"Spanish Main (2nd edition)" by Hartland Trefoil of England.
Reviewed by David Richtmyer
The designer is Francis Tresham, of "Civilization" and 1829/1830 fame.
The game is simplicity itself, though there are many strategies with
which to win and explore. The topic is the looting of the New World
in the 16th century.
There is one strategic map, about 4 by 6 inches, with a plain square
grid on it. At the bottom left-hand side the last square is labeled
"SM", for Spanish Main. At the far right are two squares, one for
England, and further on down the side one for Spain. There is also a
square labeled the Azores, and several squares on the upper left-hand
side labeled "America."
Players choose a 16th century captain (one out of three each for the
English and the Spanish), and take that captain's cards, plus a number
of generic cards. The cards have numbers, representing the number of
squares you can move on the strategic map: 2, 3, 4, 5. Each captain
also has a number of named cards that only that captain can use, and
these come in three varieties: one, minus one, zero, and six. Usually,
the English captains have more of these cards than the Spaniard,
representing (ahistorically, in my opinion) the supposed superiority of
English seafaring in the 16th century. At any rate, you can only move
your token on the strategic map horizontally or vertically, and you must
go the entire amount on the card. The named cards allow you to go amounts
that do not appear on the generic cards (like one or six), or they modify
other cards: minus one, played with another card, will allow you to go
one less than the particular generic card that you play. The zero card
is special: it allows you to, in conjunction with another played generic
card (say, a five) to move diagonally.
Before you set out, you must buy a ship and some cannon cards, these come
in numeric flavors like four, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, etc. Cannon
cards come in either two or four categories. You start out with so many
gold coins with which to buy these cards, the Spaniard has more than the
English player (to represent the head start they had in New World
exploration and exploitation). These cards and remaining gold are hidden
in a small envelope supplied by the game.
At any rate, you start out with your ship and your starting cards, and
proceed towards the Spanish Main square. You don't have enough cards to
begin with to make it all the way, so you must acquire other cards during
your voyage; that must be done at the expense of moving that turn. The
unique thing about picking up cards is that the discard and draw pile are
always face up, so everyone can see the top card. In addition, your hand
is kept face up as well, so there is no hiding anything here either. The
named cards can only be used by the appropriate captain, so if you draw
your opponent's named card you must hand it over to him. Woe betide to
the captain who goes down to his last sailing card, as he must then exchange
that last card for the topmost card on the draw/discard pile. Your opponent
will, of course, make sure that you only get the smallest sailing card
denominations. This unfortunate state (known as "Sailing Short-Handed")
will either lead to you being left behind or prey to an intercept (more of
which anon), and can only be aleviated by getting into port. All this
means that there is a great deal of interesting card play, as you attempt
either to get to the Spanish Main first or intercept your opponent.
The reason you intercept your opponent, of course, is to have battle: either
to sink him, or to disarm him and deprive him of his treasure on board.
Combat is simplicity itself: you display your ship and pull out a cannon
card from your stock (kept in a little envelope where you also hide your
gold doubloons from your opponent) and roll a die. The results will either
be a tie--both players lose a sailing card (representing losing rigging);
one greater than your opponent--he must lose a cannon card, while you lose
a sailing card; two greater than your opponent--he must lose the cannon card
he played (note the subtle difference), while you lose nothing; three greater
than your opponent--same results as two greater but you can force the opponent
into another round of combat. Players have the right to strike colors,
and thereby escape with their ship semi-intact (although not with their
treasure, which you cheerfully rob them of), and must strike colors if
they are reduced to having no cannon and must take more damage.
When you finally arrive on the Main square, you transfer your token to an
ingenious 'map' of the Spanish Main: this is made up of 62 large (about an
inch and a half) hexes that are back printed and laid out, cheek to jowl,
in a diamond pattern. Before you lay them out (on a piece of dark blue
felt, the reason of the felt will become evident in a moment), you give
them a thorough shuffle. The backs have either low land, hilly land, or
mountainous land printed upon them (in b&w); you don't know what will be
on the fronts until you land on them and explore them (i.e., turn them
over). The felt, besides providing a pleasing blue sea-like background,
allows you to flip over a tile (by pressing on one side) without upsetting
all the other contiguous tiles. Many of the low land tiles, which form
the border of the diamond, are actually all sea tiles: it's difficult to
tell where the coast line is in the haze of the tropics! Most of the tiles
have a combination of land and two different depths of water on them; in
addition three of the tiles have 'shallows' on them and one has 'rocks'.
