Board Game Arena

ALTAY – Seafarers is coming, in three stages

The Seafarers expansion is being added to ALTAY, and it will arrive in three successive updates rather than all at once. Each stage is playable on its own, and each will get its own round of testing before the next one lands.

Stage 1 — the Seafarers rules (in private alpha now)
Ships, crews and sailing, on the original board and with the four original factions.

• The original board has two sea zones, separated by the strait. They count as adjacent to each other, so a ship may sail from one to the other.
• The two island territories come into play, each with a conquest marker — a "3" and a "2", placed at random.
• Each player receives 3 ships and 3 crews.
• Sailing makes two territories bordering the same sea zone adjacent to each other, for all purposes. Reaching further costs one ship per sea zone crossed.
• You may build a settlement or begin a combat across the sea. A combat launched by sailing works differently in two ways: the settlements in your starting territory do not add to your attack, and losing costs you no settlement.
• Ships lying in a sea zone beside the attacked territory may join the fight, one strength each, for the attacker or the defender — chosen at the same time as the cards. They cannot be the same ships you used to sail there.
• A crew aboard a ship is lost in the ship's place whenever that ship is used.
• Three new action cards: Explorer, Sailor and Shipwright — plus one Shipwright added free to every starting deck.
• Two new achievements: Astronomy (level 1) and the Lighthouse wonder (level 3).
• The Trading optional rule is always used with the expansion.

One thing worth knowing while testing: Astronomy is not used from your table. It buys a crossing at the moment you need one, so start the action — build, resettle or attack — and the screen that asks which ships pay for the crossing will offer to discard a card instead.

Stage 2 — the Waterfolk, a fifth faction with no ships and no crews, sailing with their Wavebending tokens instead.

Stage 3 — the Forgotten Sea, the expansion's own board, with four sea zones and six harbours.

Two known limitations of stage 1, both deliberate: the crew is sacrificed automatically rather than by your choice (the rules allow the choice, but keeping the crew is never better), and you cannot choose to sail towards a territory you could simply walk to.

Feedback and bug reports are very welcome — this is an alpha, and the sea is the part of the game with the least mileage on it.