Gamehelpmaracaibo

Welcome to Maracaibo! You'll play as an independent seafarer in the Caribbean seeking wealth and fame through combat, exploration, and strategic card play.

Maracaibo is played over 4 rounds. Each round, you and your opponents will sail along a loop in the Caribbean, stopping at cities and villages to take actions. You can stop at as many spaces as you want during a round, but watch out! After any player reaches the end of the loop, the round will end and all players will move back to the start.

What To Do On Your Turn

Phase A - Movement

On your turn, you must move 1 to 7 spaces. Each space is either a City or a Village, and this will determine what options you have available to you:

Phase B - Actions

Village Spaces

When you land on a Village space, you can do one of the following:

• Perform Village Actions based on the number of spaces you moved. (1-4 spaces is 1 village action, 5-6 spaces is 2 village actions, and 7 spaces is 3 village actions).
• Complete a Quest by paying its cost
• Use an Assistant’s action

You start the game with 3 basic Village Actions:

• Gain 1 Doubloon
• Discard your entire hand for 2 Doubloons
• Buy a card

When buying a card, you pay its cost (Doubloons, goods, and/or combat points) and then gain any bonuses:

• Green Scrolls: Doubloon or VP Production. You will increase your production by the amount shown. You start the game with 0 VP Production and 8 Doubloon Production. You will gain this at the start of each round. Some production bonuses are locked until you gain the required synergy token. If you would gain Doubloon production beyond 34, all subsequent Doubloon production is converted to VP Production.
• Tan Scrolls: Immediate bonuses. Gain a number of Figures, Combat Points, etc.
• Synergy Tokens: You gain the depicted synergy token. These unlock production on cards that show a matching synergy token requirement. You can only gain 1 of each synergy token, but you may still play multiple cards that provide a given synergy token. Gaining a synergy token activates any production bonuses you have that needed this token.
• Red Scrolls: Passive Effects. These are ongoing effects or abilities that you can use at the specified time:
  • Last Village Actions can be used as the final village action whenever you receive a village actions
  • New combat actions to use once per Combat phase
  • Bonuses that give you additional exploration steps when you explore, or an extra combat point when you do Combat
• Assistants Actions. Some cards are Assistants and require you to place a Figure at the designated space on the board to signify that you have an assistant there. These allow only you to take their special action at this space. If you don’t use an Assistant, skip past it, or don’t reach it in a round, you gain 2 VP immediately.
• Prestige Card endgame bonuses. You can buy any face up Prestige Card to unlock an endgame scoring bonus. Multiple players can buy the same prestige card, but if you are the first player to buy one, you receive an additional 2 VP.
  

City Spaces

When you land on a City space, you first have the option to deliver a Good if there is an available market space. To do this, you must discard a card from your hand with a matching Good icon (Corn, Sugar, or Tobacco). This delivery must happen before taking the city’s action.

After delivering, you may use the City’s action which have various effects, including:

Gaining Resources

• Gaining Doubloons or Victory Points: You gain the amount shown
• Gaining Combat Points: You gain the amount shown, but you cannot exceed 8 Combat Points at any given time
• Gaining Figures: You gain the amount shown, but each player has a limited pool of 8 Figures.
  • At the start of the game, you have 2 in your personal supply that are free to use, 3 in the general supply that can be acquired, and 3 “locked” on your Career Card that you can acquire by completing Career objectives. If you would gain Figures from an action but have none in the general supply, you do not gain Figures.
• Gaining Influence: Move one space to the right with a nation of your choice on its Influence track. If you are already at the rightmost space, gain 2 VP instead.

Exploring

When you explore, you must move your Explorer on the Exploration Track on the bottom of the map up to the number of spaces shown. You gain the bonus shown. You cannot share a space with another player’s explorer.

If you pass an exploration barrier (red, green, and blue bars), you immediately gain a bonus.

• Red Barrier: Gain 3 Influence in one nation
• Green and Blue barriers: Gain 4 VP if you are the first player to cross, otherwise gain 2 VP.

If you reach the end of the exploration track, you gain 1 Village Action and immediately receive an amount of bonus VP based on what player order you arrived in.

Combat

When you participate in combat, you are shown a Combat Token with Combat Point values for France, Spain, and England. These are “temporary” combat points that you will have only for the duration of the Combat. They are not added to your personal supply of Combat Points.

Some tokens show a bonus of +3 Combat Points to the nation with the fewest Ownership Markers (cubes) on the board, while some tokens show a penalty of -2 Combat Points to the nation with the most Ownership Markers on the board. No bonus/penalty is awarded if there is a tie for fewest/most Ownership Markers.

You must choose one nation to fight for and can then perform combat actions by spending up to your temporary combat points PLUS your personal supply of combat points. Any card effects such as Sailor will also apply now and add Combat Points to your personal supply.

