OUR REVIEW

Three plunder journey to the Carribean

Francis Drake

Looting for the queen

Following the tracks of Francis Drake you sail on three trips to to relieve the Spaniards of as much loot as possible in the fairly newly discovered Caribbean. Each of those journeys basically comprises two phases: Provisioning Phase in Plymouth and Sailing Phase. In Plymouth – represented by locations and persons – you acquire the necessary equipment – crewmen, cannons, better ship and victuals. At the beginning, a turn order is randomly determined – ships are placed on the Homebound Docks. In turn order players then place one of their ten discs on a free circle at one of the locations/persons, you can skip location but cannot return to them later, that is, Plymouth is handled like a one-way street. Each player can place a disc with the Investor and with Francis Drake you can place several disc, elsewhere only one disc per location. After placing a disc you take the items available at the location. If you place a disc at Dockside or decide that you have enough provisions, you put your ship into the Outbound dock to the lowest free spot, the order there is the turn order for the trip. The amount of victuals you acquired, that is the number of barrels, decides on the range for your trip in the Sailing Phase.

Each player has numbered mission discs and places a mission disc in turn order into the first circle of a target; you can place only one disc at a given target, but all players can place a disc with the same target. When all discs have been placed and a player owning the Informant has made use of the Informant, the mission discs are revealed. Now number values of the discs determine the order of implementation. The lowest number is placed in circle 1 of the target, the next one into circle 2, if more discs are present they are stacked next to circle 2. Ties are resolved via turn order. Should a Golden Hind disc be at a target, this disc is resolved first, then all mission discs of value 1 at all targets, ships are moved to those targets, in the Outbound docks the Ghost Ship discs is marking the turn order. After missions 1 all missions 2 are resolved, again in turn order, and so on. Each target can only be attacked once; when an attack is not implemented, the right to attack passes to the next ship in turn order. For a successful attack you need the number of provisions that is stated at the target for its defense. Trading ports give you resources.

Missions need not be implemented, you can return to Plymouth early at the end of each mission. The first and second ship that arrives back in Plymouth earns 2 and 1 VP respectively, albeit only when at least one city, fort or galleon was attacked successfully. When all ships are back in Plymouth you score successful attacks on cities, forts and galleons, then the board is reorganized, all is kind of re-set to Zero, players only keep resources and treasures in their treasure chests.

Journey One and Journey Two are played in an identical manner as was Journey One; the location tiles in Plymouth are shuffled and placed and the turn order for the trips is determined by the order in which the ships arrived back in Plymouth from their previous journey. After Journey Three you score sets of resources and the treasures in your treasure chest.

Well, Francis Drake is a big and heavy game, nearly bombastic, with a plethora of beautiful, harmonious components that fit the topic very well. The basic mechanism idea of outfitting a ship in harbor with the help of Patrons also fits the topic rather nicely, as do the possible targets for attacks and the booty you can find there.

But then the harmony ends – the implementation does not work – at least not in the sense of providing an adventurous feeling – I am sure the adventurers like Francis Drake did not calculate and didn’t do tactical maneuvering, they worked more in the manner of shoot when sighting the opponent. But in this game you need to plan and calculate – how many barrels can I get, what targets can I reach in my range, when do I relinquish potentially successful missions and return to Plymouth for a good spot in the turn order and a bonus? And all this happens three times in nearly identical manner, so that this offers not much  thrill, either. All in all, Francis Drake offers a well-working, rock-solid game for fans of optimization games.

Dagmar de Cassan

Players: 3-5

Age: 14+

Time: 120+

Designer: Peter Hawes

Artist: Franz Vohwinkel

Price: ca. 60 Euro

Publisher: HUCH! & friends 2014

Web: www.hutter-trade.com

Genre: Worker placement, optimization

Users: For experts

Version: multi

Rules: de en

In-game text: no

Comments:

Lots of very beautiful high-quality components

Rather abstract despite the topic

More optimization than reckless looting

Compares to:

Egiziat

Other editions:

Kayal/Eagle Games 2013

My rating: 4

Dagmar de Cassan:

A big game, a heavy game in the true sense of the word – appr. 3 kg – with a historic topic and yet rather abstract game play that is repeated two times.

Chance (pink): 0

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0