tokens are drawn, it is possible to calculate with reasonable odds where the time police token will move next. A few more police tokens in the bag would have made this predictability less certain and perhaps added a bit more tension to the proceedings.

Further, the special actions provided by the artifacts are of limited use and not very varied. It would have added more spice if there were more special actions which could be performed. Variety can be a good thing, and there just isn't much of it present here.

Finally, there are no mechanics provided to 'get' the leader. Contracts cannot be stolen from players, so once acquired, they are perfectly safe. There is not an appreciable amount of interaction amongst the players, so the game has a fairly static feel to it. This contributes to an overall lack of excitement.

So, my assessment is as stated earlier ... not a bad game, but not very exciting, either. It's a game which likely won't be requested by gamers very often, if at all. It seems far more suited for a family gaming environment, which certainly isn�t a bad thing.

Thread: Time Pirates Review by SOS with FIX! Yes, it needs one!

sos1 — 2007-04-28T18:17:21+00:00

What You Get

Time Pirates comes with two boards (a playing board and one to hold the scoring tiles so everyone can easily see which tiles have been taken), six player pawns, a time police pawn, 37 scoring tiles, 76 artifact tiles, 10 time police tiles, and a drawstring bag from which to draw artifacts at random.

The graphics in the game aren't all that great, to be honest. While not ugly, more effort could have been made to match a good scene with the different time eras the players can visit. Worse, the chits are poorly differentiated and confusing to figure out - it takes a couple of plays to really see the different types of tiles clearly. Also, this is the type of game that needs extra colored markers the players can put in front of themselves to identify which colored pawn is theirs. Until we added these ourselves, we were always asking, "Who's red?" or blue or whatever. But these are minor flaws - overall it's a pleasing enough game to play.

The board has seven "epochs" you can visit. Each epoch can hold a certain number of artifacts, ranging from 3 to 7. In addition, each epoch has from one to three timelines coming in and two timelines going out. For the most part, movement is along these timelines. Each epoch has both a "Yellow #1" and "Blue #2" timeline leaving it - these are used to randomize the time police pawn's movement. Players treat them as being the same. Finally, the board has seven spaces to store time police chits as they're drawn from the bag. (BTW, pedantic mode, sorry: "epoch" is one of the most mispronounced gaming words I know of. It's not supposed to be a homophone for "epic", honest. Listen yourself at http://www.howjsay.com/ ...)

There are 14 artifacts in each of five types, and 6 "wild card" artifacts which can be combined with any others. Artifacts are used to redeem scoring tiles. There are 5 scoring tiles in each of the same five types, and 12 "wild card" scoring tiles which can be combined with any others. Scoring tiles contain victory points, ranging from 2 to 7 points per tile.

The Basic Premise

The players are Time Pirates, of course: illegal time travellers visiting different eras of human history to collect artifacts. These artifacts are then sold in whatever future timeline the players live in (not represented in the game - you just sell from wherever/whenever you are). There is a limited market for such artifacts, however: once a particular quantity and type of artifact is sold, there aren't any more buyers for that combination again.

Somewhere out there a single Time Policeperson is trying to stop the pirates. His movement in the game is random and largely ineffectual - one has an image of some Laurel & Hardy policeman stumbling through time looking for pirates while tripping over their loot and not even noticing it. Still, he's a constant potential threat, and people tend to treat the token with respect, so it has some effect on the game.

The game lasts for three, um, spielperiode: "playing periods." I guess that's as good a term as any in a game in which time has little meaning. At the end of that time, the player with the highest score wins.

Some Details

The scoring tiles are all laid out on the scoring board at the beginning of the game. Artifact tiles are drawn at random from the bag and placed equally randomly on all the starting artifact spaces on the board. The time police pawn is place in the largest epoch, and the players take turns placing their pawns.

A player turn can include either two actions or three actions, depending on if you restock artifacts or not. At the beginning of your turn you decide if you want to restock artifacts in a given epoch. If you decide to restock an epoch, you'll have three actions that turn. If you opt not to, you'll only have two actions.

An action can be one of three things:

* Moving your pawn along an outgoing timeline arrow.

* Collecting an artifact in the epoch your pawn is in.

* Trading in artifacts for a scoring tile.

You can repeat the same action two or three times in your move if you wish.

So most of the game is greedingly grabbing all the artifacts you can, redeeming them for scoring tiles, moving to other epochs to greedily grab more artifacts while avoiding the time police, etc., etc., and not necessarily strictly in that order ... Almost true piracy, and great fun! I say almost true piracy because you really can't greedily grab anything an opponent has, alas. It does seem strange for a game with Pirates in the title not to allow interplayer conflict and thieving.

Restocking Artifacts

If you decide to restock an epoch, you must do it at the start of your turn. In order to qualify for restocking, an epoch must have at least one empty space to hold a new artifact and be free of player pawns.

