Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest is a bidding, hand management, set collecting game.
A remake/2nd edition from stonemaier games of the 2012 game Libertalia designed by Paolo Mori.
With new art, an updated ruleset and extra cards, as well as a Stonemaier signature, an Automa from Automa Factory.
Let’s dive in!
Gameplay
Each game is broken into 3 rounds, known as voyages. At the beginning of each voyage one player shuffles their deck of pirates and draws 6 cards, the other players will draw these same 6 cards from their decks. Ensuring each player has the same roster of cards each game.
The first voyage then consists of 4 turns, known as days, with an additional day happening each voyage.
These days will have 3 random loot tiles placed on them for players to fight over. These loot tiles have various abilities.
Each turn proceeds the same way with players secretly selecting one of their cards and then placing them in order from lowest to highest on the island, then the lowest character will activate their daytime ability, then the next character etc, until all characters have activated their daytime ability.
Then in reverse order (highest to lowest) each player will take a loot token and perform their dusk abilities, moving the character to their ship (ie tableu). After which, you will perform any night abilities on ANY character in your ship.
After the final day in the current Voyage you will perform any anchor effects, collect your doubloons and then add this to your score dial, discarding all your cards, tiles and doubloons. And then repeat, except this time each player will have some cards left over from the first Voyage that never got played, so hands will have some variance now.
And that’s really the basics of the gameplay, it’s oddly deep though as some days will have the cursed relics you really don’t want to win, while other days you won’t care so much about what tile you’ll use as much as building some synergy for your ship.
Replayability
While there is no variable leaders or faction powers, each game you will only see 18 of the 40 cards, and also each loot token ability has two different sides which can be mix-matched each game (which is personally my recommendation) and the way the tiles get drawn for each day can definitely result in different strategies.
So while I don’t see this being a game that is overly different game to game and I probably don’t see most people sitting down for 3 sessions back to back, I do see this as having a fair share of replayability and differences from game to game even with a repititve core gameplay.
I’ve had 6 games leading up to this review and in no way feel “done” with the game.
Components
The components in this game are pretty decent, the tiles are a nice hefty weight that feel nice to handle and pull from the bag. The cardboard doubloons are of decent quality, and the loot ability cards and reputation trackers are all above normal from what I’d expect from a game of this price point.
My biggest complaint to the components is the dials feel unnatural to me, the “tens” column spins in the opposite way to the “ones” column, unless I assembled them all wrong, which I really don’t believe I did.
The artstyle also is a miss for me, I definitely prefer the more “real” pirate feel of the original artwork, but the cutesy theme probably has more broad appeal, and is very “in” at the moment so I do understand the choice and it doesn’t detract from play too much for me.
Solo
As always (I think literally always?) Stonemaier has enlisted the help of Automa Factory to bring solo to this game!
Much like we seen with Tapestry, Automa Factory have opted to make the solo game play closer to a 3 player game.
How have they done this?
Well, you have 2 opponents competing for the tiles, however, one of them is simply a “pilferer” meaning, they don’t trigger character abilities or score any points. They purely emulate an extra resource stealer to get in your way.
So how is the solo mode different from regular play?
Well, you get some slightly altered loot goals, and the Automa gets its own deck, these cards have slightly differing abilities than your own copies of the cards. But like a regular game, the AI will draw 6 cards, and you will get the same cards. Then you select your card, the pilferer takes a random card from the top of the deck and then the automa chooses a card from their hand based on what rewards are available for the day! Usually this means a higher card on a “dangerous” day, or a lower card (with a more powerful daytime ability) when their position in the day won’t have as much to lose.
The AI plays by all the same rules as you, albeit their card abilities are often slightly better to make up for the non-sentient choices* it makes
The cards themselves are maybe slightly lower quality than some other stonemaier games, but they seem to hold up fine (especially since there is minimal shuffling in this game) but don’t be expecting wingspan or Scythe quality feel to the cards.
*I do have serious doubts this AI isn’t sentient though it always seems to know the most optimal play
This AI becomes very quick and second nature to operate extremely quickly and does a great job at providing you a formidable foe.
Fun Factor
This game has plenty of fun. It sits at a quick paced game that keeps the pace moving but also has just enough decision space that you keep the feeling of being ‘in the game’. Just enough “take that” to feel like a pirate, without so much that you want to storm away from the stormy seas.
Final Thoughts
Libertalia is a great light-medium game, that plays in about 45 minutes filling in that nice “almost-filler” slot to either kick off or round out a game night. While I wouldn’t go bringing this as the main attraction of the night for gamer friends, it provides just enough simplicity and player interaction to be that nice in between for non-gamer friends, or a great warm up/cool down after your main game of the night. For the solo player the AI is absolutely deliciously easy to operate and sticks right along with the feel of the game – light to operate but still plenty of enough of a game and challenge to play against.
Do I recommend this?
In my opinion, what makes this game so good, is that it knows what it is, and it doesn’t try to be anything else.
As long as you’re in the market for something quick and easy on the mind, Libertalia is a great choice.
Is it the perfect game that’s going to become a centerpiece of your collection? No, and it doesn’t try to be. And that is something other games in the light-medium space could certainly take a lesson from.
Thanks to Stonemaier Games for this review copy
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