Loot

5th February.

2nd game of the night at 'The Sovereigns'.

Loot is a little card game by Reiner Knizia about chasing wealthy merchant ships with your pirate boats.
Perhaps this game should be combined with Century Spice Road which we had just finished playing!

Loot is a fairly simple looking game with some hidden depth.
Loot has different 4 types of card.

• Merchant Ships, valued from 2 to 8 'gold'
• Pirate Ships, their strength ranges from 1-4 'skull & crossbones and they come in 4 colours.
• 4 Pirate Captains, in the same 4 colours as the pirate ships.
• 1 Admiral.

​Everyone starts with a hand of 6 cards.
During your turn you check for winning battles, (more on this below). Then you draw a card or play a card.
What cards you can play depend on what's already been played.

• You can always play a merchant ship.
• You can only play a pirate ship if there's a merchant ship for them to plunder. If there's more than 1 merchant ship in play, you can choose which to attack, you can even attack a merchant ship you played yourself. If someone else is attacking a particular merchant ship that you want to attack, you cannot play a pirate of a colour they have already played, (so if someone else is attacking a merchant with a blue pirate ship, you can't attack the same merchant ship with a blue pirate). If you've already played a pirate ship, you can another of the same colour to reinforce your attack.
• You can only play a captain on a pirate ship you've played, the captain's colour must match the colour of the pirate it is being played.
• You can only play the Admiral on a merchant ship that you played.

If you can't play a card, you must draw or discard a card, you can never discard a merchant ship.

Right at the start of your turn, you check for winning battles. This involves looking at all the merchant ships in play, if your pirate attack against a merchant is stronger than any other pirate's (or is uncontested), then you claim the merchant ship - all other cards are discarded. If the attack strength of 2 or more players is identical, then there's a stalemate and the merchant has not been captured by anyone.
Pirate captains and the Admiral act as a trump cards and win a battle, regardless of the attacks strength of other players.

Play continues until the deck is depleted. The player that captured merchant ships with the highest combined value of gold wins (any merchant ships in your hand at the end of the game are deducted from your final score).

And that's pretty much it. Good, clean, wholesome, pirating fun. A great little filler game, quick to play and easy to learn. With enough strategy to keep it interesting.