So you specify which epoch you are restocking, and draw an artifact tile from the bag. If it's really an artifact, put it in the epoch, and keep drawing if there's room for more artifacts. If it's a time police tile, however, move the time police pawn along the appropriate timeline - half the time police tiles have #1 on them, and half have #2. Then put the time police tile in the space for it, and continue drawing.

When the eighth time police tile is drawn, the playing period is over. Everyone counts their victory points on their tiles and records the scores. All redeemed artifacts and drawn time police tiles are returned to the bag and stirred around. The player continues restocking the epoch if there is at least one more playing period left.

I'm not sure why restocking artifacts grants you an extra action. I suppose it's to encourage players to keep the game moving.

Scoring Tiles

Scoring tiles can be redeemed with artifacts at the cost of an action. Each type of artifact matches a type of scoring tile. There are five of each type: a 2, 3, 4, 5/6, and 6/7. The number refers both to victory points and to how many tiles of that color must be turned in to redeem the scoring tile. In the case of those tiles with slashes, the first number is the redemption cost and the second is the victory point value. Scoring tiles can only be redeemed by the same color artifacts, or by using wild card artifacts.

All of the scoring tiles of the five types are unique. Once the Western Hemisphere 2 tile has been taken, for example, no one else can get another one. This makes the timing in redeeming scoring tiles very important - especially if you see others collecting the same type of artifacts as you are!

Wild card scoring tiles are of three types: 3/2, 4/3, 5/4 - meaning they cost more to redeem than they grant in victory points. In addition, you have to redeem them with different colored artifacts - five different colors, in the case of the largest wild card scoring tiles. There are four of each value.

When the final playing period is over, players sort their scoring tiles by type. You can assign wild card scoring tiles to any type you want. Players who have the most victory points in a given type receive a 2-point bonus, as does anyone who collects at least one of each of the five types.

The Time Police

The time police pawn is a nice element in the game, as it keeps people on edge and moving. The time police don't actually bust people very often (except for Frank who's a time-police magnet). In order to be busted, you have to start your turn in the same space as the time police. So if they move into your space during someone else's turn, nothing happens. If they then move out again before your next turn, you'll get off without penalty.

The time police can zip around the board sometimes! Even if you restock an epoch with only free space, if you draw a time police tile, the pawn moves and you must draw another tile. If you draw another time police tile, the time police pawn moves again, and so on. Players often plan their moves to be far from the time police, but sometimes get caught anyway. This is always gratifying unless it happens to you, of course.

So what happens when you get busted? Well, it's not all that bad, though it can hurt a little. First, you can't restock an epoch. Next, you lose one artifact from your largest set. Then you lose all of your wild card artifacts. Then you must take your first action (of only two since you can't restock) to move away from the time police. There, that wasn't so bad - unless you had a lot of wild card artifacts, of course ...

Special Artifacts

There are two special types of artifacts. Four of each of the sets of 14 artifacts have movement symbols on them, and two of each set have swap symbols.

Discarding a movement artifact allows you to teleport to any epoch without needing to follow timelines and without having to take an action to move. As such, they're actually very powerful, and get used a fair bit. It's a trade-off, though, as it cost you an action to pick one up and you're not using it to redeem a scoring tile ...

You may exchange a swapping artifact with any artifact held by any other player without costing you an action. Of course, he can just swap it right back on his next turn, so these are usually used immediately before redeeming scoring tiles.

Why Wouldn't You Like This Game?

It's very weakly themed. In fact, one of the designers told me that Time Pirates wasn't their original, or even second or third theme for these mechanics and the time pirate theme was added by the publisher. It's okay, it sort of works, and you can almost see it. But the artifacts are very generic and have nothing to do with whatever time period you travel in, and that weakens the theme. I mean you can pick up a Western Hemisphere artifact in 900 AD and it looks exactly like a Western Hemisphere artifact you find in 1999 AD. Somehow I doubt this would be a common occurrence if time travel were a scientific fact.

And as mentioned above, it's a little difficult to tell some of the tiles apart at first, and set them up on the scoring-tile board. But that's something you get used to.

Much worse is the scoring problem. Because you score your victory points after each playing period, and then retain the scoring tiles, those you pick up in the first playing period will score three times for you. Likewise, those you pick up in the second playing period will score twice for you.

This creates the ideal condition to breed a runaway leader. Get an early start in the game, and there's little point in playing out the final period. This is largely because there's not much you can actively do to hinder an opponent, so it's very difficult to gang up on the leader. (About the worst you can do is see what artifacts he's going for and try to get everyone else to pick up the same type to make it harder for him to get a large set. Unfortunately, this means it's harder for everyone to get a large set, and he'll just go for the rainbow collections then, anyway, allowing him to collect wild scoring tiles.) Thus, the leader has an equal chance to do as well in the second and third periods as everyone else, and his first period lead will continually add to his later period scores, pulling him further and further ahead. Bummer.

