Sovereign of the Seas
Clipper Ship Commerce

Game Review

Review by David Ladyman


Excalibre Games, Inc. P0. Box 32407, Fridley, MN 55432
Released: 1984
Price: $16.00
Complexity: Beginner
Solitaire Suitability: None
* * 1/2

Sovereign of the Seas (SOS) is a simple simulation of commerce on the high seas during the clipper shop era around 1800. Each player is a merchant trader responsible for collecting his cargo and delivering it to its destination. Payoffs, in pieces of gold, are based on distance between the port of embarkation and the delivery port, minus the port fee. A player may use payoffs to purchase ports, thus saving himself the cost of that port fee and allowing him to collect the fee from anyone else who puts in at his port. The first player who can save up 150,000 gold pieces and return to his home port wins.

The mapboard is a 37 X 16 inch, six- piece interlocking map of the world made of thick cardboard stock. Trade routes are dotted paths around the world, with occasional interspersing of weather and pirate marks. There is a four-page rule book, a chart giving payoffs, two identical cargo charts (listing which cargos are available in which Ports), 32 port cards (with prices, port fees, and available cargos), 6 plastic pawns for ship movement, 6 pairs of small cardboard markers to mark each player's origin and destination, 6 dice, 84 cardboard pieces of gold, and 4 decks of cards.

The destination and cargo decks randomly determine the purpose of your next trip. The weather and pirate decks are consulted when a ship sails onto the corresponding mark, and can push you ahead with a good tail wind, destroy your rudder, or cause your cargo to he stolen and your ship to be abandoned in a distant port.

SOS looks like it ought to be fun. For those of you familiar with The Avalon Hill Game Company's Rail Baron, the two games share the same concept and many of the same features, and I do enjoy a good game of Rail Baron. However, SOS shares one of Rail Baron's biggest drawbacks - too often, you end up contracting for a randomly determined trip that any sane trader captain in your position would avoid.

The rules are fairly well organized, although a few finer points are not covered. The board, however, would be greatly improved by some way of indicating which ports are owned and what the local port fee is. As I've Suggested above, there is very little strategy involved in playing SOS, other than fairly straightforward decisions regarding the optimal path for collecting a cargo and delivering it. In addition, players must decide which ports to buy, but it's been my experience that a player who foregoes ports and hoards all of his payoffs will finish well ahead of an investor. I like the feature by which a trip has the definite purpose of collecting a specific cargo and delivering it to the destination requesting it, but here SOS lapses into the absurd. P

ayoffs range from 1,000, (London to Amsterdam) to 73,000 gold pieces (Tokyo to Riga, in Latvia). I've seen a player start in Canton, sail halfway around the world to collect a cargo of manufactured goods (available only in Europe and the Caribbean), and deliver it to Shanghai for a gross payoff (before port fees) of 3,000. I've seen another player set sail from Australia, pick up a cargo of precious metals in Cuba, and deliver it to Jamaica (where precious metals are also available) for a gross payoff of 50,000. Is this supposed to make sense?

In addition, weather and pirate marks, although nice touches, have little impact on the game. it is far safer to backtrack or sidetrack rather than accept a straightforward move that ends on a mark, and the rules do not prohibit this sort of aberrant sailing. Because of this, in each game I've played we've averaged about one weather card per player (going around the Horn can still he the only legitimate route at times, and the weather there is pretty rough) and one pirate card per every two or three players.

SoS has several nice features, but they tend to be obscured by less an perfect rules. The result is a fairly mindless game, suitable for late night beer and pretzels. The price is a little steep, largely because a young business can only afford small, relatively expensive print runs. If the game would fill a niche in your game library, you might consider Sovereign of the Seas.

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© Copyright 1985 by Dana Lombardy.
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