Hello Everyone! Tom S, multi-flintlock pistol winner and charmingly?-verbose blogger, here. I got the chance to play a few Solo games as everything was being finalized, while Solo Mastermind Carl watched on in … anticipation? I had a lot of fun!
As someone who doesn’t play a lot of solo variants of games (aside from a particularly memorable first play through of Lost Ruins of Arnak, where I dramatically misread one of the rules giving me significantly more resources than I was supposed to: one of my most hysterical-giggling inducing board game moments), I wasn’t sure what to expect. One of the things that pleased me the most about 7th Sea : City of Five Sails solo was how quick it was to pick up, and how similar the core game actions felt to the 2-player version. I was able to to grab one of my existing decks and jump right in. (Also the art of Captain Reis and her weapon.)
The full rules (not including the cards themselves) can be found in the PBE Discord here:
Brief Rules Breakdown
In brief, you are fighting against Captain Reis and her crew attacking the city. The game is still played in days, where you pick a scheme and muster a character. However, instead of placing City cards to inform your decisions, you place Siege cards which include event-like modifications and enemy characters: Raiders. Captain Reis puts out some renown and potentially moves.Then the back and forth of High Drama begins. After each action you take, you flip a new siege card to trigger an action for Captain Reis and her crew: move their characters, have them issue challenges, unclaim locations, etc.
The day ends after you pass, an additional siege card is flipped, and you pass again. Any location you have claimed, you get its Renown. Any location you don’t have claimed, the Raiders will collect one renown off of it per Raider at that location. (Raiders can’t claim locations.)
Victory/Loss conditions include
- Economic: first side to 7 renown at end of day
- Dominance: win by controlling all 3 locations at end of day, lose by controlling none
- Assassination: win by killing Captain Reis, lose when your leader dies
- Undaunted: Raiders win by default if no victory condition met at the end of day 5
There are a few more rules which inform how the game actually functions, but those are the basics. As players familiar with the Grim or Delightful rule, determining what to do when unsure of a situation/interaction, we have the Appeal to Drama, “resolve in whatever outcome is the most dramatic, exciting, or cathartic!”
The Games!
So, how did I approach my challenge going into this blind? By extremes of course! First attempt was with my Ekaterina pacifist deck, and, my friend, are there some fun exploits in there. Not to ruin the discovery of finding them for yourselves, but remember, the Raiders can’t claim locations. We just barely managed to sneak out enough influence to win the game before the slowly amassing Raiders (no crew cap for them!) buried us beneath their bodies.
The pacifist pleasure for me was largely derived in trying to puzzle through the minimum number of actions I could take to claim a location. Then yelling at Carl as my beautiful plans fell apart right as I was about to pass, CARL!!!!!! *Shakes Fist* Let me tell you, it may not have happened in this game, but the amount of scrambling you have to do to actually try to find additional actions to take to hope that that stupid raider moves off of that location in time … is really cathartic when it works.
Game 2, as you can probably guess, now we try maximum violence. Thinking I was so clever, I brought out Kaspar (you have some freedom in how you construct the city deck for effects that use it) and his beserkers. And, we got her! 2 or 3 days in and we exhausted her with just enough defense that we could throw some big haymakers in at the end of many duels. So many brave mercenaries and factionaries(?) died to protect the city in those days (thankfully they’ll never know their deaths were in vain because I’m pretty sure I forgot to claim a city location day 1 meaning I lost to Reis’ Dominance/Blockade, whoopsie).
Game 3. Had to go for the rematch with Kaspar to atone for my forgetful sins. It. Did not. Go well. My Hubris pushed me onto an even higher difficulty, and my single-minded thirst for Assassination allowed the city to absolutely flood with characters looking to intervene for their captain. By day 3 this time, I had managed to claim at least one location each previous day and assemble a full crew to bum-rush the captain. And by bum-rush, I mean attempt to chew through 3 or 4 bodyguards insisting on getting in my way. We did! However, I was left with a paltry sum of fighters who could still take on the Captain and likely get slaughtered in the process. There was no retreat though as the Raiders had collected their 7th renown throughout the course of that day, so we bravely went forth. And we managed … to get completely massacred.
Fuming and raging about those bodyguards, I insisted on playing a 4th game with my Ekat pacifist deck, again at a high difficulty, even though Carl and everyone had to boogie, leaving me alone. (I was too engrossed to put it down, and I felt the solo-mode had actively issued me a challenge. I saw that smirk Reis!!) I was able to take advantage of all of my tricksy solo-mode Ussuran exploits. Ekat was all over the board, doing work and setting up the next days while the rest of the crew enabled her without dying. It was an elegant dance, if I do say so myself. Hey, look, I’m white, wildy flailing around trying to keep up with the chaos around us is what we do. Anyways, t’was another skin of our teeth victory day 3. Our influence was strong, but a pack of pirates brandishing swords have a kind of cumulative charisma that is hard to match.
Final Thoughts
I enjoyed my experience with the solo mode. I would play more (need to see how hybrid decks fair, I have suspicions that they might actually be the best choice). It doesn’t replace the banter of playing against a live opponent, but it is a solid supplement for those looking to interact with the game more. Trying to optimize your deck to best exploit the solo-systems seems like it might be able to scratch a similar itch to optimizing against the meta/an opponent who defeated you publicly 2024 EUROPEAN CHAMPION DAVE!!!
I leave you with this, a list of cards to remove from your already-made decks if you want to jump right in because they will have literally no effect in this solo-mode, broken down by faction:
Eisen: Commanding
Ussura: Sunder (unless you want that sweet 2/-/2 RPT), Borets (I was originally planning on just adding that here as a joke, but the raiders don’t actually have any maneuvers or techniques, so this is actually valid), Blood Like Winter (no Risks)
Montaigne: A Fine Addition…
Castille: Robbery, Carnaval (unless you want that sweet -/3/2 RPT), Night of Drinking (no Risks), Improvising (no Risks), The Cat’s Glass/Mysta/Proper Drama (amount of gamble can’t be decreased), Curious (gambling maneuver could still fire), “Prima” Rosa (still playable as 5-resolve/2-influence, but I wouldn’t want you to be seduced by the expectation of such incredible value she can’t deliver), The Cat’s Embargo (still a +1 scheme), Shifting Blame (could still effectively be a +1), Explosive Ultimatum (opponent can’t claim)
Vodacce: Objection!, Fate’s Burden, Manipulative, Premonition (still a +1 scheme), Decipher the Strands (still a +1 scheme), Crash the Party
Neutral: Shoddy Craftsmanship, Paid Off, Liberating Goods, I Know That Trick!, Ambitious, Confusion, Leverage, Worldy (except for 3/-/0 RPT potential), Burn Like Mice, Filling the Ranks (I don’t think there is a way to get an available merc to a location to align with this)