My first review of a boardgame, so bear with me... (and please feel free to comment.)

This friday we finally got together with four people for a gaming session, which somehow never worked out so far. So I was thrilled that I could fish out Meuterer at long last, a game I've been wanting to play for a couple of months now, but never got the chance to because of the number of players. Anyway, I whipped this out and quickly browsed through the rules to refresh, since I had never played this either and had to explain it to three others. Though it seems somewhat confusing, as with all games, once you start playing, most things are self-explanatory.

The game starts with setting up the island cards in a circle, displaying the information on the inside of the circle, and all islands except Hochland on the passive side. The character cards are lain in the centre of the circle and every player is dealt five goodscards. Then one player is dedicated as captain to start the game. He then decides how many points he offers the first mate for his assistance incase of a mutiny, and lays out his first goods card. These good cards represent several goods that can be sold at the active locations on the circular map of islands. There will always be only one island active when you lay out your cards, and another will become active once a mutiny has been resolved. So it can be advantageous to you, depending on your cards, to help the captain or start a mutiny.
So everyone lays down one goodscard, one at a time, or passes. When you pass, you pick up the stack of character cards from the centre of the table, and choose one character, keeping it hidden from the other players. The captain does not choose another character, but when he stops laying down goodscards will determain where the ship will head next, or at least where he would like to steer it next.
Once everyone has passed and selected a character card, the cards are revealed. The captain counts the number of cards remaining in his hands, and sets the captain's destiny card an equal amount of island clockwise from the starting location. If someone chose the mutineer, he does the same thing. Then both parties, so captain and first mate, mutineer and boy lay out conflict cards to determain whether the mutiny is succesfull or not. Even when there is a draw, the mutineer wins. But when there are no conflict cards in the game, the first mate will win for the captain, as he counts as one conflict point.
Next the captain or mutineer places the ship on his destination marker and recieves the amount of points displayed in the ship icon and then turns the island to the active side. If the mutineer wins, the boy gets two points. If the captain wins, the first mate gets one point plus the amount of points the captain delcared he would give at the beginning of the round. Don't forget to substract these points from the captain's. Then the sale starts. All players may declare at which active site he wants to sell his goods. The player with the most goods for the active site gets the points displayed beneath the roman 1 figure, if there is a tie, with two players, they both score the points beneath the roman 2 figure, and so forth. You can only sell the type of goods displayed on the island, or any goods at a questionmark. The salesman always gets the highest points value if there is a tie.
Then all used goods cards are put in a face up pile, the characters are returned to the middle of the table, the mutineer becomes captain, if there was a mutiny, and the island from which was set sail, is now turned to it's passive side. Each player is dealt cards until his hand is filled up to five cards again, and the dockingmaster draws three extra cards, of which he then discards three to complete his hand of five. Then a new round begins. This is played for 8 rounds with four people. Then count the points, most points wins.

It took a couple of rounds to get the hang of the game, but by then you can see where the captain is steering to, who wants to be mutineer, where he'll be steering to, and so forth. It's a pretty nifty game for such a small package, and such a small price. Plays with three or four players, though better with four I would imagine (and I have read the same on several occasions). So whenever you're off to the bar and not into heavy drinking, because this one does require some extra concentration, this game is ideal for you. Let's see if it withstands the currents of time.

Thanks for taking the time to read this far, feel free to comment on my first review.

Great review!

One comment though - this has been covered here before - is that you sell your goods (wares) first, then you move the ship/activate the island (if you want to stick to the rules)

Thanks. I know it has been covered, but I guess I needed some encouragement to write more reviews so I wanted comment on something I'd done before... *pleads guilty*