Proposed Fix: well, being me I have to propose something. It’s really very simple: the end of a playing period is simply that: time passes, return the exchanged artifacts and drawn time police chits to the bag. Do not score tiles. Only score once at the end of the game. Thus, there is no repeated scoring of tiles drawn early in the game.

Some people find the restocking/extra action thing to help the leader, also. That is, it generally speeds the game up when you restock a lot, because time police tiles are what causes the period to end. So the player in the lead usually wants the game to end quickly, while he still has the lead. Consequently, he restocks a lot - and is rewarded with an extra action if the game continues! Others don't restock very much, as they need more time to catch the leader, but only get two actions per turn because of this.

An easy fix for that problem is simply to give players two actions each turn regardless of whether they restock or not. In fact, that's how we mistakenly played our first game, and we enjoyed it.

Summing Up

I like this game, at least with the fix for the scoring problem. While it's not in the same class as the truly great games, it moves quickly, without a lot of down time between turns. It occupies a nice niche: light and quick enough to be fun, but rewards skill. Luck is fairly minimal, actually, but it feels like a lighter game, which traditionally are more luck-intensive.

There are different strategies you can use for victory: go for lots of low-value scoring tiles, go for the big ones, go for wild card scoring tiles, restock a lot to have many extra turns, restock very little to make the game last longer, mine epochs that others ignore, go head-to-head for artifacts with others, etc.

Consequently, I find it plays differently every time and there's always a joyful moment when the time police catch someone who never takes a chance and always stays far away from their immediate path. Delightful!

-Review first published 2000

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Rew B Slippers — 2007-01-05T16:30:15+00:00

Fulfilling Contracts

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Rew B Slippers — 2007-01-05T16:29:03+00:00

Looting The Past

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Rew B Slippers — 2007-01-05T16:28:33+00:00

Caught By The Time Police

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EJKemp — 2005-03-15T19:56:48+00:00

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EJKemp — 2005-03-15T19:56:48+00:00

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2002-12-13T02:11:44+00:00

My only playing of this game was way back in early 2000 at Gulf Games 5 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. At the time, however, a few of the rules were misplayed, so the game was not received very well by the participants. I never gave the game much consideration after that ill fated attempt. Until now.

I finally had the opportunity to give this Alan Moon / Aaron Weissblum collaboration a fair shake and I must say, the game is better than my original impression led me to believe. No, it's not the pinnacle of gaming, but it was certainly not bad, either. I also must say that I think the theme is fascinating, and it reminds me of the 1980's movie which bore the same name (I think). Yes, the theme isn't fastened to securely, but it still works.

Players each represent pirates roaming back in time collecting artifacts from various epochs. When they acquire enough of one type of artifact, they can jump to the international bazaar and sell them to a collector for a handsome profit. Of course, such piracy is illegal, so players ust attempt to stay one step ahead of the dreaded Time Police. After three rounds of collecting and selling, the player amassing the greatest wealth earns the title "Great Time Pirate". Hey, I don't make this stuff up ... it's in the rules!

The board depicts seven different epochs in time, each which contain a various amount of artifacts, ranging from 3 - 7. Artifacts come in five different colors, as well as the wild 'white' color, which can be used as any color. Players attempt to collect sets of colors, which can then be sold at the bazaar, exchanging the artifacts for a larger contract of the same color, but carrying a value based on the number of artifacts exchanged. It is the value of these contracts which will ultimately determine the winner.

Players travel between the epochs following time lines. These lines, labeled '1' or '2', make it possible to move in two different directions from each epoch. These same lines are followed by the time police when their movement is triggered by drawing a time police chit from the cloth bag.

If a player begins his turn in an epoch which does not contain the time police token, he may, if he so desires, re-fill an epoch with newly drawn artifacts, but ONLY if that epoch does not contain a time pirate. re-filling an can provide a better selection of artifacts, but it also runs the danger of drawing one of the eight time police tokens from the bag of artifacts. If this occurs, the time police token moves along the path numbered on the token. If a player begins his turn in the same epoch as the time police, he is in trouble. He must surrender an artifact from his largest set collection, plus surrender any wild 'white' artifacts. Further, his first action MUST be to move away from the time police.

On a player's turn, he has two standard actions he can perform. As mentioned, if he is in the same epoch as the time police, his first action must be to move to a different epoch. Otherwise, a player can choose from several actions, including moving, taking an artifact from the epoch he occupies, or jumping to the bazaar and selling a set of artifacts. He can perform the same action twice, if so desired.

