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Piracy and victory points

Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2018 9:11 am
by jmt
If a captain chooses piracy instead of a contract, the only way that I have found for them to score :vp is by the Dramatic Renegotiation event.

The sequence is:
  1. On Turn N, the Captain declares "piracy" and attacks a player.
  2. On Turn N+1, the Captain declares "piracy" and attacks a player again.
  3. On Turn N+2, the Captain takes a contact and completes it.
  4. Since the Captain didn't conduct "piracy" on Turn N=2, he loses one :infamy of the 2 he had.
  5. Now he plays Dramatic Renegotiation to score 2 :vp
This appears to be a consolation prize for selecting "piracy" - Piracy is more for slowing down your opponent that gaining :vp. Is this correct?

I only have the Scout and Free Trader starter set, so I don't know if there are other cards.

Re: Piracy and victory points

Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2018 9:18 am
by Horizon Ian
Trouble on the Mains expansion pack has a major piracy theme, mostly to help piracy.

Piracy can get very interesting tactically. I was playing Jeff yesterday with a constructed deck against a preconstructed deck and had a big lead in VPs, but I had only about 5 cards left when the game ended and he may have bankrupted me if he pirated one round earlier than the last round of the game. Strategically, it really requires concerted effort to get a high AV to make the attrition aspect work. Though, I would say pretty much every time I play Scout ships (not necessarily when others play them), I'm on the edge of bankruptcy, so what ship(s) your are contending with can make piracy more or less attractive.

Re: Piracy and victory points

Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2018 11:13 pm
by Horizon Jeff
jmt wrote:
Sun Jan 28, 2018 9:11 am

This appears to be a consolation prize for selecting "piracy" - Piracy is more for slowing down your opponent that gaining :vp. Is this correct?

I only have the Scout and Free Trader starter set, so I don't know if there are other cards.
In a card pool limited only to the Scout and Free Trader decks, it would definitely be accurate to say that Piracy is almost exclusively for trying to drain away your opponent's resources, or slowing them down by destroying vulnerable :upgrade.

The value of :upgrade destruction can often be overlooked. For instance, a ship that is getting a lot of use out the LSP Multi-Phased Array stands to lose a lot even by taking a single point of damage, as that card only has 1 :structure.