by Randor20
Xelforp wrote:
A strange situation came up in a game I was playing in, as a captain spent all his money on upgrading from a sloop to a frigate and then he went on a merchant raid which he had the bad fortune of loosing, ie. one of his hit locations was destroyed.
If I understand the rules correctly, you can't raid when one (or more) of your hit-locations are destroyed and you need 2 gold to make repair of one hit point. Seems like your options are almost none in this case (I think selling the frigate to get a sloop might be possible, but what if this happens when you own a sloop)? Or perhaps you must retire and start again?
Gudjon
If I understand the rules correctly, you can't raid when one (or more) of your hit-locations are destroyed and you need 2 gold to make repair of one hit point. Seems like your options are almost none in this case (I think selling the frigate to get a sloop might be possible, but what if this happens when you own a sloop)? Or perhaps you must retire and start again?
Gudjon
Yes, you can move into port and then retire at the start of a turn to get a new captain (on p.15 in the rules, in case you missed it - could sound a bit like you did). So it really is a gamble to put everything on one raid, if you have no sure way to discard at least one cargo card in the raid.
Selling the fregate to buy a sloop is not possible unless the fregate has many upgrades (as you get -1 gold for each repair your sold ship needs - and the base sell price of big ships are the same as the buy price of the small ones).
If you have a Spanish bounty you can sail to Old Providence to get free repairs.
Or if you can get rid of all bounties you can sail to Petite Goave for free repairs (non-pirates get that) (though getting rid of bounties usually requires some gold).
Then there are also missions and rumors - some can be done without gold and ship combat (and you can get a free rumor roll in Curacao). Most give you some gold as a reward.
Or as a last thing you could attack a Naval ship. Might actually be faster than retirering if you cannot get into port the turn you had the bad raid. And if you get lucky you get 3 cargo, some gold and take over the ship (less if his cargo hold get damaged, so a quick boarding action might be good). Of course not really a big chance of victory if it is your masts location that is destroyed :).
Also remember that if it is the crew location which is "destroyed" you can get all for free if you make a Leadership roll during a "port" action.