Game Night Light 16

Despite my vow to stop buying games that I put on a shelf, never to be played, I did buy one game on a topic long of interest to me.

But other than that game, I've held my ground on new games. In theory it can be played in 90 minutes. I played it solitaire--but not using solitaire rules--in two hours.

It's a two-player game, of course. This is the starting map.

The military units are frigates, gunboats/pirates, and armies. There are American, Tripolitan, North African, Arab mercenary, and Swedish units. The game is driven by cards that allow moves or builds, special moves or events, or combat capabilities. You draw 6 at the start along with three base cards. Each year you draw 6 more. You can keep 8 drawn cards in your hand. In the second-to-last year (I think) you reshuffle the discard pile. In the last year you get to choose your cards from the pile.

Tripoli wins by getting all the gold from piracy or sinking 4 American frigates.

America wins by taking Tripoli or forcing a peace on an isolated (from allies) Tripoli.

The limited moves per season make it difficult to prioritize and do everything you want to do.

I failed to pirate raid as much as I should have for Tripoli. I used a good defense of Tripoli card way too early. It can be used just once per game. And I should have beefed up Tripoli's defenses more.

And I probably should have built American gunboats sooner. 

But at least I took the steps as the Americans to get the Marines going on the "shores of Tripoli" thing and took cards in the last year to assault Tripoli.

So in the end, the Americans won.

Tripoli managed to sink two frigates. In the end I hit Tripoli with Marines and Arab mercenaries along with my entire fleet. I lost a frigate and both gunboats in addition to several mercenaries. But I defeated the Tripoli fleet, bombarded the port, and then won the land battle.

I might have been a little lucky in the battles although I think I had the edge in the naval and land combat.

It's a neat little game that is quite simple to play. The Tripoli victory conditions are pretty straightforward but the American victory conditions are kind of complicated. And some of the cards are potentially devastating. Luck can swing this game, it seems to me.

Anyway, it was fun to try the game out.