In addition to the two standard actions, a player may perform any number of special actions. Several artifact chits depict special symbols which allow a player to perform a special action. One special action is the exchanging of an artifact with another player (depicted by two arrows), while the other allows a player to jump to any epoch on the board (depicted by an atomic symbol). These powers are a bit dubious and of limited value. In particular, a player should only exercise the 'exchange' power when he is ready to jump to the bazaar and sell a set of artifacts. Otherwise, the player with whom he forced the exchange will simply reverse the exchange on his turn. Pretty strange.

When jumping to the bazaar, players exchange a set of either 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 artifacts of one color for a contract of the same color. Contract values usually begin at an amount equal to the number of artifacts exchanged, but ultimately climb in value to be worth a point more than the number of contracts exchanged for it. Thus, a '7' valued contract requires six artifacts to acquire.

In addition, there are a number of 2, 3 and 4 'white' contracts. These are acquired by trading the appropriate number of DIFFERENT colored artifacts. In either case, the wild white artifacts may be used to act as any color when performing these exchanges.

Once acquired, contracts are safe and cannot be stolen by other players. This was one major rule we played incorrectly in our first outing over a year ago.

When eight time police tokens have been selected from the bag, the round ends. Players tally the value of their contracts and record this total. Two more rounds are played, with scoring occurring at the end of both of these rounds, too. However, at the end of the third round, bonus scores can also be earned. Players secretly allocate their white contracts to one or more of their other colors. Then, these allocations are revealed. Each player with at least one contract from each of the five colors receives a 2 point bonus. Further, the player with the most points in a color scores another 2 point bonus. The player with the greatest cumulative score is victorious.

The game is not bad ... but it isn't terribly exciting. It just doesn't have much 'kick'. The movement of the time police is about the only real tension in the game, and even that is minimal. It is pretty easy to stay away from the token, and even if you are caught, the penalty isn't all that severe. The wise player will minimize the number of artifacts he has in his possession if he is in range of the time police. Plus, once four or five of the time police tokens are drawn, it is possible to calculate with reasonable odds where the time police token will move next. A few more police tokens in the bag would have made this predictability less certain and perhaps added a bit more tension to the proceedings.

Further, the special actions provided by the artifacts are of limited use and not very varied. It would have added more spice if there were more special actions which could be performed. Variety can be a good thing, and there just isn't much of it present here.

Finally, there are no mechanics provided to 'get' the leader. Contracts cannot be stolen from players, so once acquired, they are perfectly safe. There is not a terrible amount of interaction amongst the players, so the game has a fairly static feel to it. This contributes to an overall lack of excitement.

So, my assessment is as stated earlier ... not a bad game, but not very exciting, either. It's a game which likely won't be requested very often, if at all. I'll give it a few more tries, with a particular effort to get my wife and daughter to play, and see if it gets a better reception in that forum.

Dave was the first to acquire a few contracts and held a lead following the first round. He had used most of his artifacts in doing this, though, so was a bit deficient entering the second round. We all remained very close throughout the game, but I managed to sneak by with a one point victory over Joey.

Round-by-round scores:

Round 1: Dave 10, Joey 7, Greg 6, Keith 6, Steven 6
Round 2: Dave 24, Greg 23, Joey 22, Keith 21, Steven 15
Round 3: Greg 48, Joey 47, Keith 44, Dave 42, Steven 32

Ratings: Greg 5.5, Keith 5.5, Dave 5, Joey 5, Steven 3

Thread: Session Report

Deleted User 1 — 2001-10-25T15:19:10+00:00

With four of us remaining, we decieded to go for Alan Moon’s Time Pirates. Dan, William and I have played it before, but not Chester. Dan and William quite liked it the last time they played it, as did I.

My usual strategy in Time Pirates is to go for some of the smaller easier contracts, taking them away from the other players and forcing them to have to buy the bigger ones – which is basically what happened.

The first round went much longer than normal (almost to the last tile) before the final time cop made an appearance to end the round. After scoring the first round, Dan took the lead.

The second round was much more business as usual, with Dan holding the lead after the second round of scoring.

The third round was just the opposite of the first – the time cops came fast and furious. William got caught by one and before he had a chance to do much of anything, the round (and the game) was over.

Score:

*Dan* – 65
Chester – 59
William – 56
Rick – 53

A fairly close game, but, as in other games we’ve had of Time Pirates, the person who is able to grab the lead after the first round is pretty hard to catch up to and usually ends up winning. One interesting thing about the game was that I don’t remember anyone using any of the special power tiles. Strange.

Ratings:

Dan – 7
Chester – 7
William – 6
Rick – 6

William and I rated Time Pirates a little lower than usual. I know the William was frustrated at the arbitrariness of the time cop. If a player gets hit by the time cop, it’s a tough blow to recover from. I found the game a little too luck-driven and the difficulty of catching up with the leader put a damper on things. It is an enjoyable game, though, and I’d like to try it a few more times to get more into the strategic possibilities.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-09-12T21:19:14+00:00

Time Pirates
3 players: *Rick*, Jy, Dan
Avg enjoyment: 7.67

Last week a few guys had played Time Pirates and it looked intriguing, so with 3 of us at the table waiting for 2 others to arrive, I asked to play this one. The rules are quite simple and it wasn't long before we were right into the game. Rick and I had never played before but Rick picked up on it right away and started out leading thru the first round.

