These Crew members are hired and welcomed aboard your ship, taking up a space on your ship just like any other resource. It’s not a huge game changer of an expansion, but the cards do add some interesting decisions and options to the base game (and it reduces your chances of getting a cursed treasure). Dicebreaker is owned by Gamer Network Limited, a ReedPop company and subsidiary of Reed Exhibitions Limited.

It is a wasted effort when you are blown out the water by your opponent rolling the explosion symbol. I wish they’d taken this chance to add some more diversity into the pirates chosen but other than that it’s a straight forward reprint. Then Henry Morgan (a former pirate, so you know he was trustworthy) became lieutenant governor and promised to clean it all up. I would have liked to have seen more treasure cards for example – the ones that are there are fine, but while you don’t see them every game you’ll see them often enough for familiarity to dull their impact.

I don’t hate this change especially for newer or slow players it adds an element of luck that is fun and you could always play with the old rule instead. They can use it to propel themselves into combat like the H ermes getting a gravity assist on its way back to Mars. It’s set dressing – at its heart Jamaica is an uncomplicated racing game where the golden age of piracy is the setting and not the story.

However, there is also one change in the game play in the new version and it has to do with Shortages. Then each player picks one of their cards, with the icons in the top-left/top-right being what they will activate that turn, according to the dice that were just rolled. Beyond the strategy, we really liked how the crew members made visiting the ports a good thing to do.When it is a player’s turn to resolve his card, for first the left symbol on his card and then for the right symbol, the player will load a number of goods or move a number of spaces equal to the number of pips showing on the corresponding day or night die for that round.

Points are also added for any doubloons in your cargo holds, plus any points from your treasure cards. The golden age of piracy is translated here with a wealth of glorious colours, components and chunky dice: another winner from Bruno Cathala.This treasure card can be points for or against the players total (and if this type of card is drawn, it must be laid face down next to the player) or it can be a card the otherwise helps the player. To enable personalised advertising (like interest-based ads), we may share your data with our marketing and advertising partners using cookies and other technologies. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. It’s a game that has stood the test of time, and I’m glad that it is getting a second chance to find new fans! Though we do recommend you start using the new Shortage rules by getting a marker and adding the circles, squares, and skull to the Combat die.

There’s a good amount of decision making players can mull over with both how they choose to manage their hand and what tactics they wish to employ on the race, finding a balance between offensive and defensive maneuvering.Goal: The game ends on the turn when at least one player’s ship reaches the finish line, completing one circuit around the island of Jamaica. If we’re the ones allocating the dice, everyone is staring waiting for us to make that all-important element of the game-state public so decisions can be made. It’s the game I bring out at Christmas when my gamer husband and I entertain our non-gaming relatives. Battles can go terribly wrong for the players initiating them so they’re always exciting for everyone around the table.