Flashback Friday - Merchants & Marauders
Love it or hate it? Do you still play it?
The smell of the salt breeze. The creak of rigging in the air. You’re in sight of the port of Tobago, when you see a ship off in the distance, on an intercept course. Word from the crows-nest is that the ship has run up the fleur-de-lis. The French Navy! You order the crew to man their stations and load the cannons. As the larger ship draws closer, volleys of fire are exchanged, shattering masts and shredding sails. All at once, grappling hooks sail from the enemy ship. They’re trying to board! As the enemy pours onto your ship, your crew fights to the last man. Will you survive long enough to protect your precious gold and valuable cargo? - Nate Owens
Merchants & Marauders is considered by many to be the definitive pirate games. It was even among the games included in the article Top 5 Adventure Games here on TWBG. Some players, however, find the multiple systems of Merchants & Marauders cumbersome, and have sought out more recent titles such as Black Fleet for piratey fun.
What do you think? Love it or hate it? Do you still play Merchants & Marauders?
This game is tops in my group.
ubarose wrote: I agree that the expansion really added a lot to the game. Although, we really haven't played it in a long time. The big hurtle for us is teaching it to new players. It feels like it takes almost as long to teach it as it does to play it.
Combined with being pretty unforgiving.
My top adventure game list would look like this:
1. Merchants & Marauders
2. Dungeon Degenerates
3. Western Legends
The caveat being that I have not played Xia with the expansion, which I hear fixes my few complaints and would probably boost it into here somewhere.
M&M is just too damn good. I really enjoy the high stakes ship to ship combat - and even find the heavier weight of it appropriate for the amount that occurs in the game. The two dimensions of pirate vs. merchant are well rounded. Ship upgrades and new ships are wonderful.
The game also has a very unique feeling of truly being alive. This occurs through the event deck + missions + rumors combo. I really love how nations can go to war and I was hoping for some similar presence of war in Outer Rim.
The expansion is great also, as already mentioned (I personally love the Spanish treasure ship which lets me replay Black Sails in my head).
I do think it's a bit too long, and we usually play to 8 glory if we're not in the mood for a full 2.5-3 hour game. I also prefer it at 3 players to 4.
The game offers you the choice to be a merchant or a pirate, but the captains really rope you into a playstyle. While any other game of this type also has captains with special powers that lend well to a playstyle, those other games tend to have other options for victory. M&M just has the two, and that illusion of choice has always bothered me. Sure, you could play against type but why?
The AI ships do not work. I’ve managed to play at least a dozen games of M&M at 4 players, not once have I seen them do anything other than be an obstacle you sail around.
The combat system is AWFUL. The rest of the game is pretty easy and intuitive, but here’s this bullshit, convoluted mess of a system that really does the game a huge disservice. Sure, it has lots of options and details, but none them work towards making the game fun. Completely unnecessary, could have been done much better.
It’s also really picky about player count. You need 4, full stop. Anything less is a noticeably more boring, dry experience. Other games of this type tend to play not as well with 4, so there’s that.
It’s pretty and it’s about pirates, but the gameplay is bland and uninspired, and this was true even when it came out.
Preferring M&M at this point feel like preferring the extended director's cut of the Lord of the Rings movies. Sure, it's an epic experience I guess, especially if you like watching people hike. Or sail in this case.
M&M is discussed on this site every couple months either by itself or using it as a benchmark to compare similar-type games to. It's never gone off the radar and probably never will. It is a masterpiece work among board games.
I don't play it much anymore, but I will likely never part with it.
I agree that the combat is a little too high-stakes and deadly. I've seen people recover from losing their ship to win, but the risk is probably too high, and the rules are probably too complicated.
Regarding being a somewhat bloated design, that's sort of true, but I reject the idea that every game needs to be as streamlined as it can be. Maybe that's true from a design standpoint, but experience counts for something, and I think the experience of Merchants & Marauders is top-shelf.
I'm not sure why I never got round to playing it. There just always seemed to be marginally more accessible or more interesting or more hyped games around to play instead.
I've now got Treasure Island, which is a totally different type of pirate game, but one that still fills the itch for rum and bones should it arise.