Gameplay is fairly straight forward: on you turn you get 2 or 3 regular actions and unlimited special actions. There are 3 types of regular action: take an artifact, travel to a different time period, or travel to the black market area to fill contracts (with the artifacts you've collected.) There are five colors of artifacts, and therefore five colors of contract. Each contract has a point value with bonus points awarded for most points in a color. Basically the game consists of set collecting with a 'Time Police' pawn which randomly moves from time period to time period. Scoring rounds are very Alan Moon-ish, with scoring tiles (Time Police) popping up -- every 8th tile triggers a scoring round.

The game went pretty well with Rick getting lots of valuable contracts and also getting contracts in the different colors which would eventually net him some bonus points. He grabbed a huge lead in orange. The first round was close, but Rick really had his way in this game. Poor Dan got hammered by the Time Police in the 3rd round, and I accidentally cheated when I moved the wrong pawn on the board and nobody noticed.

Scores: Rick 95, Jy 75, Dan 69

Ratings: Rick 8, Jy 7, Dan 8
Group avg: 7.67

The game uses a time travel theme but the theme is fairly weak in this one. The artwork is a nice change of pace though (at least it's not more castles and forests like so many other games) but ultimately this is ajust a set collecting game with some neat twists thrown in. One problem I'd heard about and found to be true is that the cumulative scoring means that whoever leads in the first round will probably win. And that kind of killed it. There is not really a way to catch the leader unless the leader gets caught by the Time Police several times. It had it's moments though and made a good impression. Rick found it to be a brainburner -- I didn't, but maybe that's why I lost! =)

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-09-08T04:16:34+00:00

Time Pirates
3 players: *Dan*, Joe, William
Avg enjoyment: 7.00

So while Rick, Chester, and I battled it out on the Nile in Ra, Dan, Joe, and William settled on a Alan Moon design, Time Pirates. It had never before hit our tables, and I was curious to see what it was like -- I kept craning my head over to their table and asking how it was going and what they thought. William graciously took notes.

Dan started things off getting a quick 4 point contract, which William managed to match soon after. Joe grabbed two 2 point contracts, and William ended the round with the 8th Time Cap. The rounds procede as above, with players moving thru the different time epochs and claming artifacts in each. William was the only player caught by the Time Cops, and it clearly cost him as the game was close thruout, but William fell 11 points behind Joe at the end. Dan started round 1 with the lead and maintained it thruout. Nevertheless, this game looks like it was a close finish.

Scores: Dan 67, Joe 65, William 54

Enjoyment Ratings: Dan 8, Joe 7, William 6

It should be noted that these ratings are initial impressions only as it was the first game for all. William was the victim of bad luck but sees potential in this game (it even made his favorites list!) Joe thought it started well but fell to an average game at the end. Dan feels it would be a better game with 4 or 5. (Just looking at the game, I will be the 4th player next time they prinbg it to the table! Cheesy art, but it looked like good production.)

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-07-05T17:17:30+00:00

Jerry was eager to play Iron Dragon and was awaiting the expected
arrival of Jim, Mark and Melissa. So, the rest of us began a game of
Time Pirates. Unfortunately, the three never arrived, so Jerry played a
couple of quick 2-player games with Steven before departing.

The six time travelers were Dave, Spouey, Willerd, John, Lenny and
myself. This was my third playing of the game and, although the game
'works' mechanically, it just doesn't generate much excitement.
Further, the most glaring problem seems to be the scoring method which
cumulates the scores from round to round, allowing everyone to re-count
the contracts they have collected from previous rounds.

For example, if Spouey collects contracts worth 7 points in the first
round, he scores 7 points. Easy enough. In the second round, he
collects more contracts worth 9 points. You would think his score is 16
points after two rounds. Not so. His second round score is 16 points,
which is then added to his first round score of 7 points. Thus, after
two rounds, his score is 23 points.

This method allows a player to continue to reap the benefits of the
previous rounds scores. Thus, it is VERY difficult to catch the leader.
This same thing has occurred in all three games I've played. The leader
after the first round ultimately wins the game. I'm not saying this
would happen every time, but the scoring system is so heavily biased
that this is likely going to be the result most of the time.

Fortunately, this seems fairly easy to correct. Simply score each round
separately, then total them together following the three rounds of play.

