Okay, I just got my demo kit today and played a few games with some friends tonight to try and get the rules down myself. A few questions came up that didn't seem to be covered (or covered clearly) by the rule book.

Moving multiple ships. If a player has more than one ship, does he only give an action to one of his ships during a turn, or does he give an action of each of his ships during his turn? (If a player controls 3 ships, does he get to use each one of them during his turn, or only one of them?)


Stealing a towed ship. Some ships, like the little HMS Europa, have the possibility of getting an extra action during a turn. Is it possible to use this extra action to "steal" a derelict that's already being towed by the other player's ship?

Example: Player A has a derelict under tow. Player B, with the Europa, rolls and gets two actions. His first action, using S + S movement, is to position himself so that part of his bow is touching the bow of the derelict (but not the stern of the towing ship). He then uses his extra action to move away (now just S, since he's executing a tow), taking the derelict in tow. Is this legal? I don't see anything in the rules to prevent it.


Exploring for multiple ships? When visiting an island you've already visited, you get to explore as a free action when you dock. The rule book just says "you" (the player) and not "that ship". So is it legal to dock with one ship, explore, then dock with a second ship and explore as a free action?

Example: Ship 1, with an Explorer on board, docks at an island and Explores as a free action (because of the Explorer). Ship 2, controlled by the same player but without an Explorer on board, now docks at the island. Does that second ship get to Explore as a free action, since another ship controlled by the same player has already explored there, or must Ship 2 wait until next turn and spend an action to Explore for itself?


Measuring distance for cannon shots. When measuring to see if the other ship is in range of your guns, is it the main body of the ship that must be within range, or just any part of it? Several times tonight we had a situation where the range would reach some part of the ship that was sticking out (like the tip of the bowsprit or the tip of the 'colors' [the flag at the stern of the ship]) but not the main body of the ship itself. A review of the rules seemed to indicate that if nothing but your flag was in range, you could be shot and lose a mast as a result. Very soon we were using the term "going for the flag" because it was possible to manuever so you were in range to shoot your enemy (because of his flag) but not be shot yourself (because his guns, if they had the same range as yours, couldn't reach, having to cover that extra quarter inch or so of distance).

Is this legal, or do you have to measure to part of the main body (deck) of the ship?


Loading treasure. The rules are unclear about how many treasure items you can load on your ship with one action. With a ship like the Revenge with room for 4 items, can you load it all the way with one action (take 4 items on board in one turn) or does it take one action for each item you load (it would therefore take 4 actions/turns to load the Revenge fully)?


Towing/Docking with the same action. Is it legal to end your move in such a way that your bow is touching your home island (and thus docked) and touching the bow of a derelict, thus making it a 'towed' ship, and thus also docking the derelict at the island as a free action?

Example: a derelict ship is dead in the water very close to a player's home island, with its bow pointing toward the island. That player moves one of his ships such that, at the end of its move, the bow of the mobile ship is touching the island and the stern of the mobile ship is touching the derelict. Considering that all you have to do to take a derelict in tow is have some part of your ship touching its bow, and that when a towing ship docks a towed derelict is also automatically docked as a free action, will ending his move this way automatically dock the derelict?


Shooting multiple cannons. I've seen several threads here with people saying that you can shoot any and all cannons that can draw a line of fire to the target. (1) Where is this in the rule book? I don't remember seeing it, and can't find it. It's possible I'm overlooking it, but given it's such a short rule book... (2) Assuming you can fire multiple cannons, do all cannons have to target the same ship? (3) Assuming you can fire multiple cannons, do you roll one die (and they all hit or miss with that single roll) or do you roll one die per cannon?

I will try to help as best as I can.
You give an action to each of your ships on your turn.

According to the rulses as they are written now, you can do this. As the rules are writen now, two opposing ships can swap back and forth a derelect ship every turn. You start the Tow as a free action after any move action.

Once you have placed your streamer on that island, any ship you control that docks there can explore as a free action after docking.


Any part of the target ship. So the flag is a valid target.

The first time we played, we played that you could only take one per explore action, but it looks like, by reading the rules closely, that you can take as many as you want with one explore action.

It should. I don't see anywhere in the rules where it doesn't.

