Caribbean Through Dangerous Waters

For those who don't spend their time concerning themselves with international board game affairs, Rio Grande Games is a company who basically searches out some of the very best strategic board games around the globe, brings them to the United States, translates them into English then unleashes their addictive tendencies to a whole new unsuspecting civilization.

Keeping that in mind, Caribbean (Through Dangerous Waters) is exactly one such game, written by Michail Antonow and Jens-Peter Schliemann. Made originally in Germany by a company called Winning Moves in 2004, Rio Grande brought the game to North America shortly thereafter. The object of the game, in its very simplest terms, is to end up with the most treasure at the end of the session (which lasts roughly a half-hour).

To accomplish this task, players choose a port based on color and are each given 7 bribing cards (-1 - 5) which are used to control the 6 pirate ships on the board. Interestingly enough, no player ever actually owns a ship in the game. The concept is to bid for the attention of each of the 6 ships by revealing your card against the cards of the other players. Whoever shows the highest value, gets to move the ship in question that many spaces. Treasure is randomly scattered throughout the map of the Caribbean so careful strategy goes into the placement of your cards if you are to guide the riches into any one of the ports you control. Here's the real kicker, ships passing by have the right to swap or even steal treasures from each other! What this means of course is sometimes even the best laid plans count for nothing if your opponent gets a ship to simply pass close by to the one you're hoping to steer (bribe) into your port.

As is almost always the case with Rio Grande Games, the pieces are all top-notch; the artwork on the extra-sturdy foldout game board is lavish and geographically accurate. Even the bribe cards are laminated and cut from extra-thick cardstock to provide a feeling of durability. About the poorest design of the whole affair is of the ships themselves, which, while undeniably cool looking, have a tendency to fall apart as you try to move them from one space to the next (especially once a treasure chest is loaded into its hold)... a minor inconvenience more than anything else.

For 2-4 players (ages 8 & up), Caribbean is fairly simply to learn and doesn't bog its players down with complex rules or too many stats to keep track of. Instead it's a game of bidding and fast paced strategy with the occasional outcry of frustration when the ship you worked so hard to gain control of suddenly finds its holds empty of the treasure chest it was carrying just before reaching your port. There's always hope for next round!