In our game, Spouey jumped out to a narrow lead following round one,
then continued to expand upon that lead in each subsequent round. He
also managed to secure or tie for the most in 3 of the 5 colors. This
cemented an impressive victory in a game which was really over following
the second round. I was visited by the Time Police often in the early
rounds, while John had any hopes of a comeback stymied in the final
round by the recurrent visits of the dreaded law.

Round-by-round cumulative scores:

Round 1: Spouey 7, Dave 6, John 4, Willerd 4, Lenny 3, Greg 3
Round 2: Spouey 19, John 15, Willerd 12, Dave 12, Lenny 12, Greg 10
Round 3: Spouey 37, John 31, Willerd 28, Dave 27, Lenny 27, Greg 22
Finals: Spouey 43, John 35, Willerd 32, Dave 31, Lenny 29, Greg 24

Ratings: Willerd 6, Spouey 6, Dave 6, Greg 5.5, John 5, Lenny 5

Thread: Session Report

gamemark — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Our extended coverage of Gulf Games continues... time to grab a bag of chips and climb in the Lazy-Boy for more pulse-pounding action!

The theme itself is intriguing... pirates wandering through time stealing treasures for wealthy clients. The board art is good, too... sci-fi-ish but clean & easy to use during play. The one possible graphic glitch: some artifact pieces have extra symbols which allow you to use them to travel through time or to trade artifacts with another player... they would be difficult to see under the wrong light.

The game is yet another set collecting romp from Alan Moon... in your turn, you can only take two actions: move from one time period to another (by following one of two lines into another century), collect an artifact (by picking it up off the board), or fulfill a contract (by turning in your artifact for "points" in the form of contracts). As well, a player can request (like FREIGHT TRAIN) at the beginning of their turn for a time period to be re-stocked with artifacts, and players may use the above-mentioned special artifacts in addition to their normal moves.

Each type of artifact has a number of available contracts: worth 2, 3, 4, 6 & 7... and costing 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 of the same type of artifact (respectively). In addition, there are (numbers are sketchy in my memory here) wild card contracts worth 2, 3 & points.. and costing 3, 4 & 5 of the same type of artifact.

But, the Time Pirates are not only racing each other across the centuries, but also the Time Police (the cops, the fuzz, the Man), representing by a black pawn on the board and by Police chips mixed into the artifact bag. If you start your turn on the same space as the Time Police, you must lose your most valuable set (first wild cards, then the set you have the most of) AND spend your first action to vacate that century. The Time Police continue their cruise through time when time periods are refilled... if their chip is pulled (can you tell I've been 'translating' via Babelfish a bit too much?), they are moved that number of spaces and then another chip is drawn. When the eighth Time Police chip is drawn, the round is scored. The third time you score, the game is over.

Aaaahhh, time (unintentional pun alert) for one last wrinkle. You get a 2 pt bonus for having contracts in all five types of artifacts... and 2 pts for having the most valuable collection of contracts for each type. So, players stack their contracts into five face-down stacks and assign wild cards where they think they'd be the most helpful.

Next question: does Alan Moon borrow from himself more than any designer on the planet?! (OK, Knizia's up there, too.) Note the GET THE GOODS timed scoring mechanism, and the FREIGHT TRAIN re-stock. Mind you, they're both good ideas (my one game design, TED GOES TO GULF GAMES, borrows the timer idea as well). It's just interesting to see them keep popping up.

My reviews of this are mixed... I had a decent time playing (with Calvin & Zane on my 'team') and thought it was good but not great. You know, an o.k. family game, maybe in the same class as ANDROMEDA. Then we found out that Jay had taught us a rule incorrectly... chips turned in for contracts do NOT return to the bag until you score the round. (We had put them back in the bag.) This would cut a good bit of time off the game and up the tension level, which means I will definitely have to give it another try.

Kim Berg 63
Mark Jackson 54
Ian Borthwick 52
Shay Douds 51
Jennifer Buckey 48
Tim Watson 45

Rating: 7
With the rule correction, this could be a wonderful family romp or a 45 min. gamer filler. It's a big "PROBABLE" for my buy list.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

This is co-authored by Alan Moon, and is a set collection game with a very, very thin theme on top. The idea is to collect artefacts and trade them in for scoring tiles, while trying to avoid the pursuit of the “time police”. You really have to be looking to maximise your every move, which is where I went wrong; I started by trying to build up a bigger set (figuring that a big set early would score three times - there being three scoring rounds) but unfortunately got caught by the cops, who then proceeded to chase me, losing me two or three useful turns; they did the same to Robin, and neither of us really recovered. Tim and Simon continued to hoover things up between them, and in the end, though it was close, I think Tim again got the victory.

I wasn’t that impressed by this one, to be honest; the three scoring rounds are “cumulative”, in that anything you get in round one you also score for in two and three. That makes it very hard to catch up if you have a bad first round. There’s also not really much you can do to “bash the leader”, the interaction is minimal, so it’s almost like having a number of separate, parallel games on the same board.

