The Pirate Republic: African Gambit Review

There’s a real romanticism to pirates and piracy. The freedom of the open seas. Fighting back against authority. Chests full of money and jewels are pretty cool too. It’s easy to see why pirates and piracy are practically a genre all their own. The actual life of piracy was probably less glorious. Illness, constant threats of death, and being hanged just for landing at a certain port. Forget facts, though, that just ruins one hell of a good daydream.

The Pirate Republic: Africa Gambit leans into the romanticism and lets you step into the boots of actual pirates from history. You will sail the seas, battle navies and other pirates, recover loot, and become infamous. Hone your cutlass, load your pistols, and practice some ‘Arr’-ing. It’s a pirate’s life for us!

Soundtrack for this game: The Black Sails soundtrack, all seasons

Gameplay Overview:

The rule book is 43 pages long. The last two are credits and blurbs about the pirates in the game. It’s still a lot. This overview is only going to hit the highest of high points because there’s a lot going on. This is a co-op game, so even though there is a lot of fighting, you are not fighting each other. That also makes it a really easy game to play solo. You can play a campaign using a series of 10 campaign cards or a campaign using the Standard Global Mission deck. Or you can just play a single Standard Global Mission. Mission cards provide the end goals for the game; sometimes it’s a certain number of points, sacking a particular town, or defeating a certain number of ships.

Each round has overall round challenges or bonuses determined by Tidings cards (the Tidings deck is also used for various game features and decisions as well – nice multitasking). A round consists of as many actions as you can complete before your deck runs out.

Each turn, you draw cards from your deck to your hand and use them to play one of seven possible actions. Card icons add power to these actions or can provide points. Possible actions are: move, scout, boast, declare infamy, establish a pirate haven, combat, or rest. I won’t explain them all in detail, just know you have options. Combat is the action you will perform the most. This is driven by who has initiative (this depends on game level and type of ship), broadside attack points, or close-quarters attack points. A very helpful flow chart on the back of the rule book walks you through the steps of combat. You’ll need that for your first couple of battles.

You start with a deck of 12 cards, and as you improve your individual stats and advance through the levels of the game, your hand size increases. There are also two decks of cards (crew and elite) that add stronger actions. Battles and fulfilling goals earn you reputation tokens and swagger. Reputation tokens are the primary resource in the game, and can be used to boost actions or work almost as currency. Swagger points are victory points; these determine game level and contribute to final scoring.

You can be captured but never killed. Which is a good thing because you will be captured a lot in the early game until your stats build up. Capture reduces your swagger points to the start of your current level. That hurts when you are one point away from leveling up. It really does.

Game Experience:

This is a meaty game. I let the rule book intimidate me, and had to go through several rounds of reading through it and trying to play, re-reading, and then resetting the board and continuing to play. Once I had it down, though, it was not that it was overly complicated, just that you really need to consider all your options and consider the sequence you might perform them in. It’s a combat-heavy game, but if you focus only on that, you won’t get very far. The other actions can help you succeed faster. You just need to remember to use them.

There is a lot of combat in this game. Have I mentioned that before? The early combat is pretty brutal since your stats aren’t very strong. It’s easy to get a little combat fatigued, but this is where other features of the game start to come into play. There are personal missions that earn reputation and swagger points. Some are combat-based, some are pick-up and deliver style quests. They help you to build up your stats, which improves your deck and means you are more successful at combat.

Since it is such a meaty game, the campaign can feel a little daunting. You don’t have to play the whole campaign; you can just play a single Global Mission card. This is a really good option when learning to play, as the missions in the campaign also ramp up in complexity. If you’ve got a free weekend, the campaign using standard global missions has two possible tracks, so the game won’t get boring on repeat plays.

The biggest drawback to this game is that there is a lot there, and the rulebook didn’t quite seem to keep up. That deck of 10 campaign cards I mentioned? Does not appear in the rulebook. I am honestly kind of guessing that’s what these are. I have three pirates I can play that don’t show up in the book either. They have used real pirates from history, Blackbeard and Mary Read among them. They have utilized their real standards. Which is a wonderful historical touch. Some of those standards are pretty similar to one another, though. You may find yourself squinting to see if those are crossed bones or crossed sabers below the skull. That’s a small complaint, though.

Final Thoughts:

The Pirate Republic: Africa Gambit is a really good game. It’s combat-heavy without being nothing more than slash and trash. It uses historical characters to augment the game without making it a history lesson, and has gorgeous art and nice production value. The copy I played had some upgraded pieces, I think, which were also nice, but you can enjoy the game without them. It’s intimidating to look at and start to learn, but it is well worth the time.

Final Score: 4 Stars – Great Game, intense to learn, but worth it. Sign your Articles of Agreement mate! This is one adventure you won’t want to miss.

Hits:
• Clear icons, and not that many
• Multi-use Tidings deck
• Good replay value given the multiple campaign paths

Misses:
• Combat fatigue
• Heavy learning curve