Episode 162: Maracaibo

1) The Pegs discuss their recent game plays including Reavers of Midgard, Miyabi, Fleet: The Dice Game and many more;

2) All the Pegs review Maracaibo; and

3) Look back at Coimbra.

Join in the conversation for this episode over at our Board Game Geek guild.

Show Notes

00:01:05 – Trivia

Banter

00:10:12 – Thanks for the Meme-ories candidates announced

00:22:45 – Christina Plays Holiday Games

00:29:47 – Jeremy Hears Wedding Bells

Plays

00:35:40 – Reavers of Midgard [Buy] – Grey Fox Games; Designer: J.B. Howell; Art: Yaroslav Radeckyi;

00:40:45 – Miyabi [Buy] – HABA; Designer: Michael Kiesling; Art: René Amthor;

00:46:45 – Fleet: The Dice Game [Buy] – Eagle-Gryphon Games; Designer: Ben Pinchback, Matt Riddle; Art: Marius Janusonis, Nolan Nasser;

00:55:00 – Infinite City [Buy] – Alderac Entertainment Group; Designer: Brent Keith; Art: Charles Urbach;

News

00:59:45 – An Ottowan Escape Room designed by spies.

01:05:30 – Edible Games Cookbook

Maracaibo

01:10:49 – Rules Breakdown

Maracaibo is a 1 to 4 player resource management game designed by Alexander Pfister and published by Capstone Games in 2020.  In Maracaibo, the players will be sailing their ships around the Caribbean, growing their crews, collecting resources, fighting battles on behalf of various nations, and completing objectives.  In addition to the core game mechanics, Maracaibo features an optional, overarching narrative that can change the board state each play depending on if and how quickly players complete certain objectives.  Doing so will add cards to the deck giving players more options for crew, resources, and actions in later games.

Each round, players will sail their ships around a map of the Caribbean, stopping at various locations on their way. On their turn, a player may move their ship from 1 to 7 spaces and take actions depending on where their ship lands.  In cities, players will be able to turn in resources to take various actions depending on the city – such as claiming a new worker from their supply, going to war, moving their explorer, or completing quests. In this case, players will also remove a disc from an upgrade spot on their ship board, moving one step closer to improving their ship and unlocking new or enhanced actions, points, or income.  Otherwise, players may land at villages and take one or more standard actions available on their ship board. In this case, the number of actions available depend on how far the ship traveled this turn, with more spaces resulting in more actions.

These are the basic actions of the game, though may be modified wildly by upgrades, crew members – such as those which place assistants on the board – quests, or the story cards if used.

To power these actions and build their engine, players will play multi-use cards out of their hand.  These cards – representing locations or, mainly, crew members – have two primary purposes: to provide a good or resource that can be used to take actions at cities or to complete quests, or to build the crew of your ship adding extra actions or bonuses to existing actions.  Critically, playing crew into your tableau is the main way you advance on either of the income tracks, which will grant you both money and points at the end of each round.

There are four rounds in the game, and the end of a round is triggered when the first player reaches the last spot on the Caribbean circuit.  Then, each player gets one more turn and the round ends. Ships then return to the start space of the circuit regardless of where they were earlier.  In this way, players can choose to speed around the track, sacrificing actions to force the round or even game to an early end.

Points are collected a multitude of ways.  Many crew cards will give you points at the end of the game.  Points can be collected by unlocking spaces on your ship, taking actions at some locations, completing quests, exploring, and the income track.  A significant number of end-game points are collected via the three nation tracks, representing the influence of France, Spain, and England in the Caribbean.  Over the course of the game cubes may be pulled off these tracks – generally via combat – and placed on the various cities and villages on the board. Players’ actions will also allow them to move up an influence track for each nation.  At the end of the game, players will score points based on their location on the track multiplied by the number of cubes removed from track, with modifiers rewarding the nation with the largest presence – as measured by total cubes on the board, NOT removed from the track.

01:13:45 – Review

01:46:45 – Ratings

ReRoll – Coimbra

02:05:30 – Coimbra [Buy] – Pegasus Spiele; Designer: Flaminia Brasini, Virginio Gigli; Art: Chris Quilliams;

Check out our original review for Coimbra during Episode 137.

Resolutions and Predictions

02:12:33 – Resolutions, then and now.

02:40:08 – Predictions, then and now.

02:56:17 – Crazy predictions, then and now.

Gameplay Photos

* Disclosure: These titles were received free of charge by the publishers or distributors. If you are interested in submitting a title for review, please read our Review Policy.