You may use each combat action once per Combat:

1. Annexing a City allows you to gain an influence and place a cube for the nation you’re fighting for. You must pay 2 extra combat points if you annex a city where a different nation’s cube already exists to replace it. You gain the bonus shown on the city’s Flag (Doubloons, Figure, or VP).
2. You can gain 1 influence for 2 combat points or 2 influence for 5 combat points.
3. Annexing a Village allows you to gain an influence and place a cube for the nation you’re fighting for. You must pay 2 extra combat points if you annex a village where a different nation’s cube already exists to replace it. You gain 3 Doubloons per assistant of yours there, and 1 Doubloon per opponent’s assistant there. This action must be unlocked via the “Upgraded Cannons” Ship Upgrade.
4. Other cards feature new combat actions that also can be used only once per Combat.

After completing your actions, you gain the Combat Token which may be referenced by other actions or effects. Any unused temporary combat points received from the combat token ARE LOST and are not added to your personal supply.

Note: If a nation has no more Ownership Cubes, you cannot place another! Additionally, if the supply of Combat Tiles runs out, you will perform Combat using a value of 3 Combat Points for your chosen nation.

Phase C - Draw New Cards

After you’ve performed your actions, you draw back to 4 cards (or up to 6 if you have the “Expanded Living Quarters” Ship Upgrade).

You may draw from the deck for free, or pay 1 Doubloon to draw a card from the face up display. This is also free if you have “Charismatic Leader” Ship Upgrade.

After this, it is the next player’s turn.

Free Action - Planning a Card

At any time before Phase C, you may Plan a card by moving it from your hand to your Planning Area. You may buy a card from the Planning Area as normal, but it no longer can be used for a delivery, completing a Quest, or fulfilling any Goods or Items requirement.

Free Action - Completing a Career Objective

You can complete a career objective at one of two levels Both levels provide 1 Figure. The first level is easier but only rewards Doubloons, while the second level also rewards VP. If you are able to complete a career objective, you will see either a Doubloon or VP icon next to your Career card on your mini player board.

If you complete all career objectives, you gain an additional 2 VP and 2 Doubloons. You do not need to go in order!

End of Round

When any player reaches Spaces 20, they must stop their movement and choose to do Combat or Explore. In Rounds 1-3, they must move to 21a on their next turn.

When a player lands on Space 21a, the round ends and every player will be able to Buy a Card or gain 2VP, before receiving production income. Then all ships move back to Havana, the first space. Player turn order is preserved - the next player in turn order after the player who landed on Space 21a will start the next round.

Production is received and the face up display of cards are wiped. New quests will be added to the board on spaces indicated by the “Upcoming Quest Locations” scroll found at the top of the board, to the left of the influence track. All delivery discs are removed from cities.

In Round 4, players must move from Space 20 to 21b and stop. On their next turn, they must move to Space 22 which triggers the end of the round. Players complete their Buy a Card or 2VP action and then proceed to final scoring.

After Round 4 ends, Victory Point production happens as normal, but Doubloon Production is converted to points based on the doubloon income track below the Influence Track

Final Scoring

You score Victory Points in the following ways for the following things:

• Points earned from various actions during the 4 rounds
• 5 remaining Doubloons to 1 VP
• VP found on Project cards and Prestige cards
• 3 VP per influence track where you are furthest player
• Influence Score for each nation.
  • A nation’s base value and bonus are calculated on the influence track and follow this system:
    • The base value is the sum of the number of fully uncovered VP icons from a nation’s cube supply
    • A 2 VP bonus is awarded if this nation has the most or is tied for the most Ownership Cubes on the board
    • A 1 VP bonus is awarded if this nation has the second most or is tied for the second most Ownership cubes on the board. If there was a tie for first place, this 1 VP is not awarded.
  • For a given nation, each player scores VP based on this product: NationVP = Noble Rank x (Nation Base Value + Nation Bonus).
    • The Noble Rank is the furthest red banner a player has reached (1x to 6x).

FAQ

GENERAL

GEN1: Why can't I buy this card? I have enough gold! Make sure you can afford the *entire* card. Do you have enough figures (meeples) to play it?

GEN2: Where did my synergy token go? Why is the wrong synergy token showing in my player panel? Synergy tokens are faded out before you own them and bright & colorful once you collect them. The number does not indicate that you own the token; it indicates that you have a synergy with the token. Remember that you can never have more than one of a token.

UPGRADES

UPG1: Why don't I get the benefit after I perform an upgrade? Make sure you've completed the *entire* upgrade. Both discs must be removed before the upgrade is active, not just the first disc.

SOLO

SOL1: Why is my score -1 after I lose to Jean? The BGA framework counts all positive scores as a win, so anytime you lose to Jean your score is changed to a negative value. This tells BGA that although you're the highest-scoring (and only) player in the game, you did not win.