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Panamax
Author: Michael Rieneck
Publisher: eggertspiele/Pegasus Spiele
Year: 2014


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Did you ever imagine what a pirate will do after his retirement? Well, with this game we know what he will do: retire to the peninsulas of Grog Island after a “fruitful” life of robbery and plunder. There he will open a shop or pub, where he will put his old crew members to work. Since other pirates are also looking for the best places on the island, the pirates need to “battle” them, but, due to their retirement, no fighting will take place; auctions by throwing dice will decide who gets what.
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Grog Island’s game board shows the island, consisting of 5 peninsulas, each in own colour and with 7 different types of buildings (shops and pubs). In total there are 12 types of buildings. Some types are more common than others; the “Grog Hole” pub is unique on the board, while there are 4 shops selling swords. The bottom of the board shows the trading area, where each round 5 ships will moor, initially in random order. The ships will allow the players to trade with so-called goods tiles. The central part of the board contains the auction are performed. This auctioning will take place with 5 dice in the same colours as the peninsulas. Finally, the board contains a coin and a point track for each player.
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During setup each player receives 7 (4 players) or 9 (2-3) crew members, together with 8 gold on the coin tracks (using a marker), and in his a treasure card (kept secretly, worth 1, 2 or gold) and a so-called parrot card, which mainly can be used during the game to manipulate the auctioning dice. Furthermore, each player is dealt 6 goal cards, from which his secretly chooses 4. The goal cards indicate where the player can gain points at the end of the game, during the final scoring. Points can be scored for having the majority on a certain peninsula, for having crew members placed on certain building types, for having good tiles of certain type, and for having parrot cards. Finally, each player receives a good tile of his choice.

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The starting player of a round rolls the 5 auction dice, places them in the good space of the auction area, and makes a starting bid by moving 1 or more dice to the bidding places. The dice now form a starting bid, by adding all pips of these dice. As a constraint, the dice must be placed in the bidding place in descending order from left to right. Each next player, in clockwise order, has two options: either raise the bid or pass. A bid can be raised by rearranging and replacing dice, still keeping them in descending order in the bidding place. By playing parrot cards a player can change a value of a die or decide not to raise the bid, but keep it at the same value.
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If a player passes he drops out of the bidding for this round and in return receives good tiles; one for each goods space not allocated by a die in the corresponding colour. So, the more dice are included in the bid, the more good tiles a passing player gets. Then, the player must trade with one of the 5 ships, who receive good tiles of a certain colour into new parrot cards, treasure cards, or a new goal card. Additionally, the player can trade 4 good tiles to place a crew member on one of the peninsulas corresponding with this colour.
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Of course, the player winning the auction round gets some nice rewards, although he has to pay first for his bid by money on the coin track and, if necessary, treasure cards. For each die of his winning he may now perform the associated bonus action. For the two most left dice the player can place crew members on different building on the peninsulas that correspond with the dice colours. In return the player receives money for the buildings of the same type left on the other peninsulas. For the third and fifth die the player receives an immediate point on the scoring track, and with the fourth die a building on the peninsula of this die’s colour can be locked: no crew member can be placed here anymore during the rest of the game.
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After these actions have performed, the round is finished and the player who has on the auction becomes the starting player of the new round. Also the ships are moves 1 place to the right, taking care that some variation in trading options is created.
At the end of a round where one player has placed his last crew member on one of the peninsulas the game ends. Then the final scoring takes place: each player reveals his goal cards and gains the indicated points. The player with the most of these “pirate points” wins the game.
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The central mechanism in Grog Island is the dice-based bidding mechanism that is pretty innovative: a bid not only represents a value, but also what the player is bidding for (on what peninsulas) and, as a consequence, also what a passing player may get as good tiles. This mechanism, and the trade-offs it offers in relation to the variety of the goal cards.
However, after a times the dice mechanism and the goals cards get pretty familiar and a certain dullness sets in. You learn that you should a variety in goal cards in order to score them all; obtaining a majority on more than two peninsulas is almost impossible, so a variety of goal cards is the way to go. In addition, the total number of bidding rounds in a game is pretty large, as you can only place 2 crew members each round. So, usually, everybody is relieved when a player finishes the game by placing his final crew member. These crew members , which, by the way, are “real” pirate meeples, since they have a wooden leg!
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The conclusion is that Grog provides a fun and interesting gaming experience for a limited number of plays. Unfortunately, this is not enough to guarantee that it will in the collection for long. Other auction games are around that provide a more tense, and longer lasting game experience.
© 2015 Edwin van de Sluis

Grog Island, Michael Rieneck, eggerspiele/Pegasus Spiele, 2014 - 2 to 4 players, 10 years and up, 40-75 minutes


Nothing wrong with it. Nice bidding mechanism
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