by draco143
RedPiranha wrote:
But I think the situation that Ghost Captain and lair will be on Spooky island will not last very long and therefore will not have much influence on the game. Please consider that the game is designed for kids and therefore the rules are simplified.
Well, I don't think the question of whether there should be a pirate lair on spooky island until the Ghost Pirate has been moved at least once is really a "simplification" issue. It either is or it isn't. Since the rules don't say, we had both the pirate lair and the ghost pirate on spooky island at the same time. The kids said it was a "haunted lair" and they cheered when they "scared him away" (via the roll of a :d6-6: :D
redlightgrnlight wrote:
My little gamer is too young to obsess over that strategy, but wouldn't it be helpful to play with the advanced rules and require trading instead of 1:1 marketplace? That, I think, would save a lot of the problems.
Well, the game is designed for as young as 5 years old and the 5 and 6 years old at my table picked upon the poly card strategy fairly quickly.
Last night we tried nixing the 1:1 market and allowed trading between the players (which is the official "advanced rules"), but the 2:1 trading with the stock pile still makes it pretty easy to get get gold.
Poly cards would be bought, and if an instant lair/ship wasn't picked, the ghost pirate was moved simply for the 2 bonus resources you instantly got, and not to block another player (the kids would even block themselves just for the resources!). Since the ghost pirate was moved so often via poly cards, it didn't really matter where he was placed, because he was never in the same place for very long.
Netting the two instant resources would often let the player buy another poly card immediately or let them trade in the two resources to get what they needed to buy another poly card.
If the poly card gave 4 resources, kids could usually make two trades with the stockpile to get two of what they needed to buy yet another poly card! Buying 3 poly cards in one turn happened on more than one occasion.