Large ships will sink if they land on a shallows tile; all ships, large or
small, will sink if they hit the rocks tile. From your base you can, in
your turn, explore other tiles, one by one. To place the tiles they must
exactly match their surrounding territory (i.e. tiles), so that land matches
up with land and sea with sea. If you can't place them you hold them back
for further placement in a later turn in a better location. On tiles with
contiguous sea you can move in the Main up to four tiles per turn. You
can't sail in an all-land tile, nor in a blank space. The reason for the
discovery of this new territory is, of course, in the best western tradition:
loot 'em for as much as they're worth. Some of the tiles have rectangles
with numbers printed upon them; these are 'treasure chests' and can be looted
immediately. Other tiles have colored blobs upon their land areas; these
represent silver and gold mines. If you discover a mine, or force your
opponent off of one by battle (done the same way as you do it on the high
seas), you can mine the mine for one gold or silver coin per turn. Your
ship will hold up to its numerical value in gold/silver coins, or, if you
are willing to toss away your cannon, up to twice its value. So a six ship
with six cannons can hold six coins; if it gets rid of two cannon it can
hold eight coins, etc. At this point you must sail back to the outer edge
of the diamond tile/map, and then move back to the strat map and pick up
more sailing cards. You then try to evade your opponent and get back to
Merry Olde or Castile, and deposit your loot in safe keeping. The first
person to achieve 35 gold coins (4 silvers are worth one gold) wins. There
are a couple of sudden death victory conditions also: if the draw deck
runs out and another card is needed by a captain/player, or if the last
tile on the Main has been explored (but not necessarily placed), the game
comes to a sudden end and players total their worth, both back home and on
the Main.
Advanced rules allow you to build forts on the Main (which can be either
bluffs, with no cannons, or you can rob your ship of cannons to man the
fort and hope that your ship is not sunk on the journey back home). You
can deposit your ill-begotten gold in the fort for safe keeping, then sail
back in your little schooner to the home country and float a loan (there
is a bank in the game) to buy a big ship with tons of space/cannon, so that
you can retrieve your gold and get it back to the mother country safely.
Placement of the tiles can be exquisite: say you've discovered a big gold
mine, but your opponent has a bigger ship and is nearby. You can't place
the tile because of compatibility problems then it goes into a public
discarded pile face up! So then you must wait until you find a place where
you can: (a) place the tile legally, (b) where it is now far from your opponent,
or even better, (c) is next to a shallows tile that his big ship can't
sail through while yours can. By the time he gets back to the mainland to
trade in for a schooner, you've depleted the mine and are off to fame and
fortune in your homeland. Of course, all the while he'll be attempting to
place any good public tiles and explore another way towards that big mine
by circling around you. It should now be apparent that you actually 'build'
the map while you discover it; creating it in puzzle fashion. Players of
Scrabble will be able to use some of their skills here. Good card play,
knowing when to bluff and when to not, when to fire and when to run all make
for a superb strategy stew that uses basically simple mechanics. This game
has the most unique game engine I've found since "Up Front" and "We the
People/Hannibal."
Now, the question is, why hasn't someone published this game here and
elsewhere; all of Tresham's other games have been picked up and sold
under license elsewhere (AH's Civ and 1830, for example). This game is
not, ofcourse, a very good sim of New World exploration, and the graphics
and physical quality are about on par with an AH game of the late 70s/early
80s, but as a game it is exquisite. And the further on I've gone in my
gaming career the further I've gotten from the detailed sims (3DoG, OCS)
and the closer I've embraced little jewels like Spanish Main. Great
tension, tough decisions, and a playing time of 1.5 to 3 hours all add up
to great entertainment. I couldn't give it a higher recommendation.
(c) David Richtmyer
This review may not be reprinted without the author's permission.
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Page Last Updated: 4/10/03