Of the two Alan Moon games I've played recently, I definitely prefer Andromeda. But I'm really looking forward to San Marco (Venice game setting, I'm a sucker for that...)

Thread: Session Report

PBrennan — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

A disappointing time was had for all, even though we played the designer rules. The Time Fuzz pounded on Nick and Kevin in the first round, whilst I got lucky and shot out to a big score. The first round artifacts are scored three times. As there's no way to actually hit the leader, and later rounds effectively score less (second round artifacts score twice, third round artifacts score once), it's a mighty hard effort to pull yourself back up into the game if you fall off the pace. And that happens randomly if the Time Cops happen to fall on you.

The game is straightforward. Two actions per turn. Minimise wastage of actions by minimising moving. Maximise the points / action ratio by getting 5 tiles in a colour. Get wild tiles to add to a colour if someone decides to compete with you (a bonus is awarded in each colour to whoever has the most points in it). You get to make decisions throughout the game at least, but as everyone's making equivalent type decisions, it becomes pretty much a luck-fest (which tiles come out clustered, where do the Time Police go), with another factor being which players decide to compete against which on each colour. Not too much in it to reward another playing really.

The last two rounds seemed superfluous once the pecking order had been established, which made 90 minutes a long game. Kevin, being the fate-designated hosee, came up with a scoring system after the fact that made some purpose of the last two rounds. Average score improvement between rounds (not including the first):

Kevin 11.5, Nick 9, Pat & Fleur 7.5 (ahhh, we must be a true match made in heaven)

A rating of 4 after 1 play for 'poor game, could be talked into it on occasion', but that would be just to see if there were redeeming features I'd missed.

Thread: User Review

BoardGameGeek — 2000-12-30T01:20:55+00:00

Time Pirates is a game, consisting of collecting groups of same colored tiles to make a contract. The more tiles of the same color, the higher the value of the contract. Generally TP is quite a simple game, that is easy to teach to new players, since gameplay is quite simple as well. Interaction with other players is rare, due to few game mechanics that provide for such interaction. TP can be played under an hour, and is best with more than three players. TP's simplicity is a bonus, however, lack of stradgedy, hurts as well, as does the bad packaging. Overall a solid and fun game, although not up to such standards as Settlers of Catan, or Torres for example.

Image

2000-12-04T05:43:21+00:00

Image

2000-12-04T05:43:03+00:00

Thread: Preview

derk — 2000-07-09T18:09:37+00:00

This is one of the new games that Rio Grande Games will be reprinting under its label. The game is about travelling through time and stealing artifacts along the way, but there’s little in the way of theme/mechanism connection here (as per usual). The board has several locations (time eras) with two paths leading away from each era. A given era has spots for three to seven tiles to be placed in it. The object of the game is collect sets of these tiles and then turn them in for points. Two to four tiles of a single color are turned in for two to four points, while five and six tiles are worth six and seven points. But there’s only one ‘point’ tile of each value, so once someone’s claimed the green seven, no one else can get the green seven ‘point’ tile. Another thing to consider is that until the ‘collectable’ tiles are converted into ‘point’ tiles, they can be stolen. So there’s a ‘press your luck’ element here. The ‘collectable’ tiles can be stolen by the Time Police, which is a pawn that gets moved around the board during the game.

During a turn, a player has two actions. Those actions can be take a ‘collectable’ tile from your current location, or move along one of the directed paths to another era, or turn in a set of ‘collectable’ tiles for a ‘point’ tile. Additionally, some of the ‘collectable’ tiles have little special actions associated with them. During any one turn, a player can take one special action. If one his ‘collectable’ tiles has a double arrow symbol, he can trade the tile to another player for any of the other player’s ‘collectable’ tiles (thereby giving him the ability to trade with the exchanged tile). If one of his ‘collectable’ tiles has an atomic symbol, he can ‘teleport’ to any era by discarding the tile.

In addition to these regular and special actions, a player can do one more thing. Before a player takes his turn, he can choose to fill any empty spaces in his current era with randomly drawn ‘collectable’ tiles. However, interspersed with the normal ‘collectable’ tiles are several Time Police tiles, which have either a one or two on them. When one of these is drawn, the Time Police pawn is moved from its current era to one of the two eras next in line (remember: only two paths ever lead away from any one era), depending on the number drawn. It’s possible the Time Police pawn will move several steps as the redrawing of the tiles continues until all unfilled spaces are filled with ‘collectable’ tiles. After eight Time Police tiles are drawn, the round is immediately finished, and each player scores his ‘point’ tiles. There are three of these rounds with scoring at the end of each.

