Libertalia is a game from 2012. I have heard of it before several times, but never had the chance to give it a go until recently. I had high hopes for the game, because I had heard only good stuff. Unfortunately for me, I am meeting a good game at a bad time. I would have enjoyed the game more had I played it earlier. This is a simultaneous action selection game. You and your opponents have the same set of cards. Your challenge is trying to guess which cards they will be playing, so that you can play a card which helps you more. By now this game mechanism is not novel. So I did not find anything particularly new or exciting in Libertalia. Hence why I think I would have enjoyed it more had I played it earlier. 

 

 

The game is played over three campaigns. At the start of the first campaign, every gets the same set of cards. Every round everyone picks one card to play. You know what cards your opponents have, but not which one they will play. You won’t use all your cards by the end of the first campaign. In subsequent campaigns, everyone gets the same new cards, but your hands will be a little different, depending on which cards you have left over from the previous campaigns. 

 

 

Cards in the game are all numbered. They have various powers. Each round everyone plays one card simultaneously. These cards are then sorted. You get to execute the cards’ dawn powers from lowest numbered card to highest. You then get to claim a loot token, but this is done from highest card to lowest. The loot tokens are a mix of good and bad stuff. Some tokens are worth points. Some tokens cost you points. Some tokens let you attack one of your neighbours. 

 

Cards you have played go to your den, i.e. a play area before you. Some card powers take effect when the cards are in your den. One way you attack your neighbours is you remove cards from their dens. Some powers take effect only at the end of a campaign. These tend to be powerful, and you want to position yourself well to maximise them. 

 

 

It is common to have clashing numbers. Players will sometimes play cards with the same number. In such cases, you determine the action order by a secondary number on the cards. There will never be ties. This particular character above, the Mutineer, forces you to lose characters from your den, but you earn money (i.e. gain points) for each character lost. 

 

 

The anchor icon on a card means a power which triggers only at the end of a campaign. If you have the First Officer, you will want to have as many characters in your den as possible by the end of the campaign. 

 

At the start of a campaign you can already see the loot tokens for all six rounds of the campaign. You can start planning when to use your high cards and when to use your low cards. You will likely adjust your plans midway through, depending on how your opponents play. Treasure maps are only worth points if you have a set of three. You have to think carefully whether to go for them. If you manage a set it is lucrative. 

 

This is a game of planning what you are going to do with your crew. Everyone has (mostly) the same crew, and you want to outwit your opponents by making better guesses and better picks. There is some double guessing and psychology. The powers of the characters do encourage you to play in certain ways, for example the Freed Slave scores 1 point for every other character of a higher rank, and he does this every round. If I have the Freed Slave, I’d want to keep playing characters of higher ranks. By watching your opponents’ dens you can guess which characters they might want to play. 

 

The loot tokens is something that motivates players too. How desperate are you to take the lucrative tokens, or to avoid the penalties? How desperate do you think your opponents are? In this game there is some basis for making guesses. You certainly can count cards too. 

 

My play experience for Libertalia was so-so partly because I have played many other similar games. I do tend to like game with cards with interesting powers and interactions. Libertalia has these. A second reason I didn’t enjoy my play fully was I played this in async mode. Table talk and continuity are missing when playing in this mode. The third reason was the penalties at the end of every round. I think I was the victim of these penalties less than others, but still they made me a little uncomfortable. However I acknowledge that they are a good design. Pain avoidance is a strong motivation. Libertalia is almost a party game. You can play with up to 6 players, and at the highest player count this will be a little chaotic. However this game is not exactly simple. It is a light-to-medium weight game. It is a light strategy game.