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Buccaneer box art
2006 Ranked #3,790

Buccaneer

This bidding game has pirates stack chips to claim ship cards. Minimum bids make every vessel a contest for limited resources.

Family Games Pirates Auction/Bidding Memory Series: Small Box (Queen)

Players

3-5

Play time

Not listed

Age

8+

Complexity

1.59/5

Rating

6.27

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 3.9/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.7/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.2/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.6/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

Each player starts with five chips. To take one of the ship cards, you have to have a stack of chips, the minimum number of chips for each ship being shown on the card.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Each player starts with five chips. To take one of the ship cards, you have to have a stack of chips, the minimum number of chips for each ship being shown on the card. Making the stacks higher is the game's signature gimmick (originating in Die Safeknacker): On your turn, you can take one of your chips, or one of your stacks, and put it on top of one chip or stack of another player, and are then the proud owner of the entire stack. Trouble is, you can't SPEND the stack on a ship until your next turn, by which time somebody else may have taken it away from you by the same process. Scoring in Die Safeknacker was very streamlined and elegant: You scored the value of the card when you took it and paid off the other players the values of their chips in your stack. In this new version there are complications (tokens to collect, a consolation prize for the player next to the top in the stack) which give you a little more to think about. Re-implements: Die Safeknacker

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
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Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

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Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
3–5
Best with
3–5
Play time
30 min
Age
8+
Complexity
1.6/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
Stefan Dorra

Artists

1
Jo Hartwig

Publishers

1
Queen Games