Bottom of page 9. It says that "When you give a ship a shoot action, you may shoot any of its cannons at any availible target within range."
If you could only shoot one cannon it would have said "When you give a ship a shoot action, you may shoot one of its cannons", and if you could only shoot at one ship it would have said "at one availible target within range". Since it says any, you can unload with all your cannons at multiple targets, if you chose to.

As far as loading treasure is concerned, the rules state on page 9, in the Exploring section:
"Give your ship an explore action and look at all the treasure on that island (wothout revealing it to the other player) and choose which you want to take."

In this case, which is used in the singular. If the rules had been intended to allow for multiple treasures, they would have said 'whatever' or 'as much as' or simply 'which treasures'. I don't clain to be an all-knowing authority on English, but this is the way I understand their usage of the word 'which.
-Andy

Good morning. A ship that has docked at the island would need to spend 1 action to explore then next turn spend an action to load up 1 treasure then another action on the next turn to load another treasure, so far and so on. Once the island has been explored that is all that is needed.

However, it goes on to say:

"Each treasure takes up one cargo space."

and

"Any treasure not taken is left face down on the island."

Both of these could easily be taken to mean you can load multiple treasures at once. Why?

* If you could only load one treasure at a time, the phrasing "A treasure takes up one cargo space" could have been used with no ambiguity because "a" is definitely singular.

* If you could only load one treasure at a time, the phrasing "All other treasure is left face down on the island" would also mean you only take one (a singular 'which') and leave the rest. The use of "any" implies there may be none left, even after the first act of loading...and since all wild islands are going to have multiple treasures at start...this implies loading multiple treasures with one action.

Plus, at Origins, the WizKids staff were teaching scooping it all with one action during the demos.

You make a good point, too. If you can load your ship full in one turn, it really makes the game shorter. I guess we'll just have to wait for a FAQ.

Actually, answers to a bunch of questions have been posted over on WizKid's PotSM forum in the "Rules" section.

According to the FAQ:

Is it possible to steal a ship currently being towed? Example: Player A has a derelict under tow. Player B, with the Europa, rolls and gets two actions. His first action, using S + S movement, is to position himself so that part of his bow is touching the bow of the derelict (but not the stern of the towing ship). He then uses his extra action to move away (now just S, since he's executing a tow), taking the derelict in tow. Is this legal? I don't see anything in the rules to prevent it.

No you must destroy the ship that is towing that ship or force it to give up the towed ship.

Ah, what is the Bow?
The Bow of the ship is One Point, it is at the front, pointed end of the deck plate form.
As in the illustration for moving, that point is used for starting and ending movement.

Thus, as it is but one point, whenever a ship is undertow, by the rules the towed ship's bow touches the stern of the Towing ship.
Therefore, as the one and only point is covered by the Towing ship, there is NO way for another ship to interrupt this arrangement by moving.

IMHO, all actions relative to receiving fire should be ranged to the ship's deckplate, making it a consistant model regardless of the shape of sails or flags.

Even though it does say in the rules:"any part of the target ship."

Oh, gee, can't find my flag; well, my ships are all the one's without national flags. Doesn't say I must have flags on my ships...
The bowsprit would be the first to go and then you are out of range?
Too many problems. Shoot to the Deck plate.

I have to agree with that aiming for the deckplate settles a lot of arguements.

the rules for the taking of treasure state

Quote:

Give your docked ship an explore action and look at all the treasure on that island (without revealing it to the other player) and choose which you want to take. Each treature takes up one cargo space. Place each chosen treasure face down on the ships deckplate card. Any treasure not taken is left face down on the island. Reveal the treasures worth once you unload it at your home island,

That can be read as take only 1 treasure or as many as you like (damm English language). We are going to have to wait for the FAQ. I personally would read that as take as many as you like because of the line.

Place each chosen treasure face down on the ships deckplate card

Don't have my copy of the rules in front of me, but I do believe I remember reading that you MUST have your flags on all of your ships.

True.
Rules, page 4 (middle of the page): "Each ship must fly its nationality flag from its stern (rear of the ship); players may build multi-nationality fleets."
ops32

It doesn't say how you have to fly it however right? So you could glue the flag flat on the stern, giving your ships an advantage :rolleyes:. Or you could probably also cut your flag in half such it doesn't say you have to fly the whole flag ;). lol

To which, you get DQ'ed for using an altered playing piece that gives you an unfair advantage in the game.