The Time Police pawn has an interesting effect on the game. If you start your turn with the Police pawn in your era, you lose all the ‘collectable’ tiles of one color (the color you have the most in, of course). But if you have even a single wild ‘collectable’ tile, which are used to round out a set when you turn them in a for ‘point’ tile, the Police will steal it (those) instead. This makes the wild ‘collectable’ tiles very powerful, and highly sought-after. The Time Police pawn moves about the board in a weird fashion, because both players and the Time Police can only follow the same two paths from era to era, so it seems like he’s following you if he’s one step behind you. This is good and bad: good because it’s a nerve-wracking element that forces players to think about turning in their ‘collectable’ tiles earlier, and bad because it tends to smack players that have already been smacked unless they spend several actions to get out of the way.

After the final round, there’s an additional scoring opportunity. Players stack their ‘point’ tiles in various piles face-down. Then the player with the greatest points in each of the five categories gets two bonus points, plus two bonus points for capturing points in all five categories. This process is facilitated by wild ‘point’ tiles. Instead of turning in ‘collecting’ tiles for the same colored ‘point’ tiles, you can turn them in for wild ‘point’ tiles at a slightly lower rate (three for a two, four for a three, etc.). These can help you get majorities in the final scoring round and also allow you to round out your ‘point’ tile collection (get all five colors for a bonus).

In the game that we played (like nearly everyone else taught by Jay), we were playing with the incorrect rules regarding the discarding of used tiles. As a consequence, we started to use the ‘refill’ action a whole lot more as there was little risk, assuming the Time Cops weren’t nipping at your heels. This is also where the game sorta broke down, for us. I later learned that when someone turns in their ‘collectable’ tiles for a ‘point’ tile, the discarded tiles are not placed in the drawing bag until the end of the round. What this meant was there wasn’t as much of a press-your-luck aspect as there was supposed to be.

As I mentioned earlier, this is meant to be a light, quick game. At this point, it most definitely was not quick. Now the reason for this was our badly muffed discarding rules, so don’t let that influence your opinion of the game. So what do I think of this game? Eh, it’s not bad, for what it is. This game fits solidly in the light, family fun category, as there are few truly nasty ‘screwing’ maneuvers. And the Time Police aspect is pretty entertaining, without being excessive. I realize that our game wasn’t the best because of our misunderstanding of the rules, but as my friend John loves to say, “I’m not really shot in the ass about this one.” Whatever the heck that’s supposed to mean…

Thread: Preview

gschloesser — 2000-07-09T18:09:36+00:00

This was probably my biggest disappointment in regards to the new Nurnberg games. It is an Alan Moon / Aaron Weissblum design, with artwork by Franz Vohlwinkel, whose work I usually admire. However, I was disappointed by both the game and the artwork.

I loathe aborting games which I have begun. I always feel that you should play a game through at least once just to get the full flavor of it and a better understanding of how the various mechanics meld and play out through an entire game. It is rare, indeed, when I support ending a game pre-maturely.

Well, all six players involved in our game of Time Pirates heartily agreed to abort the game after only one round of a three round game. Mark Engelberg aptly described the game as "having all the fun sucked out of it". It simply wasn't fun. Every player took his turn, performed the action(s) and play rotated. There was literally no suspense or excitement.

The theme is intriguing: To fill orders of art dealers, Time Pirates are hunting for artifacts in various historical periods. These artifacts can then be "sold" (exchanged, actually) for good money at the bazaar at the end of time. The Time Guard tries to keeps the artifacts where they belong.

On your turn, you can do two of the following actions:

1) Move to another historical period (following paths on the board);
2) Pick up an artifact from the space you are on (there are several choices of artifacts in each 'period'); OR
3) Deliver an order by exchanging a set of artifacts you have collected for a 'fee' (represented by a point token).

Players may also 'fill up' empty artifact spaces in the period they are in, in which case they are rewarded with a third action. However, when drawing new artifacts from the bag, the Time Guard may be drawn, in which case his token is moved to an adjacent historical period (space) according to the directions on the chit. If he encounters a Time Pirate and he is in the same period as the Time Pirate at the start of that player's next turn, the pirate loses one of his artifacts. In reality, this is a very paltry penalty to pay.

Players may steal artifacts from other players by surrendering certain artifacts they have collected, but a wise player usually protects himself against such an occurrence.

That's about it. The game was very unexciting with little real thought involved in the game. Since there are a limited number of Time Guard tokens in the bag, it is very easy to discern which tokens remain and therefore predict with reasonable accuracy where the Time Guard will move. Thus, it is fairly easy to avoid him. But even if caught, the penalty isn't all that severe.

In spite of getting one rule wrong (we were placing 'cashed in' artifacts back into the bag, when in reality they should be left out until the beginning of the next round), the game likely wouldn't play better with the correct rules. I was sorely disappointed.

The artwork also does nothing to evoke the feel of the theme. It is quite garish and bright and I, for one, had absolutely no feel of being an actual 'time pirate'. The theme is neat, but the game in no way conveys the feel. A shame.